Letter to Republican Electoral College members

I thought I would share my email to the Republican U.S Electoral College electors. I sent a similar letter to 68 of the GOP electors from Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin and sent an email to as many electors as possible.

Use this link to send your own letter. It's not too late to have your voice heard!


Dear Elector,

My name is Jeff Udall and I reside in Portland OR. I know your time is valuable and you must be overwhelmed with letters from voters from every part of the country but I felt I must add my voice to those pleading for action on your part.

I won’t waste your time asking you to vote for Hilary Clinton next week, however, I do plead for you to consider the future and stability of our nation and democracy and not vote for Donald Trump for president on Monday, December 19th.Appointing a candidate to the office of President of the United States who has not won the popular vote could be damaging to our democracy and the legitimacy of the U.S. Presidency itself.

Even if you personally believe in Donald Trump and what he stands for, it would be much better to allow elected members of Congress have the final say in this contentious and controversial election. Please allow vote for President to go before the United States Congress in January.

To stand up for democracy and the good of the nation and go against your pledge to vote for the Republican candidate is a difficult task. I know it is a great sacrifice to ask of you. You risk not only the anger of your fellow Republicans but possibly legal action and fines. It is no small thing to ask you to go against years of tradition and at great personal risk to stand up for principals that are often thought to have been won ages ago with the Revolutionary War.

Unfortunately we find ourselves in a national crisis unique in our history, and you and your peers are uniquely qualified to do something about it. The Electoral College was created by the Founding Fathers for the very situation we find ourselves in: to prevent the election of an unqualified candidate to President. Donald Trump is not just unqualified but also failed to win the popular vote from American voters. Further, there are serious questions about the role foreign hackers had in swaying the election. Never has a candidates disqualifications and illegitimacy been so clear, and yet you still have a momentous decision to make.
 
However clear the case for Donald Trump to not be president, you are still in a position where you must justify your choice to yourself, your peers, and to the rest of the country. There are a multitude of reasons that electing Donald Trump would be the wrong decision and I’m sure you have heard many of them. However I will list them in what I would consider to be the order of most importance to you:

• You are free to vote your conscience. The Constitution upholds your right to vote as you choose, and asks you to align your vote with what you believe. Regardless of any pledges you have made. Regardless of intimidation and peer pressure you face. You are not required to vote for a candidate you don’t believe in. You may not be comfortable voting for Hillary Clinton, but regardless of whom you give your vote to, if you agree Trump is not qualified for office you must not vote for him.
• You can vote for some other candidate (Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, John McCain, etc) who won electoral votes in the past. You can vote for a historical person you believe in such as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Ronald Reagan, etc. You could even vote for a fictional character that represents characteristics you value in a leader.
• Any alternate vote will serve the same purpose but should be a person you believe in with a clear conscience.

• Standing up for what is right in the face of overwhelming opposition is what this country was built on. If you change your vote you may face consequences. Although there is little risk you could face serious legal action, the threat is still there. Bravery is not the absence of fear, it is doing what is right in spite of it. Our heroes are people who stood up to injustice despite the law. Think of the Tea Party, Gandhi, and Rosa Parks. It may take a small amount of civil disobedience to fix the system. Too many tragedies in history have happened because people said they “had no choice.”
• There are many high-profile lawyers who will defend you and offer free council if you are feeling intimidated by legal threats. Also, many have pledged to pay any fines you are issued.
• The opposite is also the case – if you don’t take a stand you bear some responsibility for the damage Trump may do.
• You have the power to stop this. It is a heavy burden you are tasked with but there are many who will support your decision to stand up for democracy.

• The American people voted for someone else. Many people are using this point to ask you to should change your vote to Hillary Clinton. I know that is most likely not something you can do. Rather, I ask you to think of the serious problem the Electoral College will create if it appoints a candidate as President who was not democratically elected. Never in the history of America has there been such an overwhelming majority of votes for the candidate who was appointed fewer electors
• If you believe in democracy you must consider making a stand for your values and not vote for a candidate who was not democratically elected.
• Even if you consider yourself “only” a state representative, you must now know that the popular vote was not won by Donald Trump. You should not vote for someone to such an important office as President of the United States because of a technicality.

