Chris Stedman's Blog, page 13

Daniel Dennett in The New York Times

There was a great profile of Daniel Dennett in yesterday’s New York Times. The famous philosopher, cognitive scientist, and atheist discusses the comfort he finds in sailing, some of his views on life, and his somewhat-idiosyncratic philosophical positions. Though there’s a lot I disagree with Dennett on (as far as Dennett seems concerned, if science can’t explain “qualia,” that is, the subjective experience of something as it’s perceived (e.g. the “redness” of red), then qualia is simply an illusion), there’s something about his writing and personality that strikes me as nonetheless magnetic and engaging.

I recommend you read the entire piece, but if your attention is limited, the quote in the image above is where I most agree with Dennett. I don’t actually exclude things like dualism or theism from a scientific—specifically neuroscientific—perspective (even though I think they might be wrong; this is practically heresy, I know). But I’ve never understood the idea that materialism or atheism somehow robs life of its meaning. I think Dennett captures that point really beautifully.

Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking will be available on May 6th. Until then, you can read up on a (more fair and charitable) summation of Dennett’s arguments against qualia, as well as an introduction to the concept of intuition pumps, on Wikipedia.

Vlad Chituc is a lab manager and research assistant in a social neuroscience lab at Duke University. As an undergraduate at Yale, he was the president of the campus branch of the Secular Student Alliance, where he tried to be smarter about religion and drink PBR, only occasionally at the same time. He cares about morality and thinks philosophy is important. He is also someone that you can follow on twitter.

So I’d ask for your prayers.

This guest post comes to us from Melanie Rucinski, a Harvard sophomore and outgoing leader of the Harvard Community of Humanists, Atheists, and Agnostics (our undergraduate secular student group), formerly the Harvard Secular Society. This piece was originally published on Melanie’s blog, musique et chocolat, in July 2012.

I have read enough books about atheism and psychology to know that prayers do not have healing power, at least not to an extent that is statistically significant. Furthermore, the fact that I am an atheist kind of goes along with not believing in the power of prayer in general. In all of my years of sporadic church attendance, then, I’ve never asked for prayers for anyone I know. I’ve considered it multiple times, but if my skepticism weren’t enough, discomfort with asking congregations I’m not a consistent member of to pray for my sick or dying family members and music teachers would still hold me back.

In the past two years, I’ve seen more illness and death in my personal life than I’d experienced in all the years before. My maternal great-grandmother died when I was five and my maternal grandfather died when I was ten, but then everyone close to me was pretty much fine for a while. In the fall of my senior year, though, my oboe teacher was diagnosed with a frontal lobe disorder (the symptoms resemble Alzheimer’s), and since then both my paternal and maternal grandmothers, as well as my piano teacher, have passed away. So it’s not like there hasn’t been anything to pray for: my oboe teacher’s health is still going downhill. My maternal grandmother had had Alzheimer’s since shortly after I started high school, and my piano teacher had been diagnosed with cancer. There have been no truly sudden deaths.

Two weeks ago, I played piano in a service at the church I consider to be my church. It’s the church at which I sang in the choir when I was growing up, worked in the nursery when I was in middle school, and have always attended Christmas Eve services. I know many of the congregation members, and they know me. If I ever felt that I needed spiritual guidance, this church is where I would go. That said, my family is not the only one to refer to this church as a Unitarian church in disguise. I am not the only atheist who attends. The church is a religious community, but it’s the community part that’s important, not the religion.

At this point, my piano teacher had taken a sudden turn for the worse. She was in hospice care, and it was clear that the end would be soon. I had seen her a few weeks earlier, but I wasn’t really sure how to respond to the whole situation. I hadn’t taken lessons with her on a consistent schedule since my sophomore year of high school, and hadn’t studied with her at all since the spring of my junior year. Although I now respect her as a musician, I had a fair number of problems with her for most of the time I was her student. My mom was closer with my piano teacher than I was. Even so, I felt that if there was any time to ask for prayers from the congregation, this was it, particularly since my piano teacher would be leaving behind her husband and I thought that he, too, could use to be in people’s thoughts.

