messiestobjects

Conscientia Mereo in Choeung Ek

    I had my first International assignment last week, very exciting. A client had a branch in Dublin, so I used up all of my miles to bring Julie along and we got to spend a few days in Ireland. Unfortunately, it coincided with finals so I really had to scramble to keep up with all of my school work so that I could enjoy some free time over there; while I took a couple of pictures I haven't had time to go through them so the Ireland post will have to wait a week or three. I actually have my last final exam later today, for Astronomy. In the meantime, I wrote a poem and introductory essay for my final term paper in British Literature so I thought I'd post it along with some old pictures from a trip I took to Angkor Wat and the Killing Fields in Cambodia. I had a choice between just writing a seven page essay or the poem and intro essay in response to any of the works that we covered in class, and even though poetry is terrible I chose it for reasons I will explain in the essay itself.

    For anyone who hasn't read it, Paradise Lost by John Milton—the main subject of my attentions here—is a dramatic rendering of the fall of both Satan and Man based on the Bible in the style of the heroic poetry of Homer and Virgil. Milton opens several chapters in his saga by breaking the third wall and appealing to his muse, the holy ghost, for inspiration that his poem might be infused with skill and veracity. He was aping the greek poets when they would appeal to the Muses in their own epics.

On Paradise Lost and Knowledge Gained

    I trepidatiously chose to write a poem rather than an essay because I wanted to try my hand at a piece of Heroic poetry that did not rely on a moral foundation that I wholly disagree with. I decided on this course of action in response to the religious literature that we covered such as Doctor Faustus and Margery Kempe; however, the form and content of Conscientia Mereo, as I’ve called it, are linked most directly with John Milton’s Paradise Lost. I originally considered writing a lengthy diatribe about the problems with literature based on religious principles and how any moral content or heroic actions become corrupted by a dogmatic view of the Universe rather than a naturalistic or at least agnostic one. But I feared the arrogance of judging what is considered to be an important piece of historical literature based on more modern personal preferences and prejudices without adding anything creative to the conversation myself, and so I committed the arrogance of aping it and subverting the message instead!

    The title of my poem means ‘knowledge gained,’ a would-be clunky name which is why I chose to use the Latin rather than English and it is a rather obvious play on the title of the poem that inspired it. Interestingly, mereo means ‘to gain,’ but it also means to serve as a soldier, a connotation I like in the context of knowledge as antipathy to religion. Additionally, I like the idea that anyone who would want to know what the title meant would most likely have to look it up online. It both supports an idea in my poem and further serves as ironic subtext, as Latin is a dead language formerly used in church masses, alienating parishioners who didn’t speak it. This restriction or shrouding of knowledge is a major theme of my poem; an important part of religion is the idea that things must be taken on faith, which is detrimental to gaining knowledge about the cosmos. Now that we know that the universe is about 13.8 billion years old, that it started in a massive “explosion” of matter, and that humans evolved from apelike ancestors who in turn evolved from single-celled eukaryotes, scolds about original sin and the danger of knowledge are ill-suited to epic literature that would strive to inspire our imaginations and heroic yearnings rather than to keep us in our place.

    To wit, the hero [Adam] in Paradise Lost is admonished by the angel Raphael to avoid seeking knowledge when he says that “God to remove his ways from human sense, / Placed heav’n from earth so far, that earthly sight / If it presume, might err in things too high, / And no advantage gain” (Milton 8.120-122). Basically, he is saying that the quest for knowledge is far above human capabilities and even if we didn’t muck it up, any knowledge attained would gain no advantage for us anyway. Rather than fighting against this arbitrary restriction as a true hero might, Adam rather meekly accepts this condescending judgment. As we in modern times can attest, the successful quest for knowledge has actually led to quite a few advantages, and it has been a heroic, generational battle to overcome those who would have preferred to keep us in the dark. The play Doctor Faustus, for example, serves as a reminder of how someone living in darker ages viewed the acquisition of knowledge when the eponymous character trades his soul for it. We are led to interpret this as a petty lust for puerile power, which of course is not true knowledge at all and is nothing more than a cheap trick meant to instill the idea that knowledge can only come at the cost of one’s salvation.

    Another, more important detriment to the idea of a heroic epic is the way in which the underlying moral structure of Milton’s worldview corrupts the very concept of heroism. In book 12, the angel Michael says the son of god will come, “Proclaiming life to all who shall believe / in his redemption, and that his obedience / Imputed becomes theirs by faith, his merits / to save them, not their own, through legal works” (Milton 12.407-410). In other words, no man or woman can be a hero because Jesus is the only hero, he has used up all the heroism, and it doesn’t matter what good deeds or heroic acts that anyone else performs; we will only be judged on whether or not we believe in this man who we’ve never met from a book full of claims with no historical veracity. This hardly inspires the rest of us to live up to heroic qualities.

    To counter these problems, there were two main things I wanted to accomplish in Conscientia Mereo; I wanted to show that the search for knowledge was the true heroic stance, and I wanted to illustrate that what these Christian writers interpret as morality is actually quite immoral when presented in a slightly different context and is therefore problematic when proposing a heroic epic based on such a foundation. I chose a Luddite father-figure as the stand-in for God, a curious young daughter and her brother for Adam and Eve, and an estranged Uncle as Satan. My underlying idea was that God kicking Adam and Eve out of Eden for the crime of disobeying an arbitrary rule designed to keep them in their place would be a shocking abuse of power in any other framework. And this is without even taking into account the appalling idea that the entire future race of man are to be punished for this crime as well, shouldering the burden of the choice between irrational belief or infinite punishment for a finite crime.

    Whether or not I succeeded is definitely up for debate. Perhaps if I had years to perfect the language and more space to flesh out the story, it might approach something like a respectable attempt. However, in trying to adhere to pentameter and in getting quickly to the point in each “scene,” I believe that I have at the very least made a statement worthy of consideration regardless of my skills as a poet. I've chosen to begin with my own appeal to the Muses; it seemed important to carry on that particular epic tradition in my own humble way.

 

Conscientia Mereo

The Muses of old are now hard to find,

ancient spirits and ghosts, all lost their shrouds.

In the age of cause and effect, the Gods

and aether are replaced by the sciences.

Thus, should my fare fall short of the poets—

the bar that serves Homer, Virgil, Milton—

I’ve no one to thank and no one to blame;

the vision dies alone, unseen, my own.

And yet in such times, ever there are found

those who shun and loathe the light of the truth

and still prefer the comfort of leaving

their reason on some unnatural plane.

The brothers lived in a happier home

before the rift. Raised in a Luddite way,

taught to fear change and to hold to the old.

The elder learned well, the younger did not.

He’d questions and doubt, fire troubled his blood.

 

And when the manse passed on to the firstborn,

the new ruler of small places declared

an end to all inquiry. “In my stock

the book is the law, I’ll hear nothing else.”

Young Hob took this ill and started a plot,

shut up in his room, his spirits burned hot.

“His house it may be, yet also my home.

My preferred way in my life is my own.”

A battle ensued between wits and might,

and bad blood is e’er bitter with brothers.

It ended of course in the way it must;

the heir remained, and the contender shunned.

Hob left for a terrible place, alone

a job at McDonald’s, and his new home—

a two room apartment and five bunkmates.

Yet even in his anger and defeat

he thought to himself, “at least I am free.”

Time passed and things got better, as they do

Hob went to college, Summa Cum Laude.

 

Now in the meantime two children were born,

their names were not new but old as the Earth.

The father, still fearing all change, raised them

on a diet of old legends and tales.

He schooled them at home and kept them closed in—

“My garden is all you shall ever need.

Go out and play, but I warn you right now

wander not astray, great are the evils

for which you are prey, and all things but one

I can help you forget; the internet.

Ask me not what it is, and no one else

avoid it like fire, to touch it is death.”

He told them these things because knowledge burns

and births awful questions from which he’d turned.

This went on for years, they learned without peers

and all that he told was all that they knew.

Until came a time with her Pa away,

no longer a girl, a woman near grown

lovely to see, a travesty to hear

incomplete knowledge of all she held dear.

She raked in the yard and when she looked up,

A man in a car was watching her work.

He opened the door and gave a small wave:

“Hello there young lady, how do you do?”

“I’m feeling just fine, who the hell are you?”

“I once lived in this home, ages ago.

By any chance, is your father about?”

“He’s gone for the day, but just leave your name,

I’ll tell him you called, now please go away.”

“I’ll do you one better, here’s my email…”

Suffice it to say, one question hatched more,

by end of the day, her brain was aflame;

she knew that Pa's wrath would cause her some pain.

First she said nothing; she thought she’d combust,

'til one restless night, to brother she said:

“Did you know the Sun is really a star?

Our forebear’s not Adam, but a monkey?”

“What story is this? A children’s fancy?”

“No brother, it’s real, my eyes are opened.

I’m terrified, true, but Pa lied to us.

Here look at this, old Hob gave it to me.”

She showed him her phone and accessed the Net,

and taught him to use Wikipedia.

“Any question or thought, type it in here—

smaller in size but worth a thousand books.”

Horrified yet drawn, and fearing Pa’s wroth,

he asked her “just who the hell is old Hob?”

“He lived in this house, ’til Pa kicked him out.

He came to make peace, but something I said

made him quite angry and say we’re ill-used,

that no child should live in fear of the truth.”

Hesitant at first, but fear giving way

to a flame squelched down hard by years of shame.

Time lost in the night, an orgy became,

question and query turned into a game.

When Earth came around and greeted the Sun—

eyes blurred and minds buzzed—new day dawned within.

 

Caught by surprise when Pa opened the door:

“Oh my dear children, you’ve betrayed my love.

The day that I feared has finally come,

Just as I’d warned of, you’re banished from home.”

Cold, out on the street and shivering bright,

twinkle in her eye she said to him now,

“After Pa’s ‘love,’ there’s no fear in the night!”

Wandering In An Intellectual Desert

    Rather than post my final paper in a fit of pride, narcissism, and a lack of alternative material, I thought that I would take this opportunity to rant about the utter lack of intelligence that it apparently takes to become a community college professor (which in no way serves to further my egotistical worldview, I swear). Now, I'm not saying that this is true of all community college professors—my English professor from last year is an incredibly intelligent person who is a famous Puerto Rican author, for example—I'm only saying that apparently the bar is low enough that people like my philosophy professor this semester are able to saunter over it. Also, pictures from a certain hypertrek to Egypt many years ago! Some of the pictures were taken by Scott, Matt, or Jeff: hovering over the photo will reveal more detail.

    And not to say that my philosophy professor—let's call him 'Ted'—is completely unintelligent. There are of course different types and degrees of that sort of thing. But in my opinion, one of the most important types of intelligence, especially in an educational setting, is the ability to admit that you were wrong about something and then to integrate the information that you were wrong about.     I realize that when you're in a position of authority, it can be really bruising to have to admit when you're wrong, especially to some snot-nosed student. But I feel like it's even more important to exhibit integrity in such situations because you're setting an example. Learning is a process, not an end game; just because you are old or have a degree in philosophy does not mean you will always be right. Imparting the idea to your students that it is okay to make mistakes so long as you're willing to change your position rather than hold on to an incorrect idea is probably the single most important lesson that an educator can impart, and the best way to do that is of course by example.     So on to what it is that happened that completely made me lose respect for Ted. It was a writing-intensive Ethics (ETHICS!) class, and we had to write a three page paper every week on some subject or another. This particular paper had to do with Kant's Deontology, and the idea that our worldviews can be attributed to any one particular ethical system. From the beginning of the class I took the position that no one deduces their own moral system from any one particular school of thought, and Kant was frequently my foil in this regard because he had some severely rigid views about morality, which was based on a rational system called the Categorical Imperative and not on any particular worldview. I also, of course, never tried to hide my own atheistic worldview and I think that Ted is a Catholic, though my only evidence for that is that he got his degree from a Catholic University.     In any case, despite my assertion that I wasn't going to lazily post a school paper, it is necessary to here paste an excerpt from it. 

    As far as [Kant's] claim that right and wrong ought not be determined by any particular worldview, I’d agree wholeheartedly as it is in line with my personal philosophy that every case must be judged on its own merit, preferably devoid of any preconceived notions. However, that is also a worldview—though perhaps an ill-defined one—and as such perhaps this Kantian axiom is unrealistic, if not impossible. If someone sincerely believes in the veracity of the Bible, they would never be capable of seeing the world in any other way than in the rules for right and wrong they gleaned from it. If someone such as myself were to believe whole-heartedly in a scientific materialist worldview (though of course my view encompasses more than just that—but for the sake of argument) then they would never be able make moral judgments not based entirely on known facts. But in truth, no one wholly belongs to one worldview over another. Scientific Materialists, on the face of it, ought not to value human life any more than any other form of life since there is no real evidence that there truly is any intrinsic value to it, and yet we do. Christians ought to be hating their parents and abandoning them to follow Christ the minute that they are old enough to do so, and yet they don’t. Our morals do not come only from what we believe to be our worldview, and so perhaps in this sense Kant is correct, though only ex post facto.

    Pretty straightforward, right? Well, here is how Ted responded in his critique of the paper [sic]:

    Great detail and analysis of both Kant an Capital Punishment. 
I really appreciate that go beyond the page limits others often keep to, as it allows for me to evaluate a full paper, even after I've 'red-lined' your diatribes on religion that just sidetrack from otherwise really great submissions.

 

    "Christians ought to be hating their parents and abandoning them to follow Christ the minute that they are old enough to do so..." Hmmm - only if they have a seriously impaired view of Christianity, or at least of Christ's role as a Jewish Rabbi. In any case, such talk undermines your point about worldviews. A good editor would say "delete the second paragrpah and your paper is improved -- clear, concise and on-point"

    What? I was so confused. I was in no way bashing religion there and was just trying to make a point about something else. Here is my response (don't worry, this back-and-forth doesn't go on for very long at all):

    Hi professor, I just wanted to reply to your comment about my Unit V paper. You cited the following line saying that it was an anti-religious diatribe and sidetracked from my point: “Christians ought to be hating their parents and abandoning them to follow Christ the minute that they are old enough to do so...' Hmmm - only if they have a seriously impaired view of Christianity, or at least of Christ's role as a Jewish Rabbi."

    But that is actually the opposite of what I was doing there. I was referring to an actual Bible verse, Luke 14:26, that says "If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." And I was using it to illustrate that even Christians don't get the entirety of their worldview from a single source, the Bible. This was a part of my larger point in that section of the paper that, as rigid as moral philosophers tend to be about their worldviews, the fact is that no one is in practice that rigid, and I even cited how we Scientific Materialists are not as rigid as we pretend to be! Best, M.

    Right? So, If he thought that I had simply misinterpreted that particular Bible verse (although, I rather unfairly suspect that he was probably unfamiliar with the Bible verse to which I was referring in the first place) I would have welcomed some clarification, and in any case I could then have replied "oh sorry, my bad, I should have chosen a different example"... such as when Jesus tells people to only beat their slaves as much as they deserve, and yet most (modern) Christians find slavery immoral to begin with—let alone the idea that beating one "just a bit" is anything other than moral quibbling. Therefore neither Christians NOR Scientific Materialists (atheists, for all intents and purposes) get all of their morals from a single source, etc etc. But guess what his response instead was [sic]:

    M,

 

     I'm sticking by my point -- the paper is better with the paragraph is excised out.

 

    That's it. No discussion, no acknowledgement that he may have misunderstood me or that while my point may or may not have validity, he simply disagrees with it. Nope, just cut it out, he's right and I'm wrong, end of discussion. He's sticking to his point even though he never actually made one. Using the Bible's own words against the actions of people who claim to believe in the immutable truth of the Bible is not making any kind of a valid point, but using reductio ad absurdum against Scientific Materialism is just fine. GAAAHHHH!
        I also find it rather unbelievable that a college professor doesn't know how to double-check his own syntax but whatever. Clearly this guy is in over his head. Although to be fair, most of the students in the class seem to have enrolled in Community College in order to take remedial High School, so I guess he's adequate enough for those purposes. I guess that doesn't say much about me, sigh. At least I still got an A in class... would have been extremely depressing to get anything less.         Well, out with the old and all that. I shouldn't really make fun because I'm taking remedial algebra next semester... always my worst subject in High School. But I want to take some higher science classes and I can't unless I've taken College Algebra... which I also can't take until I've mastered Elementary Algebra. God I'm such a hypocrite. Happy New Year!

Career Day

    This summer I took a Creative Writing course. It will come to no one's surprise that I wrote a rather atheistic short story as a part of my final. My college writing career is getting to be a little one-note, but at least I'm getting it out of my system, right? Anyway, here it is, in all its self-published glory.

 

Career Day

 

Child abuse. Defining what it is and what it is not is a tricky thing nowadays. But it always comes back to a single dynamic—the one between the child and an authority figure. It’s my job as a Deprogrammer to determine on a case-by-case basis the extent of the damage—of a type referred to as iatrogenesis in our business—and whether the State has the right to interfere in such a relationship. And if I determine that it does, I deprogram.

It’s an audacious position to accept in society, and requires no small amount of intelligence, self-righteousness, and tact. It’s a relatively new branch of social services, and practitioners are paid according to its importance in the survival of our society. Let me put it this way: I make more money doing this than any thirty of the highest paid social services employees made all together fifty years ago. In other words, I only make slightly less than teachers do.

But to enter into this career for pecuniary satisfaction is a mistake. If that’s your goal, you won’t last long in the business, take it from me. The money is nice—it gets you through the down times—but eventually you’ll stop getting out of bed in the morning if you don’t view this job as a calling. That’s my job today; to help you people determine whether you truly belong here before it’s too late to make a different career choice. I plan on doing this by showing you what child abuse victims look like, what child abuse means. The following is an excerpt of our initial interview with one Mr. Jacobs.

 

“Mr. Jacobs, do you understand why your son was taken into protective custody?”

“Yes, I understand your reasons.”

“Mr. Jacobs, your son has been routinely abused. He’s terrified, and he may need years of therapy. We’ve brought you here to determine if you were the one responsible. I’m here to help you and your son.”

“Is it abuse to teach a child the discipline and values of his father? Is it a sin to teach my own child right from wrong? I understand the law, but I also know that the bond between a father and his son is sacrosanct and that interference by the law of man goes against the laws of God. I have the right of a father to raise my child as I see fit, to make him see the world for what it is and to prepare him for the horrors that are coming.”

“Perhaps that’s true, Mr. Jacobs. But you’ll forgive me if, from the outside, it looks like a simple case of abuse. Doesn’t the right of a father to raise his child include the rights of the child? In the old days people beat their children black and blue in the name of discipline and ‘raising them right.’ We have found better ways.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. In any case, I do not beat my child black and blue, Miss Taylor.”

“No, I wasn’t implying that Mr. Jacobs. What you’ve done is in many ways quite worse.”

 

So, you see what we’re up against. It isn’t easy, regardless of the fact that society has largely come out against this type of cult behavior. The saddest part in all this is of course that Mr. Jacobs is not simply an abusive parent. If it were that simple then our jobs would involve a lot less self-recrimination and stress. No, the fact is that Mr. Jacobs is himself a victim. What he did to his son Reuben is only what was done to him first by his parents, and if we had been unsuccessful at deprogramming Reuben then he would most likely have gone on and passed the same abuse on to his children. This is how this particular meme operates, of course. Children are hard-wired by evolution to unquestioningly believe whatever an established, trusted authority figure tells them—and to thus meekly accept whatever harm is done to them—because they haven’t yet developed their full capacity for reasoning. It is because of this that deprogramming children is so difficult. But it’s our duty to break this chain, for the good of society. We are in conflict not with individuals or their bizarre ideologies per se, but with a potent mind virus that has held humanity in its grip for far too long.

Of course, it’s not always as disturbingly complex as separating a child from his family. Because the damage done to a young mind is internalized, symptoms often don’t appear until later in life and so iatrogenesis is more pronounced in older children. In these cases our job is more dangerous, but it’s easier to identify them at least. Teenagers diagnosed with Stygian Complex, for example, are more likely to behave in a reckless manner and may cause real problems in society, lashing out against what they view as a very hostile world. Here is a case study that came across my desk thanks to a school counselor who contacted us when she realized what was going on with a student of hers named John.

 

“John, please tell me why you’ve stopped caring about your education.  Your transcript says that once you were a fairly decent student with a good mind. What happened?”

“It’s all so pointless. School, I mean. What difference does it make if I do well in class?”

“What do you mean, John? A good education is the best way to understand the world we live in, and it enables us not only to succeed, but to make a difference in life.”

“We’re all gonna die anyway. I could die tomorrow. We could all die tomorrow! Judge’s Day will be here soon enough! All that matters is living life according to the Hallows, only people who do that are gonna have a life to look forward to anyway.”

“John…”

“All that science and junk, it’s crap! I mean, it’s fine for what it is. I like watching holos and thank God for the Pont Tubes. But all that crap about climate change and overpopulation; it’s just signs of the end. It’s arrogant to think that anybody can change the plan. And don’t get me started on all these dupes who actually believe that the Universe ‘evolved’ from some primal multiverse somewhere. It’s so obvious, man, ‘Uni’ means one! People who fall for those lies are gonna be sorry. That’s why I don’t care about my grades; all that matters is avoiding the traps, and honoring the Judge of the Quick and the Dead!”

“John, what would be so awful about Universal Evolution, if it were true? What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid of anything, because I’m goin’ to Heaven when I die! You people though, with your arrogance, you have something to fear!”

 

Once we got John to open up about the specific reasoning behind his behavior, we were eventually able to help him see why his beliefs were detrimental to his own well-being, but that’s not always the situation. As in the case of Mr. Jacobs, many people who reach mid- to late adulthood infected with these destructive ideas are nearly impossible to deprogram. They have held on to them for too long and invested too much of their time and energy to allow themselves to be convinced that their entire lives may have been based on a cult-induced misconception.

That is why, as a general rule, the younger we can find victims of abuse, the better our chances of long-term success. Some of you may sense the irony in that statement; after all, we are claiming to fight against childhood behavioral indoctrination by taking them from their families and deprogramming them which, from the outside, is easy to confuse with further indoctrination. There is a crucial difference, however, which I will address after we see what this abuse we are fighting against looks like at a relatively young age. Everyone, meet Mr. Jacob’s son, Reuben.

 

“Reuben, have you ever heard of the theory of Universal Evolution? The Multiverse?”

“What? No…?”

“Hmm. Let’s go a bit further back. Are you familiar with the general theory of Evolution? Natural Selection?”

“Oh yeah, that’s the one that if you learn it, it will kill your soul and the Judge of the Quick and the Dead will spit you out on Judge’s Day.”

“I… H-how about the age of the Earth? Do you know how long our planet has been in existence?”

“Well, Dad says that some people think it’s only six or seven thousand years old, but that’s silly.”

“Well, that’s certainly true at least. How old does your father say it really is?”

“He doesn’t know for sure because it’s impossible for people to know something like that, but that it doesn’t matter ‘cause we’ll find out all the real answers in Heaven anyway.”

“But… Reuben, according to your family’s beliefs, you will have to… what is it…? ‘Die the hallowed death.’ You will have to die the hallowed death here on Earth to go to Heaven. What good will those answers do you then?”

“Well… what good do they do me here? Nothing like that really matters. Life is just a test, and if we fail it...”

“What happens if you fail it, Reuben?”

--

“Reuben?”