• Interference from foreign hackers and FBI Director Comey's letter influenced the November election. Regardless of the extent, it is clear these issues had some sway in the results. The narrow margin of election results in some areas, within a percentage point in many “swing” states, mean these small effects had a huge impact. The thought that Russia was able to influence the U.S. elections is disturbing to say the least. All the more reason to send the election to Congress in January when more information will be available.

• Elected members of Congress should decide such a contentious election. The Electoral College was designed to send contentious elections to Congress if they find issue with the candidates. The huge and historic discord between one candidate having the majority of votes from the American people and the majority of Electoral College electors asked to vote for the another candidate means this election’s final outcome, over every other election in our nation’s history, should be passed to the Congress of the United States. The Electoral College was never meant to stand in the way of the will of the nations voters.
• Sending the vote to Congress will help the legitimacy of the appointment, regardless of the candidate appointed.
• Most Americans don’t know who the Electoral College members are, and many feel the college simply acts as inference to democracy. It will go a long way to calm civil unrest if the vote for president was made by elected officials.

• This will be the last Electoral College. If the Electoral College elects a candidate without the support of the American electorate, let alone an unqualified and dangerous one such as Donald Trump, it will be the final straw for many voters. If the Electoral College cannot fulfill its sole purpose to prevent unqualified candidates from obtaining the Presidency then it will become simply an obstruction in the way of a democratic election process.
• The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact will be easily ratified with the passion such an unjust action will provoke.
• This will quickly lead to a Constitutional amendment soon after.

There are also many other reasons to not vote for Trump, however I believe the above reasons to be the most important. Even if you personally want Donald Trump as President, I would still ask you to stand up for our democracy and not allow an unelected candidate be appointed by the Electoral College. If you personally want him to be president then take comfort in the thought that most likely a Republican Congress will appoint Trump.

This brings me to my final point: If Congress will likely just appoint Trump anyway, why should you go through all the pain and sacrifice it would take to stand up to your peers and make a historic vote against your pledged candidate? The reason is again the one repeated above: if the Electoral College goes against the will of the American voters it sets a dangerous precedent and causes damage our democracy. It will also damage the belief of the nation in the election process and the legitimacy of the office of President.

Sending the Presidential election to Congress allows the decision can be made by publicly elected representatives and also gives more time to look into concerns about Russian interference. This will be the best way to deal with the controversy of this election, restore faith in our democracy, and allow for the continued existence of the Electoral College.

Thank you for your time to read my letter and the letters of many Americans concerned for the future of our nation. I know your decision is not a simple one for you personally and would be a great sacrifice to go against your peers and the status quo. Thank you for your service to this country and for thoughtfully considering your choice before you cast your vote on Monday.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Udall

Proving God Should Be Easy

It is often said that science or atheism can't PROVE that god doesn't exist. What is less often said is that the reason this is the case is because of the weakness of the definition of god, not that there is any issue with proving or dis-proving god. Anything that has any basis in reality has properties which make it real (color, mass, location, size, etc) and these properties also can be used to verify or deny things about it.

The reason god cannot be proven to be false is that god doesn't have any definitive properties - god is anything you want him/her to be.

It could also be argued that it is not up to atheism to prove or disprove God. If theism says there is a god, it is up to them to prove it. If god is so important to believe in that it determines the state of our eternal existence after this life then why wouldn't that be something you would be able to prove?

Why is talking about god in definitive terms shunned by theists? Many religions have some sort of dogma saying that it is impossible to prove that god exists or that it is a sin to try.

From a non-believer point of view the answer is obvious - you can't prove something exists that doesn't exist. For many years I was a very adamant believer for a long time and yet for most of my time as a Mormon christian I didn't think it was important at all to prove god's existence.

What if god DID exist and theism wasn't afraid of giving evidence for god? What would that look like? Let's pretend that a lot of the stereo-typical properties that the judeo-christian-muslim god is often said to have was ACTUALLY REAL. What would a real god be like?

1 - Human male with long white beard

The stereo-typical appearance of god, in who's image we are created, would mean quite a lot. It would indicate that if we ever did come across this god that he would take up a similar amount of space as a person. That would limit the places he could be, but not by much. Human's are pretty small when compared to the rest of the universe. When it was thought that god lived in the sky that was a pretty big place, but not so big of a place where he is thought of to live now - in the rest of outer space (of course this change in god's living space was directly caused by scientific advancements in the understanding of our planet and it's place in the universe - not because god revealed anything about the Earth being a planet like other planets orbiting the sun).

