Here is an article about us, written by Nicole Queen, that was going to appear in The Metropolitan but didn’t end up making it past the editors.
Nicole Queen
11/04/08
Slug: Metro State Atheists: You Gotta Have Truth—Not Faith
The MSA is challenging theists and students to question their faith and be knowledgeable about what they believe in by organizing events and speakers like author Vic Stenger, at Auraria.
Author Victor Stenger, Ph.D., was raised as a church-going Catholic. As he grew older, his interest in science displaced his interest in God and church doctrine.
Stenger, 73, doesn’t believe in God and is coming to campus to tell Auraria not only why, but how science proves that a God or deity doesn’t exist at all. In fact, according to Stenger, “the world doesn’t look at all like it should if there was a God.”
On Monday Nov. 10 at 1:00 p.m. in the Tivoli Turnhalle, Stenger— a retired professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii and is currently an adjunct professor of philosophy at Colorado University in Boulder—will present the findings from his 2007 New York Times Bestsellers’ book, “God: The Failed Hypothesis; How Science Proves God Does Not Exist.” He will offer a question and answer session, followed with a book signing.
He was invited by the campus club, the Metro State Atheists (MSA), as part of the club’s mission to question theists and destroy misconceptions about atheism.
In the world of education, students are asked to question. Students are asked to seek answers. The MSA are asking the same of believers of God or any deity on and off campus.
“We give people information [about atheism], but then the next words out of our mouths are to say, ‘Do not believe us, don’t believe anybody just because we say it, go look it up,’” said MSCD junior Joel Guttormson, 22, president of the campus Metro State Atheists club. “We ask people to look it up, and we do ask people to be educated about their faith.”
Guttormson, who is majoring in theoretical mathematics, along with MSCD senior chemistry major and MSA Vice President Chalmer Wren, 22, founded the club three years ago. After changing the club’s name several times, Guttormson and Wren settled on MSA.
“We weren’t very creative with this name, but we figured, you know, that describes us the best,” Guttormson said. “It doesn’t need to be creative; it needs to tell you who we are.”
As the only club at Auraria devoted to secular beliefs, MSA has found their niche.
“The secular influence at Auraria is fleeting at best,” Wren said in an email interview. “The number of religious student organizations is astounding, and when we founded MSA we were, and have remained, the only student organization representing secular-minded individuals on campus.”
Wren and Guttormson hope that organizing events and hosting speakers like Stenger on campus helps to serve those individuals better.
“Authors like Vic Stenger are well-known and influential in the secular community and we hope that by bringing big names to campus we can encourage like-minded students to get involved,” Wren explained. “When we started this organization, I never imagined I would get to shake the hands of some of the very people who helped change my mind.”
As a freshman, Wren was a “church-going Christian,” but with studying science and philosophy, like Stenger, Wren began to doubt his familiar upbringing.
“The harder I fought to justify my belief, the more absurd it became,” he said. “…I came to a point in my life where I had to choose between what I thought to be true and what I knew to be comfortable.”
Not only does the MSA help to bring the secular community on campus together, but they also hope to help those who may not agree, understand what atheism is and isn’t.
“Atheists are not only misrepresented in society,” Guttormson said. “What stems from that misrepresentation is an irrational fear of atheists…We’re just like any other group of people, we just lack a belief in any deities.”
Guttormson said that the MSA’s goals are to educate people about atheism, remove the taboo of questioning religion and to confront pseudoscience (like reflexology) and not to argue and belittle people who have different beliefs.
From time to time, the MSA does run into conflict on campus, according to Guttormson. He recounted that at last year’s Fall Fest, MSA had a table for their club and some people got so irate the club needed to call campus security, and others burst into tears.
While they may not agree with what the MSA is trying to do, some of the religious clubs on campus have no problem sharing the campus with them.
Johnathan Stalls, MSCD senior and non-denominational Christian said he has no qualms with atheists.
“…Some of the atheists I know are some of the most passionate, intelligent people I know,” he said.
Stalls said it’s important to question your beliefs.
“For me, faith should always be tested, always,” he said.