 

For those of you who decide to stay with it and devote your lives and careers to the cause of Deprogramming, these case studies and others—including the actual deprogramming sessions—will be examined further in future classes. The methods for repairing the mind of a very young child are at the heart of what we do and will be better understood after you’ve received some basic training. We will delve further into the point-by-point methods of dealing with every mental roadblock you will come across as a professional Deprogrammer.

The difference which I mentioned earlier—the one between childhood indoctrination and Deprogramming—is that as you’ve just seen in Reuben’s case he was sheltered from a proper education by his family, which is a large part of the disturbing framework of what child abuse really is. He was denied the chance to form his own reasonable conclusions grounded in evidence-based knowledge by being pre-programmed with an unprovable and frankly quite primitive belief system which he most likely would have been unable to break free from later in life and additionally, as we saw with John, would have made him incapable of accepting any contradicting information, no matter how factual.

Deprogramming, on the other hand, is the careful breaking down of this mental barrier. That is all we do. Despite some of the media paranoia we’ve weathered, we don’t actually replace old ideas with new ones, their beliefs for ours. We simply make sure that they know they can safely evaluate conflicting ideas without fear of some sort of divine retribution and then provide them with the impartial tools they need in order to do so. In the meantime, however, you can see from what I have shown you the damage that can be caused by indoctrinating a child with a debilitating fear of the afterlife.

Once the idea of an eternity of unimaginable torture and suffering is planted in a young, impressionable mind, it is very difficult to overcome that fear enough to become a fully functioning, mentally healthy human being. Now, if you try to instill this fear in a relatively normal, educated adult who has never before encountered the idea of a hellacious afterlife, he will engage his critical mind—which he will have become well accustomed to using in the weighing of evidence against various claims—and most likely come to the conclusion that it’s an irrational doctrine without a single fact to support any of its assertions, and he will dismiss it out of hand. Most of you here know exactly what I’m talking about. However, the point here is informed consent. If as an adult you were confronted with this particular brand of belief, and you still decided that the idea had merit and you converted your worldview to this outlook, you would be well within your rights to retain your beliefs in that case. But you would not have the right to abuse a child with this idea, not even your own.

But as we now know, the concept of Hell was invented solely as a way to violently coerce impressionable young minds into adopting a pre-determined viewpoint—usually a particular interpretation of a particular religious doctrine—and as such constitutes mental and emotional abuse of the worst sort. I’ve casted a document for you all to read which will help to understand the utter depravity of such a worldview. It’s an annotated copy of one of those doctrines that used to be a publicly endorsed book of acceptable moral behavior, and which was used as an excuse to terrorize children for generations. Now, if you will all please search and open the section titled ‘Exodus,’ chapter 20, verse 5.

________________________________________________________________

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So it's not so much a short story as it is a monologue, but hey, it got me the grade. In any case, before you start to worry that I'm in favor of some sort of Orwellian Nightmare where children are taken away from their families for the crime of Religion, well, actually I see why you might think that. But I got the idea for the story from this news item that appeared at the time my class was starting, and I thought it might be fun to write a little Spec-fi about what such an unlikely future society would be like. If religion were to become considered a mental illness, how would it be dealt with? There are no easy answers to the problem of religion.

 

It's All In The Interpretation

    I chose to write my final paper for American History about the first amendment. This is obvious if you know me at all. I thought it would be an easy topic to write about; it is a subject I feel strongly about and there is plenty of material available. And so it was... too easy. It was only supposed to be a six page paper and there is a plethora of material available, not to mention the superabundance of arguments to be made. Everytime I researched a facet or a tidbit, I came up with more and more material to pontificate about. Keeping it down to scale and deciding what should be focused on and what should be left out was the hardest part. My wife tells me that is what writing is always all about, or at least it is for someone such as myself who tends to overdescribe things. So I'll shut it and post it, with pictures from my visit to Mont Saint-Michel in France.

    The First Amendment guarantees that Congress will neither interfere with the free exercise nor make any laws respecting the establishment of religion. The wording of the Freedom of Religion clauses is perhaps a bit too concise, as its exact interpretation has been a constant source of dispute, even up to the modern day. The arguments surrounding any constitutional interpretation generally center on two talking points. What did the Founding Fathers intend? And given that the US Constitution was meant to be a malleable document subject to change as agreed upon by its constituents, why should it matter exactly what they intended? If the inherent and inalienable rights of modern people have been infringed upon by a devious interpretation of the Constitution, isn’t it our duty to clarify the wording to promote equality under the law? As Thomas Jefferson boldly states in the Declaration of Independence, “…whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.” (US Declaration of Independence)

    On one extreme of the argument about the religious clauses of the First Amendment, certain religious fundamentalists believe that the antiestablishment clause means that government cannot interfere with their own particular religion or church, but believe that they have the right to politically enforce their own individual moral code, or even to enforce religious practices in a public sphere such as school-led prayer. This is because the founders did not explicitly state that the freedom from religion is a part of the constitutional guarantee, and yet on the other extreme this is exactly the way that many people believe it should be interpreted. It doesn’t help their cause that for most of the life of the United States, the former extreme is how the First Amendment was generally understood. It has only been relatively recently that—as a part of the fastest-growing “religious” affiliation in America—non-believers have felt secure enough to begin the conversation without fear of reprisal and with some certainty of being taken seriously. In order to discover whether the founding fathers meant for the religion clauses to imply that we have the right to be free from religiously derived moral legislation, we need to begin by going back to the complex figure of Roger Williams.

    There is a legend in my family that my great-great grandfather took Williams’ surname as our own when he first came to America. He arrived as a stowaway on a ship, and the story goes that when he got here he stole a horse and was promptly caught. Judge Hawkins Hart presided over his case and gave him leniency, choosing not to hang him. My great-grandfather had seen a plaque or a statue bearing the name of Rhode Island’s founder, Roger Williams, so when he was released from jail he changed his name to Hawkins Hart Williams both to honor the man who let him live and in hopes of pinching off some of Williams’ prestige for himself. Despite the shady nature of my family history and our legend—or perhaps due to it—I have thus an inherent fondness for and interest in Roger Williams. He was decidedly ahead of his time regarding the relationship between religion and politics. He was also a brave man as he dared to defy the Puritan authority, risking his reputation, livelihood, and safety in the defense of his beliefs, which included the then heretical notion that Church and State must be completely separate.

    Williams was staunch in that particular conviction, even though he himself was a devout Puritan. Perhaps even because of it. As Williams stated anonymously (fearing retribution) in a tract to British Parliament, “Religion was local, not national; the church was spiritual, not political… when persons are forced to conform to a mode of worship that their ‘hearts embrace not,’ then they have been violated in the very depths of their being.” (Gaustad pp. 86-88) When he came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, fleeing persecution in England for his religious beliefs along with many other colonists, he found himself ironically at odds with the other Puritans there when he tried discussing his ideas. They exiled him from Massachusetts for challenging their own religious authority, and he survived thanks to Native Americans with whom he was friendly. He went on to found Rhode Island in the hopes that he could put his ideas into practice there.

    At first look, it doesn’t seem as though Williams was promoting freedom from religion so much as the freedom to practice religion without interference from the State; a subtle difference, but one that a religious totalitarian might exploit if not examined too closely. If you happen to be an atheist, an anti-theist, a non-believer, or simply unaffiliated, how else can one interpret such sentiments? If Roger Williams believed that the State had no right to tell him how to worship, what if one decides not to worship at all? Would Williams have then said to the unbeliever: you can worship in any way you choose, so long as you worship? And make it law that one must do so? In taking a stand against interference with the individual’s right to worship as he or she sees fit, it would be absurd to then turn around and tell non-believers that they have to believe in something. Luckily, we don’t need to speculate on this matter too heavily as Williams made his opinion about religious rights quite clear in a letter he wrote to the town of Providence, in which he made an analogy comparing the relationship between church and state to a ship at sea:

    The passengers aboard that ship had full liberty to worship as they pleased, or not to worship at all. ‘Papists, Protestants, Jews, Turks’—whoever—all were free to worship in their own fashion, and none could be compelled to attend anyone else’s worship. But on the other hand, the captain of the ship had his own characteristic liberty too: ‘to command the ship’s course; yea, and also to command that justice, peace, and sobriety be kept and practiced, both among the seamen and all the passengers.’… Citizens had to pay taxes, they had to fulfill their obligations to serve in the militia, they had to obey—but in civil matters only. In religion, their liberty was complete. (Gaustad pp. 104-105)

    Roger Williams may not have been a founding father, but he was certainly an early inspiration with regards to the forming of the US Constitution. In 1689, a few years after Williams’ death, the philosopher John Locke published A Letter Concerning Toleration revealing the influence of Roger Williams. “I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other…care of souls is not committed to the civil magistrate…it appears not that God has ever given any such authority to one man over another as to compel anyone to his religion.” (Locke 1689) Locke was in turn to be a heavy influence upon James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, the two greatest champions that religious liberty in the new world would ever have.

    I wish that I could simply quote Thomas Jefferson’s A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in full and be done with it. No argument that I am capable of making is more lucid or concise than that great document. But it shows the heavy influence of Locke in certain key points: “the impious presumption of legislators and rulers…who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men…hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time.” (Jefferson) Williams, Locke, Jefferson and Madison—who championed Jefferson’s Bill until it was finally adopted in Virginia on January 16, 1786—all show a deep distrust that any man on Earth is wise enough to assume authority over another man’s conscience in religious matters. Further, the act of forcing someone to subscribe to the moral cause of another is itself morally wrong: “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical: that even forcing him to support [a] teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose moral he would make his pattern.” (Jefferson)

    There are several interesting things in that passage. One is that Jefferson makes it clear that a State Religion—enforced belief—harms not only the non-believer, but the believer as well. This is a fine point that is often lost on those who would impress their religion into law. When a believer is made to practice a set of morals, he has lost the dignity of taking a personal stand on his own merits. “A state-created orthodoxy puts at grave risk that freedom of belief and conscience which are the sole assurance that religious faith is real, not imposed.” (Lee v. Weisman 1992)

    Another fascinating point is how Jefferson uses the word ‘disbelieves’: “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves.” If only this particular statement had carried over into the US Constitution, many ambiguities and arguments would be resolved. It is of course possible that Jefferson meant ‘disbelieves’ to be an interfaith qualification only, as in the way that someone who is Jewish disbelieves in the divinity of Christ, or a Christian disbelieves that Mohammed was a prophet. However, he made no such distinction between types of disbelief and, being a very careful man, it seems likely that—rather than an oversight—he intended it in every sense of the word. We know that he did indeed have a deep distrust of all religion: “Jefferson was a child of the eighteenth century enlightenment. He emphasized reason and was skeptical of religious dogmas. While he championed personal freedom of conscience and religious belief, Jefferson was suspicious of institutional religion and was fearful that it might have a corrupting influence on the body politic.” (Barron and Dienes pp. 422) After all, a Christian may disbelieve in Allah, Zeus, or Odin, but a non-believer simply goes just one God further. If this particular statement of Jefferson’s had been a clause in the constitution, the very idea of legislating against a group of people who don’t believe in the validity of the legislator’s religiously-derived morals would be a far shorter conversation in this country. In any case, whether it made it into the Constitution or not, we can easily deduce that his intent as a founding father was indeed to allow for the freedom from religion and its edicts.

    One of the most odious ways in which certain religious groups try to force their will on the populace is through devious interpretations of the free exercise clause. Recently, certain corporations—who should never have been given the same rights as the individual, but that is an entirely different subject—have attempted to deny certain rights to their employees by asserting the right of a corporation to coerce its employees into abiding by the morals of the CEO’s religious beliefs. The CEO of Hobby Lobby, David Green, believes that he has the right to deny his employees access to government mandated healthcare in the form of contraceptives, because of his so-called “Biblical Principles:”

    A new government health care mandate says that our family business must provide what I believe are abortion-causing drugs as part of our health insurance. Being Christians, we don't pay for drugs that might cause abortions. Which means that we don't cover emergency contraception, the morning-after pill or the week-after pill. We believe doing so might end a life after the moment of conception, something that is contrary to our most important beliefs. It goes against the biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one. (Green)

    Forgetting for a moment the fact that the Bible actually says nothing about abortion—not to mention that contraception is not abortion, no matter what you believe—the fact is that the right to freely exercise your religious rights and beliefs does not give you the right to deny those rights to other people because they believe differently.

    It is true that judicial interpretation of the free exercise clause has changed over the course of its lifetime. On the one extreme, judges have ruled that exemptions from civil laws are allowed when they infringe on certain religious practices; allowing certain faiths to utilize otherwise illegal drugs in their religious ceremonies, for example. On the other extreme, they have ruled that only the beliefs and opinions of men are exempt from legal coercion, but not practices that are otherwise unlawful. A case which I find particularly interesting in this regard is from 1878, when a Utah Mormon named Reynolds was charged with violating a federal law prohibiting polygamy. I agree whole-heartedly that civil laws must be adhered to for the good of society whether they go against someone’s religious beliefs or not… when those beliefs might cause harm to society. It would be absurd, for example, to allow an adherent of an ancient Aztec religion to perform a human sacrifice to appease his volcano god. No matter how strenuously his court-appointed lawyer might argue his client’s right to freely exercise his religion, there is simply no chance that any judge would allow this particular religious observance to proceed unchallenged. Cases involving a consensual crime such as polygamy, however, require more deliberation.

    In the case of the Utah Mormon, “Chief Justice Waite… drew a sharp distinction between protected belief/opinion and the conduct of polygamy. Reynolds’ defense that his conduct was protected by the free exercise clause was rejected…‘Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious beliefs and opinions, they may with practices.” (Barron and Dienes pp. 505) I completely agree with the judge’s statement in principle, but disagree with his ruling, which was that Reynolds could not use religion as an excuse to break the law against polygamy. This may seem like a subject for another paper, but the law against polygamy is a morality-based law. It harms no one and picks no pockets so long as all parties in the marriage enter into it willingly and with full knowledge of the situation. Informed consent is a value that is too often ignored when writing such laws. I consider it ironic that the judge’s (and the federal law’s) distaste of polygamy is probably informed by the dictates of Judaic religious morality—whether he was aware of it or not—and yet he used civil authority as a shield with which to deny a member of an opposing religion the free expression of his beliefs, based on the prejudices of his own.

    This is getting into tricky territory, which shouldn’t be surprising given that the attempt to understand the First Amendment often leads to such places. As Peter McWilliams so eloquently puts it,

    In listening to the reasons why laws against consensual activities are enacted, or why laws against consensual activities should not be eliminated, one begins to peel away the layers of an onion, and at the core of that onion is almost invariably a religious belief. The progression usually goes something like this:

“It’s not right.”

“Why is it not right?”

“Because it’s not moral.”

“Why is it not moral?”

“Because God says so.”

And this is usually followed by some reference—sometimes specific but usually vague—to the Bible, a sermon, a televangelist, or a story remembered from Sunday School (or was it Cecil B. de Mille?)

    Knowing about that pesky separation of church and state rule… some politicians and commentators do the best they can to cloud the fact that criminalizing consensual activities is a religious issue. (McWilliams pp. 169)

    This is the danger of supposing that the First Amendment does not or should not guarantee freedom from religion. There is nothing intrinsically harmful to society about polygamy, homosexuality or the marriage thereof, personal drug use, prostitution, contraception, stem cell research, etc. and legislating against these activities or the groups that engage in them denies consenting adults the freedoms that the Constitution is meant to guarantee. As I have shown, it seems clear from the writings of Roger Williams and Thomas Jefferson that their intention at least was for the citizens of the United States—ALL of its citizens—to enjoy those freedoms and that the religious clauses of the First Amendment are meant to be interpreted in exactly that way. Furthermore I have also attempted to show that whatever the rest of the founding fathers of the U.S. Constitution intended, it doesn’t change the fact that certain morality based laws—so often derived from religious beliefs—constitute a threat to free expression and whether the words of the First Amendment explicitly declare it or not, it is in the best interests of freedom-loving Americans to make it explicit that the freedom from religion is a self-evident truth, an inherent and inalienable right.

Works Cited

Barron, Jerome A. and C. Thomas Dienes. First Amendment Law, 4th Ed. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing CO., 1993.

Gaustad, Edwin S. Roger Williams: Prophet of Liberty. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Green, David. "Column: Christian companies can't bow to sinful mandate." 09 September 2012. USA Today. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-09-12/hhs-mandate-birth-control-sue-hobby-lobby/57759226/1. 30 April 2013.

Jefferson, Thomas. "A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom." 1777.

Lee v. Weisman. No. 505 U.S. 577. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 1992.

Locke, John. "A Letter Concerning Toleration." 1689. http://www.constitution.org/jl/tolerati.htm. 24 April 2013.

McWilliams, Peter. Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do. Los Angeles: Prelude Press, 1993.

Reynolds v. United States. No. 98 U.S. 145. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 1878.

US Declaration of Independence. 1776.

 

The Sheepdog Mentality

    Have you ever wondered what soldiers, cops, and other protectorly types really think of people who don't like guns? Several years ago, I found a transcript of a speech given by Dave Grossman at a military base while I was there for a job —I was not present for the speech itself. When I read it, my initial reaction was extreme indignation. I was going to post it then, but I decided to sit on it instead. The transcript fell behind my desk and escaped my memory for a few years until this past week when, during an intensive office spring cleaning, I rediscovered it. As I read it, I found that age hadn't changed my perspective very much. In it, he refers to the non-gun-toting 53% of Americans as "sheep," and tells any gun-owning citizen with a concealed weapons permit that if he leaves his home without his gun, he may as well say "baa."

    Now, by pulling that out of the context of his speech, I expect any non-gun-owner to be sufficiently outraged. It's insulting. But putting it into the context of his larger speech, it is slightly less insulting. Slightly. He actually makes some good points, and it's easy to see why he believes what he believes. But there are a couple of fundamental problems with his assertions, and there are some frightening implications, not least of which is that in my job I come into contact with a lot of people who are rabid gun-carriers, and who clearly have a sense of righteousness about the idea of carrying a concealed weapon. Many of those types of people that I talk to tend to be middle-aged overweight white men with average intelligence and an apparent sense of impotence. I don't mean sexual impotence; I'm talking about that feeling you get around someone who clearly thinks of himself as a hero, yet has never had the chance to be one. There are of course many heroes in the cop and soldier business, and I don't mean to denigrate noble action. But there are many, many more frustrated, unactualized, would-be John McClanes who yearn for the chance to use their weaponry and prove to everyone that they are worth something.

    At any rate, I get the feeling that Grossman and his views have had a large impact on the "responsible" gun-owning society that seems to exist largely behind the scenes to many people in America, particularly to liberals who don't have much contact with those types. So I'm going to post the transcript in full and discuss the issues I have with it in between in blue.

_______________________________________________________________

     Everyone has been given a gift in life. Some people have a gift for science and some have a flair for art. And warriors have been given the gift of aggression. They would no more misuse this gift than a doctor would misuse his healing arts, but they yearn for the opportunity to use their gift to help others. These people, the ones who have been blessed with the gift of aggression and a love for others, are our sheepdogs. These are our warriors.

     One career police officer wrote to me about this after attending one of my Bulletproof Mind training sessions:

     "I want to say thank you for finally shedding some light on why it is that I can do what I do. I always knew why I did it. I love my [citizens], even the bad ones, and had a talent that I could return to my community. I just couldn't put my finger on why I could wade through the chaos, the gore, the sadness, if given a chance try to make it all better, and walk right out the other side." -Even the bad ones. This is the first indicator that it is normal to label certain people as "bad." I'm not saying that there aren't bad people, I'm just saying that it's unwise to make such judgements without more qualification. What does he mean by "bad?" Gay? Muslim? Shoplifters? Welfare recipients? Or does he mean to suggest that he even loves terrorists? It's all very condescending.

     Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial; that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools. But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid’s school. Our children are dozens of times more likely to be killed, and thousands of times more likely to be seriously injured, by school violence than by school fires. -This is an interesting point, or would be if he compared school violence to something a bit less controlled than the school system's gigantic efforts related to fire prevention and emergency evacuation. How about prescription medication overdoses? I get that he's talking about just that, the need for preparedness in the case of school violence, but it's not clear that having armed guards in every school is actually a proven way to deter violence.

     But the sheep’s only response to the possibility of violence is denial. -So then the sheepdog's only response to the possibility of violence is more violence? Hmm. Did he steal that idea from the Bible?- The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their children is just too hard, so they choose the path of denial. I'd like to see some evidence for this claim besides a bold assertion. As near as I can tell, most parents worry themselves to crow's feet and grey hairs about their kids' safety. Grossman chooses to interpret a distaste for armed security guards in schools as denial rather than as a healthy skepticism of the effectiveness of such methods. Homes with guns in them are associated with an increased risk of firearm homicide and firearm suicide in the home itself. There is no reason to suspect that it would be any different in schools with guards, what with them leaving their guns laying all about for any depressed or homicidal student to pick up.

     The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, cannot and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheepdog that intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours. Ugh. This metaphor is perhaps meant well, but if Grossman really believes that all types of people have a place in society, that everyone has something to offer and that "sheepdogs" are merely another such type, I find it disingenuous that he would choose to use such denigrating language.

     Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn’t tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. Or not search your adult diapers at the airport, nor make obnoxious comments about your private items, maybe even don't arrest journalists covering events that the government doesn't like, or not pepper spray students SITTING DURING A PEACEFUL PROTEST. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa." Yes, clearly our distrust for authoritative gun-toting security types is all about a sheep-like denial of the possibilty of violence. Grossman seems to be in denial about the fact that we are too often at the mercy of the idiocy of people given sheepdog-like authority.

     Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog. As Kipling said in his poem about “Tommy" the British soldier:

While its Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall behind,”

But it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind,

There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,

O it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind.

     The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough high school students, and under ordinary circumstances they would not have had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them. This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door. Look at w hat happened after September 11, 2001, when the wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how America, more than ever before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Remember how many times you heard the word hero? Here he makes his strongest point. Yes, absolutely, when bad things happen it is good to have a strong good-guy around. It is not denial, however, to recognize that the last time that Homeland Security created an entirely new nation-wide security team in response to a threat, we got the TSA, an amalgam of untrained security guards whose ineptitude has been a constant source of amusement, scandal, and ineffectiveness ever since. Yeah, let's do that again, but with children and inept guards with guns instead. I agree, it's a subject worth discussing, but I find it odd that the regulation of gun sales in a manner similar to the way we regulate driver's licensing is somehow more worthy of the sneering claim of "denial" than the idea that more guns won't solve the problem of violence.

     Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed right along with the young ones. He's really stretching this metaphor. I wonder how he deals with the cognitive dissonance in stating that there is nothing morally superior about yearning for a righteous battle while the sheep go stick their heads in the sand. Perhaps he simply doesn't really mean what he says, and is just trying to downplay the aggravated sense of moral superiority that he actually seems to have a very difficult time hiding.

      Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, "Thank God I wasn’t on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference." When you are truly transformed into a warrior and have truly invested yourself into warriorhood, you want to be there. You want to be able to make a difference. Most of the Citizens of the US are sheep. Well, on that we can agree, though perhaps for different reasons. I'd like to know, though, why he thinks that most people pretend that the wolf will never come, or that bad things will never happen. I think he misunderstands the motivations of people who aren't crazy about guns and violence. For myself, I know that bad things will happen, that there are batshit lunatic jihadists out there who want to kill me for saying that Mohammed was a murderous pedophile, and more charlatan than prophet--as are all prophets. The difference is that I choose not to live my life in fear. I am glad that there are men out there who want to prevent crazy people from destroying the lives of normal people, but the problem is that they are not always the best types of people to perceive where the actual threats are. To hijack Grossman's metaphor, I once saw a sheepdog bark at a squirrell in a tree for ten minutes while a fox happily kept an ear on him from the safety of the henhouse.