Limiting god to this appearance seems to be too much for modern religions as most say that he can appear as anyone or anything, but if he DID have a specific face with features it would be a good start. What color are his eyes? What size is his nose? Does he wear a white robe or blue-jeans? In some stories in the bible god is not able to be looked at, but you would think that if god was truly all-powerful he could make some sort of god-power filter so that normal humans - or at least cameras - could see what he looked like.

In other words we could have a photo of him.

Wouldn't that be interesting to have a photo of God? I mean we all know what many of the worlds leaders throughout history looked like but we really have no idea of what god's features are. Christians at least have some idea of what ethnicity Jesus was (at least half of his ethnicity - we don't know what his father looks like at all).

There are many many excuses religions make for not knowing what god looks like. Back in the days before photography most of them could be accepted, after all most people didn't know what most people looked like. Wanted posters were either sketches or descriptions through most of history. But these days where a photo of god would be such a common thing it seems a bit more difficult to think that it would be a big deal.

One big excuse is that people would worship the "image" of god rather than actually worship the personality and principals of god. This is a silly argument as most theistic religions either have plenty of fetishized images of god or Jesus or they worship the holy books like the bible, torah, or quran as a god and use the borders of it's pages to limit what their "all powerful" god can do or say.

If god had a face we could have a photo of him/her. Would that "prove" that god existed? Not really, but IF god DID exist and if he had a face then that would be something that we could use to judge things in the future. If someone else was talking and they didn't look like god we would be able to say, "Hey! You aren't god. Go home, man!"

God having a body would also mean he would have a voice. What would that voice sound like? Would he have a deep voice or a high voice? Would he have an accent? Even if he spoke every language "perfectly" some group of people would say he had some sort of accent when speaking that language.

The idea that god can look anyway he wants and sound any way he wants (or perhaps speak in some magical language that everyone could immediately understand) that even as an atheist it is a bit odd to think of what god would look and sound like.

Of course if he had a body he would also have other qualities like smell, warmth, strength, etc. What would it smell like if he whispered in your ear? How warm is his hand? How tightly would he hug you?

He might even have finger prints, blood-type, genes, brain-patterns, etc. So many measurable qualities from one small property like having a body.

2 - God's House - Where is Heaven?

If heaven really exists, then it would make sense that it was a real place. Some religions put heaven on Earth in the future or in another dimension, but most have no real idea where it would be. (Mormon's say that God lives on a planet near a star called Kolob.) Even narrowing down where Heaven was to a star or portion of the galaxy would be a great start.

What sort of properties would heaven have? What would it look like if we saw it through the Hubble telescope?

There seems to be very few reasons given by religion for why we can't see heaven other than because we also can't see dead people and that is where we hope our dead loved ones live. The truth of the matter is that if religion is saying that all of the treasures promised us by following god are in heaven then it is a pretty big deal if it exists or not.

If we never get to see our families or get rewarded for devoting our lives to god then that would be a huge bummer. As a non-believer that is my best guess for why there is not much said about the location of heaven by religion. It's pretty easy to check on the existence of a place anywhere in the universe and science is getting better at finding far off places every day.

Another good reason for not describing heaven in too much detail is because, unlike god supposedly, religious people can't read your mind to tell you what you would most like to have in your own version of heaven. If heaven had concrete properties then maybe those properties wouldn't be much to your liking. What if you hated white marble buildings and cities of gold? Maybe  you like warm dark places with flowing lava better?

If heaven is a real place then it shouldn't be too difficult for theism to give some details about it. But the danger in giving details is that they are easy to prove or disprove. And so far all of the details about Heaven being in the sky or some sort of crystal sphere have proven to be false so theism pretty much sticks to a generalized "it's pretty awesome."

3 - Miracles that are Miraculous

If miracles are actually possible (miracles in the sense of some sort of violation of the scientific laws of the universe) then it should be pretty easy to prove this. The fact that miracles don't happen regularly is a problem.

But don't they happen? Don't people get miraculously healed and helped all the time? Don't prayers get answered every day? Here's the problem - there are very specific ways that prayers are answered and specific ways that they are never answered.

You often hear about prayers that where answered regarding someone getting over an illness but less about prays about someone who was dead coming back to life. People may have their prayers answered regarding their broken arm healing but nobody has their prayers for their lost limb to grow back answered.