The Rev. Ron Gustman, director of the campus club, Christian Challenge, he’d probably inform members of the Christian Challenge about Stenger’s presentation and some may go out of curiosity.
“I think they have every right to be on campus, just like us,” the Rev. Ron Gustman, director of the campus club Christian Challenge, said. “I believe strongly in the freedom of religion and to practice what you want to believe…”
Despite a niche for them at MSCD, the MSA has struggled within the community to organize humanitarian events like food drives and blood donation. Guttormson said many humanities programs around Denver are sponsored by religious groups and have told MSA they were not willing to work with them. In response, MSA is in the process of finding programs that will accept anybody who wants to help—belief or no belief. However, according to Guttormson, not all atheists simply believe in nothing.
“…I believe in the future of humanity as far as our ability, technology-wise, to sustain ourselves,” Guttormson said. “The other thing I’d say I believe is that human empathy, above all else, and personal responsibility, are the foundations of reality and that’s what drive human compassion and all other emotions that go along with it.”
Excerpt: “During years of high solar activity the sun develops a thin “cantaloupe skin” that significantly increases its apparent oblateness: the sun’s equatorial radius becomes slightly larger than its polar radius.”
Excerpt: ” The oldest-known tracks of a creature apparently using legs have been discovered in rock dated to 570 million years ago in what was once a shallow sea in Nevada.”
Well, no, probably not. There is a good chance this is wrong. This 2012 Apocalypse hysteria is not a small nutjob movement based on fuzzy thinking and very little compelling evidence, it is in fact a very large nutjob movement based on a fuzzy thinking and very little compelling evidence. Need proof of that? An Amazon.com book search for “2012” generated 91,450 results. So one can conclude that there exists a market for this crackpot idea, a large market. Most intelligent people (most people reading this blog) understand, without me having to explain it to them, that this idea of a 2012 apocalypse is as wrong as the prediction that the world was going to end in the year 2000…oh no wait, the prophecy was ignorant to the fact that the Gregorian/Julian calendar started with the year 1, so actually the world was going to end in 2001, but that didn’t happen either. If you need proof that the world did NOT end in 2000 or 2001, you need only notice that we are still here talking about the fact that it didn’t happen. The 2012 apocalypse hysteria is based on, what proponents of the idea call several “key pieces of evidence”. Let us now examine this “evidence”, to see if the claims stand up to skeptical examination. However, it must be pointed out, that the “evidence” the proponents claim to be evidence, imply their own claims, which we shall examine.
Key piece of “evidence” #1: The Mayan Calendar
The Mayan Calendar may be the most popular, but by no means compelling, piece of “evidence” the proponents of ancient prophecy use to bolster their claims of Apocalyptic fantasies. The main claim using the Mayan calendar is that “on December 21, 2012, for the first time in approximately 26,000 years, the Sun will rise to conjunct the intersection of the Milky Way (eye, heart, center) and the ecliptic plane. The sun aligning with the galactic center, is referred to as the Cosmic Cross. According to the ancient Maya, this date will mark the end of one world as we know it and the beginning of another”(4). With the wonders of the Internet it possible to learn about a great many things from the comfort of one’s own home. So here, I shall demystify the Mayan Calendar. First, let us acknowledge what a calendar, any calendar, or any time keeping device or system for that matter, truly is. Any time-keeping device is merely an arbitrary, and altogether human invention, not more necessary, in the cosmic scheme, than our inventions of anything else. These devices and systems are important only to us, for our own selfish means of prosperity and survival. Most calendars, of every culture and age, have a few features in common which tells us something both about the regularity of the cosmos and about human nature and observation. These features include a set, 20-30 day months based on the phases of the moon, woven into a longer count of a 365-day year based on how long it takes for the Earth to travel around the sun, and set within all of this days that the people consider scared or at least somehow different from other days for various cultural reasons. The Mayan calendar, as well as our own Gregorian/Julian calendar, have exactly these features. Although culturally different and separated by a vast amount of time, our calendar and that of the Mayan’s are quite similar. Not for any trivial, pseudo-scientific reason but because we are all humans observing the same cosmos. The Mayan calendar is arranged thusly: it is composed of “a ritual cycle of 260 named days and a year of 365 days. Taken together, they form a longer cycle of 18,980 days, or 52 years of 365 days, called a ‘Calendar Round'”(1). Further, the calendar can be broken down even farther. The 260-day ritual calendar, is composed of “two smaller cycles of days numbered from 1 to 13 and an ordered series of 20 named days”(1). The names of these days varied greatly among the the peoples and cultures that unitized it, however, “the names