     While there is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, he does have one real advantage. Only one. He is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population. Besides admitting that a sheepdog's only advantage doesn't necessarily have anything to do with critical thought, I think he again underestimates common people. I have been in some scary situations: I've had a gun pointed at me outside of Saddam's gigantic mosque, I was 100 yards away from an explosion in Iraq, and I walked weaponless down Karrada street, by myself, in Baghdad in broad daylight during the spring of 2004 to get some schwarma at a popular restaurant. I also used to drive a bus full of Iraqis every day down route Irish, the most dangerous road in the world at the time. I knew that something bad could happen, but I've always believed that if you live by the sword, you die by the sword. If I had had a gun when that Iraqi security guard caught me taking pictures of the mosque, he probably would not have stopped me to ask questions.

     There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory acts of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims by body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness.  They  chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when  they select one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself.

     However, when there were cues given by potential victims that indicated they  would not go easily, the cons said that they would walk away. If the cons sensed that the target was a "counter-predator," that is, a sheepdog, they would leave him alone unless there was no other choice but to engage.

     One police officer told me that he rode a commuter train to work each day. One day, as was his usual, he was standing in the crowded car, dressed in blue jeans, T- shirt and jacket, holding onto a pole and reading a paperback. At one of the stops, two street toughs boarded, shouting and cursing and doing every obnoxious thing possible to intimidate the other riders. The officer continued to read  his book, though he kept  a watchful eye on the two punks as they strolled along the aisle making comments to female passengers, and banging shoulders with men as they passed.

     As they approached the officer, he lowered his novel and made eye contact with them. "You got a problem, man?" One of the IQ-challenged punks asked. "You think you're tough, or somethin'?" the other asked, obviously offended that this one was not shirking away from them.

     "As a matter of fact, I am tough," the officer said, calmly and with a steady gaze.

     The two looked at him for a long moment, and then without saying a word, turned and moved back down the aisle to continue their taunting of the other passengers, the sheep. I love this story. I've heard a hundred blowhards tell stories exactly like it. I'm not saying it's not possible, I'm just saying that 9 times out of 10, this is the way the guy imagines it will go down the next time, or if he had had his gun on him, or if New York street punks were still living in bad 1970's movies. I've also often noticed that stuffy authoritative types frequently mistake kids acting in a macho or overly confident manner--or who are simply having a noisy good time--as punks who are trying to throw their weight around. People who follow authority like sheep...dogs... don't like people who question and/or disrespect authority. Think I'm just making shit up? Hey, my anecdote is just as good as his.

     Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I'm proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs. Stats, please. Although, I don't disagree. There is a definite mindset in government offices that I see more and more of.

     Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored in his hometown of Cranbury, New Jersey. Todd, as you recall, was the man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an operator from United Airline about the hijacking. When he learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd dropped his phone and uttered the words, "Let's roll," which authorities believe was a signal to the other passengers to confront the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers--athletes, business people and parents-- from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought the wolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground. Grossman is kind of all over the place with his sheepdog stuff. But I want to draw attention to the way he claims Todd Beamer as a sheepdog here. Beamer was a Christian who graduated from Wheaton College. He was a field marketing rep for Oracle, and he was not in the military and as near as I can determine, he never carried a gun. Now, he does fit the sheepdog mold in that he was ready to go into action, but as we will see, he also fits the sheep mold according to Grossman.

 

"Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live with yourself after that?"

"There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men."

- Edmund Burke

Reflections on the Revolution in France

     Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn’t have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision.

     If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior 's path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.

     For example, many officers carry their weapons in church. They are well concealed in ankle holsters, shoulder holsters or inside-the-belt holsters tucked into the small of their backs. Anytime you go to some form of religious service, there is a very good chance that a police officer in your congregation is carrying. You will never know if there is such an individual in your place of worship, until the wolf appears to slaughter you and your loved ones. I wonder if Jesus wished that he and his disciples were packing that day in Gethsemane?

     I was training a group of police officers in Texas, and during the break, one officer asked his friend if he carried his weapon in church. The other cop replied, "I will never be caught without my gun in church." I asked why he felt so strongly about this, and he told me about a police officer he knew who was at a church massacre in Ft. Worth, Texas, in 1999. In that incident, a mentally deranged individual came into the church and opened fire, gunning down 14 people. He said that officer believed he could have saved every life that day if he had been carrying his gun. His own son was shot, and all he could do was throw him on the boy’s body and wait to die. That cop looked me in the eye and said, "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live with yourself after that?" Hey, that's a nice anecdote. I've got one too. One time this guy brought his gun to church, and he accidentally shot a young girl (the pastor's daughter, actually) in the head and killed her while showing it to a friend. He had a concealed weapons permit and everything, and being such a well-trained individual he was thus a guaranteed deterrent against church violence. I wonder how hard it was for him to live with himself after that?

     Some individuals would be horrified if they knew this police officer was carrying a weapon in church. They might call him paranoid and would probably scorn him. Weird. Yet these same individuals would be enraged and would call for "heads to roll" if they found out that the airbags in their cars were defective, or that the fire extinguisher and fire sprinklers in their kids' school did not work, or if some lunatic didn't have to pass a psych test before getting a concealed weapons permit. They can accept the fact that fires and traffic accidents can happen and that there must be safeguards against them. Their only response to the wolf, though, is denial, and all too often their response to the sheepdog is scorn and disdain. But the sheepdog quietly asks himself, "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live with yourself if your loved ones were attacked and killed, and you had to stand there helplessly because you were unprepared for that day?" Or how hard it would be to live with yourself if, as a church pastor, you encouraged your "flock" to bring their concealed weapons to church and then some moron shot your daughter? "Shit," you'd say, "If only guns were better regulated."

     The warrior must cleanse denial from his thinking. Coach Bob Lindsey, a renowned law enforcement trainer, says that warriors must practice "when/then" thinking, not "if/when." Instead of saying, “If it happens then I will take action," the warrior says, "When it happens then I will be ready."

     It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and horror when the wolf shows up. Yes but, there are many truths about life which one can deny. If you deny that more guns mean more death, period, are you really a sheepdog? This denial turns you into a sheep of another kind. If you deny that US policies have had a direct effect on the desire for terrorists to attack us in the first place, what kind of sheep are you then? (I don't like Ron Paul, but when even right wing nuts like him start accepting facts, gun nuts like Grossman ought to do some soul-searching.)

     Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth when you are not physically prepared: You didn't bring your gun; you didn't train. Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy. Denial kills you a second time because even if you do physically survive, you are psychologically shattered by fear, helplessness, horror and shame at your moment of truth. This is where he really begins equating sheepdog-ness with gun-carrying. If you don't know how to use a gun and you don't have it with you, you are a sheep. Granted, he appears to be addressing cops and soldiers and if he was talking only about cops and soldiers being prepared in the line of duty then he would be far more difficult to argue with. But Grossman goes on the circuit on a regular basis in favor of the second amendment and more guns more guns! Guns in schools! Guns in church! If everyone had a gun and was prepared to use it, what could go wrong?

     Chuck Yeager, the famous test pilot and first man to fly faster than the speed of sound, says that he knew he could die. There was no denial for him. He did not allow himself the luxury of denial. This acceptance of reality can cause fear, but it is a healthy, controlled fear that will keep you alive:

     "I was always afraid of dying. Always. It was my fear that made me learn everything I could about my airplane and my emergency equipment_ and kept me flying respectful of my  machine and always alert in the cockpit."

-Brigadier General Chuck Yeager

Yeager, An Autobiography

     Gavin de Becker puts it like this in Fear Less, his superb post-9/11 book, which should be required reading for anyone trying to come to terms with our current world situation:

".. Denial can be seductive, but it has an insidious side effect. For all the peace of mind deniers think they get by saying it isn't so, the fall they take when faced with new violence is all the more unsettling. Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in small print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some level."

     And so the warrior must strive to confront denial in all aspects of his life, and prepare himself for the day when evil comes. How about confronting the denial that the world is an extremely dangerous place in large part thanks to US policies? And that perhaps the best way to get terrorists to stop being terrorists is to stop terrorising them?

     If you are a warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the bad man will not come today. No one can be "on" 24/7 for a lifetime. Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to yourself... "Baa." Todd Beamer walked out without a gun, and so did Chuck Yeager, two men he held up as prime examples of sheepdogs. Apparently you don't need a gun in order to combat either fear or terrorists, after all. I get that he's making a larger point about readiness, which I actually agree with. But his point about weaponry is erratic and full of bullet holes, and he is trying to falsely equate the two things. Bad things will happen, yes. But be strong and face life with your chin up and your eyes open, not with your mind closed and hiding behind a gun. In any case, Grossman's attempt to claim every hero as a sheepdog and then to turn around and say that real sheepdogs all carry guns is schizophrenic.

     This business of being a sheep or a sheepdog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-grass sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors and the warriors started taking their job more seriously. The degree to which you move up that continuum, away from sheephood and denial, is the degree to which you and your loved ones will survive, physically and psychologically at your moment of truth. Ah, the halcyon days of post 9-11. If only people lived in fear like that every day, and more easily allowed the eroding of civil liberties and the ascention of authoritative fascists bent on manipulating us through those fears. It's true, if I don't have a gun I might be less safe from terrorists or mass-murderers. But with a gun, I've surrendered my confidence to a piece of metal. I choose to carry my manhood somewhere else. Speaking in terms that Grossman would understand, I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees. In any case, there are no easy answers to Dave Grossman's deep and disturbing fears, but he is in a denial just as debilitating as that he envisions the rest of us are in when it comes to the reasoning of "wolves" and the best options for solving our problems of violence. He clearly holds a simple view of good and evil, cannot conceive that his "side" is not the Light Brigade, and thus can abide only a simple, aggressive solution and will deny that anyone who thinks differently is anything other than a sheep.

Shooting Fish In A Barrel In Prague

    It's time for one more of my audience-killing school-related posts. It's another Philosophy class discussion board from last year; I'm taking American History and some micro-computing class this semester, so I'm not anticipating many lively conversations coming up. But the topic for this one was: "Freud said that an irrational belief is believing in something that is not reasonable.  He was talking about the belief in God.  Do you find it irrational to believe in God?  Do you think it could be an illusion?" Haha! Easy one for me! Many fun hijinks ensued, where one or two people gamely tried to debate me for a minute, then gave up. Accompanying my awesome debate skillz this post will be old pictures from three different excursions to Prague, in the Czech Republic.

_______________________________________________________________________

    Author:

    messiestobjects

    In order for God to be an illusion, there would have to be something to see first. Since no one has ever verifiably seen God, he doesn’t even qualify as illusion. Whether believing in God is rational or not depends on why someone believes in God in the first place. If someone claims to have seen God, they are either telling the truth, lying, or delusional.

•     If they are telling the truth, they still may be delusional, but for the sake of argument if someone actually did see him and was able to provide evidence, then they would be rational. However this has never happened. If they are telling the truth but are unable to provide evidence, they are either delusional, or useless. The world doesn’t need a powerless God who can only make his wishes known to select individuals, who are usually the type of people you wouldn’t buy a used car from. And God is a much bigger commitment than a used car.
•     If they are lying about having seen God, then they still might be rational because they most likely would be lying about it in order to gain money/power/followers/whatever. This has demonstrably happened in the past in such cases as Joseph Smith. Mormonism is clearly a fraud. So Joe was an evil con-artist, but perhaps not entirely irrational given that a huge cult has risen up to follow after him. This is the danger of believing in something without evidence: You are probably being conned. Enjoy that shitty car until the engine falls out next week!
•     If they are delusional, well then by definition they are not rational.

    For me personally, yes I think the belief in God is completely irrational. I’ve argued my case extensively on this subject in this class several times, so I don’t need to add too much here except to say that there is ZERO evidence—solid, verifiable evidence—that a God or Gods have ever had any interaction with the world. Believing in something without evidence isn’t always necessarily irrational, but the bigger the claim, the more evidence you need for it. And God is a pretty big claim, whose followers routinely murder, coerce, and marginalize those who don’t believe in what they believe in. So to make such a claim, yet to have such non-existent evidence to back it up… yes this is irrational.

Author:

Robin 

Posted Date:

Sunday, November 11, 2012 4:56:12 PM EST

    Don't you realize you're making an overgeneralized statement to say that God's followers "murder, coerce, and marginalize those who don't believe in what they believe in?" You sound like a God hater to me and hateful and disgusted by people who believe in God. Can't you keep your insults out of this difference of beliefs?

Author:

    messiestobjects

Posted Date:

    Sunday, November 11, 2012 5:15:31 PM EST

     It is not an insult to state a fact. Do ALL believers murder, coerce, and marginalize? No. But I never claimed that they all did and therefore it is not an over generalization. But many many many do. Look at Islamic terrorism, or the Christian crusades, inquisition, witch hunts, etc, or the religious right trying to make Biblical morals into law right here right now in the US. I'm not a God hater, simply because you can't hate something that you don't believe in. I am certainly disgusted by people who murder, coerce, and marginalize in the name of their God, as should you be. If you're NOT disgusted by that, well, I can't wait to read about you in the papers.

     I'm not insulting anyone by saying that believers are delusional. I mean, that was the question of the week. Are you saying I should just shut up and keep my opinion to myself, even though I've been asked for it? Even if I hadn't been asked for it?

Author:

    Robin

Posted Date:

    Sunday, November 11, 2012 7:42:34 PM EST

    No messiestobjects, I don't want you to shut up, sorry for this. It's just that those "Christians" that are very hurtful to others that you mentioned are not doing what God wants, (I'm with you on this, it is awful) even if they say they're doing it in God's name. There are more types of Christians and people that believe in God, just wish you would include the ones that are good too and not bring up the bad ones as the only example for people that believe in God.

Author:

    messiestobjects

Posted Date:

    Sunday, November 11, 2012 7:57:20 PM EST

    I understand, but at the risk of being combative I want to say that it is not up to me to defend the "good" side of religion against the "bad" side of religion. I personally feel that all religion is bad. Not religious people, per se, but religion itself. I've always thought that, when people commit atrocities in the name of God, that "good" religious people ought to be the first to speak out against it. Instead, they tend to attack atheists who say that religious belief is the problem that caused the atrocity in the first place and keep silent regarding the atrocities. As an example, where is the Catholic outrage directed against the ongoing pedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church? Sure, there is some, but the overwhelming majority of outrage about priests diddling children is coming from people outside of the catholic faith, and mostly from atheists.

     The problem is that when you are willing to accept religion without evidence, then you are trained to accept a lot of faulty ideas without evidence, which is why so many Christians in America fall for the Republican talking points.

    Also, how do you know that they aren't doing what God wants? Does God tell you what he wants? God sanctioned some pretty horrific things in the Old Testament. What I mean is, why should I believe that what you say God wants is any more valid than what Pat Robertson or Joseph Kony says God wants? The Bible is full of enough sayings and contradictions that confirm that God can want whatever the particular interpreter wants him to want.

Author:

    Jason

Posted Date:

    Sunday, November 11, 2012 6:31:34 PM EST

    Why then is rational to believe science. Were you there to see the big bang happen, can you provide any evidence that the big bang actually happened and that the universe is 13.7 billion years old? The big bang theory also has a "big claim" with absolutely no evidence.

Author:

    messiestobjects

Posted Date:

    Sunday, November 11, 2012 6:56:28 PM EST

     Actually, you are totally, 100% wrong. There are mountains of evidence for the big bang. The earliest and most direct kinds of observational evidence are the Hubble-type expansion seen in the redshifts of galaxies, the detailed measurements of the cosmic microwave background, the relative abundances of light elements produced by Big Bang nucleosynthesis, and today also the large scale distribution and apparent evolution of galaxies predicted to occur due to gravitational growth of structure in the standard theory. These are sometimes called "the four pillars of the Big Bang theory".

     If you don't understand why these count as evidence, then you should take a class in astrophysics where these ideas can be further explained. "Belief in science" doesn't actually make sense. Science doesn't believe in anything for which there is no evidence. If there is evidence, you can put together a scientific theory which would explain the evidence, and test it further through prediction and experiment. You can "believe" in science because every modern comfort, from your dishwasher to your laptop to your iphone, is evidence of how scientific theories can be proven. If you don't understand the evidence, that is your issue because science is verifiable, and can be learned by anyone who bothers to make the effort.

Author:

    Jason

Posted Date:

    Sunday, November 11, 2012 11:08:52 PM EST

    I like how you always ramble on to try and make a point but end up not making a point. I also like how you always talk about not being combative but you actually are, just like the republicans you are talking about. I like how you always come off as being very condescending, which you are. For your information I am taking Astronomy and I have not read a chapter that explain any evidence.

    Theory: 1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

    2. The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice: a fine musician who had never studied theory.

    3. A set of theorems that constitute a systematic view of a branch of mathematics.

    4. Abstract reasoning; speculation: a decision based on experience rather than theory.

    5. A belief or principle that guides action or assists comprehension or judgment: staked out the house on the theory that criminals usually return to the scene of the crime.

    6. An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.

 Big bang theory, evolution theory. I kind of miss the part of the definition that mentioned that a theory is 100% fact, but obviously because you are the smartest man on earth you did not.  The mountains that were blown up to make roads, the roads did not form from the mere explosion and will never be formed from an explosion someone created the roads.

Author:

    messiestobjects

Posted Date:

    Sunday, November 11, 2012 11:48:03 PM EST

    I did not say that the Big Bang was 100% fact, I said that there were mountains of evidence for them, which you asked for, and that you were 100% wrong in your assertion that there was no evidence. Also, I didn't say I was not combative, I said "I hate to be combative, but..." but sometimes it is necessary to be combative when the people I argue with try to act as though I've said something that I did not say.

    As far as your definitions of theory are concerned, the only one that matters as far as a Scientific Theory goes is number 1. A scientific theory is not the same as speculation. I'm sorry that you missed the part of the definition that mentioned that a theory is [considered to be] fact, but clearly you breezed over that very first definition. Scientific Theory is not the same thing as the common usage of the word 'theory.'

    So you are taking astronomy. Have you gotten to the part yet where they explain the evidence for the Big Bang? No? I guess that means that no evidence must exist.

    Also, Astronomy is not the same thing as Astrophysics. Also, your claim that I am not making a point is false. Please demonstrate how I in any way have failed to make a point. Also, yes, sometimes I am very condescending.

Author:

    Jason

Posted Date:

    Sunday, November 11, 2012 6:51:54 PM EST

    “Whose followers routinely murder, coerce, and marginalize those who don’t believe in what they believe in.” clearly generalizing all those who believe in GOD. Where are all these murders taking place, in your atheist mind?

Author:

    messiestobjects

Posted Date:

    Sunday, November 11, 2012 6:59:10 PM EST

    Islamic terrorists who behead infidels are murdering in the name of God. Salem witch trials. Crusades. Spanish Inquisition. That lady who murdered her children because God told her to. There are plenty of examples.

Author:

    Jason

Posted Date:

    Monday, November 12, 2012 1:30:36 AM EST

    How many billion or million or thousand years ago did reproduction replace evolution?

Author:

    messiestobjects

Posted Date:

    Monday, November 12, 2012 10:59:25 AM EST

    Reproduction never replaced evolution because evolution is an ongoing process; it's still happening today.

Author:

    Jason Manhertz

Posted Date:

    Monday, November 12, 2012 11:33:05 AM EST

    So how did you come to be, through evolution or reproduction?

Author:

    messiestobjects

Posted Date:

    Monday, November 12, 2012 12:26:56 PM EST

    Both. Evolution describes how complex organisms evolve from simple ones through the process of natural selection. Reproduction is the separate yet intertwined method by which individuals pass their genes onto the next generation. There is no discrepancy between the two things.

Author:

    Kendra

Posted Date:

    Monday, November 12, 2012 11:03:30 PM EST

messiestobjects,

     I do agree with your post. There is no evidence of God, but it doesn't make it irrational to believe in him. It's people's religion and their beliefs and you can't bash it and say everyone is nuts. No one will ever know whether or not God is or ever was, real. If there was evidence it would change the whole religion and belief forever, but there isn't. It's just like any other religion. Can they prove that there is a real person they worship or is it just in books? I don't think any of it is an illusion because like you said, no one can see anything and I don't think anyone is irrational for believing in God.

Author:

    messiestobjects

Posted Date:

    Monday, November 12, 2012 11:33:23 PM EST

     But technically, it IS irrational to believe in something for which there is no evidence. The fact that a lot of people believe in God doesn't qualify as any sort of evidence that he just might exist. For instance, which Presidential candidate did you believe would win? A lot of Democrats believed that Obama was the right choice, because Romney is clearly a corrupt maniac. Conversely, a lot of Republicans believed that Romney was the right choice because Obama is clearly a Muslim socialist bent on destroying all the values America stands for. Both sides obviously couldn't be right, yet each candidate got around 60 million votes apiece! This is not a small number! 58 million people believed that Romney was the right choice, but 62 million believed that Obama was. Either way you look at it, at least 58 million people were wrong in their beliefs. Karl Rove, for instance, was clearly deluded about Romney's chances of winning. My point is, if 58 million people can be wrong about something, then clearly it doesn't stop something from being illusory just because a lot of people believe in it.

Author:

    Dana

Posted Date:

    Monday, November 12, 2012 11:26:18 PM EST

Hey messiestobjects,

    Great post and although I am a Christian, I appreciate your thoughts. I actually agree with you on most points. Belief in God is very irrational on many levels. However, in my humble opinion, irrational doesn't necessarily mean wrong. There are many things that I have come across in life that aren't rational but that doesn't mean that they aren't real. An example I gave in post is feelings. Feelings are rarely if ever rational. When people fall in love, rationality tends to get thrown out the window (at least for a time). God may be an illusion, but if that is the case, the only fault in my beliefs is mine. (since I am not a murderer or marginalizer). Thanks again for an interesting post!

Author:

    messiestobjects

Posted Date:

    Monday, November 12, 2012 11:45:24 PM EST

     That is exactly the appropriate stance to take as a religious believer, Dana! Thank you. If someone wants to believe in God, that is of course their business. But trying to convince other people to believe in him too without any evidence is where so many believers go wrong and you are entirely correct to say that any fault in your belief lies solely with you. The only thing I have to argue with you about is when you say that feelings aren't rational. Of course, people do behave irrationally due to emotions beyond their control, but in fact there are perfectly rational reasons why people have emotions in the first place. Chemicals in the brain. It's science! So, being irrationally in love is real, I agree, but so is irrationally believing in God. The difference is that, being in love has an object, an actual person that your irrational feelings are directed towards. You can touch him or her, speak to them and, most importantly, so can other people. The fact that there is such evidence that your boy/girl friend exists means that your love is only irrational in the sense of which particular actually existing human you chose to love. God, on the other hand, is a completely unverifiable object of irrational belief, and therefore illusory.