My mom came to the service, and after failing to read my lips during the ‘Concerns and Celebrations’ part of the service (I was sitting at the piano and she was in the third or fourth pew), finally made a reasonable guess as to what I was trying to say and stood up to ask for prayers for my piano teacher and her husband.

I do get chills sometimes during sentimental moments, and I do occasionally cry, or at least have tears in my eyes. I did not expect, though, to have the emotional reaction that I did in the moment after my mom finished her request. Nothing actually happened in that moment—it was followed just by a brief silence between my mom’s words and someone else’s concerns, unlike at another church I play at where the congregation gives a verbal affirmation after each joy or concern. Something about that moment, though, and something about knowing that at least some of the congregation members would be praying for my piano teacher and her husband, did get to me.

Even if I don’t believe in God or in the power of prayer, there is something truly powerful about knowing that there are people I know or people I don’t, people I’m close with or people I’ve never spoken to, who are thinking positive thoughts in the direction of someone I ultimately do care about. Maybe it’s the idea that positive energy is contagious and that if these people somehow try to send goodness out into the world, it will eventually reach the strangers they’re praying for. Or maybe it’s just the cliche that somebody out there cares, that in some abstract way, the people in the congregation are connected enough to each other—and to me—to take others’ concerns for their own.

Later that afternoon, we got a phone call saying that my piano teacher had passed away. I actually did cry about it for a few minutes, although it wasn’t until I was on my own and reflecting again on the church service. This is just something else religious communities offer that secular communities have trouble creating an alternative to: I feel comforted by the thoughts of the congregation members in a way I would not feel comforted by the thoughts of Harvard Secular Society members (if I even felt it was appropriate to ask for their thoughts on my piano teacher’s behalf). Somehow in that moment in church I felt the pervading love one is supposed to feel in the presence of God, and while at that point it was accompanied by sadness, it was still something beautiful.

I used to feel it was disrespectful to ask for prayers from congregations I play for, almost subtly condescending—maybe taking advantage of their beliefs. Now, though, I don’t think I feel so negatively about it. In the same way that I don’t feel it’s disrespectful to sing hymns during services since I really do enjoy the group music-making, maybe it isn’t disrespectful to ask for prayers since they do ultimately provide some comfort. And even if there’s no scientific evidence that says it helps to think positive thoughts in the direction of people I love every once in a while, it certainly can’t hurt.

Melanie spent six years of her youth in a liberal Jewish suburb going to church and Hebrew school before she became an atheist. She tells people that she is studying education research and policy at Harvard because saying that she’s majoring in Social Studies makes her sound like she’s in middle school. In her spare time, Melanie finds something like God in running along the Charles River, playing Bach, and baking pies.

Godless shoes have lost their way

We have another guest post today from our blog’s favorite Norwegian, Andreas Rekdal. 

Disclaimer: this post draws heavily on an experiment that (much like the Reinhart-Rogoff study) was not subjected to peer review prior to publishing. I therefore advise you to take the data with a grain of salt.

Ich Bin Atheist shoe, Redchurch Street, Hackney, London, UK (Photo credit: gruntzooki)

The other day my friend Andrew sent me a link to an informal study done by Atheist Shoes, a German pusher of sleek (and expensive) handmade footwear and accessories. The study showed that boxes packed using their ATHEIST-branded packaging tape are, on average, 10 times more likely to disappear while being handled by the USPS, and that when they do arrive they take 3 days longer than their more subtly labeled counterparts.

The idea to conduct the experiment arose when the company caught wind from American customers that “[S]ometimes the shoes. . . take longer than they should to arrive, or even go missing.” After some customers asked them not to use their trademark tape, the company decided to test whether the tape might have something to do with their shipment trouble. In order to do so, they sent 178 packages to 89 customers in the United States (one box with, and one box without the tape to each customer). The packages were identical, apart from the tape, and they were all sent from Berlin on the same day. Yet the packages with ATHEIST tape took notably longer to arrive—the ones that did arrive, that is.