for the ritual days differed throughout Mesoamerica, scholars believe that the various calendars were synchronized based on their use in divination. In particular, each named day was thought to have certain fateful characteristics, but most of the details have been lost”(1). The Mayan calendar, just like all other systems of time keeping was extraordinarily arbitrary. This is proven by the fact that “the start of the 365-day year varied”(1). Also, “the 365-day year was divided into 18 named months (uinals) of 20 days” and, coupled with a religious superstition about the world, “one month of 5 “nameless” days, called Uayeb. The nameless days were considered extremely unlucky, causing the Maya to observe them with fasting and sacrifices to deities”(1). The Mayan’s also had a system in place in order to designated their calendar days, like we do today. “Each ordinary day had a fourfold designation—in order, day number and day name in the 260-day cycle and day number within the month and month name in the 365-day cycle. Thus, each of the 18,980 days in the Calendar Round had a unique designation (e.g., 12 Caban 15 Ceh)”(1). By now, 2012 Apocalypse advocates are jumping up and down about something called the Long Count’; “a continuous marking of time from a base date”(1), which was put in place by the Mayan’s to “describe a given date more accurately”.(1) The most crushing blow to the 2012 myth, may be the fact, in fact a theme throughout this blog, that even the start of the ‘Long Count’ is inherently arbitrary; “Ahau 8 Cumku (3113 BC) was the base date used by the Maya for the start of the present era”(1). Not only that, but even more astonishingly, the calendar isn’t set to end on December 21st of the year a.d. 2012, it is in fact “due to end in AD 2011″(1).
We have our own “ritual calendar” composed of “named days” ourselves. We need only observe that we engage in festival celebration and relax the necessity for labor on a great many days during the year, i.e. The Fourth of July, Christmas, Hanukkah, Labor Day, Memorial Day etc. We also have our share of superstitious “unlucky” days”, namely any number of Friday’s that happen to be the 13th of any given month, Halloween, and, in the recent past, June 6, 2006 due to the way we numerically represent the date, 6/6/06. Our calendar lacks a “Long count” but that would be about the only real difference between the two in terms of features. However, no one alive today claims that our Gregorian/Julian calendar predicts any apocalypse or end-times scenario.
Key piece of “evidence” #2: The I-Ching
Believers in the 2012 apocalypse myth refute this objection by claiming that there is independent, corroborating evidence in the form of an ancient Chinese book known as, The I Ching. Let us now investigate this so-called “evidence”. The I-Ching, or Book of Change, is “an ancient Chinese system of divination, based on a book of Taoist philosophy and expressed in hexagrams chosen at random and interpreted to answer questions and give advice”(2). This system is “a set of predictions represented by a set of 64 abstract line arrangements called hexagrams (卦 guà). Each hexagram is a figure composed of six stacked horizontal lines (爻 yáo), where each line is either Yang (an unbroken, or solid line), or Yin broken, an open line with a gap in the center). With six such lines stacked from bottom to top there are 26 or 64 possible combinations, and thus 64 hexagrams represented.”(3). The system was supposed inspired or given supernaturally, the date ranges from 2800 BCE-2737 BCE (3). The fundamental augment the 2012 myth proponents point out is its age and extraordinary precision of it’s predictions. The way the I-Ching supposedly predicts future events, for an individual or global, has its own dubious history. “The oldest method for casting the hexagrams, using yarrow stalks, is a biased random number generator, so the possible answers are not equiprobable. While the probability of getting either yin or yang is equal, the probability of getting old yang is three times greater than old yin. The yarrow stalk method was gradually replaced during the Han Dynasty by the three coins method. Using this method, the imbalance in generating old yin and old yang was eliminated. However, there is no theoretical basis for indicating what should be the optimal probability basis of the old lines versus the young lines. Of course, the whole idea behind this system of divination is that the oracle will select the appropriate answer anyway, regardless of the probabilities.”(3) So here we have a system which itself has changed its method of prediction, starting out as very biased and then changed to a seemingly more random system to give the impression that if a prophetic prediction appears to come true that the “randomness” can be explained away by the invocation of the supernatural. However, the predictions of the I-Ching work on the same principles as that of Astrology, a phenomenon known as The Forer Effect which is “tendency of people to rate sets of statements as highly accurate for them personally even though the statements could apply to many people”(5). This was discovered by Psychologist Bertram R. Forer, who “found that people tend to accept vague and general personality descriptions as uniquely applicable to themselves without realizing that the same description could be applied to just about anyone” (5). This is how the I-Ching’s so called predictions work and thus cannot be considered genuine predictions. This includes the doomsday date of December 21, 2012.