Author:

    Dana

Posted Date:

    Tuesday, November 13, 2012 7:13:48 PM EST

messiestobjects,

I completely agree with you that feelings are created by something rational (chemicals in the brain) but the exact nature of WHY those chemicals behave the way they do is unexplainable in the human psyche... meaning why something can trigger one person to feel a certain way about something while someone else does not. There are many valid theories but none that can completely and perfectly explain everyone's feelings/reactions. Most feelings are based on early experiences. With that being said, one can also argue that belief in God is also based on experiences. My personal feelings on certain things can sometimes fall into the category of irrational/illogical. Even with years of therapy some people can never fully justify(rationalize) why they feel the way that they do.

Author:

    messiestobjects

Posted Date:

    Tuesday, November 13, 2012 9:31:11 PM EST

     That's true: Science doesn't yet know everything. The key word being "yet." Neurologists may not know everything about what makes the brain tick, but they know a lot more than they did even 10 years ago, and they learn more all the time. The thing is that brain science is testable: you can ask questions, perform experiments, make hypotheses, and gain knowledge in order to ask more questions, perform more experiments, narrow down your hypotheses... etc. The God question, however, is not testable. There is no possible way that you can test the God hypothesis because he is by definition (according to the big 3 religions, at least) outside of nature. This winds up being the reason why atheists ultimately say that it is pointless to believe in God: something that is outside of nature can never be detected, proven, or disproven, and personal anecdotes of people having God experiences are completely unverifiable in any way. I have never had an experience that could not be explained except by a God of some sort, so I have no more reason to believe in him/her/it than I do in Santa Claus. Neuroscience, on the other hand, has learned many things about the brain and has bettered mankind in verifiable ways, so even though I have never studied neurology, I have more reason to trust in it than I do in a God who has told his followers that they will go to hell for not believing in him despite being a jerk and not providing any evidence that he actually exists.

Author:

    Samantha

Posted Date:

    Monday, November 5, 2012 5:31:10 PM EST

    I do not believe it is irrational to believe in God and I do not think it is an illusion.  I think Freud is looking for scientific fact that God does not exist.  I believe Freud and his followers are hoping there is no God and therefore, they will not be judged at the time of death.  I believe Freud and his followers are delusional by their beliefs and their statements.  However, everyone is entitled to their thoughts and beliefs as long as they do not harm or hurt anyone.

    I have seen some people who are elderly such as my grandfather who did not believe in God and as he was aging and knew he had a limited time on this earth started accepting God.  He actually started talking to a minister at his part time job and attended his church in the last several years of his life.   My mom tells me he never attended church for the time she knew him.  However, as we get closer to our immortality our views and beliefs change for believing in God or NOT.  It really comes down to your choice and your belief! I choose to believe there is a God  so according to Freud call me irrational and delusional….

Author:

    Jason

Posted Date:

    Thursday, November 8, 2012 2:02:10 PM EST

    I agree with the views that you have presented here, Samantha. I would just like to add that I find it quite fascinating that most of these men who do not believe in God and call believers like you and I irrational and delusional were men who had been declared mentally ill at some point.  It only makes me wonder why do sane people have to study and make sense of what people who were not in their right mind had to say...

Author:

    messiestobjects

Posted Date:

    Sunday, November 11, 2012 3:50:12 PM EST

    Christopher Hitchens died an avowed atheist. He never not once started quibbling about his own mortality. Neither did Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Carl Sagan, or my Uncle. And for the record, not one of them were ever "declared mentally ill at some point."

    Most atheists aren't looking for proof that God does not exist--you can never prove that God does not exist in the same way that you can never prove that there isn't a teapot the size of a gnat orbiting the smallest star in the Andomeda Galaxy--they simply demand proof that he does exist before believing, without reason, that he does.

Author:

    Stefani

Posted Date:

    Tuesday, November 6, 2012 10:56:08 PM EST

    Personally I do not believe it is irrational to believe in God. Everyone has the right to believe what they want to. Since Freud was a scientific man, he was probably just looking for specific and concrete evidence that God exists and since he didnt really find that, he would say it is an illusion. For many, they allow the presence of God to create an illusion, but I do not think believe in him is irrational or can be considered an illusion.

Author:

    Tracy

Posted Date:

    Wednesday, November 7, 2012 11:39:05 AM EST

    Hey Stefani,

    I would have to agree with you on this one. I think calling people who believe in God irrational is a bizarre considering most of the world believes in a God.

Author:

    messiestobjects

Posted Date:

    Sunday, November 11, 2012 3:56:31 PM EST

    So... by this logic, if most of the world believed that owning slaves was moral, then it would be bizarre to call slave-owning immoral? See, the world was like that, not so very long ago. Just because 100 people think that committing suicide by drinking poisoned kool-aid to jump on a passing comet is rational, doesn't make that one guy who said "fuck this!" and ran away from Heaven's Gate irrational.

Author:

    Robin

Posted Date:

    Wednesday, November 7, 2012 8:01:56 PM EST

    I don't think believing in God is irrational, but I do think it depends on how you believe in God. I think that being legalistic is irrational and is harmful to yourself and even others around you. I don't think it is an illusion, I've seen proof in my life and I put my trust in faith. I wonder if why we can't prove God in a scientific way to people is because it would not give people a chance to find God with their hearts, which is what is important to God. What we know by proof in life and what our minds reveal to be rational, is not enough to proove if God is an illusion or not.  We have free-will, the power to choose, which is something that can only be done alone in a person, no one make you believe or not believe it. We can influence each other though, good and bad on the matter. Again- we have free-will.

Author:

    Paulette

Posted Date:

    Wednesday, November 7, 2012 10:12:15 PM EST

    I just loved your statement "wonder if why we can't prove God in a scientific way to people is because it would not give people a chance to find God with their hearts" excellent. Yes we have free will, but because our free will is supposedly given to us by god then is that real or the illusion?

Author:

    messiestobjects

Posted Date:

    Sunday, November 11, 2012 4:07:42 PM EST

    Some people found the Wiccan Earth-Mother with their hearts. Others found Mormonism. Yet others believe with all their hearts in Mohammed, or Krishna, or even in the power of Satan. Don't you think the real God has a duty to leave some sort of a road-map to him so that innocent people who only happened to be born into a family who believed in the wrong God don't get sent to Hell and torture and damnation for all eternity? Otherwise, he's either powerless or just an asshole.

Author:

    Yohance

Posted Date:

    Thursday, November 8, 2012 1:11:27 AM EST

    I do not think that it is irrational to believe in god. As I have said in numerous posts before, I do not think that God is what the religions make it out to be. To believe in God, and by this I mean the entity or existence that is, or the concept that keeps everything together, One must take a leaf of faith or an abstract understanding of something that cannot necessarily be put into words, but only understood. I constantly reiterate that science, and god/religion, are two sides of the same coin. In science and mathematics we take leaps of faith almost in every scientific calculation we make, The concept of zero and infinity is something that cannot be explained, It can only be understood. To the right of zero but before one on the number line there are an infinite amount of values And to the left of zero but before negative one there are also an infinite amount of value. The number zero somehow bridges the gap between negative and positive values that have an infinite source. This in itself requires a leap of faith to believe. Scientifically Speaking numbers are an illusion used by mankind, used in complete belief that has propelled our civilization to where it is today. I do not think that God is an illusion, I think God is a concept that the majority of us have not yet understood.

Author:

    messiestobjects

Posted Date:

    Sunday, November 11, 2012 4:14:52 PM EST

    Numbers aren't actually an illusion though. They represent actual values. Saying that numbers are an illusion is like saying that words are illusions, but they are not because words represent ideas, real things even though they may not have physical substance. The difference between things that are real yet do not have physical substance and God is that you can see the evidence of ideas at work in the world every day in everything you do. Anything that people attribute to God, however, can be explained by other, more rational means. In any case, no one is claiming that numbers or words have an independent intelligence of their own, and so they are not even in the same class as an all-powerful, all-intelligent creator.

Author:

    Brittany

Posted Date:

    Monday, November 12, 2012 12:55:03 PM EST

    I think Freud was correct in his assertion that believing in God is irrational. I don't think this really applies to the people who just use religion as a way to remember to be nice to their neighbors and such, because they are just using the idea of a vengeful God to help guide their moral compasses. The people that I have an issue with are those who take everything in the Bible to be literal, and shut out the idea that science is fact. For example, people commonly refute the theory of evolution, and laws have to be passed so that it can be taught to school children. It doesn't make sense to me that some people would rather have a clouded view of the world, instead of questioning what they have been taught in church. I also think that people who only pray about their problems, instead of actively seeking out a solution are being irrational. Prayer alone never solved anything, because you have to be in charge of your own life. Personally, I believe that religion was socially constructed to keep people “in line” morally and limit questioning of authority, therefore, I do think that it is all an illusion.

Author:

    messiestobjects

Posted Date:

    Monday, November 12, 2012 1:00:44 PM EST

    Totally! Also, it's extremely disturbing that religious people keep trying to get Creationism, or "Intelligent Design" taught in public schools. This is wrong in so many ways but my favorite retort to people who want science teachers to "teach the controversy" in public schools is, "Fine. Can I come to your church and teach evolution in Sunday School? Teach the controversy!" There's a reason why church and state are meant to be separated.

Philosophy Needs Science The Way That Blogs Need Pictures

    It's been a slow end-of-year for work... nothing since Portland. I'm in Dallas Texas right now, but trust me, there won't be any exciting photos from here. I'm stuck right next to 6 Flags. What a horrible place. So I'm going to intersperse some really old photos I took while living in Europe, and have never posted. Hover over them for a brief description and as always, if you click on them you can see a larger version for all those little details.

    I have a ton of old photojunk like that, so I figure I ought to use them for these wordy posts... and this is going to be a wordy post because: I'm finished with another semester, hoo-rah! And I've got more accolades under my belt. My Philosophy professor loved my final paper. So guess what? Here it is. We had to make up our own topic, based on what we got out of the material we covered in class, and so mine was "Why Philosophy needs science." There's a little bit of bullshit in there—I have trouble both getting started and wrapping things up in my writing—and by the time I got to the end, I realized that this subject is much bigger than an 8 page assignment.

_________________________________________________________________

From Philosophy To Philoscientia: Escape From Aether Mountain

    Though the literal definition of Philosophy is ‘the love of wisdom,’ that is no longer what Philosophy represents to people. It has come to signify man’s search for meaning in the Universe, which is not always the same thing as wisdom. It is a discipline of thought where the natures of things are pondered, values are ascribed to ideas, and those ideas are then used to ask bigger questions. In this historical hunt for truth and meaning, there is often an essential component missing; the critical evaluation of evidence. Assuredly, the great philosophers do not usually ignore evidence—and here I will use bow hunting as an analogy—but in the pursuit of knowledge, it has not always been deemed necessary for them to be one hundred percent sure of their footing or the current wind speed before aiming at a truth. When Aristotle posited the existence of a fifth element, which he named the aether, the only evidence he had to back up his claim was a personal conviction that there needed to be a substance which made possible the movement of atoms in a void, otherwise nature would have made no sense to him. The aether became a part of man’s understanding of nature for two thousand years and became the root of all manner of chicanery from alchemy to all-purpose elixirs. As Professor Smoot of UC Berkeley puts it:

Although there was some degree of experience and observation in the physics of Aristotle, at its heart was a philosophical approach to science where the laws of nature are constructed to conform to a particular philosophical outlook. This basis for the investigation of nature led to some strange statements by Aristotle - for instance, that women have fewer teeth than men. Either Aristotle was not a very accurate observer, he couldn't count, or he had odd taste in women.  (Smoot, 1996) 

So if Philosophy is the bow hunt, then Science is the act of observing the arrow. If your shots are missing the target, figure out why, adjust your aim, and shoot again. Philosophy needs Science.   

    In a very real sense, Philosophy is the evolutionary forerunner of Science. “The word ‘Physics’ derives from the Greek word for natural philosophy, physikos, and the early physicists were, in fact, often called natural philosophers” (The Ultimate Visual Dictionary of Science, p. 14). According to Reference.com, “natural philosophy (from Latin philosophia naturalis) is a term applied to the objective study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science. It is considered to be the precursor of natural sciences such as physics.” Additionally, “the word ‘science’ comes from the Latin scientia, meaning knowledge” (The Ultimate Visual Dictionary of Science, p. 8) .

    Therefore it seems that the definition and purpose of Philosophy had evolved, from the mere asking of rational questions about the nature of the world, into the collection of knowledge gained from testing the validity of such questions through physical experimentation. In other words, the early philosophers were simply scientists who hadn’t yet figured out scientific principles. Once those were better understood—for example that in order to propose an explanation for a natural phenomenon (make a hypothesis), you had to fully understand your starting assumptions and whether they were valid—the discipline of Science split off from Philosophy and became something new and more powerful. Philosophy, for better or worse, was left behind.

    So now it would seem that Philosophy, in the minds of most people, is something completely other than what it was when it began. Statements that begin “My own philosophy is…” indicate that in common usage, a philosophy is a personal belief system. Even in modern Philosophy classes, students discuss different philosophical ideas as though they are a matter of opinion, or personal taste. But this forgets the fact that as a branch of study, Philosophy originated as a search for truth, a method of rational investigation for understanding the Universe and one’s place in it. When people became so good at it that they were using it to invent telescopes and predict natural events such as eclipses, they had to rename it and relegate philosophical query to strictly humanistic concerns. Is life a dream? What happens after death? What is the meaning of life? And other objectively unanswerable questions. But it shares deep roots with the scientific method, and perhaps the most important aspect of Philosophy is that it is all about asking questions.

    The Greek Philosopher Thales made a claim that exemplifies both the strongest and weakest aspects of Philosophy and in the process invented Natural Philosophy:

Thales believed that the Earth floats on water and all things come to be from water. For him the Earth was a flat disc floating on an infinite ocean. It has also been claimed that Thales explained earthquakes from the fact that the Earth floats on water. Again the importance of Thales' idea is that he is the first recorded person who tried to explain such phenomena by rational rather than by supernatural means. (O'Connor & Robertson, 1999)

The weakest part of his earthquake explanation is of course that he is dead wrong. It illustrates the dangers of stating a philosophical belief without having any evidence for it other than some sort of idea arrived at by rationalizing a limited amount of knowledge. The relative strength of it, however, is as O’Connor & Robertson state; he tried to provide a rational, natural explanation rather than an irrational superstitious one. Moreover, his hypothesis is testable, in principle—sail out into the ocean and see if it is infinite, dig down deep enough and find out what is holding us up—but simply claiming that the Gods cause earthquakes is not.

    So, in asking a testable question about the nature of earthquakes, Thales provided humanity with a framework for investigating the world. In asking the question, he provided the groundwork for finding the answer. This is the strength of Philosophy, and its most important function, even in the modern world. It is important to note that not all philosophical questions are equal. It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I will claim that the question “Is there a God or Gods?” is among the most useless. There is simply no way to ever answer that question. “Is there a teapot orbiting the smallest star in the Andromeda galaxy? Do leprechauns, unicorns, and angels exist? How deep is the well of human gullibility, anyway?” These are the equivalents of mental masturbation in that they are not testable, and serve no greater purpose than to distract the masses from questions of greater import.

    Some might argue that this is exactly why people find Philosophy so fascinating, that it is in the very discussion or argument of such questions that truths can be found, even if rational explanations cannot. To this I would reply with another query; of what use are such truths? When two people disagree about the nature of something that has no basis in verifiable evidence—for instance when Muslims and Christians discuss their differing views of God—isn’t that the same as two people disagreeing about the color of the teapot in Andromeda? I cannot prove that the teapot, or God for that matter, don’t exist (let alone what color they are or what type of sexual behavior they condone), but do I really need to? There are an infinite amount of things which may exist, and disproving any one of them is not simply a waste of time, it is an infinite waste of time.

    The human imagination can come up with any number of monsters, fairies, gods, teapots, or endless other scenarios, and thus rational inquiry must restrict itself to that which has measure. This is why Philosophy needs Science. Science is a natural extension of Philosophy which demands critical thought and verifiable facts from any statements that its progenitor may make, from which it learned how to use them in the first place. Philosophy is the train and Science is the track. Philosophy, as I have shown, tends to go off the rails when it ignores such Natural Philosophical strictures.

    The Age of Enlightenment is significant in regards to two of my purposes in writing this paper. One—it is when Science finally reached its age of majority. Thanks to Isaac Newton’s classical mechanics, a new world of thought became available to mankind and it definitively demonstrated the most accurate system for understanding and explaining how the Universe operates: Aristotle’s physics were replaced with non-teleological explanations discerned using the Scientific Method. Two—a most interesting correlation occurred in the remaining branches of Philosophy. In the period known as Early Modern Philosophy, philosophers began to abandon traditional authorities:

During the Middle Ages, philosophizing took place in the arts faculties […] and in the theological faculties of the universities. It thus came under the direct and censorious scrutiny of the Church. By the seventeenth century, however, [...] it had become more common to find original philosophical minds working outside the strictures of the university—i.e., ecclesiastic—framework. [...] by the end of the eighteenth century, [philosophy] was a secular enterprise. (Nadler, 2002, pp. 1-2)

    When philosophers emancipated themselves from the yoke of authoritarian “thought,” they ceased looking for truths and causes that had their basis in religious or Aristotelian assumptions, and began focusing their attention towards more humanistic concerns such as the nature of the mind, free will, and secular morality. I believe that these two intertwined occurrences—the parting of ways between science and philosophy, and the more deterministic direction which philosophy itself then took—illustrate the power of philosophical inquiry and its dependence upon testable facts—i.e. the Scientific Method.

    As I asserted earlier, the most vital aspect of philosophy lies in asking questions. That is its ultimate strength, and when philosophical questions are asked properly they can lead to astounding discoveries. What causes Earthquakes? Gods? No! Water? No! Tectonic plates bumping into each other and generally sliding around like a bunch of drunken Greeks? Yes! Next Question! The fact that asking simple questions led to finding the method for asking better questions, and in turn led to finding the ways to then answer those questions is perhaps the most dramatic quest in the history of humanity. In other words, if Philosophy is the question—How do I find answers to my questions and know that I’ve found a truthful answer?—then Science is the How. Ask a testable question, experiment, revise your assumptions and make a prediction, experiment again. Revise again. Ask again. Philosophy is thus most successful when Science can prove that it has asked a good question.

    The danger of Philosophy then is of course when you ask a question that you are certain that you already know the answer to, based especially on feelings of how the world “ought” to be. Socrates was the earliest recorded human to realize this and he made it his life’s work to instill in his students, and thus in humanity, the humility of never assuming too much self-certitude. In Plato’s Apology, Socrates says:

I am wiser than this man; for neither of us really knows anything fine and good, but this man thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas I, as I do not know anything, do not think I do either. I seem, then, in just this little thing to be wiser than this man at any rate, that what I do not know I do not think I know either. (Plato, p. 21d)

    What he was communicating is that it is folly to claim knowledge that is unearned; if you assume that you know something without having subjected it to rational dissection first, then further questions that you may ask based on this assumed knowledge will be faulty. His famous technique of questioning his opponents has come to be called the Socratic Method, but with a little age and maturity the Socratic Method begins to look quite a lot like the Scientific Method. When Aristotle assumed that there must be something like aether holding up the heavenly bodies, every question that future Western philosophers asked about the nature of the Universe afterwards was supposed on the basis of this false knowledge. Two-thousand years were wasted trying to find a way to turn lead into gold using Aristotelian principles. It is a shame for humanity that Aristotle didn’t heed his grand-master’s teaching more closely.

    Another example of reading your own presuppositions into philosophy and the danger this can lead to are the Nazi interpretations of Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s philosophy seems diabolical and radical when taken at face value, and his harsh German writing style doesn’t help. But he was anti-Judaist, not anti-Semitic or in other words, he was anti-religious and anti-authoritarian, not racist. His idea of the coming master race did not involve singling out any particular race, Aryan or otherwise, for the honor. Instead, it involved the eventual evolution of all mankind in a similar manner as when Homo Erectus evolved into Homo Sapiens. However, he envisioned the Übermensch as the end result of a more spiritual or mental evolution, perhaps even as a goal which humanity can set for itself purposefully.

    Unfortunately, Nietzsche’s sister Elisabeth was anti-Semitic, and she had total control over all of his manuscripts for many years. It is well documented how she used and changed them to her own purposes. Thanks to her meddling, “Nietzsche's philosophy had been made ambiguous and incoherent, allowing loose interpretation. This ambiguity prompted Nazi interpreters to choose a context that supported Nazi literature and prophesy” (Kalish, 2004). When you think you know the truth, you will go looking for something to support it even if what you find must be altered—or conflicting evidence ignored—in order to do so. This is called confirmation bias and needs to be just as assiduously avoided in Philosophy as it is in Science.

    Therefore in order to avoid the appearance of confirmation bias myself, I wish to make one final point whose distinction I may not have made clear until now. When I say that there is danger in philosophizing without a scientific license, so to speak, I am not mainly talking about philosophical speculation. Although any philosophical speculation can be strengthened with a more firmly logical, scientific footing, there is no harm in sitting around the dorm room and wondering if the Universe is an atom in a giant cheese pizza. Nor is there any harm in writing a philosophical paper, treatise, or novel based around uncertain principles—whether by a stoned college undergrad or a tenured Ivy League professor—so long as it’s speculative nature is made unequivocally clear. As a matter of fact, such speculation is the cornerstone of much progress in all of the Arts and Humanities. If you are too afraid to ask absurd questions, you will never learn how to ask the good ones and in any case, the truth is often found out to be more absurd than could have been believed in the first place.

    No, I am mostly talking about making policy based on such speculative philosophies. As in the case of the Nazis who based many of their actions on a misunderstood reading of Nietzsche, there is danger in claiming that you have found a woman’s,  Jew’s, or homosexual’s place in society, or the meaning of life, or the one true God, all based on a logically flawed philosophy. It is mostly a given among scientists and philosophers nowadays that you must be certain of your footing before you aim for exciting new questions, but it is almost never a given among the less educated. Philosophy in the hands of a politician is often a tool for suppression. If people demanded that the philosophies of the powerful lived up to well understood facts and not to simple ideology, it would be infinitely more difficult for the atrocities of population marginalization and genocide to occur.

    If Philosophy then is the love of wisdom, and Science is knowledge, it must be understood that there can be no wisdom without the love of knowledge. It is far easier to convince an ignorant population to commit atrocities in the name of an ideology or a deity than it is to convince an educated one that recognizes the difference between a well-reasoned position and a scatterbrained dogma. If a philosophy is to do no harm, it must be understood in its entirety by an educated population before decisions of policy are based on it.

    Conversely, in an age of nuclear and biological weapons proliferation, it would seem that knowledge is also in dire need of some wisdom. How do you then gain the wisdom to use knowledge? It is not so much a chicken and egg situation, but a male and female one. So, while my main assertion is that Philosophy needs scientific back-up in order to be valid, the reverse is also necessary. The two must be learned hand-in-hand; they each need the validation of the other in order to survive.

 

 

Works Cited

Dorling Kindersley Limited, London. (1998). The Ultimate Visual Dictionary of Science. New York: DK Publishing.

Kalish, M. (2004, June). Friedrich Nietzsche's Influence on Hitler's Mein Kampf. Retrieved December 07, 2012, from UCSB Department of History: http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/133p/133p04papers/MKalishNietzNazi046.htm

Nadler, S. (2002). A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy. Blackwell Publishers.

O'Connor, J. J., & Robertson, E. F. (1999, January). Thales of Miletus. Retrieved December 03, 2012, from School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland: http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Thales.html

Plato. (n.d.). Apology. http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekTexts&query=Pl.%20Ap.%2022a&getid=1.