Here are a few things that miracles SHOULD be able to do if god could do miracles:

• Regrow limbs - The stereotypical atheist objection to miracles is the lack of limbs growing back in response to prayers. If god heals people why are there restrictions to the healing if they are miracles?
• Regrow lost organs (eyes, lungs, kidneys, etc) - Similar to the above.
• Alchemy in any form - turning water to wine (Kool-Aid doesn't count), lead to gold, coal to diamonds. All of this should be just as easy for an all-powerful god as any other miracle
• Predicting the future. This is one that is so stereotypical it is almost unbelievable that it is still a trope. It should be relatively easy to make some sort of highly specific prediction about the future and then place it in location that can be monitored independently to make sure it is not disturbed and then accessed after the event and compare it to the predicted event. 
• Anti-gravity should be something pretty simple for a god who can control the laws of the universe and also pretty easy to verify by independent means.  
• Teleportation
• Mind reading - this is something that has been demonstrated to be possible by computers. Subjects can picture something in their minds and it can be (very hazily) pictured by a computer. This should be childs play for god. It's a trick that is often used by sham tv evangelists but should be pretty easy to verify scientifically if it existed. The fact that it hasn't means that it doesn't exist, not that there is some sort of problem with science actually figuring out how to disprove it.

Putting it all together

So to sum it all up, it should be really easy to PROVE god exists. Just have him show up somewhere in front of cameras and perform some miracles. Have scientists (and religious leaders) there to verify everything is on the up and up. There shouldn't be anything to fear by god. If he's legit he's legit.

I think the idea of god actually appearing in front of a TV camera and subjecting himself to blood tests and showing off his miracles actually terrifies most religious leaders. If god actually exists then at least somebody is going to be wrong about what he looks like, acts like, sounds like, etc.

The fact is that most people just want god to be their ideal god is. They don't want a god who actually exists because then maybe he wouldn't be who they pictured. Maybe he would be a jerk. Maybe he would say something dumb or say something embarrassing.

As an atheist I can honestly say that if god did show up some day and pose for the cameras and show us how powerful he is that I would love that. I would not be sad or angry that I was "proven wrong." Because I don't believe that god doesn't exist because I don't want him/her to be real. I don't believe in god because that is what everything in the real world points to.

The universe isn't some test by some all-powerful sadist who is trying to trick us (or allow us to be tricked) into seeing it some other way. The universe is a real thing that exists whether we are here or not. Whether we believe in it or not. If there is a god, he or she doesn't care if I believe in them or not. They don't need me to worship them or sing songs about them. If they actually care about goodness or mercy or happiness they would want me to show goodness or mercy and spread happiness.

Regardless of what you believe I think most people believe that goodness, mercy, love, and happiness do exist. Those are things that are not able to be touched but can be felt powerfully. I think those things are behind the idea of god, and it is those ideas that should be cherished and idolized.

Even if you can't prove or disprove god, go out and prove goodness and spread happiness. This is what makes life worth living, not dreams about promised treasures in another life. The universe is vast and life as we know it is only given to a few. If you are reading this then you are one of the privileged few who gets to experience it. Don't waste it on defending fiction.

The Problem Of Evil

 

I thought I would start doing a few articles about the basic tenets of atheism starting with one of the most significant: the Problem of Evil.

The Problem of Evil is a discussion about the problems that the existence of evil poses for the concept of a theistic god. If we really think about what the existence of evil means for the concept of god it becomes clear (despite the reliance of much of the religious pressure on labeling things as evil) that if there are acts and things in this world which are truly evil this reveals a lot about the character and attributes of god and ultimately calls the existence of god into question.

What is evil?

The first question we need to tackle when we talk about evil is what is it? The "evil" we are talking about here is the meaning of "morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked" (see evil at Dictionary.com). Not only does evil mean "bad" but also something that is judged by the majority of people (or god if you are religious) to be bad in a moral sense.

Is it real?

Second we need to ask, does evil really exist? Are there things that are inherently bad? Most people, including myself, would say, "Yes. There are things or acts that are evil." Most would say that things like murder, rape, incest, torture are generally evil. Specifically things like the Holocaust and organizations like Natzis the Ku Klux Klan could easily be labeled "evil".

So far so good. Most people, especially religious people, are all in agreement at this point. The next part is where things start to get interesting.

What does the existence of evil mean?