Of course, we can only speculate as to why the openly godless shoes took longer to arrive than their closeted counterparts. The USPS (or customs) might have special procedures for handling items which display religious or political symbolism, or the black on white writing on the tape might somehow throw off the USPS’ sorting robots. However, since control tests in Europe did not yield similar results, there is some basis for suspecting that the delays may have more to do with the handlers than with the technology (studies have found that atheists in America are looked upon with particular dislike and distrust).

If we assume for a minute that the findings are reliable, and that the outcome is not due to technological factors (remember that these are big “ifs”), could it be that the word “atheist” has become so loaded that it distracts postal workers from the task at hand? Could it be that some postal workers were so put off by it that they deliberately sabotaged the shipment? Or could it be that some neighbors or landlords took such offense from the tape that they kept the packages from reaching their final destinations?

And if so, what does this say about attitudes toward actual atheists?

It’s hard to know what to make of this bizarre phenomenon. To eliminate technological factors, the study should be replicated with control tape that is identical in design, but uses a different word (EVANGELICAL, or FREEDOM, for instance), to try and determine whether bias toward atheists is really the cause for the hold-ups.

In the grand scheme of things, it might not be a big deal that some Atheist shoes weren’t delivered in time for Christmas. But if the late deliveries can be attributed to systematic suspicion or discriminatory intent, then we should be having a serious conversation about whether similar tendencies exist within other public sectors too, and what we might do to address them.

At this point it’s hard to tell what’s really going on, let alone why. But these initial findings definitely warrant further study. Consider this my call for further research.

Hailing from the mild-wintered Norwegian west coast, Andreas braved the godforsaken tundra known to non-locals as “Minnesota” while obtaining his B.A. in political science and philosophy. After graduating in December 2012, Andreas went on to work for the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, proving once and for all that a liberal arts degree is only almost useless. While in college, Andreas founded an organization called the Secular Student Community (which was recently approved!). On his spare time he enjoys talking theology in bars, and getting way too into Facebook discussions.

Casual Islamophobia Roundup 4/25

It’s not generally that surprising to see a steady current of anti-Islam and anti-Muslim bigotry and animus, especially following the discovery that two Chechen brothers were behind the Boston bombing.

So in keeping with the spirit of my roundup of all the awful responses to the Boston bombing, allow me to look at another week in Islamophobia.

A blog at The Telegraph argues that there was no real backlash against Muslims in the wake of the Boston bombing, and that people who were concerned were the real bigots.

Time and again, Left-leaning campaigners and observers respond to terror attacks in the West by panicking about the possibly racist response of Joe Public – and time and again, their fears prove ill-founded and Joe Public proves himself a more decent, tolerant person than they give him credit for. What this reveals is that liberal concern over Islamophobia, liberal fretting about anti-Muslim bigotry, is ironically driven by a bigotry of its own, by an deeply prejudiced view of everyday people as hateful and stupid.

As a nice counterpoint, feel free to read this compelling account of Muslims in Boston following the bombing.

Ann Coulter also recently went on the Sean Hannity show to argue that women who wear the hijab ought to be imprisoned. Raw Story reports:

“I don’t care if [the widow of the Boston bomber] knew about [the attack],” Coulter said. “She ought to be in prison for wearing a hijab. This immigration policy of us, you know, assimilating immigrants into our culture isn’t really working. They’re assimilating us into their culture. Did she get a clitorectomy too?”

Hannity seemed momentarily puzzled at the sudden citation of female genital mutilation, stammering his reply. “I, uh, I don’t know the answer to that,” he said before confidently adding: “But your point is well taken.”