Smoot, P. G. (1996, December 21). Professor Smoot Courses' Page . Retrieved December 03, 2012, from CMB Astrophysics Research Program : http://aether.lbl.gov/www/classes/p10/aristotle-physics.html

Covered In God Poop In Portlandia

        I am way behind on my travel posts. I went to Portland Oregon in October, after getting back from Hawaii. I don't have much to say about the trip though... I didn't see or do anything particularly noteworthy because it was actually a busy week of work, plus a busy week of school work, plus some old friends from Chiemsee live there and I spent the small amount of free time I had at a Halloween wig party they were having. Not much to blog about really, because I'm not going to tell the story of how I wound up passed out in my rental car, covered in vomit and dog poop, trapped in the wrong rental car lot at three in the morning just hours before my flight. It's just a typical Chiemsee sort of thing. Good times. And since I'm not going to tell that story, and the only pictures I got were of the Portlandia statue, I'm going to post a discussion from my Philosophy class discussion board. The question on the table was—"What is your philosophy? Do you believe in God, and if so, for what reasons? How would you prove to someone who does not believe in God that God does indeed exist and your belief is true?"—And since I tend to have one sided atheist rants on my blog, I thought it might be fun to show me in action when people talk back to me. Last names are left out to protect the ignorant innocent.

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Monday, August 27, 2012 11:08:16 AM EDT

Edited Date:

Monday, August 27, 2012 11:08:16 AM EDT

    I am an atheist. Not only am I an atheist, but I will state outright and argue with anyone who wants to argue rationally about it that religion is the greatest evil that humanity ever invented. I am also a humanist, in that I am concerned for people suffering under the delusion of religion. I respect their right to believe whatever they wish, but I do not respect the belief itself that was not arrived at with critical thought backed with evidence, nor do I respect the right which all religions seem to claim of forcing their beliefs onto the populace through moral legislation.

    Since I would never try to prove to anyone that God existed, as there is no evidence that he does, I suppose I should turn the question around. However, neither would I try to prove that God does not exist. That is not what atheism means. I would never state categorically that there is no God for the same reason that I would never unconditionally declare that there is not a race of hyper-intelligent shrimp living in the oceans of Europa. There probably isn’t, but it’s an unanswerable question at the moment. It is not up to me to prove that something exists for which there is no evidence; instead, it is up to those who want others to believe in their God(s) to prove to me that he/she/they do exist. There are an infinite amount of ideas of things which might exist out there somewhere, but it is ridiculous to expect us to have to go around actually disproving each one of them.

    There is plenty of scientific evidence which proves that a creator is unnecessary, however. Evolution has shown that life can evolve from simple single-celled organisms without divine help, and modern cosmology is rife with ideas on how the Universe itself may have got its start. We may not yet actually understand how life got started in the first place, but I am far more comfortable with saying “I don’t know” to the ultimate answers of these questions than I am in trusting to the ridiculous claims from some musty old books, which were written by goat farmers and compiled by scribes and rulers with political agendas in a time before anyone on Earth had the smallest idea of what was really going on in the Universe. Science has shown that it is quite capable of understanding the world around us, and in a far more accurate way than any single religious claim has ever been able to.

Author:

Jason

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 1:07:37 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 1:07:37 PM EDT

     I understand and respect your belief.  I do belief in God.  I see that you have quite a problem with religion...which is the same sentiment of a lot of people.  I was wondering do you belief that there is a difference between religion and having faith? Also you said that "There is plenty of scientific evidence which proves that a creator is unnecessary, however. Evolution has shown that life can evolve from simple single-celled organisms without divine help, and modern cosmology is rife with ideas on how the Universe itself may have got its start", my question to you would  then be have you ever wonder where did that single- cell organisms came from?  

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 2:12:45 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 2:12:45 PM EDT

     Well, faith is the belief in something for which there is no evidence, and religion is simply the codifying of those beliefs. So no, I don't see a huge difference. They both involve a lack of critical thought.

     And yes, I do wonder how life got started in the first place; that first single-celled organism. It's true that science has not yet discovered the truth behind the beginning of life on Earth, but that's not to say that there are not some very reasonable theories about it. There's even a name for the scientific branch of the study of how biological life could arise from inorganic matter through natural processes: Abiogenesis.

     However, the important thing about this is that it shows the difference between the religious mind and the scientific mind; Scientists have no problem looking at a question, and saying "I don't know" as an answer. In fact, a good scientist views such questions as exciting challenges, and will attempt to find the answers through further questioning, experimenting, revising, reframing the question, experimenting again and so on until an answer is found. Religious folks delight in pointing out areas where science has not yet found the answer and saying "We can't know! God did it!" But this is a dangerous game that religion has been playing for centuries. Every time Religion has tried to use God to explain something which we don't yet understand, it has had to backpedal when science eventually has explained it. In light of this, God is merely an ever-receding pocket of ignorance.

Robin

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 4:57:53 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 4:57:53 PM EDT

    It says in the bible Proverbs 3:5, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." I quote the bible and I realize that not everyone believes in it. What makes this useful to the - "Religious folks delight in pointing out areas where science has not yet found the answer and saying 'We can't know! God did it!' But this is a dangerous game that religion has been playing for centuries. Every time Religion has tried to use God to explain something which we don't yet understand, it has had to backpedal when science eventually has explained it. In light of this, God is merely an ever-receding pocket of ignorance.", is that this is a overgeneralized statement with a hint of disgust -"ever-receding pocket of ignorance." Not every person that believes in God writes off their lack of knowledge for the world and our existence to God's doing due to ignorance. It is that obviously we have only the capability to think for ourselves and not others, and yet we have the choice to think of others. It is a humble choice that we put someone before us, especially God. We trust God's ways before ours, there is no room for pride or ignorance if we do this. Then what is ignorant in a person who in their own life acknowledges God's existence, where as another person would hope to dissuade that person to believe in God by only having physical facts to show for proof towards a spiritual matter and of course without the ablity to completely know what that person knows for themselves?

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 5:56:59 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 5:56:59 PM EDT

     Proverbs 3:5, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding"

     This is a wonderful Bible Verse which illustrates another critical difference between Religion and Rationality. You'll get no argument from me about the meaning of this verse, and in fact it is a major reason why I am an atheist.

     Please explain exactly how "God is merely an ever-receding pocket of ignorance" is an overgeneralized statement, especially in the context in which I used it. I don't think you are using that phrase correctly because it is a very specific statement which means that all throughout history, whenever man has not understood something, he has attributed it to God. Priests used to preach that Angels kept the Sun and the Moon in the sky and moving about. Now they do not, because we understand the mechanics of gravity regarding bodies in motion. People used to think that insanity was a sign of demonic possession and subjected the afflicted to unspeakable tortures, such as drilling holes in their head to get the demons out. Now even the most fundamentalist among the religious understand that human psychology is prone to certain neurosis and understand that demons have nothing to do with it, or at least understand that these people require actual medical treatment rather than torture.

     I used that phrase which you found offensive, but was not meant to be, in response to Jason who asked me "have you ever wonder where did that single- cell organisms came from? [sic]" because this is an argument that religions like to use often when trying to prove in God. If we don't know how life began, then God must have done it. But this is what they used to say about the reason for the sun shining before we understood Nuclear Physics.

     "It is a humble choice that we put someone before us, especially God. We trust God's ways before ours, there is no room for pride or ignorance if we do this." This statement is of course a matter of personal opinion, one with which I strongly disagree. Is it humble to think that an all-powerful creator who created the entire Universe is personally concerned with you and your relatively insignificant lifestyle choices? Or is it more humble to realize that you are one tiny insignificant human on a tiny insignificant planet of billions of humans orbiting a tiny insignificant sun which is in a tiny insignificant Galaxy composed of billions of suns, which in turn is one galaxy among billions?

    Lastly, when you say that "only having physical facts to show for proof towards a spiritual matter and of course without the ablity to completely know what that person knows for themselves"[sic] please understand that this is a meaningless statement to me. In October of 2008 James Randi offered a one million dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, spiritual or occult power or event. To date, no one has claimed this prize, or even been able to pass the preliminary test. People may have experienced personal spiritual events in their lives, but this is meaningless to all those who have not personally experienced any such thing and furthermore is absolutely not a claim for the existence of God, much less for making laws based on said claimant's morals.

Author:

Robin

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 8:49:04 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 8:49:04 PM EDT

    The question that if we believe in God and how would you prove it to someone is all that I am trying to share. There is way too much we both have to say on this and although we're not here to prove each other wrong, I was curious if my thoughts would make any difference to yours that maybe no one has said to you before. No big deal, it's a good discussion no matter how much we agree or disagree because it has substance from both sides and if you think of it like math when you're finding the lowest common denominator, it goes as far as it can and I think that's interesting and is good critical thinking on both sides of this, and I think we're there. :)

Author:

Tracy

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 8:13:47 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 8:13:47 PM EDT

 Hey messiestobjects,

    It was very nice reading your views on religion. I am not an atheist but I also don't consider myself to have any religion right now. All I know is that I have faith, not sure in who or what...but it keeps me going each time I struggle with something. I can say that I never met an atheist and when I first started reading your post I was nervous, but you made some great points. I like that you would never force your belief on anyone just as well as people should not force their belief on you. Can't wait to read more of your posts in the future!

Tracy

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 11:41:24 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 11:41:24 PM EDT

     Atheism does tend to make people nervous and/or angry. It's strange that it is that way... after all is said and done atheism is simply the declination to believe in something for which there is no evidence. The nature of religion is such that its followers need for as many people as possible to share their own beliefs in order to obscure the idea that there is actually no other reason to have faith in such ideas other than the reasoning of popular opinion. When a jerk like me thumbs his nose at such beliefs, it rattles the false idea of the self-evidency of those beliefs.

Author:

Jason

Posted Date:

Monday, September 3, 2012 2:00:40 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Monday, September 3, 2012 2:00:40 PM EDT

    Messiestobjects, as I read through all you responses it appears that because you don't believe in God you are trying your best to have everyone else believe what you believe. I am not convinced and you have not showed us that God does not exist. You talk about science but the same things you are saying that religion does not prove no science has proved it either. I not saying that in every instance majority rule is right, but 82% of Americans believe in God. Are you saying that we are all wrong and you and your science is right? By the way if God does not exist and science can explain and prove everything as you a making it out to be ...... why haven't they proved to the 82% of Americans and the rest of the world that God does not exist? One last thing, this country was founded on God! our forefathers used the Bible to aide them in writing the constitution that you and the  rest of us abides by. You spend the American dollar "In God we trust".

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Monday, September 3, 2012 4:11:53 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Monday, September 3, 2012 4:11:53 PM EDT

     Jason, apparently you haven't actually read my other posts, or at least you haven't comprehended them. As I've stated at least twice, as well as stated outright in my original post, it is not up to atheists to prove that God does not exist. That is not our claim. I am not making out that science has proved he doesn't exist. I am making out that truths which science has uncovered have simply made him unnecessary as an explanation for life, the universe, and everything. Atheism is simply a LACK of belief in theistic claims for which there are NO EVIDENCE. There is no evidence that God exists, period. Therefore, I don't believe him. And you are correct, the fact that 92 percent of Americans believe in him is meaningless. 73 percent of Americans also don't know the reason behind the Cold War. More Americans know who Kim Kardashian is and what she is up to than who Richard Feynman was and what he did for this country. By and large, the larger the number of Americans that believe in something, the more wary you should be about the veracity of it.

     Also, you are 100 percent wrong; our country was not founded on God. "In God We Trust" was added as a motto to the American dollar in 1956, many years after the country was all done being founded. Also, there's this: The 1796 US Treaty with Tripoli, Article 11 reads: "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims],—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." Additionally, none of the founding fathers were Christians, especially not Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, or Madison. This claim that we are a Christian Nation, founded on God, is completely false and revisionist. They despised the Christian religion, in fact, and left behind many writings to attest to that fact. Have you ever heard of the Separation of Church and State? A concept introduced by Thomas Jefferson.

     I am not trying to have everyone believe what I believe, Jason, far from it. I leave that sort of behavior up to the religious inquisitionists and Republicans who want to dictate laws based on so-called Christian morality. All I want is for people to understand the difference between fact and opinion, evidence and belief, knowledge and faith.

Author:

Dana

Posted Date:

Monday, September 3, 2012 11:16:28 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Monday, September 3, 2012 11:16:28 PM EDT

    Messiestobjects, that was a very well thought out and well written argument and it is apparent that you have taken the time to draw the conclusions that you have. Interestingly enough, I was also 'indoctrinated' at a very young age into religion and due to many unfortunate circumstances spent many years resentful at churches and the idea of God. My views have since changed with age and life experience and although I am not here to force my beliefs upon you (something I still abhor), I do have a few things to say in response to your post. I was at one point a nursing major and took several science classes in order to  get all my prerequ's for the program. I have a friend who is a nurse and is athiest and felt that his science classes helped him in that direction. At times he would ask me while I was in these classes how I could still believe in God and I would answer him, how can you take these classes and not believe in God? The human body is made up of so many complex systems that all must work together perfectly forr us to exist. Additionally, the world around us must operate in a certain way as well to create a balance for the environment and for us. It is a hard pill for me to swallow that these complex systems just evolved over time without some sort of divine guidance. I agree with you that people's faiths are their own and should never be forced upon others which is why I would never be associated with people that live as such. However, I have personally lived through many life experiences that have given me a firm foundation for a belief in God that science can never explain. Also, interestingly, science itself is based soley on theories. Theories that when retested are often altered and changed. The theory of evolution is just that, a theory that began with the observations of some guy in 1859... over 150 years ago. Their are many aspects of Darwin's original theory that have been discredited by scientists over time. The point I am trying to make is that nothing is absolute, which you agree with. Everyone has a right ot believe whatever they want and it is harmful to try to force those opinions on others.

Author:

Messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 12:01:33 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 12:01:33 PM EDT

HI Dana,

    I appreciate your viewpoints on God and your willingness to accept differing beliefs in people. I agree that you should never force your beliefs on anyone through say, legislation or the brainwashing of children. However, this idea that simply debating for your own point of view is the same thing as forcing your opinion on others is false. Merely having to hear about the reasoning and logic behind science and evolution vs. creationism in a school is not an act of violation! I find it amusing that certain Christians can’t read my views on atheism in a philosophy class without gasping in fear that I am forcing them to hear that not everyone agrees with their own views on the existence of God, and with good reason. Especially since this is actually exactly what they are attempting to do when they are happy to tell me all about how I am in the minority in America, and how 92 percent of Americans believe in God, so I must be wrong and should stop trying to force my views on others through, say, a debate as assigned by the class professor! Clearly, you are not one of those types, and so I am grateful to have the opportunity to debate you in a rational manner.

    So with that in mind, I will first address your statement that “The human body is made up of so many complex systems that all must work together perfectly for us to exist. Additionally, the world around us must operate in a certain way as well to create a balance for the environment and for us. It is a hard pill for me to swallow that these complex systems just evolved over time without some sort of divine guidance.”  The fact of the matter is that just because you personally find the human body to be so complex that you don’t understand how it could have happened without some kind of a creator is meaningless. Perhaps you studied evolution in school, perhaps not, but it is clear to me that either way you haven’t fully grasped the power of natural selection. I don’t hold that against you because the fact of the matter is that very few people seem to understand the Theory of Evolution, which is because it is a complicated idea and requires concentrated effort and will to study it and completely grasp it. But anybody can do so if they want to and so I suggest you spend some time studying books and lectures on the Theory of Evolution and fully coming to grips with how it works before you decide that it can’t possibly explain complex life forms.

    Which brings me to my next point; you state that “The theory of evolution is just that, a theory,” which is a common statement by creationists who don’t understand what a scientific theory actually is. Did you know that gravity is also “just" a theory? However, you don’t see many creationists trying to prove their point by stepping out of 12th story windows! Most people tend to confuse a hypothesis, which is an educated guess about the outcome of an experiment, with a Scientific Theory, which is the framework of ideas which explain an interrelated set of facts and observations. In fact, the Scientific Theory is the strongest and best explanation of the natural world that currently exists! When you say that “Their [sic] are many aspects of Darwin's original theory that have been discredited by scientists over time,” what you actually mean is that a good scientific theory must be falsifiable, which in turn means that they must be able to adapt to new information, i.e. observations, evidence, and facts. So it is true that the Theory of Evolution has changed over time, but rather than being discredited it has only become stronger. It is currently the strongest explanation for how life has organized itself on this world, and you are dead wrong to say that it has been proven incorrect in any meaningful way.

    Lastly, I would like to direct you to two excellent videos by Qualia Soup which explain very clearly how Science and evolution work. The first one is called "Skewed Views of Science" and is self-explanatory. The second one is called simply "Evolution" and is an excellent primer on the misconceptions surrounding evolution. They are ten minutes each and well worth your time.

Author:

Samantha

Posted Date:

Monday, August 27, 2012 4:56:16 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Monday, August 27, 2012 4:56:16 PM EDT

    I do believe in God and attend church when I can.  I was raised Catholic and then changed to Lutheran.  The reason I changed I attended church with my cousin and I enjoyed her listening to her Pastor and Youth Pastor who talked about you making a change in the world.  Whether it be big or small everyone can make a change.  While some people believe there is no God how can that be with this earth as beutiful as it is.

    In trying to prove to someone there is a God I would not be the person to do that, as I am one person and how do they know what I say is true or false.  I believe that people accept or deny someone or something for different reasons, and if they want to change they can but on their terms or something in their life has made them change.  Just like when I reading Tracy posting that he started questioning the beliefs of the Catholic Church and did not take everything they said at face value.  The reason he changed his beliefs was because of when he was sick and it made him start questioning things. 

Author:

Messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:04:39 AM EDT

Edited Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:04:39 AM EDT

 

"While some people believe there is no God, how can that be with this earth as beautiful as it is."

 Hi Samantha,

      I just want you to know that I'm not picking a fight, but I want to respond to this statement of yours. The fact of the matter is that beauty does not imply a creator. Evolution can actually explain why we find the earth beautiful because 'survival of the fittest', as Natural Selection is otherwise known, does not mean survival of the strongest, as is often misunderstood. It means survival is awarded to the organism that fits its environment better than other organisms. This means that we have evolved and flourished on this planet because we adapted to the environment extremely successfully, in large part thanks to our brains (and a very enthusiastic 'thumbs up' to our opposable digits). Is it really a surprise, then, that our minds find this world in which we grew up to be beautiful?

     You don't personally have to accept evolution as true in order to see how my argument shows why beauty is not an argument for God. The fact that evolution has a perfectly logical explanation for beauty simply shows that there is an alternative possible explanation for why we find the world to be attractive, and why beauty in and of itself is not proof of God's existence.

Paulette

Posted Date:

Wednesday, August 29, 2012 9:45:58 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Wednesday, August 29, 2012 9:45:58 PM EDT

    In my youth I would have to say that my belief in God was force fed to me. As I grew older and saw more terrible things I would come to believe there is no God. For if there was a God and if he was so good why then could all these bad things happen to one person. As I grew even older I realized that God was not a thing but a way to live a set of standards that people use to have something that is greater than them and then the fear of being alone would be less scary. God exists because there are people who believe in this theory and if there is belief then it becomes a thing. The existence of God is not in its physical form but in its metaphysical form (can’t believe I just used that word) and it is because of this that God exists.

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:50:17 AM EDT

Edited Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:50:17 AM EDT

 

Hi Paulette,
      So, are you saying that you think that just because people believe in something that doesn't exist and choose to live their lives by the myths surrounding the non-existent deity, that this deity somehow becomes an actuality? Or are you using the term metaphysical as a metaphor for "not real"?

     Obviously, as an atheist, I disagree that the term "metaphysical God" means anything at all: If there is no God then there is no God. But I'm curious to know what you think metaphysical means, because it sounds to me like it means "wishing something into existence".

     Sorry, don't mean to sound combative, it's a difficult subject to talk about without sounding confrontational! I really am just trying to talk about the definition of metaphysics, here.

Paulette

Posted Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 9:04:14 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 9:04:14 PM EDT

    Wait, wait, wait messiestobjects. LOL! 

    This is the first class I have taken on Philosophy. So then my first response is yours. Oh great, the pressure to answer. So I'll try.

    I think that if you want to believe this gives it, its reality. The more you believe the more you think it is real so it will be real to you.

    So I guess the answer is not if you wish but "believe" which to me are two different things.

    I am 39 and still dont know where I stand on God, I sometimes find myself saying "God forbid" or "Oh My God", but then I think why did I say that do I really believe??

Sometimes I pray, but not really sure why.

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 10:48:59 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 10:48:59 PM EDT

     This is my first philosophy class too! It's perfectly ok not to know where you stand on God... but if you make statements about him, I think it's important to be clear what you mean,  which is why I asked all the questions. Again, I am a dyed-in-the-wool atheist so if anyone is going to make claims about God, I am usually going to challenge them on it. It's not personal, and I'm not trying to convert anyone, but it's important to me.

     I think an important part of philosophy is the art of Sophistry, which I know that Socrates spent a lot of time philosophizing against. In his day, Sophistry was the art of argument using rhetoric (word games, essentially), in order to prove a point, whereas Socrates tended not to respect such approaches; he seemed to be more concerned with the actuality of ideas and delighted in winning arguments not by making statements, but by asking his opponent questions.

     In this case, I want to get to the bottom of the difference between a wish and a belief. By "wish," I don't mean something you wish for from a magic lamp. I mean it as something which you need to be true in order to validate your beliefs. Often, people claim that prayer works, which is wishful thinking. There have actually been experiments performed which test the power of prayer, and the results are conflicting and certainly not in favor of prayer. There have been studies performed by religious groups in the hopes that they could prove that prayer works scientifically, and they found that prayer in fact could have a negative effect on the recipient of a prayer! I think that what you can safely take away from this is that prayer, at best, is not scientific and as such there is no evidence that it actually works for anything.

     Belief, in my mind, is no different from a wish in this respect. Just because you believe in something, doesn't make it true. Harold Camping predicted last year that the Rapture would occur on May 21, 2011. Some of his followers believed the "proof" which he claimed to have found in the Bible, and sold everything they owned in order to donate money and time to Camping's ministry to try and get the word out to as many people as possible. They BELIEVED that the Lord was coming back. When he didn't, lives were ruined. Belief does not make something true, in any sense that matters.

     So my Socratic question to you is; if you believe something for which there is no evidence, and it becomes real to you, in what sense is it real? If you pray for world peace, or for a relative not to die of cancer, and world peace doesn't happen or he or she does die (Or even if he or she doesn't die, the question remains; was it the prayer that saved him or her, or modern medical treatment? You can prove that medical science may have had something to do with it, but you'll never be able to show what good, if any, that prayer did), and yet you continue to pray for things, in what sense are your beliefs real?

Author:

Robin

Posted Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:07:17 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:07:17 PM EDT

    Messiestobjects, why do you usually challenge people when they make claims on God? If there was solid scientific proof of God and prayer, would you believe in God? This is a deep question for us all, and I think this is very interesting to be able to discuss  such this with people with many views on it in depth that we might not normally have a chance to otherwise. I'm not used to talking fairly to someone that is an atheist that doesn't quickly get upset with me for disagreeing in what I believe in, while they tend to get upset if I disagree with what they believe in. I appreciate your objectiveness!