Key piece of “evidence” #3: The Bible
Yes. I know. You’re probably tired of this argument too, as it has been conclusively found to have not predicted anything and wasn’t written for predictive purposes. Here, I will not focus on the whole Bible but only that book which has be touted as the great predictor of the apocalypse, The Book of Revelation. The Book of Revelation was written towards the end of the 1st century AD by a man, known only as John. This is not the same John that wrote the Gospel of John, conclusively shown to be the case after a thorough statistical analysis of the two texts, but is someone very different. He is known as John of Patmos. This is due to his references to himself as “John” in Rev 1:1, 4, 9; 22:8 (6,7). He refers to his exile to the island of Patmos, of the coast of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey), in Rev 1:9 (6,7), where he wrote the Book of Revelation. During the time John wrote Revelation, what is now modern-day Turkey, was under the control of the extremely powerful Roman Empire. This fact alone is enough to derive the true, non-prophetic meaning from Revelation. I will not go into lucid detail here but two symbols should be clarified. The seven headed demon or beast is an allegorical reference to the seven Roman Emperors that had ruled till John’s time. Although scholars can’t agree on which specific seven emperors John was referring it is at least clear that it is a reference to Roman imperial power. John goes on further to associate the beast with seven hills. Rome is known as the city of seven hills, as then as is today, because it is build on seven hills (7). Not terribly inventive. The other is that of the now infamous, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, mention in Rev 6:1-8. The four horsemen in the order they appear in the Book of Revelation , with associated color and meaning, are: White (Conquest), Red (war), Black (Famine), Pale (Death)(7,8). This imagery harkens back to the mythical story of the Jews fleeing Egypt in the Old Testament book of Exodus and the imagery of the the ten plagues. Since John was writing about the Roman Empire and Roman persecution of the Christians of the day, he was doing the same kind of writing the Jews did when writing Exodus. John was saying that God will intervene, exact justice for his downtrodden people, in the same sort of way that is written about in Exodus, via plagues. In other words, John wasn’t necessarily being completely original here. Now, to the point. How does this connect to the 2012 myth? Believers in the 2012 myth claim that because The Book of Revelation predicts the end of the world, it MUST mean December 21, 2012. This commits two fallacies. The most obvious of which is confirmation bias. The second, to a lesser degree, is post hoc, ergo propter hoc, which means “After this, therefore because of this”(9). Thus, this piece of evidence is more flimsy the preceding and as flimsy as the next, and last that shall be presented.