She went on to use the attacks as a further excuse to criticize U.S. immigration policy. Forget “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,”

“Our immigration policy has nothing to do with helping America,” Coulter insisted. “It has to do with solving the internal problems of other countries. We’ll take Russia’s radicals. We’ll take the illiterate, unskilled, low-skill workers from all these countries. We’ll take their old people and put them on our supplemental security and Medicare. No, immigration policies are supposed to make your country better, not to make it worse and to create all these problems.”

In other news, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) suggested that we might bar young Muslims from receiving visas. And former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wants us to monitor the Muslim community. Fox News host Eric Bolling called Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) “very dangerous” and the “Muslim apologist in Congress.” He went on to advocate the profiling of Muslims.

Bill O’Reily would like to know why Obama didn’t condemn Islam right after the bombing. Both he and Andrew Sullivan were quick to immediately peg radical Islam as the motivation behind the attack, despite any real information at the time. Glenn Greenwald, in a great column, wryly notes:

The New York Times today reports that “United States officials said they were increasingly certain that the two suspects had acted on their own, but were looking for any hints that someone had trained or inspired them.” It also reports that “The FBI is broadening its global investigation in search of a motive.” There’s no reason for the FBI to search for a motive. They should just go talk to Andrew Sullivan. He already found it.

Representative Peter King (R-NY), the man behind the 2010 “radicalization hearings,” advocated for “increased surveillance” of Islamic communities in the U.S. He said the “new threat is definitely from within.” The New York Times has a great Op-Ed on the topic.

I argued on the BBC’s World Have Your Say, that, rather than Islam, we’re better off looking to the Aurora shootings or the Newton Massacre to understand what caused the bombing. Dispatches from the Underclass agrees, and further explores the double standards we have towards attacks aimed at civilians.

On a positive note, more great blogs from The New York Times. Friend of the blog Hind Makki argues that fighting for or against the hijab is distracting.

A headscarf doesn’t tell me anything about a particular woman’s access to medical care for herself or her children. An uncovered head doesn’t tell me anything about a woman’s access to legal recourse if she is sexually assaulted. A piece of cloth does not tell me how safe a woman feels in her society to protest her political leaders, enjoy a night out with friends or choose her own spouse.

And on the topic, still from the Times, Murtaza Hussain argues that it is arrogant to ignore Muslim women.

Lastly, for everyone complaining that moderate Muslims don’t speak out against the actions of radicals, have you really tried listening?

UPDATE: I think I might try to make this a somewhat regular feature. To any readers who come across particularly awful content online, feel free to tweet it my way (@vladchituc)

Vlad Chituc is a lab manager and research assistant in a social neuroscience lab at Duke University. As an undergraduate at Yale, he was the president of the campus branch of the Secular Student Alliance, where he tried to be smarter about religion and drink PBR, only occasionally at the same time. He cares about morality and thinks philosophy is important. He is also someone that you can follow on twitter.

Listen to Vlad on BBC Radio today at 1 PM Eastern Time

Today, at 1 PM Eastern Time, I’ll be on BBC Radio’s Program “World Have Your Say.” They contacted me in response to my recent Huffington Post column, and I’ll be joining a few other people to discuss recent attacks in Boston, the thwarted attack in Canada, the car bomb that went off outside the French embassy in Tripoli, and so on.

It’s through BBC World Service and you can listen to it here. My Irish friend tells me that it’s the largest international broadcaster so I’m kind of freaking out.

Not sure if it’ll be posted later online, so take a listen if you get a chance! Until then, I’ll be treating to prepare as best I can and feeling like this:

(But in all seriousness I’m very excited and flattered to be on.)

UPDATE: In case you missed it, listen to it here. My comments start around 9:30, and don’t really stretch much over the second half of the program. I might organize some of my thoughts in a post coming soon.

Vlad Chituc is a lab manager and research assistant in a social neuroscience lab at Duke University. As an undergraduate at Yale, he was the president of the campus branch of the Secular Student Alliance, where he tried to be smarter about religion and drink PBR, only occasionally at the same time. He cares about morality and thinks philosophy is important. He is also someone that you can follow on twitter.