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:22:24 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:22:24 PM EDT

     I usually challenge them because I find that most beliefs are based on faulty reasoning, and I myself was once a victim of religious belief. I am a first generation atheist: my family are NOT happy with me (in the religious sense, at least). The process of realizing that I had been lied to my whole life, and of shedding my irrational beliefs, was both liberating and traumatic. So the debate is a lifelong, ongoing process for me. I challenge others because I am challenging myself.

     I have yet to hear of any evidence for God's existence, but I will tell you this: If there were solid, verifiable evidence that God existed, not only would I NOT believe in God, but there would not be one single believer left on Earth for the same reason that no one on Earth believes that the Sun exists: We know it does.

     This is the crux of atheism. It is NOT a belief or a claim that God does not exist. It is simply a lack of belief in things for which there are no evidence. You yourself are an atheist you know... you don't believe in Odin, Thor, Baal, Osiris, Ahuru Mazda, or Zeus! I just go one God further... :)

Author:

Christine

Posted Date:

Friday, August 31, 2012 1:36:37 AM EDT

Edited Date:

Friday, August 31, 2012 1:36:37 AM EDT

    Hi messiestobjects,

    Religion is a real sort of tabou subject, in the sense that if you don't believe in God or if you question his existence then you are sort of looked at with a discerning eye. It is really hard to question someones beliefs without at times sounding combative.  I myself question if there is a god, especially the more you read about history and science.

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Friday, August 31, 2012 10:49:15 AM EDT

Edited Date:

Friday, August 31, 2012 10:49:15 AM EDT

    Right; when you claim to be an atheist who finds religion ridiculous, religious people don't like it. Which is actually a double standard... I don't like it that Republicans are attempting to legislate women's reproductive rights based on their religion, but for some reason we are supposed to respect their beliefs anyway. This is an untenable state of affairs. Any religion that needs to coerce others into adhering to its belief system through the law deserves NO respect, and needs to be called out on all of its hypocrisies at every opportunity.

     It may have been a taboo subject once, but no longer. There are more and more people realizing that religion is a big scam every day, and the internet has made it possible for us to make ourselves heard without fear of being ostracized from our local communities... I was an atheist for a while before I felt comfortable declaring that fact, but the more I've learned and the more I've debated, the more confident I am and I no longer have any trouble wearing a T-shirt that says ATHEIST! out in public.

Author:

Brittany

Posted Date:

Saturday, September 1, 2012 8:47:07 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Saturday, September 1, 2012 8:47:07 PM EDT

    Personally, I was raised Methodist in a small town in southern Missouri. Church activities constituted most of my social life as an adolescent, as well as the social lives of my peers. This being said, I bought into Christianity wholeheartedly during that part of my life. I believed in God, I was baptized, and I became a member of the United Methodist Church. As I got older though, I started to question the things that I had been taught, and slowly became an atheist. My main question was: If science can prove that something is true, why would seemingly intelligent people deny its validity because of the Bible? For example, some religious people have a problem acknowledging that evolution is real, or that the Earth is actually over 4.5 billion years old. I just can't bring myself to believe in an ideology that tries to hold back the advancement of knowledge in our society. I also dislike when religion is used as a weapon in the political arena. For some reason, all politicians have to say that they're Christians to get elected, and sometimes they use the idea of Christianity to deny people their rights. I also think that people often use religion as a crutch to get through the trying times in their lives, instead of actively trying to fix things themselves. Telling someone to “Pray about it”, is much less effective than giving them advice on how they can proactively make the change they want to see in their lives.

With this in mind, I would never take it upon myself to impose my own personal philosophy (that science is truth, and that we make the decisions that shape our lives) on someone who said that they did believe in God. I think people are entitled to their own beliefs, and no one is necessarily right all the time. However, if someone had a question about whether a scientific fact or a religious idea was true, I would offer them my opinion.

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 10:59:55 AM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 10:59:55 AM EDT

    "With this in mind, I would never take it upon myself to impose my own personal philosophy (that science is truth, and that we make the decisions that shape our lives) on someone who said that they did believe in God."

    What do you mean by "impose"? I would never try and force someone to believe/acknowledge scientific truths through say, legislation or brainwashing, but I have no problem "imposing" my atheism on people through conversation or debate. Religion has been imposing it's moral values on everyone for centuries, and has been a huge force for harm in the world. I am compelled to point out errors in reasoning whenever I can because I feel very strongly that if humanity doesn't wise up very soon, we're going to destroy ourselves.

    I also don't believe that people are necessarily entitled to their beliefs. What I mean is, Islamic fundamentalists believe that it is their imperative to kill all infidels and subjugate all women. Do you think they are entitled to this belief? Christians in the US seem to believe that it is their right to impose the teaching of "Intelligent Design" in public schools at the expense of evolution. They also believe that Homosexuals do not have the same legal rights as other human beings, or that women don't have the right to choose how to use their own reproductive systems, and want to enforce this moral code on them by law. They are entitled to hold these insane beliefs amongst themselves, but they are not entitled to believe that they have the right to force other people to live by their beliefs, because we have a constitutional guarantee for the separation of Church and State.

     Since "Science adjusts its views based on what's observed, and Faith is the denial of observation, so that belief can be preserved," (Tim Minchin) I believe that the teaching of science trumps the beliefs of the religious in every public sphere. In the US, Christianity and other religions have every right to teach their beliefs to their own children at home and in church (or at temple or at the mosque etc etc) or even in conversation and debate with others, but they don't have the right to claim that we are trampling over their religious freedoms by keeping their beliefs out of schools and out of the lawbooks.

     I realize that, as an atheist, you probably agree with me at least to some degree, but I feel like it's important that when someone says "everyone is entitled to their beliefs" to point out that beliefs are not guaranteed equal status with the truth. The truth is not somewhere in between a fact and a lie, and opinions are not worthy of equal footing next to facts.

Author:

Claire

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 11:52:36 AM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 11:52:36 AM EDT

    Samantha and Stefani- I'm right in the same boat with you! I know I believe in God, and while I could probably start an argument with other people who don't believe in God, I don't feel the need to. Faith is an intimate thing. It is shaped by the way you grew up and by the situations you've lived through. Sure, someone could argue God is fake and use science to back up their claims, but that still wouldn't change my views. After living in a Christian home for my whole life my beliefs are so ingrained into the person I am that no one can take them away. Even though I may not attend church on a regular basis the Christian values I have will stick with me.

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 12:03:34 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 12:03:34 PM EDT

     "I could probably start an argument with other people who don't believe in God, I don't feel the need to." REMINDER: The topic of this discussion board is "What is your philosophy? Do you believe in God, and if so, for what reasons? How would you prove to someone who does not believe in God that God does indeed exist and your belief is true?"

     Not an argument, a discussion. You get more points for the assignment the more good comments you make.

Author:

Jeanette

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 10:57:57 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 10:57:57 PM EDT

    I am a believer.  My views have changed as I have gotten older but I have always believed in God.  I was raised Baptist.  When I was 5 my parents would send me and my borthers and sisters to Sunday School every week.  They decided to stop goin after a few years but I went every week. I believed what was told to me and just accepted what they said.   After graduating High School things in my life went astray and I stopped going to church for a long time.  After my Divorce in 2006 I spiraled downhill and called out to God in Prayer asking for help.  I am not going to go into all the details but I did not think I was going to make it through the night, I awoke in the morning and heard a voice telling me to get up, get dressed and go to church. So I did.  I decided to go to a local church here and immediately felt at home.  It is not your conventional church.  Few months after I started going I decided to be baptized and accept Jesus as my savior, not because someone was telling me it was the thing to do but because it was what I felt in my heart.  I felt the change inside after the baptism.  Few months later I met a man who did not believe in God.  He knew I was a christian and I accepted that he was not.  I did not force my views/beliefs on him but I did pray to God for help in deciding what to do.  A few months later he asked to go to church with me, the first time he felt uncomfortable and left shortly after arriving and did not come again for a few weeks.  Eventually on his own he came back and accepted Jesus as his Savior and was baptized.    When I asked him why the change he told me that he had been hearing voices for a few weeks telling him it was time to go to church.    I can't prove to someone that God exists, but you also can't prove that he does not exist.  Each branch of religion be it Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, etc still believes in God, they just worship him differently.  I found that the less conventional way was best for me to show my love of God.  Each person has to find their own path.  Sure I still stumble and make mistakes, but my belief in God helps me to get through the good times and the bad. 

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 11:28:27 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 11:28:27 PM EDT

    Hi Jeanette,
     I have no desire to argue with your personal experiences that led you or your friend to become born again, but I do want to address one statement that you made: "I can't prove to someone that God exists, but you also can't prove that he does not exist." The burden of proof is an important philosophical argument that has been prominent recently amid creationist / atheist debates, and the assertion you make here is an often used point on the religious side. The crux of the matter is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the existence of a God who is responsible for everything is quite an extraordinary claim for which no evidence exists. This is the reason why religious belief requires faith. If you have faith, that is certainly your business (and your unequivocal right), but you cannot  expect someone who has never heard the voices that you have to accept your claims, which is why the first half of your statement is admirable and true.

     However, the second half is a non-starter, a non-point, and yet widely used. As I've said elsewhere, it is not up to unbelievers to prove that something doesn't exist. It would be like if I asked you thus: Jeanette, do you believe in Zeus? You would probably say no. Then I would say, you can't prove to me that Zeus does not exist! I've heard Zeus telling me to go kill Medusa, so I know he is real, and you can't prove to me that he isn't!" There are many, many ideas in the world of things that probably don't exist: Purple rain, talking dogs, flying shoes, a teapot orbiting Jupiter... the only way to definitively prove that a talking dog does not exist, for example, would be to interview every dog on Earth, which is absurd. How much harder would it be to prove there is NOT a teapot orbiting Jupiter, or an all-powerful, invisible creator who only speaks to a chosen few? Therefore, you can see why most non-Christians are hesitant to accept Christian claims of special knowledge regarding the creator, and their right to impose their beliefs through legislation.

    And that's it... I tended to have the last word against my classmates. I like to think it's because they had nothing against my devastating logic bombs, but in all likelihood it's more probable that they just didn't understand some of the big words I used. Or that they simply wrote me off as an asshole.-- Powell's books was HUGE!

An Atheist In Ken Ham's Court

    There is a sign on the entrance to the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky that tells you that they reserve the right to remove from the property anyone who wears offensive clothing, among other things. Well I braved it anyway, and ran into no problems for the duration of my visit. I suspect that when deeply religious people (of the type who might visit the Creation Museum) see written words their first impulse is not to read them. Avoid knowledge at all costs! Such seemed to be the case on the day I was there, at any rate. To be fair, there was a preponderance of Mennonites, who are likely more used to ignoring what people's T-Shirts might say.

mu·se·um

[myoo-zee-uhm]

noun. a building or place where works of art, scientific specimens, or other objects of permanent value are kept and displayed.

    So right off the bat, the Creation Museum fails to meet the requirements of actually being, you know, a museum. All that is there are dioramas of Bible scenes, and placards which lay out the anti-science of Creationism. Also, they have a huge dinosaur fetish. In the old days, Creationists denied that dinosaurs ever existed. They used to say that dinosaur bones were deliberately placed by God to test our Faith. Well, they must have finally conceded that this would make God a huge asshole, and so to quite a large extent the Creation Museum is a Christian Apology, where they are now saying that dinosaurs are in the Bible, and that Fossils actually prove that the Bible is true. This is a popular reverse-position tactic used by Christian Apologists all throughout history, and it was entertaining to see the results of the latest Christian Backpedalist thinking.

    There is this whole thing that they keep saying there that the conclusions that people come to change depending on what point you start your assumptions from. They divide the only two possible starting points, apparently, between "Man's Word" and "God's Word."

    This is an example of the kind of "scientific specimen" they have there. They list certain scientific ideas, devoid of context or explanation as though it's insane to "believe" in the "priesthood" of Science, and right next to it they list certain vaguely congruous Biblical ideas, devoid of any context, evidence, or logic other than Biblical authority itself.

    So God is apparently Popeye now. Sorry, cheap shot, but goodness gracious. I yam what I yam. At any rate, what they've done here, right from the get-go, is to set up a false equivalency, a straw man argument that carries them through their twisted line of logic. Before I explain the false equivalency, allow me to digress on that point. When you go to a real museum, which is full of actual specimens and scientific conclusions arrived at through careful examination of evidence, the museum is usually an open floor plan. You can go from room to room, willy-nilly, and decide what section you want to peruse as your own whim takes you. This is because real evidence supports itself, it can stand on its own and is supported by other evidence from other disciplines, or at the very least remains uncontradictory. The creation museum, interestingly, is physically laid out as a single, twisty road which you follow from beginning to end in order to be exposed to certain ideas at proper moments. They start you off with faulty assumptions and build on them from there, until by the end of the walk you are asked to accept as the Creation-version of truth some pretty outrageous claims, and you hopefully ignore the contradictory and hypocritical statements they've fed you along the way. We'll get to that stuff.

    So back to the false equivalency. This whole "Man's Word" vs. "God's Word" business. It reveals a severe lack of understanding of what science actually is. Science is NOT man's word. It IS man's understanding of nature, as revealed through observation, experiment, the cataloging of verifiable fact, and the careful consideration of facts in conjunction with each other based, yet again, on further experiment. We arrive at scientific conclusions based on THINGS THAT ACTUALLY CAN BE MEASURED by other people, even people from different cultural, religious, or linguistic backgrounds, and they will all arrive at the same answers because physics always works the same way under similar conditions, in all places. Science is not just some dudes getting together and making shit up based on fancy. So calling science "Man's Word" sets up a false idea in the minds of the gullible. In reality it is "Nature's Word" vs. "Bible's (written by many different people, from goat farmers to pubescent scribes, who had less idea of what was really going on in the world than most 2nd graders do today) Word."

    "But because we never have all the evidence, different scientists can reach very different conclusions, depending on their starting assumptions." ARGH. This is just stupidity. The scientific method actually rules out starting assumptions. Experimenters have all manner of ways to eliminate Confirmation bias from their results. Is it always successful? No. Scientists actually can come to incorrect answers, yes. BUT, that is why science demands rigor, repeat experimentation, and PEER REVIEW before it will ever accept any particular idea from any particular scientist. If Richard Dawkins, a very respected biologist and champion of the modern atheist movement, came out and said that he had discovered evidence that Christian's brains were smaller than atheist's, the scientific community would not accept it as a fact just because he said so. They would say "That's preposterous. Prove it." And no one would accept his claim as fact until he could verifiably demonstrate it. Which of course he couldn't, because it's a lie I just made up. And it shows that if even someone like Dawkins made an erroneous claim, it would still not become scientific fact, because science does not allow false ideas to remain once evidence proves them wrong.

    This, however, is an example of the type of evidence that Creationists require and the type of reasoning they use. Atrocious, just atrocious. They think they've proved that the world is 6000 years old by adding up the ages of the sons of Adam in the Bible. This right here is the poster-child poster for what this museum is all about. A literal interpretation of the Bible and unquestioning trust in its authority, and a severe misunderstanding of science.

    And hopefully, you never will hear this in school. This is the garbage that they want taught in public education.

    This, for instance, is an outright lie! "Scientists are puzzled how so many finch species could arise?" NO THEY'RE NOT! They know exactly how. Natural Selection. Oh but wait, later on in the museum you want to talk about Darwin's Finches?

    So HERE NOW they are saying that Natural Selection (or as they are trying to rename it "created kinds", which are studied by a type of creation pseudo-scientist called a "Baraminologist") is now acceptable! Just like dinosaur bones, Creationists are finally coming around to the idea of Natural Selection, but it is still not proof of Evolution, they say. So in the previous picture, they say that Scientists are puzzled by finches, when in reality they are not because Darwin, Natural Selection; the many-finch problem SOLVED over a hundred years ago. Boom, lie. And in this one they are saying oh well, natural selection as told in the Bible is perfectly reasonable! Gah! Do you see the mental disconnect? Do you see how they take what they want, use it when they want it, and discard it when it is not convenient for a different argument they want to make?!

    "There is not enough time--even in billions of years" for man to evolve from microbe. This again is, if not exactly a lie (though it is), at the very least a simple bold statement with no context, and no evidence presented either way. ABSOLUTELY there is enough time for a microbe to evolve into a man... in the 3.5 to 3.9 Billion years that scientists think it may actually have taken. Again, this reveals the stupidity of creation scientists. They cannot conceive of a billion years, so therefore evolution could not have happened.

    Going back to Natural Selection, which apparently creationists now concede as true (though note the subtle switch from "Man's Word" to "man's opinion"); The fact that in our own minuscule lifetimes we can observe natural selection occurring in various species is a compelling argument for much larger changes occurring over much larger stretches of time. Simply saying "There is not enough time" is meaningless. How do they know there is not enough time? They are happy to add up all the sons of Adam, after all, why don't they want to add up the time it takes for natural selection to occur, and apply that function from 100 years to 3.5 billion years? There is definitely enough time. Also they are saying, again apropos of nothing with no facts or evidence, that mutation does not have the ability to create new genetic information. IDIOT, that's what mutation IS. A mutation IS a change in genetic information. Since that is what it IS, it most certainly HAS the ability to be what it IS. Fucking infantile word games with these people.

    So... because poison dart frogs aren't naturally poisonous, this is evidence that the Garden of Eden actually existed? What about Rattlesnakes? Black Widows? Scorpions? Jellyfish? Pfeffer's Flamboyant Cuttlefishes? This is cherry picking one instance to back up your argument while ignoring all other instances which contradict it, and is known as Confirmation Bias. And in any case, the "evidence" of the Poison Dart Frog is evidence of nothing except that Poison Dart Frogs can synthesize their poisons from the alkaloids in the food they eat in the wild. In no way does this "evidence" in any way prove or even imply that someplace named Eden existed, though it doesn't stop them from trying to imply it anyway.

    Biblical diorama of Adam fucking a sheep from behind in the garden of fuckin'. "Holy Me, Adam, knock that shit off! I said name them, not rape them! Man, I need to give you something to fuck. Go to sleep, will you? Even though I created the entire Universe out of nothing, I need your rib to create just one more thing. You dirty sheep-fucker."

    Adam: "Awwwww yeah. Thanks God, but you know, the sheep didn't make so many mouth noises. Maybe this woman-thing ought to be subservient and silent, hey? Hmm, apples."

    Anyway, another big thing in the Creation Museum, obviously, is a literal interpretation of the Wholly Babble. They had this urban section dedicated to the dangers of what happens when culture abandons scripture. This was a 7-fucking minute video of a kid fidgeting in church. They claim that when a literal interpretation of the Babble is given up in exchange for liberal Christianity, the damn kids lose respect for religious authority and, you know, do drugs and whores and fidget in church and stuff. The real point Ken Ham wants to make here is that when you stop terrifying children with the real, literal possibility of hellfire and damnation, because actual science has shown that it's totally, ridiculously impossible for the Bible to be literally true, that they will no longer respect his religious authority! Wah! This actually is evidence of the authoritarian nature of religious control, and nothing else.

    "The Big Bang is just a theory! Scientists don't have all the evidence, they're just guessing! Man's Word! I mean, Man's opinion! Oh wait, we can't find any timber from Noah's Ark, which should definitely still be there if the Flood only happened a few thousand years ago? WELLLLL, we can't be sure that the Ararat in the Babble is the same Ararat as the Ararat in Turkey! The Earth's crust was probably unstable! Guess, obfuscate, theory! BUT DAMN YOU TO HELL, THE BIBLE IS LITERALLY THE TRUTH YOU FUCKIN' HEATHEN!" Now see, here is where an actual museum might have, say, some actual timbers from Noah's ark, or a leg to stand on.

    Nope. Some nice models though, with a subtle reminder that all you damn unbelievers are gettin' they asses left behind. And oh, wait, perhaps some more apology and supposition?

    "With a jug maybe like this, Noah's family could simply... With a cage system similar to this one, Noah's family could simply..." In other words, we don't know shit, because there is no evidence that anything in the Bible ever happened, but we're going to twist science to mean what we want it to mean, abuse English to say what we want it to say, and attack facts as mere suppositions and imply that suppositions are facts until your head is so fucked you won't think straight 'till Sunday, when we can fuck your brainhole in Church, too.

    Oh yeah. And Dragons. They had this whole movie about how even though every scholar on earth regards dragons as mythical, that the fact that they are such a prevalent myth means that Dragons actually existed... as dinosaurs. PROOF OF DINOSAURS AND HUMANS, LIVING TOGETHER, THEREFORE BIBLE. BITCHES. That was pretty much when my head exploded, and the Lord forced me to reveal my inner four-eyed demon, and I had to run before the Christians pitchforked me.
So that was my Creation "Museum" adventure. At its conclusion, I had to admit that it is in fact a museum, if not in the way its creators intend: A museum dedicated to human stupidity and willful ignorance. 2 Peter 3:3-6 - ³ Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,⁴ And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.⁵ For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:⁶ Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: I love that they highlight 'willingly Ignorant.' Oh how they twist and twist!

The Bible mentioned me!

Atheism: Cure For the Common Brainwash

    I got an A on a paper on atheism for my English final, and my professor said it was the best paper he'd read in 15 years of teaching English. Granted, I'm a little old to be in English 101 and therefore ahead of the curve, but still. Swelling with pride over here.

    At any rate, I thought I'd post it. I have heavily edited two paragraphs because as part of the assignment I had to interview a friend who is a Christian and then incorporate part of the interview into my paper. I thought it unfair to leave it in publicly because it was an interview and essay which I got to dictate the track of, not a debate; I tear his position apart in it without fear that he would have the honest chance to defend himself.

    Please keep in mind while reading that it was not the main goal of my paper to disprove the existence of God (nor in fact is that the goal of any atheist) or the veracity of any religious claim, which is why I don't go into any specifics regarding Biblical contradictions. Instead it was my aim to describe how and why atheism is important to me. As a point of interest, the friend I speak of in paragraph 7 is Gary Drechsel, he of the now defunct GoDrex blog.

_________________________________________

    I began my life as an atheist because as Richard Dawkins puts it, “There is no such thing as a Christian child: only a child of Christian parents… children are too young to know where they stand on such issues, just as they are too young to know where they stand on economics or politics.” (Dawkins 18 & 25) Despite this fact, at around age five I became sufficiently programmed by my parents’ religion to believe that I understood enough to become a Christian. This is the natural progression of the religiously indoctrinated, because a child understands nothing of the convoluted concepts of the Holy Trinity, Original Sin, or the Immaculate Conception. He must be taught these concurrently over a debilitating fear of Hell, allowing him to don a shroud of anxious belief.

    Atheism is a concept that stirs much controversy and before going any further, I must define it in terms of what it means to me: It is a lack of belief in a deity or deities. “Lack of belief” is an important qualification, and not mere semantics. It means that one has no belief regarding the validity of Theistic claims. It doesn’t mean that I will categorically state that “There is no God!” which would qualify as a belief. Rather, what it does mean is that given the complete lack of evidence that the universe was created, there is an extremely low probability that some sort of Supreme Being or Beings exists. Therefore, the question of God’s existence is about as important to an atheist as the supposition of the existence of a purple dog that can survive in space and is even now chasing a polka-dotted space cat around the star Sirius. Without evidence (Holy Books do not count as evidence, as for instance the Bible is proof of God the way a comic book is proof of Spiderman), one is as likely as the other, and anyone who claims to have some sort of special knowledge which is not available to the rest of humanity about the existence of such is either honestly mistaken, lying, insane, or brainwashed. If it turned out that there actually was a God sending private messages to certain select individuals, then this God is both useless and impotent since personal internal experience is unverifiable and does no one else any good, and even in their circumstance “good” is a debatable adjective.