Key piece of “evidence” #4: Terence McKenna/Timewave Graph
This piece of “evidence” has its basis on the Mayan calendar, so I will not recount that bit. However, this addition to the Mayan part must be mention, lest I be lambasted by the believers in the myth for not being “complete”. Terence McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was a writer, philosopher, and ethnobotanist. He is noted for his many speculations on the use of psychedelic, plant-based hallucinogens, and subjects ranging from shamanism, the development of human consciousness, and the Novelty Theory – Time Wave: Zero Point”(4). He is also responsible for the Timewave graph. First, we must understand Novelty Theory, which isn’t a true scientific theory at all; “The theory proposes that the universe is an engine designed for the production and conservation of novelty. Novelty, in this context, can be thought of as newness, or extropy (a term coined by Max More meaning the opposite of entropy) (4)”. No scientific evidence for this so called “theory” has been found, ever. Thus one can conclude that it most probably bunk and that McKenna was just a little affected by the psychedelic hallucinogens. However, this “theory” isn’t going away yet. Further, “According to McKenna, when novelty is graphed over time, a fractal waveform known as ‘timewave zero’ or simply the ‘timewave’ results. The graph shows at what time periods, but never at what locations, novelty increases or decreases. Considered by some to represent a model of history’s most important events, the universal algorithm has also been extrapolated to be a model for future events. McKenna admitted to the expectation of a “singularity of novelty”, and that he and his colleagues projected many hundreds of years into the future to find when this singularity (runaway “newness” or extropy) could occur. The graph of extropy had many enormous fluctuations over the last 25,000 years, but amazingly, it hit an asymptote at exactly December 21, 2012. In other words, entropy (or habituation) no longer exists after that date. It is impossible to define that state. The technological singularity concept parallels this, only at a date roughly three decades later. According to leading expert Ray Kurzweil), another concept called cultural singularity (essentially cultural dissolution, or language dissolution), parallels this as well. McKenna claimed to have no knowledge of the Mayan calendar, which ends exactly the same day that the Timewave graph does: December 21, 2012 (4)”. This is a long quote and requires some dissection. The graph argument is worthless precisely because there is no objectivity in it. McKenna could easy, and probably did, fix the placement of the “Timewave Graph” such that it did end on December 21, 2012. The pseudo-science regarding “newness” and so forth is so laughable as to be unworthy of further discussion. Lastly, the idea that McKenna knew and researched things such as the I-Ching and wasn’t aware of the December 21, 2012 date is so unlikely as to be nearly impossible. Lining up a graph with a timeline doesn’t prove or predict anything because doing such is riddled with subjectivity and thus is not science.
Conclusion
December 21, 2012 is most certainly not the date that the world is going to end. Above, I have conclusively set forth why the 2012 myth is bunkum and should not be taken seriously. It should also be pointed out that every last Apocalyptic/End Times prediction has failed to come true. We know this because we are still here, mocking those predictions and those who made them. Yes the Mayan’s and Chinese were an advanced and successful ancient peoples. However, we’ve learned much since their time and has rendered their superstitions not only false, but out-dated and unnecessary. So, don’t worry about 2012. There will be a Christmas and a Happy New Year party in New York for 2013 and we’ll all be exactly 4 years older.
To encourage freedom from superstition, irrationalism, and dogma;
To further the acceptance and application of science, reason, and critical thinking in all areas of human endeavor;
Advancing the public understanding and appreciation of science;
To challenge misrepresentations of non-religious convictions and lifestyles;
To create a campus community for freethinkers and skeptics.;
To counter all forms of religious political extremism;
To defend religious freedom, promote freedom of thought and inquiry concerning religious beliefs, creeds, dogmas, tenets, rituals, and practices, and, to advocate, labor for, and promote in all lawful ways the complete and absolute separation of state and church;
To defend individual freedoms and civil liberties for all persons, regardless of race, sex, gender, class, creed, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and disability and Fighting racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, and heterosexism;
To unite freethinkers, skeptics, and humanists and consolidate campus resources to engage in such social, educational, legal, and cultural activity as will be useful and beneficial to the members of Metro State Atheists and to society as a whole;
Exposing pseudoscience;
Investigating claims of the paranormal;
Safeguarding the freedom of expression and opposing censorship;
Defending academic freedom;
Challenging academic fads and orthodoxy;
Debating the philosophy of science, skepticism, and theism;
Exploring secular and humanist ethics;
To collect and disseminate information, data, and literature on all religions and promote a more thorough understanding of them, their origins, and their histories;
To encourage the development and public acceptance of a humane ethical system stressing the mutual sympathy, understanding, and interdependence of all people and the corresponding responsibility of each individual in relation to society;
To develop and propagate a social philosophy in which humankind is central and must itself be the source of strength, progress, and ideals for the well-being and happiness of humanity;
Metro State Atheists 