April 2013 Issue of The Interfaith Observer Focused on Atheists

This post originally appeared on faitheistbook.com.

The newly-released April 2013 issue of The Interfaith Observer is entitled “Welcoming Atheists & Humanists into the Interfaith Community,” and as a whole the issue is focused on engaging atheists in interfaith work.

It includes a piece by me, which is an updated version of my very first article the Huffington Post about atheists and interfaith work (published as I was beginning work on Faitheist). When I was approached about updating that piece for 2013, I agreed that it would be fitting to revisit it a few years later and add more recent examples, new data, and some additional thoughts. Check out an excerpt below, and click here to read the full thing:

As an interfaith activist, I’ve worked to bring an end to religious division. In recent years, this has increasingly meant speaking out against the rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence sweeping America.

Advocating for religious believers has often put me at odds with my own community. As an atheist, I regularly encounter anti-religious rhetoric and activism. Speaking out against anti-pluralistic voices in my community hasn’t always been easy. Yet it is precisely because I am an atheist, and not in spite of it, that I am motivated to do interfaith work.

Why? For one, without religious tolerance and pluralism, I wouldn’t be free to call myself an atheist without fear of retribution. Not that long ago, I could not have been a public, vocal atheist at all. But due to relationships with religious allies and increased atheist visibility, the times are changing.

Still, this expanded freedom shouldn’t suggest that everything is coming up roses for American atheists. In 2010, Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, forbade the formation of a secular student group, claiming the group’s mission was in direct opposition with the school’s identity as an institution affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Concordia, which recognizes a Catholic student group, refused to reconsider their decision. As a graduate of Augsburg College, another Minnesota ELCA-affiliated school, I was alarmed by this news. But Concordia’s decision received little attention. Few came to the secular students’ defense. This was not the end to the Concordia story, though, as we shall see.

Click here to read the article in full.

The issue also includes a new review of Faitheist by Rev. Charles Gibbs, Executive Director of United Religions Initiative:

Chris Stedman’s Faitheist is a fine, compelling book written by a deeply faithful person, who by his own admission is more interested in building something than in tearing something down. His faithfulness is not to a set of religious beliefs but to a search to understand and honor his unique humanity and the unique humanity of others in ways that contribute positively to life on Earth.

In clear prose, with often disarming honesty, Stedman chronicles his sometimes turbulent and anguished journey toward a self-identity he can embrace, regardless of what the larger society reflects back. This journey includes a collision between his identity as a born-again Christian and his awakening sense of himself as gay man that led him to the brink of suicide. It includes his stint as an atheist doing graduate work at a Christian seminary, and an internship at the Interfaith Youth Core, one of the U.S.’s preeminent interfaith organizations.

Woven throughout his story is Stedman’s passion for constructive, life-affirming, boundary-crossing community, a compassion for those that mainstream society marginalizes, a high ethic of service, and a deep commitment to building a future “where the mutual goals of love and service remain at the forefront of people’s thoughts and actions…” (p.179) This stance in life would be praiseworthy in anyone. In a person whose identities – as a gay man and an atheist – make him the target of indescribable bigotry that all too often explodes in hatred, this stance is both unexpected and inspirational.

Stedman is a courageous pioneer who models the following words from the charter of the United Religions Initiative – We listen and speak with respect to deepen mutual understanding and trust. For Chris Stedman this principle is the platform from which to create engaged community that welcomes all in a spirit of appreciation and inquiry and seeks to engender a shared commitment to cooperative action to make our world a better place for all life, especially for the most vulnerable.

If you’re someone who is concerned about the increasingly polarized state of our world and the serious challenges that face our Earth community – poverty, environmental calamity, and the wanton disregard for life evident in the escalation of militarism and violence, to name a few – I urge you to read Chris Stedman’s book.

Beyond that, I urge you to follow his example and reach out to those you are inclined to view as the “other.” If you do, I guarantee you’ll discover there are no other people in this world, only a marvelously and confoundingly diverse humanity waiting to be discovered, respected and invited to travel together on a shared journey whose destination is our fullest humanity and the good of all.