    In my case, I was brainwashed. Christian brainwashing is a deceptively simple procedure. All of the sermons about faith and love, all of the Bible stories about Moses and Abraham and Jesus and his followers are pretty much beside the point. The key to turning a healthy 5-year-old boy into a blubbering convert is to let him know about Hell. You don’t even have to be all that scary about it. In a sweet voice just tell him what it’s (supposedly) like, that it’s a real place, and that all he has to do to avoid experiencing such horrific eternal torment is to cast aside his reason in favor of a nebulous concept called faith. He will swallow it as truth wholesale, because children with underdeveloped minds and overactive imaginations will believe any information that any adult they trust imparts. “Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them. Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival… But the flip side of trusting obedience is slavish gullibility… An automatic consequence is that the truster has no way of distinguishing good advice from bad.” (Dawkins 205)

    My climb out of that pit was long and difficult, and while I haven’t the time here to relate every step of the ascent, I will recount two experiences of particular importance. The first was at a Christian rock concert I attended in my early teens with my church youth group. Carmen was a performer whose music I liked, and towards the end of the show, after a rousing version of his hit song, he asked the audience a question: "I can feel the spirit of Jesus here with us tonight! Can you feel the Holy Spirit in the room? He's speaking to all of us, can you feel His love, right here right now!!?" I was about to raise my fist and join the crowd response ("Yes! I feel him! I feel Jesus!"), when I had an odd thought. “Jesus? Huh. Actually, what I'm feeling is admiration for the rock star who just lip synched that awesome song and got my fist pumping and adrenaline rushing, and has even made me feel good about being a Christian since I'm in a large group of people who feel the same way and we're all cheering for Jesus, but I don’t sense any specific Jesusy presence. It actually feels a lot like that time I got excited when Luke Skywalker blew up the Death Star. That made me SO happy, and that's the kind of elation I'm feeling right now.”

    On that night I took an important breath of rationality above the noxious gases of what I now recognize were crowd control and mob psychology. Afterwards I began to notice other conflicts. The second experience I want to describe was another such moment of clarity which at 19 years old finally broke the camel’s back. It happened during a church sermon, ironically. The pastor happened to address an issue which had been on my mind lately. He said that "…some people say that the Bible contradicts itself. They say that the Bible was written by men, and is not the true word of God.” (And here I was thinking, well that’s true, people do say that and I’ve worried about the implications! I perked right up, interested in how he would handle this troubling conundrum.) “Well folks, I'm here today to tell you that those people have been misled by Satan, and that they are liars! The Bible does not contradict itself! It is God's word, handed down to us by his prophets, and it is the truth!"

    I waited for him to make his case, but that was the end of his rebuttal; a bald statement containing bold word stresses. His point began and ended with an exhortation to believe that the Bible is the literal truth and word of God, because pastor says so, AND so does the Bible itself. It was the first time I understood clearly that this Christian “argument from authority” was in fact a Mobius strip leading nowhere other than back to its own say-so, and that there was no basis in reality for any of its claims. That was the end of organized religion for me, if not yet the end of the road of some sort of belief in some sort of God possibility.

    My final deconversion occurred only relatively recently; it followed a conversation with an atheist friend who pointed out to me that atheism wasn’t a claim of definite knowledge about God’s non-existence, as is widely misconceived. It is more the claim that any evidence which any religion claims as proof of their respective version of God is in fact so far nonexistent, and that “the burden of proof rests with the believers, not the non-believers.” (Dawkins 76) It is not up to atheists to prove the non-existence of God any more than we have to go around disproving purple dogs in space or any other ridiculous fantasy that the human imagination can come up with.  I realized then that I was effectively already an atheist.

    My childhood was a relatively happy one. My parents were kind people who believed they were saving my soul by raising me to accept their religion as truth. On the surface, you couldn’t say that I was in any way abused. Yet government guidelines regarding child abuse include emotional maltreatment as part of their definitions of abuse or neglect, and define emotional abuse as “injury to the psychological capacity or emotional stability of the child as evidenced by an observable or substantial change in behavior, emotional response, or cognition.” (Child Welfare Information Gateway 3) In this sense, I will make the case for religion as child abuse. I can make a strong illustration regarding the change in cognition that I experienced thanks to childhood religious indoctrination.

    Religion used my own natural capacity for reason against me and therefore undermined my ability to think critically throughout my adolescence, until I was later able to shed my religious upbringing. Ever since then, I have been rediscovering that I am a rational person with a naturally curious and logical mind. Perhaps for people with less rational needs, being indoctrinated with religion and then carrying on with their otherwise normal lives isn’t a problem. But as a young child with an underdeveloped mind, religion had a disastrous effect when it did battle with my native logic circuits. In order to make sense of what I had been told was the nature of reality — that Heaven and Hell were real places where you would spend an eternity depending upon your spiritual behavior on Earth— I decided early on that nothing in this life actually mattered other than believing in Jesus, being a good person, and trying to convert other people (thankfully, I was never very good at that part of it). If that was the situation, what was the point of working hard on my education, or at anything else if it was all only prelude to hopeful, eternal happiness? The concerns of this world didn’t matter. This was the only logical conclusion I could come to. In this way I became an indifferent student, smug in the belief that I was “saved” and that God had a plan for my life.

    The mental gymnastics required in order to hold on to a belief for which there is no evidence, indeed for which evidence suggests is irrational, creates an unfortunate mental condition called cognitive dissonance. According to Simply Psychology: “Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger, arising out of a participant observation study of a cult which believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood, and what happened to its members — particularly the really committed ones who had given up their homes and jobs to work for the cult — when the flood did not happen. While fringe members were more inclined to recognize that they had made fools of themselves and to ‘put it down to experience’, committed members were more likely to re-interpret the evidence to show that they were right all along (the earth was not destroyed because of the faithfulness of the cult members).” (McLeod)

    This behavior was also observed on the national stage only last year as Harold Camping predicted the Rapture would happen on May 21^st, 2011, and some of his followers spent their life savings to help spread the word. When the day came and went, Camping quickly changed his story to say that it had been only a spiritual judgment day and that the real end would come later, on October 21, 2011. Please take note of today’s date, and then also notice that we’re all still here.

    Most Christians choose to ignore the voluminous and weighty evidence found by Biblical scholars that “the gospels are not reliable accounts of what happened in the history of the real world. All were written long after the death of Jesus, and also after the epistles of Paul, which mention almost none of the alleged facts of Jesus’ life. All were then copied and recopied, through many different [games of telephone] by fallible scribes who, in any case, had their own religious agendas.” (Dawkins 118)

    Additionally, Christians ascribe a particular weightiness to the red words of the Bible, when in fact Jesus says very little throughout the Gospels that has not been said in various ways by many other so-called wise or spiritual men throughout history. If this is their case for God, they use thin reeds and ignore any contradictory evidence indeed, not least of which can be found in the wild contradictions between the accounts of the four Gospels themselves.

    It is my contention that this cognitive dissonance is a major side effect of religious upbringing and that every person on Earth who is a religious believer has learned to employ certain mental tricks in order to remain true to their faith. It has an extraordinarily corrosive effect on critical thinking abilities, this facility for denying facts and holding beliefs that are provably false. It is also my contention that this is a disastrous state of affairs which has a similar effect on the mind as driving into a wall has on your car; you may or may not ever be able to get it working again, but even if you do, it will never again run as well as before the accident. People accustomed to living in this inferior mental state have had their ability to think rationally severely compromised and are easily manipulated into positions that are contrary to their own well-being. For example when they accept the rhetoric that a public health care option is going to result in death panels yet at the same time demand the government keep their hands off of their Medicare, a government run public health care program, and are meanwhile tricked into voting against it; or when they are convinced that by flying a plane into a building, murdering thousands, they have earned rewards in the afterlife.

    The fact that religious beliefs are instilled in children before they are capable of reasoning out the implications of reality on their own damages their ability later in life to evaluate evidence in a reasonable manner, and therefore constitutes cognitive damage as stipulated by government guidelines set in place by experts in child psychology. Most people have no problem with the fact that children raised in dangerous cults (i.e., religions with which they disagree) are considered victims of emotional abuse, but as of yet society at large has not made the next logical step forward that there is no evidence that Christianity, Islam, Judaism or any other extant religion, no matter how many followers line up behind them, are any different from dangerous cults.

    We are a world of walking wounded, with the majority of humanity mentally disarmed by the emotional damage inflicted upon us in our youth. You might not think that someone who has written this startlingly eloquent argument against religion is exhibiting any signs of permanent psychological damage, but you’d be wrong. The fact that I feel so strongly about it at all is one sign of the damage: We first generation atheists tend to be an angry, surly lot when it comes to religion which is hardly the mark of a completely healthy mind. After all, if I were constantly belligerent towards writers of science fiction, you’d think I was in need of anger management. Second generation atheists however, of whom I’ve met a few, tend to become bemused when confronted with a first generationer’s anti-religious tirade; since they were raised by atheists and were therefore taught how to think rather than what to think, they lack the religious damage and therefore the anger which can sometimes seem crippling to others.

    Another, more important sign of damage is that I am 39 years old, and in my first successful year of college. I was so ill-equipped to deal with the complexities of learning that I failed my first semester of college miserably after barely scraping through high school. I had always assumed that there was something wrong with me such as a learning disability or low intelligence, but the fact that at my age I can become an Honor Student gives the lie to that fear. As I stated before, not everyone is affected in this way by religion, but that is how it affected me.

    I in no way wish to imply that I was a victim of intentional abuse by my family. The sad truth is that they are every bit the victim of brainwashing that I was, as were their parents and grandparents and so on. Religion has been described as the worst virus to ever assail mankind, and if religion is a virus then it is a hereditary one and more trenchant than AIDS. In truth I feel extremely fortunate to have been naturally gifted with the necessary tools to eventually fight off the disease. However, I believe that the tools are now becoming available to everyone. Every day the internet is opening up pockets of isolation around the world to instantaneous participation in the battlefield of ideas. With these millions of voices participating in the discussion, it is getting more difficult for individuals to ignore extremely important scientific concepts which push the religious need for the existence of God further and further into irrelevance, namely Evolution and possibly String Theory or a future equivalent. One day perhaps, history will look back on us as being in the final death throes of the dark age of superstition.

    It is for these reasons that being an atheist is important to me, and not only simply to be one, but to be outspoken about it. When patients praise God for healing them rather than the doctor who studied medicine and actually prescribed the drugs or performed the surgery, or when the theologian wonders at the amazing complexity and beauty of the universe as illuminated by Einstein’s theories or Hubble’s telescope and sanctimoniously takes the credit for his pet supernatural being while undervaluing the hard work of the scientists who made the discoveries, they are displaying a shocking inability to deal with the world as it is and a willingness to behave in irrational ways which in every other case we would label as delusional. Religion damages the mind, and damaged minds in turn damage society. It is time to put an end to this wretched state of affairs.

 

 

Works Cited

Child Welfare Information Gateway. "www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/statutes/define.cfm." 11 July 2011. Definitions of Child Abuse and Neglect. Document. 6 August 2012.

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008.

Drawing of Bibleheads. Source Unknown.

McLeod, Saul. Cognitive Dissonance. 2008. Web Article. 10 August 2012. <http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html>.

 

One Man's Obsession Is Another Man's Salvation Is Another Man's Lunacy... Probably The Same Man

I was back in San Diego for another class, for another week. I was online trying to figure out what to do with myself during my free time (a common work problem for everyone, I suppose) and I stumbled across a thing called Salvation Mountain while researching the Salton Sea area.

Out in the middle of nowhere is a hill. And one day in the distant past, a crazy religious nut named Leonard Knight wandered by and decided to paint it. Actually, much of it he built with adobe clay and straw, and then painted over top of it. He's been bricking, baling, and painting this place every day since 1984. He estimates that he's used well over 100,000 gallons of paint.

You might think, given my history of anti-religious rants, that I came out here with the intention of being condescending and smug about such a massive, insane ode to religious fervor. Surprisingly, especially to myself, the fact that it was a huge glob of toxic, colorful paper-mache out in the middle of the desert was the irresistible draw, and the thought that it was dedicated to a God and a religion with which I disagree vociferously barely registered.

Also, the opportunity to take pictures, as always, completely overshadowed any thought of religion the whole time I was there. I often feel a sort of physical disgust when I go into lavish European or Salt Lake City cathedrals, for example, but that was not present here at all. Salvation Mountain is bizarre, it's insane, it's folk art, it's baffling, but it is not asinine in the same way that official religious locales are.

There are several broken down old vehicles scattered about, and it's obvious that in his off days Leonard was still under a compulsion to throw paint on whatever he happened to be sitting near. The image in his head of his love letter to God was obviously an obsession; up there he's painted a 2D representation of his vision. And down here, he apparently thought the desert needed a boat.

On the side of a painted tractor, I'm guessing that some visitor left these here as stiletto fuck-me shoes don't seem to fit in with his ideas. But it makes a nice contrast.

Ok, one last scope photo... before we go into the rabbit hole. In case you haven't picked it up from the photos, the mountain seems to be painted in a sort of waterfall motif, where the blue and white lines are the water representing God's flowing Love, I suppose.

There is a path going up the front of the mountain, which you are encouraged to tread along.

It's yellow. I'm supposing that's to represent the streets of Gold in Heaven. Or perhaps he's just showing some playfulness...

Yup, playfulness. A technicolor child's dream of Heaven, perhaps.

Sea anemones? But even if Leonard thinks that there are sea anemones on the path to God, the amount of attention to the details of his vision combined with the dedication of giving his entire life to the project are astounding.

Looking out upon his works.... And I was perhaps unduly fascinated by this next shot, having always wondered what the edge of the Universe might look like, or the other side of a painting or a mirror. In Leonard's Universe, it stops right over the lip.

So right next to the mountain is another project. He has created a hollow hill of hay-bales, propped up by trees and interspersed with old car windows. Front view:

Approach view from the top side:

Rear view:

And inside is a warren of painted bales, trees, and pictures. It's bonkers.

Did I think we were entering the rabbit hole before?

Pictures can't really convey what it was like to walk through here.

But I sure did my best.

When I couldn't take any more shots down tunnels, I pointed my camera upwards. It. Just. Never. Stops.

And then I would find more tunnels.

I spent about 2 or 3 hours at Salvation Mountain, taking shots almost non-stop the whole time. I can't begin to express how many pictures I'm actually sparing you from. It's odd how one loony-bin's obsession can become yours that way.

Here is an adobe cave he built for himself to live in; a nice place to escape the heat. Only he never moved in, opting instead to stay in his trailer because he couldn't not paint the hell out of everything he did.

Here's a random clatch of his sea anemones I found off to the side somewhere, for example.

So remember how I said I came without smugness or condescension? Well, that blissful state of photgraphic being was briefly shattered near the end of my stay. The whole time I was there, I was so in awe of the visuals, and obsessed with capturing them, that I hadn't really paid any attention to the words he was writing in paint. Until I went out and around for one last round of shots and I started way back out, by the mailbox.

Erm... poor choice of wording there Leonard. Maybe that's how it's written in the Bible, but some paraphrasing might have been beneficial. All this does is make me think that you wanted Jesus to violently prison rape you. Granted, I'm sure I'm more dirty minded than you, and I have been watching HBO's OZ on dvd lately, but you've got to think about your audience, after all.

The smugness and condescension went away fairly quickly though. I may be infantile about certain things but I have learned that remaining infantile beyond the shock moment is probably unhealthy.

The problem though is that once I started paying attention to the words, that's all I could see, and it admittedly became more difficult to ignore my anti-religious feelings.

At any rate, to distract my self from getting too snarky, I wondered what paint on the ground looked like up close after baking out in the California desert sun for years.

I took a seat at the makeshift viewing area before leaving, and found yet another photo op.

And one last distance shot, because I. Just. Can't. Stop.

Hundreds of photos, and I kind of wanted to go back at night and get some more in different light. But I didn't. If I'm back out that way again, then maybe. But with this post I'm glad to get this mountain of obsession out of my system.

I Get A Little Salty In The City With The Mormons

Lately I've been splitting up posts about single trips into multiple posts, each showcasing a different leg. It allows me to have more blog content, stretching a very thin blog out to respectable proportions. However in reality my real reason for doing so is that now that I'm all into HDR photography, I take about a bazillion photos and have a serious issue with being able to cull them properly. Anyway, Salt Lake City! This is the Salt Lake Temple, home lair of the Mormons or Latter Day Saints or whatever they want to call themselves. Silly buggers.

But I will say that in some small way, walking around Temple Square pleasantly reminded me of walking through some small European town, what with the grandiose religious architecture and people walking around speaking gobbledygook. In Europe of course, the gobbledygook is merely another language which I don't understand. Here it was English, but spoken in a freakish religious dialect completely alien for all of that. I had fun telling a couple of pretty young Mormon girls who tried to bother me while I was taking pictures that I'm an atheist, and that their beliefs are based on nil evidence and a thorough brainwashing. This is the Mormon Assembly Hall.

I mean most religion-speak is nonsense, but next to the Church of Scientology, The Latter-Day Saints take the prize for wackiness without even counting the insanity of that whole golden plate thing. Check this out:

I mean, to a sane person, this reads as batshit crazy. But even looking at it within religion's own internal "logic", why did God have to restore the authority of Baptism? Given the baptismal habits of all of the other practicing sects of Christianity, it doesn't seem as though such authority was ever lost from the Earth. This is the statue in full.

Two guys go off in the woods, see John the Baptist, and found a religion. Man, I see stuff in the woods around my house all the time! Just this morning Jesus and I were all like, kicking back on a stump and smoking a bong. He told me to tell everyone that marijuana was the new sacrament of his coming reign, and ye shall recognize your brethren by the sign of "peace-out, man". Of course, you probably don't believe me, but why on Earth did anyone fall for these con-artist's similar bullshit?

Again, nonsense. If the power of God is manifest, shouldn't people be able to uh, notice it? That's kind of what manifest means. I belong to the priesthood of Messybastards. The power of reason is manifest in all my actions and therefore God has chosen me to lead the world in it's fight against the descent into madness. Can't you see the halo of God's atomic logic hovering over my head? Well, you just don't believe strongly enough, so you're going to the fiery nuthouse in the ground.

The main thing about these statues that gets me is the authoritarian motif. You're supposed to trust con artists like Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery because they are getting authority all conferred up on them by the wonky ghosts of ancient spiritual leaders. Says who? Says the con artists. And you know what? Even if any of those Ghosts appeared to me, and tried to confer authority on me, I'd tell them to take their little 2-inch authorities and shove them up their asses. I don't want their permission to tell people how to live their lives; I'd much rather people used their own brains to figure things out than just accepting the say-so of anyone, including mine.

So yeah, I suppose an anti-religious rant was inevitable. But I was pretty jazzed to go to the Mormon Tabernacle. Not that I'm a huge fan, but their music is pretty. Though I'm not sure what Exxon has to do with anything...?

There was a guy playing the organ, so I hung out for a while. Not a very ornate Tabernacle, but giant organs are cool.

The Mormons have the largest Genealogy library in the world. I went in to see if they could find my family roots in Europe, but when I told the confident library docent the story of how my great great great grandfather was a stowaway on a Portuguese ship who changed his name to Williams without ever revealing his real name to his family in the New World, his confidence slipped a bit. When I told them that my other ancestor was a horse-thief who named his oldest son after the judge who didn't hang him during the decade where all the census records burned in a fire, they gave up. Guess I really have to embrace this whole disreputable vagabond thing; seems to be a family heirloom. Here's the Salt Temple at night.

The rest of Salt Lake City was fairly uninspiring. It actually looks like a cool city to live in though. The surrounding mountains are pretty and there's stuff to do. And there are bars so it's not really a dry city, despite my misconceptions. Plus, the Mormons make up only a small portion of the population these days. Anyway like I said, I had a couple of other legs to my SLC trip so there's more to come.

In Another Universe, This Post Is About This Universe. (Where This Post Is About Another Universe, Where This Post Is About This Universe...∞

I want to do a book report on Brian Greene's new publication in the worst way, but I'm not sure that I am capable of it. I used to read popular science books quite regularly, and I'd realized that it's been years since those days at about the same time that 'The Hidden Reality' caught my eye. As I was going through it I realized that reading, and keeping pace with, popular science texts is a skill which must be practiced, especially if one is not particularly well trained in physics.

That's not to say that he doesn't do a great job of explaining the concept behind 9 different types of multiple/parallel Universes quite engagingly; he does. It's more that, once I put the book down for a few minutes after every couple of pages to think about the implications of whatever mind-blowing concept he's introduced, the particulars begin to drain away because my poor little head is not lately used to holding on to the strange and complicated concepts behind Infinity, Relativity, Quantum physics, and String Theory.

However I'm going to try because I feel that my motive in writing about this book is more an effort to hang on as best as I am able to the understanding of a beautiful dream that fades quickly after waking than an attempt to convince anyone else to read it. Of course after completing that last sentence, I've sat and stared at the book cover for about ten minutes trying to figure out how to start. Sigh.

So here then; let's begin with the apology. Mr. Greene himself goes to great lengths in the book to make the reader understand that, at the moment, no versions of the multiverse which he posits are actually provable with hard data, and therefore may fall slightly outside the boundary of science. I say slightly, because though their detection may currently lie beyond our best detectors, they are in fact unavoidable outcomes of certain aspects of science which ARE scientifically sound, mathematically speaking.

As a comparison, when Einstein published his theory of General Relativity the technology available at the time was not capable of disproving his math. He came up with that theory using creative visualization, math and perspiration. And whatever other tools of genius he had at his disposal. But he himself did not go out and measure the Cosmic Background Radiation which ultimately helped to prove his theory correct. Now I'm not comparing Brian Greene or any other String Theorist to Einstein, (and neither was Greene in his book) merely the scientific process itself which is at work here. If you follow the math it leads to amazing places which, more often than you might think, describes the cosmos as it is in reality, even though it may also lead beyond all common sense. So this exploration of the side effects and the possibilities of infinity, string theory and math is extremely valid science, even if in the end it turns out that they've missed something and there are other things at work. You have to explore every avenue if you want to find out what's actually out there.

So why bother getting all excited over Parallel Universes if there's a chance it's inaccurate? Because it's exciting. And because, all things being equal, it's probably not inaccurate. It is currently science's best guess, much as Relativity and Evolution once were, and therefore worth a lengthy consideration.

So I'll start with the multiverse which I understand the most clearly, naturally. He calls it the Quilted Multiverse and here is how it works: There is some question in the cosmologist community whether the space that we inhabit is either very, very, very freaking large but ultimately finite, or whether it is in fact infinite. It all depends on the overall shape of the universe, which we don't yet know. (It's important to have a good grasp of the concept of infinity for this one, which I am lucky to have in some finite degree thanks to Rudy Rucker. His book 'White Light' is a rollicking exploration of infinity, and with extremely visual storytelling really helped me to glimpse what mathematicians actually mean when they use the term infinity. I highly recommend it.)