If evil really exists, what does that mean? When it comes to religion, the existence of evil indicates that one of three possibilities must be true about god:
    - God ALLOWS evil to exist.
    - God is UNABLE to destroy evil.
    - God does not exist.

 

Let's look at these three possibilities in detail:

• God does not exist - If there is no god then it is up to us as a collective society to decide what things and acts are evil and to what degree of action to take to combat evil. There is no one to defer judgement to. It is up to us to define what constitutes evil and take action to overcome it so we all have the greatest chance at our pursuit of happiness. Obviously this is not the possibility most religious people would agree with.

• God is UNABLE to destroy evil - This possibility poses a slightly less serious issue for religion, namely that this means that god is NOT all mighty and omnipotent. For most religious people this may actually make sense - after all in popular culture evil is often depicted as being part of an eternal struggle between light and dark. For organized religion this poses a more serious problem in that this means that much of the dogma concerning the character of god, in religious texts and creeds, must be wrong. For most serious religious people, this is a serious problem. If a part of their texts are false, then the texts are at least partially false - not just about something minor, but about the character of god - something vital to most monotheistic religions.

• God ALLOWS evil to exist. - If there is some sort of god which created everything and is all powerful over things in this universe, then this means that being also knows there is evil and yet chooses to not to destroy it. Oddly even though this is the official stance most religions take, it is actually the most problematic for religion. Before we go into more about why God allowing evil to exist, we need to take a step back to examine what sort of acts would be considered evil.  

Are there acts of omission that are evil?

If someone walks by and notices someone being raped or murdered and they do nothing is this evil? If someone working in a gun store knows that a customer is buying a gun to murder their wife, but does nothing to stop it, is that evil? Most of us would consider these, and many other similar acts of omission, to be evil. 

What if you had the power to stop ALL evil acts in the world from happening? Does great power come with great responsibility? How evil would you be if  had the power to stop all forms of evil, and yet did nothing? I think you can see where I'm going. 

 

Is god evil?

If god has the power to stop any and all evil acts and yet decides to do nothing this means that god himself (or herself) commits evil every time any evil is committed on earth. How can a god be worthy of worship if they are constantly committing evil? Does this mean that god and the devil are the same being?

This is the main thesis of the Problem of Evil: If evil does exist, then an almighty and all powerful god commits evil acts of omission with every evil act they allow to happen and every evil thing's existence they abide.

How does religion usually deal with this SERIOUS problem? Simple: they don't. Most religions take the stance that god cannot be judged as evil - even if we are applying judgements towards god which god is supposed to have made towards others. This explanation always bothers me. It's like a parent making the excuse, "You can do whatever you want when you grow up" when their child catches them violating the rules the parents have set down - except here we are talking about the most seriously evil acts that can be committed, not just your dad sneaking a cigarette behind the garage. 

Many religions say that evil is just tests from god trying our faith. That this life is just a test and that evil acts that happen to us are not inherently hurting us because this world is but a blink in the eye compared to our time in heaven for the rest of eternity. But they can't having it both ways - either life is a test and evil acts really don't mean anything so we shouldn't be judged for the evil we do OR evil acts truly ARE evil and if god does the same acts he becomes equally as guilty.

To me the idea that an all powerful god committing evil all of the time is inherently wrong. The only way for god to remain blameless, and retain the characteristic of "good" or "pure" associated with god, would be if he/she did NOT have the power to stop all evil acts. Unfortunately for religion the character of god is deeply tied to the idea that he/she IS all powerful. What is the point of praying to a god that is not all powerful? Why would we be devoted to a god who is NOT all powerful? How could we be sure such a god could save us from evil if he is not only powerless but also evil himself?

By this argument the only remaining answer to the problem of evil is just that there is no god. There is no one sitting idly by while awful atrocities are being committed every day and being able to stop them yet doing nothing. Evil things happen to us because sometimes bad things happen and some days evil wins.

Atheism is partially that there is nobody to save us, but also there is nobody to fear - except ourselves. Evil is a human invention, but so is good. We can't deal with true evil if we are wasting our time, effort, and treasure on a deeply flawed fiction. It is up to us to fight against evil and we must not stand idly by and allow evil to hinder our pursuit of happiness. 

Paul said it best when he wrote:

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. 
- Romans 12:21


Further reading:
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - The Problem of Evil
Philosophy of Religion - The Problem of Evil
Wikipedia - Problem of evil