Additionaly, the issue contains “an overdue welcome to the atheist community” from Rev. Paul Chaffee (founder and editor of The Interfaith Observer), contributions from emerging atheist thinkers and activists like Kile Jones (“‘Interview an Atheist at Church’ Takes Off“) and Vanessa Gomez Brake (“The Case for Atheist Chaplains“), Interfaith Youth Core founder Eboo Patel’s foreword to Faitheist, and much more. Click here to check out the full issue!

In the HuffPost: Even if it was a Muslim, so what?

I was really upset this morning reading in the New Yorker what happened to the 20 year old Saudi student who was reported as a suspect. It’s depressing stuff so, partly inspired by that and our great guest post this morning, I decided to write about why it wouldn’t matter if the Saudi or any other Muslim was behind the attack. I end up writing about why I’m not a New Atheist, why I think Sam Harris and Pamela Geller both get Islam wrong, and why it’s a problem that we treat Islam so differently.

The New York Post has been receiving serious and justifiable criticism  for their reporting on the Boston Marathon. Citing police sources, the paper reported that 12 people had died in the attacks and that a “Saudi national” had been taken into custody. Of course, the death toll was thankfully a (still horrifying) quarter of that, and the police later disconfirmed that the “Saudi national” was a suspect — he was a student tackled by a concerned citizen and taken to the hospital. He was fully cooperative, denied all involvement, and isn’t a suspect. The New Yorker has released an important and harrowing story of the way this young man, barely out of his teens, was treated.

Just as conspiracy-nut Alex Jones was quick to blame the government and the Westboro Baptist Church was quick to blame the gays, many were quick to accept the New York Post‘s shoddy reporting and rumor-mongering — it was easy to believe the perpetrator was a Muslim.

What would have happened, though, if the perpetrator was this 20-year-old Saudi, who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time looking the wrong color and maybe calling out to the name of the wrong-sounding God? What if it was some other Muslim, instead? Why should that even matter?

It seems like the anti-Muslim voices on the far right, like Pamela Geller, and the atheist left, like Sam Harris, act as if moderates, like myself, simply aren’t aware that Muslim terrorism exists. They use extraordinary examples as an excuse to rub in our faces how violent and harmful a religion Islam is.

But what about the Gallup poll that shows that 93 percent of Muslims in the world aren’t radical, and that the radicals give political, not religious, justifications for their violence? What about the study out of Duke and UNC Chapel Hill showing that only 6 percent of terrorist attacks in the U.S. have been by Muslims? What about the studies by Robert Pape showing that nearly all suicide bombings have the secular goal of resisting Western occupation, rather than any religious aim? What about the secular and nationalist group, the Tamil Tigers, which pioneered the modern suicide attack, accounting for the majority in the latter end of the 20th century?

Read the rest of it at the Huffington Post.

Vlad Chituc is a lab manager and research assistant in a social neuroscience lab at Duke University. As an undergraduate at Yale, he was the president of the campus branch of the Secular Student Alliance, where he tried to be smarter about religion and drink PBR, only occasionally at the same time. He cares about morality and thinks philosophy is important. He is also someone that you can follow on twitter.

The bomber isn’t one of “us”—and probably not one of “them,” either

NonProphet Status has been reflecting on the recent tragedy in Boston. We have a guest post today from reader and friend-of-the-blog, Andreas Rekdal, providing a compelling and unique perspective as a Norwegian reflecting on the 2011 Norway attacks as well as the events in Boston. 

Oslo Cathedral the day after the attack (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In his piece titled “A Muslim’s Prayer for the Boston Marathon,” Arsalan Iftikhar puts into writing the silent prayer he likely shares with millions of Muslims across the nation today: “Oh God…Please don’t let it be a Muslim…” Although I do not pray much anymore, I must admit that my first reaction was not all that different from Arsalan’s.

I vividly recall standing at a London airport on July 22nd 2011, reading the first updates about the bombing of a government building in the Norwegian capital. While frantically refreshing my phone’s browser, looking for more updates on the case, I could not help but notice the widespread consensus among commenters that Norwegians now found themselves confronted with the true face of Islam. At that moment, I was ashamed to be a member of a society in which it was considered acceptable to stoop so low as to make generalizations about the faith one fifth of the word subscribe to, based on the actions of only a few—who turned out to be just one and not be a Muslim at all.

The perpetrator more resembled the commenters than the imaginary “jihadists” they first pointed to. Anders Behring Breivik was an Islamophobic Norwegian nationalist acting in protest against the “Islamization” of his beloved home country. In order to make a statement against this islamization, he decided to bomb the Government Quarter before killing 69 young members of the political party he blamed for collaborating with the Muslims in the takeover.

As we learned more about him, he was written off as a disturbed and ill adjusted narcissist. He looked like a typical Norwegian, but we were sure to make it clear that the comparison ended there. We wanted nothing to do with him or his beliefs. He was not one of us.

As I am writing this, we have yet to hear reports regarding suspects in the Boston Marathon Bombing (apart from the New York Post’s ill-sourced reports about the suspect being a “Saudi national” which immediately went viral, but was shortly thereafter disconfirmed by the police). This has not stopped speculations of course, and again the general consensus in many circles seems to be that muslims are to blame. As Vlad Chituc notes in his excellent roundup and reflection on islamophobia in the light of this tragedy, these speculations “speak volumes of our biases.” Because let’s be honest: there is literally no reason, save prejudice, to suspect that the person or persons behind are of the Islamic faith.

We do not yet know who the bombers are. But if we do find out, we should keep in mind that it is unlikely that they can rightly be claimed as true representatives of any catch-all category, be it “liberal,” “conservative,” “Saudi,” “American,” “Christian,” or “Muslim.”

We Norwegians reserved the right to distinguish our views from Breivik’s, and Americans reserved the right to disown those of Timothy McVeigh. But when it comes to Islamic terrorists, we assume that their actions say something about Islam as a whole, and all of its adherents. Our prejudice has become so rampant that in lieu of evidence, our default response to acts of terror is to direct our suspicions toward the Muslim community.

Allow me to stress again that we do not yet know who the bombers are. But let me assure you that regardless of the bombers’ nationalities, ethnicities, or religious traditions, most of those who claim similar identities will probably be first in line to say that the bombers do not speak for them.

I think we should take their word for it.

Hailing from the mild-wintered Norwegian west coast, Andreas braved the godforsaken tundra known to non-locals as “Minnesota” while obtaining his B.A. in political science and philosophy. After graduating in December 2012, Andreas went on to work for the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, proving once and for all that a liberal arts degree is only almost useless. While in college, Andreas founded an organization called the Secular Student Community (which was recently approved!). On his spare time he enjoys talking theology in bars, and getting way too into Facebook discussions.

Watch Vlad on HuffPost Live tonight at 7:30 ET

I’ll be discussing the recent controversy surrounding FEMEN for HuffPost Live tonight, and I’m pretty excited to share my perspective. You may recall that I thought they were unequivocally on the right side of the issue, though their execution was lacking (to put it lightly). You can read the column I wrote on the topic here (NPS version) and here (HuffPo religion version).

You can watch me live tonight at 7:30 P.M. Eastern Time, 4:30 Pacific. The link will end up on the internet eventually if you’re busy then.

Also feel free to leave me advice or words of encouragement below. Not because I’m nervous or anything.

Update: Looks like it fell through last minute, sorry for anyone who might have been looking forward to or were interested in my appearance. Read my silly not-at-all bitter account here.

Vlad Chituc is a lab manager and research assistant in a social neuroscience lab at Duke University. As an undergraduate at Yale, he was the president of the campus branch of the Secular Student Alliance, where he tried to be smarter about religion and drink PBR, only occasionally at the same time. He cares about morality and thinks philosophy is important. He is also someone that you can follow on twitter.

Awful responses to the Boston Bombings: a roundup

As a blog that’s about 4/5th or so out of Boston, NPS is closely feeling the impact of today’s tragedy. And as the only contributor not from the area, I’m extraordinarily thankful that all my friends are safe. The aftermath is horrifying (warning, lot’s of blood), and our sincerest well-wishes and compassionate thoughts are extended to everyone affected by what happened today. We encourage readers to help any way that they can.

Even though tragedies can often serve to bring people together in a time of crises, showcasing human sentiment at it’s best, there are the predictable and depressing responses—conspiracy extraordinaire Alex Jones has been blaming the government for the attacks, and the Westboro Baptist Church has blamed homosexuality (to everyone’s disappointment but no ones’ surprise).

But more mainstream voices are already finding a way to blame Islam and Muslims for the tragedy. A weakly sourced and as-of-yet unconfirmed report from the New York Post claims that a Saudi Arabian National is responsible for the explosions that killed at least two and injured dozens more. This report which as of now resembles little more than rumor-mongering has already been seized up by the regular cast of bigoted voices.

Anti-friend of the blog, Pamela Geller, has already taken to her blog and Twitter to blame Muslims. Salon reports:

In [Geller's] take, the alleged suspect becomes a “Jihadi” and there isn’t any doubt in Geller’s mind that he did it. She wrote on her blog, Atlas Shrugs under the headline, “Jihadi Arrested in Horrific Boston Marathon Bombing:”

“Jihad in America. 12 dead, 50 injured. My deepest condolences to their loved ones. Monstrous.”

On Twitter, she elaborated on her certainty about the attack and shamed those who dare doubt her. “Blood on your hands,” she tweeted at Eli Clifton of the American Independent News Network, who responded to her tweet. “Shame on you, carrying water for murderers,” she said to a human rights law student. “Another spokesman for killers,” she responded to another. “‘Holy war’ means dead people,” she added. “Savages,” she said to another, by way of explanation.

Even more horrifyingly, a frequent Fox News contributor Erik Rush tweeted that “Yes, [Muslims are] evil. Let’s kill them all.”

Comments like these are depressingly common, and in light of the general climate towards Mulsims in this country, I am even more unsure how an otherwise smart man like Sam Harris can tell Glenn Greenwald that:

There is no such thing as “Islamophobia.” This is a term of propaganda designed to protect Islam from the forces of secularism by conflating all criticism of it with racism and xenophobia. And it is doing its job, because people like you have been taken in by it.

Criticism of Islam and responses towards Muslims are often very much racist and xenophobic, and to deny that it exists because it may—at times—be overstretched to categorize criticisms of Islam that Harris (may deem to be) appropriate does little more than make life harder for Muslims who face regular discrimination and bigotry because of their religion or race.

The facts are still coming in, and it’s too early to tell whether the government, gays, or Muslims are responsible for what happened today. But it’s not too early to note that where we leap, and how quickly we buy it, can speak volumes about our biases.

Update 10:36 AM: Thanks to reader and friend-of-the-blog Andreas Rekdal for pointing out that the New York Post’s report about the Saudi National “suspect” has been disconfirmed. Gawker writes:

The “Saudi national” touted by the New York Post (among others) as a suspect all day yesterday is a student who is fully cooperating with police and denying all involvement. He has a clean record, and suffered burn injuries during the explosion. According to CBS News’ John Miller, the man was tackled by a civilian because he was “acting suspiciously” and, uh, running away from the explosion.

Vlad Chituc is a lab manager and research assistant in a social neuroscience lab at Duke University. As an undergraduate at Yale, he was the president of the campus branch of the Secular Student Alliance, where he tried to be smarter about religion and drink PBR, only occasionally at the same time. He cares about morality and thinks philosophy is important. He is also someone that you can follow on twitter.