At any rate, If our Universe in fact turns out to be infinite (as the current trend of thought among cosmologists apparently believe is the likeliest scenario) then there is almost certainly another messiestobjects out there, writing up a book report about a publication by Brian Browne, (the last name of the author perhaps being the only difference between that Earth and this one) and positing some strange world where a version of himself is typing up a book report on a publication by a Brian Greene. In fact, there would be an infinite amount of Earths out there, that look just like ours. And there would be an infinite amount of other possible Earths as well. One, perhaps, that was solely inhabited by shrimp. Or one with no shrimp. Let your imagination go wild, like mine!

The reason why this would be so is simply statistical. Matter is evenly distributed throughout the visible Universe on very large scales. What that means is, you can take a really big box, say about 100 million light years cubed and chunk it down here, then weigh all of the matter in it. Then pick it up and chunk it down over there, again weighing all of the matter. Do this in several locations throughout the Universe and you will find that each box-full of matter will weigh in at about equal amounts, and it will be so all throughout the Universe. The idea here is that while matter may be evenly spread throughout an infinite Universe, there is a finite amount of forms that matter can take.

So the implication of this is that matter, as much of it as there is, can only arrange itself in so many ways. It's like a deck of cards; there are 52 cards in a deck, and 52 cards can be arranged in 10⁶⁷ unique ways. That number fully written out is 80,658,175,170,943, 878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000  which is obviously a really huge number. However, once you have arranged those 52 cards in that many unique ways, the cycle will repeat and you will start to get duplicate arrangements. Of course, some arrangements are more likely than others, so you will have odd random assortments of cards duplicate more often than you will see the deck fall out completely arranged from aces to Kings in all four suits, but as unlikely as that is, it will happen eventually.

The same is true for the arrangement of matter. In the entirety of our visible Universe, there are about 10¹⁰¹²² possible particle configurations. Which again, is a totally inconceivable number yet is definitely a finite number. Once you've reached every possible unique combination, the patterns will begin to repeat, and repeat infinitely. Thus, messyobjects is out there, messierobjects, and even an evenmoremessiestobjects, all trying to say hi to me right now. Since our brains and life experiences are nearly completely identical and in some cases absolutely identical, I can say hi to them and they've received the message! I know this because I've received their message, having sent one myself. We're totally braintext messaging across the infinite light years right now. They say hi back, and ask how's the wife and pets and I say oh, the same as yours, pretty much. ad infinitum. (Of course it's not a very interesting conversation, having identical thoughts and all, but there's always a downside.)

Whew. That was the first and easiest version of a multiverse in this book, and believe me they get far more difficult to grasp. The existence of the Quilted Multiverse depends only on discovering the shape of the Universe we currently reside in without calling any of the more unproven forms of science into the matter, but it is important here to note that Brian Greene and other String Theorists did not go out looking for multiverses. They did not read some ridiculous New Age drama and say "Oy, how can we finagle the math to come up with parallel dimensional portal-thingies in order to dazzle the public?" No, the attempt to understand actual observed phenomena through the framework of String Theory led them mathematically all on its own to many other different types of possible multiverses.

The Inflationary Multiverse, which better fits the definition of a multiverse in my extremely humble opinion, is one in which bits of our universe break off and inflate into bubble universes of their own, our Universe having broken off from another "larger" one at its own birth. There are also the Brane, Cyclic, Landscape, and Quantum types of multiverses. I like the Quantum Multiverse; it basically goes back to the Schrödinger's Cat thing, and Quantum uncertainty.

(jpeg of a print by Jie Qi) In case you are not familiar with Schrödinger's Cat, it is a Thought Experiment designed to help one visualize how Quantum Particles behave. The way it goes is, you put a cat in a box, close the lid, and have a radioactive atom timed to decay and open a flask of poison. In the quantum world, there is an equal possibility of the decay happening and causing the cat to be dead or alive when you open the lid. Until you open the lid, the cat is actually in an uncertain state, being both alive and dead at the same time which would be an unsettling thing to witness, I'm sure. The traditional outcome of this little game is that when you open the box, the probability wave collapses and the cat becomes one or the other. Thus the very act of observation determines the ultimate quantum state. (For a more accurate and less confused rundown of the thought experiment in mid-twentieth century science nerd jargon, visit the wikipedia page on the subject)

This is weird. But this type of behavior has been observed in quantum particle physics, hence the Quantum Uncertainty Principle and it does not apply to the world of things of our size, only to the realm of the very, very small. There is a gap between the quantum scale and ours where Quantum Theory breaks down and reality then becomes guided by Newtonian physics and Relativity. If you add String Theory math to this experiment, you can bridge the gap and in fact the cat is actually both alive and dead for realsies, in two different universes! Long, complex, nearly-incomprehensible-to-a-non-String-Theorist story short, the reason that Quantum particles behave so oddly is that we are seeing them play out every possible state of existence across a multiverse.

As an interesting aside, that particular multiverse explanation is where the idea comes from that every time one makes a choice, universes diverge and a separate reality for each choice carries on it's course. It may sound a bit hippie or New Age-ish, but if String Theory turns out to be correct, this in fact may actually be happening, right now, right next to you.

Another multiverse is the Holographic Multiverse, which is conceptually easy, but also very hard to explain the whys and wherefores of. This one is due to the nature of information and how it is stored in the universe, and when looked at closely begins to look a bit as though all matter as we see it is actually a projection of another type of matter on a distant quantum dimensional surface. In this multiverse all of our actions, in fact all interaction between all forms of matter everywhere is a shadow play. We're hand puppets. Don't ask me to explain the science though. It has something to do with Black Holes, very tall drinking straws, and math. Beyond that, I haven't retained a thing. Damn it.

The final multiverse of the book is the so-called Ultimate Multiverse, a distinction earned due to a new twist on the Anthropic Principle, which is the idea that asking the question "How is it possible that our planet, our very universe have the conditions necessary to bring forth life?" is meaningless because life evolves in the place to which it is suited. In other words, we are here both to ask the question and be the answer. I like this one for purely philosophical reasons, as it's an (yet another) answer of sorts in the debate between religion and science, at least for a certain set of debate points. The religious often like to point out that the Universe, Life, and Everything are far too complex to have "just happened" which is about as far as their understanding of the sciences of Cosmology and Evolution usually go. A very sad, limited viewpoint indeed.

At any rate, the Ultimate Multiverse answers the question of why the Physical Laws of our particular Universe are just right in order for galaxy, star, planet, and life formation to "just happen". Because in an infinite multiverse, where every possible Universe that can exist does exist, one with our physical laws and conditions for life merely becomes an inevitability, not a miracle. Therefore there is no "why" of existence, merely the statistical likelihood of it. You'll note that the Ultimate Multiverse differs from the Quilted Multiverse in the sense that, with the latter, there may be an infinite set of volumes with repeating particle configurations, allowing for infinite versions of themselves, however they are all still set in the same Universe as we are and subject to the same physical laws, merely separated by distances too large for any technology to ever cross. The Quilted version answers the question of why there is life on Earth, but does not answer the why of the overall conditions in our Goldilocks Universe and its particular laws of physics being just right in order to allow life to come about in the first place. The Ultimate Multiverse does, however. It states that while there are Universes like ours with just the right amount of density for galaxies, stars, and planets to form, there are also an infinite amount of stillborn ones. Our Universe is the Royal Flush that comes along once in a blue moon... or rather once in a Blue Iteration.

There are solid mathematical underpinnings to the Ultimate Multiverse, as well as for all of the others, but I'm not going there. If you want to try to understand them, or any of the other concepts, I suggest that you pick up a few popular science books and get cracking. 'The Hidden Reality' is wonderful, but unless you've already attempted to come to grips with the ideas behind Relativity, Infinity, or Quantum Physics, you might want to get a more basic picture of the Universe first. 'Cosmos' by Carl Sagan is an excellent place to start for basic Cosmology, that Rucker book I already pimped for Infinity, and Brian Greene's earlier work 'The Elegant Universe' is a great introduction to String Theory. So get busy with the head scratching, braniac!

Another great way to contemplate infinity, by the way, is to obsessively-compulsively watch fractal zoom videos. I've posted about fractals before, here and here. I don't know how, but I'm sure that fractal math figures in to multiverses somehow. This one magnifies the Mandelbrot set 10²⁷⁵ times, and ends up at a copy of itself. Apropos.

 

An Atheist Rant Which Those Whose Hands Are Over Their Ears May Wish To Avoid.

"Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise, there wouldn't be religious people."

-Doris Egan, House M.D., The Right Stuff, 2007

I haven't done a nice long insane rambly sea ranty in a while, and tonight I inexplicably find myself in the mood. Perhaps being stuck in Fort Bragg for three weeks in a row where there is nothing much to photograph has something to do with it, but perhaps also I can lay the cause on the doorstep of religion, my favorite whipping post.

For those of you who are facebook friends of mine, this is no surprise; other than my photo of the day, about all I've been doing over there is posting links to anti-religious videos, blogs, and news items. I've been feeling up for a fight lately. The problem is that my adversaries, those who put authoritarian belief in front of rational discourse ain't got much fight in 'em. You can't have a dialogue with those people because they haven't got a brain to stand on. Perhaps that is not fair; they do actually have brains but they've been quite thoroughly trained not to use them. I should know, I used to be a member.

In order to believe in the existence of God, any God, one must have faith. Faith is the belief in something for which there is no evidence. Fine. When I wipe my bottom after disposing of bodily waste, I use the first knuckle method. Since you will never witness this yourself, you'll have to trust me that it's true. You might not even know what the first knuckle method is, but what's important here is that it exists. I know, because I made it up. BELIEVE me when I tell you, I've felt it's presence. So you see, I have belief in certain things which can only be witnessed by an individual on a personal basis. However, if you choose to ignore my account of my VERY personal ass-cleaning method, I'll completely understand. In fact, if you want to pretend I never said it, so much the better. That's exactly how I feel about your god damned religion.

So, by expressing a belief in God, for whom there is no evidence, you've put yourself in an awkward position. More awkward than the first knuckle method in fact, difficult as that may be to imagine (don't imagine it!). You've aligned yourself with those who wish not to believe in reason. Reason, of course, is the primary tool of the mind. But this is the nature of faith, the very definition of it. "Set aside your reason, saith the lord, and believeth in this shit in this book right here. And do this not by your own impulse, but because these dudes who got that book from some other dudes, who are now dead, tell you it's the truth." Can you feel the presence of the lord in that logic? Amen!

I must say that my own progress towards rationality has been long and hard. I believed, and the illogic of the Lord did not sustain me. I searched for the Lord, and did not find him. Instead I found some used book store philosophy which slaked my thirst better than vitamin water for a time, until that too became as coca cola. Then, after discovering Carl Sagan and Joseph Campbell, I settled into a comfortable agnosticism where science was the only possible language of God, if he existed. I spent a while there, but all it took was a logical argument by a friend I've never met to convince me of the liberating joys of atheism.

If there is one thing I've learned from all of this, it's that one side will almost never convince the other. An atheist speaks the language of reasonable discourse and the religious speak the language of authoritarian "knowledge". An atheist can be convinced to change his mind on a subject through strongly reasoned logic and hard evidence, and a theist can be convinced by an impassioned emotional plea and hypnotic crowd techniques. Never the twain shall meet, as reason and faith go 'round and around and around.

One of the most overused and incorrect arguments against atheism is that one is simply switching a belief in God to a belief in no God. This is a false understanding of the situation. Atheism, in it's strongest sense, is a lack of belief. Were actual, hard evidence to come to light that God truly existed, atheists would still not become believers-in-God, they'd become knowers-of-God. In other words, we don't believe in an all-knowing deity for the same reasons we don't believe that thunder is really Thor going bowling. Because it's nonsense and there is far more evidence against religious dogma and a creator than there is evidence for it. In fact, there is NO evidence for it.

When I was a member of the Christian cult, there was a lot of talk about "knowing God" and "feeling his presence" and "answered prayers". I always wondered why, as fervently as I prayed to Jesus and as badly as I wanted to be on the side of Heaven, why did I never feel or sense those things? Why did Jesus talk to the crazy old cat lady, or the Pastor who had an affair with his daughter's best friend's Mom, or the self important and exceedingly boring old usher guy, but never to me? I was earnest, I was in need, ready to be called to battle in the old "Onward Christian Soldiers" sense.

Finally I figured it out, when I reached a certain age and began to fumblingly learn how to utilize the logical part of my brain. None of those people feel or sense those things. They want to, they try to, they convince themselves with certain self-hymnotic techniques that they do feel them, and then they go to church and Praise Jesus or Allah or David Koresh or Fred Phelps loudly in order to continue to convince themselves and those around them that they are one of God's chosen. It was the biggest scam in history, perpetuated mostly in ignorance by it's own victims; the true meaning behind my favorite fable, The Emperor's New Clothes.

"O Krampus! My Krampus! Our Fearful Trip Is Done...

...The whip has weathered every whack, the prize we sought is won;
The beer is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady march, the Krampus grim and daring"

-A Krampusization of the first verse of 'O Captain! My Captain!' by Walt Whitman

And so we come to it at last, Krampus fest 2010! For anyone who has been wondering just what the hell Krampus is, and why I've been making such a fuss over it for the last several posts, hopefully this one will explain our love for it. The last time I was at Krampus was in aught 6, so it was really great to hit it again at long last. Here's a distant glimpse of a pack of demons led through the lower part of town by St. Nick as they make their early house calls.

Krampus fest is awesome. In a nutshell, on every 5th of December many small mountain villages from the area around Berchtesgaden send a Krampus delegation consisting of a band of demons led by the village's St. Nick stand-in. St. Nick will usually have a couple of little girls dressed as angels following close to his side, ringing small chimes to warn of their approach. The demons come in a few different types. Some wear simple furs with a furry dog-face looking mask, and carry whips. Some wear furs with a more elaborate wooden hand-carved demon face mask, sometimes with cowbells strapped to their backs, and carry whips. And others are covered in straw, usually with the wooden masks, always with the cowbells strapped on their backs, and carry whips.

The delegations converge upon Berchtesgaden for the official Krampus opening ceremony. It was really crowded during the daytime this year, so we were unable to get close to the square where they had it, but I've seen it before so I can describe the gist of it. Basically what happens is that St. Nicholas, in an effort to make the human race behave more admirably than is it's wont, meets up with an old friend of his, a shady character named Knecht Ruprecht. St. Nicholas asks to borrow the demons that are under Knecht's control for two days and nights, that he might lead them into battle for the souls of children. The German Bundeswehr, a military outfit, supervises the handing-over ceremony. If negotiations go smoothly they promptly escort Knecht and themselves out of town, essentially handing control of Berchtesgaden over to the demons of St. Nick for the duration.

This is where it gets scary. So in order to wage war against the sins of mankind, St. Nicholas orders the demons to begin their rampage. Krampus demons, being demonic, are able to sense the sinful. Sniffing out their own kind, as such. They know if you've been naughty, and when they find you, they use the combined psychological warfare tactics of being damned scary looking, their towering Bavarian farmer-like sizes, and the maddening sound of the cowbells of hell in order to make you flee in terror. And when you flee, that's when they chase you, and use the whips.

You see they're no Disney whips, this is a serious business. They whap! you pretty hard with those things on the back of the knees or thighs, and it stings. The purpose of the whipping is to beat the sins out of you. St. Nicholas, being the kind saint that he is, wants to be able to give the little German children presents on Christmas morning and the only way to insure that he doesn't have to leave anyone out is by punishing them for the past year's sins first. It's quite an elegant system, if you think about it. No coal in the stockings, or wooden shoes or however they do it there. No child left behind. Whap!

It starts off fairly tamely in the late afternoon. The crowds of onlookers are thick, and the demon packs roam about town in fairly orderly fashion, whacking the occasional bystander who sticks out from the crowd a bit too much. The Krampus fest coincides with Berchtesgaden's Christkindlemarkt, so there are plenty of places to stop and grab a gluwein or a beer and some wurst or spätzle while shadowing a particularly fun bunch of demons. There's even a bit of time to... do... some... window... shopping?

Erm... I love it. I'm not sure if little armless goat/tree boy here has anything to do with Krampus, but for him to just sort of appear in a wood carver's window amongst other more standard shop fare is fairly indicative of how awesome Berchtesgaden is. Is he supposed to be vomiting twigs? Anyway. As the night carries on, things get a bit rowdier. The demons get drunker and start hitting harder, the crowds get thinner, and those who stay get numb from both the cold and the whippings. And drunker.

Gluhwein comes in those nice little mugs. The above scene is a demon showing a rare bit of selective craftiness. He'd reached over John there to grab the mug of gluhwein from the young lady in order to lure her away from the table, where he proceeded to whip the tar out of her. I sort of can't believe she fell for it, but she was pretty young, after all. Very young, John. [Ahem.] Shows you they do in fact know who needs a good whipping.

You may have noticed that the hands and arms of the demons are covered in a greasy soot. They tend to rub their hands over the faces of their victims, leaving a sooty hand-print. I'm not sure exactly why; logically I would guess they do this so as to leave a message for the other demons that this one has been taken care of, move along, but I haven't noticed that the demons leave previously-marked victims alone any more than anyone else. Indeed, sometimes it seems as though the mark is given to single out those who need more attention than usual, and may end the night having been beaten several times.

Young women in particular do seem to get singled out more often. But if I explore this thought it leads into uncomfortable examinations of German sexuality and the whole town seems to view this behavior as a healthy and normal outlet for the youth once a year so I suppose we'll leave it at that as no harm, no foul. Or rather; not too much harm other than a slight stinging and a few morning after bruises, no foul.

Creeeeepy. But then, this isn't supposed to be charming. It is an ancient tradition and despite the rather gleefully dark connotations of the whole thing, is actually religious in nature. As such, there are certain aspects of Krampus that should be taken seriously which, I am ashamed to admit, in my younger and more vulnerable years I did not realize. Pretty much anything goes at Krampus but the main thing is that during the festivities, the demons are in charge. It is not appreciated when some wise-ass American stands up to them. I know that sounds crazy; I mean look at these guys, who would have the nerve to stand up to them anyway?!

Well it happens. Some stupid drunk American thinks he's braver than most people and flits about, trying to steal a whip, or simply standing in the middle of the road forcing a confrontation just to display how unafraid of getting a whap! behind the knees he is. Sometimes the demon ignores him, but often, especially the later it gets, said dumb-ass American finds himself on his back on the cobblestones after having been the victim of a running tackle and shoved 15 feet through the air across the road. And then group-whipped repeatedly. Usually the victim is too stupid to realize this is a severe reprimand of his behaviour and instead mistakes it for "all in good fun". Sheesh.

One of the greatest of the worst-kept secrets of Krampus fest in Berchtesgaden is the Goldener Bär, (The Golden Bear) a solidly good German restaurant with an Italian restaurant upstairs. If you sneak through the Goldener Bär, then sneak upstairs, there is a balcony which overlooks a hidden courtyard behind the building. And in this courtyard is a sort of staging/pow wow/rest area for the Krampus demons. It is a very long, exhausting two days for these guys, dressing in heavy costumes and running around all day whipping people and ringing bells. They need the occasional break to rest up, drink some beer, howl like demons, and party it up on their own. And of course a place for me to get some good shots. Here St. Nicholas is basking in the worship of his demons.

And then, just to prove he's no prude, St. Nick instructs them to let the howl-down begin!

Austria has this brand of chocolates named after Mozart. They are dainty little bon-bons, and cardboard cutouts of Mozart displaying a box of them are ubiquitous in the Alps. Apparently, Krampus demons thought Mozart needed a good whipping this year. Off with his head!

And this seems a little dangerous to me but hay, if a demon needs his nicotine, I for one am not standing in his way. (misspelling intended, haw haw!) A flaming straw demon would have been pretty scary anyway, and I was ready, if disappointed, with my camera.

The balcony overlooking the courtyard is really a great spot. Next time we go I will try and borrow someone's video camera so I can catch all the action. The cowbells from hell, the chanting, the howling, the demonic singing. I love it! One of the demons needed to use the demon loo and came up and was trying to get by us. I think he scared Nimmer a little.

But at the end of the night, even demons need to tone it down and kick back a bit. Even from the demon pow wow, a rest in a normal pub with some human friends is occasionally needed.

As for myself, one of my favorite places to rest my whipped buns and weary feet with a beer is upstairs, at that Italian restaurant I was telling you about. They serve good European style pizza and of course wonderful German beer, but most importantly it's very warm and not usually too crowded. So Gerald, Julie and I took a break up there for some quiet replenishment when some of our friends came in for a quiet rest of their own!

The above photo was taken with Julie's camera by a demon, and believe it or not it was their idea! I don't think any of us had the courage to ask for a photo but it turns out this was a really friendly pair. They just came over and plopped down next to us and began a half-hour or so of friendly chat. Of course, they didn't speak much English and my German is minimal, but it was educational nonetheless. Julie took this one.

The demons were obviously friends. The one you've seen here is a giant Bavarian man, and would be extremely intimidating even without the getup. His friend was a much smaller man, and they made an amusing pair. Julie got this fantastic photo as well.

The smaller demon allowed Julie to try on his mask. I can't believe she asked him if she could; I was still terrified of them. Perhaps I have too many preconceptions about Krampus Nacht to be able to separate the guys wearing the masks from the traditions they represent.

When I tell people about Krampus, I get very mixed reactions. Some people think it sounds like the coolest thing ever but more often, people just think it sounds stupid. "Why would you want to let a bunch of scary men in costumes whip you?! You're weird and a little gay, dude." That always surprises me. It's an experience like none you'd ever be allowed to have in the States. I mean, people like the idea of running with the bulls, or going to that crazy tomato festival. This is along the same lines as those but much more fun in a way more primal.

Notice I got greased on the top of my head. I think they like to take advantage of such a landing deck when they can. Anyway, I hope I've managed to get across why Krampus is awesome and not stupid and a little gay to anyone reading this who might be new to the whole thing.

So that was Krampus 2010. It was awesome, and really great to see my friend Nimmer again and meet his girlfriend and his friend John, and it was great to have Gerald along as well; he was one of the few who thought it sounded awesome the first time he heard about it so it's nice to see it get appreciated. It wound up being a really fun group of people. I was bummed that other Krampus companions of years past were unable to make it, but maybe next time. However the best thing about Krampus this year was being able to share it with Julie, who has had to listen to me yammer on about it and Germany for the last 4 years and finally got to see for herself. She had a really great time and now when I yammer on about it, she can join in. She and I stayed in Berchtesgaden for two more days after Krampus in order to recuperate from three weeks on the road and a nasty bug. I'd never done that before but A) Berchtesgaden is a near ghost town after the fest and B) the perfect place to decompress at the end of a Honeymoon. The hotel Bavaria had a Turkish bath and sauna in their private spa room, and we took full advantage. And two more delicious German dinners at the Goldener Bär are nothing to pass up. Well, until next time, may visions of gluhwein and whip-bearing demons dance in our heads.

I Went As A Proctor, I Went To The Mountain, I Looked Through The Eyepiece, I Drank From The Coffee Urn

Kitt Peak was. Awesome. I had done Tombstone the previous day in what was originally supposed to be my only free time after a job in Fort Huachuca, but I couldn't get a plane out until Saturday so Kitt Peak was my overstay day two destination of choice.

Cartoon cactus! Kitt Peak National Observatory is about a 2 hour drive West of Tucson. It is the home of 26 telescopes, the largest array of them anywhere in the world. Included among them are one radio telescope dish which is a member of the VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array), the largest solar telescope in the world, and the first telescope used to search for near-Earth asteroids that could possibly strike us one day.

It was a holy pilgimmage. Only better, because the sense of holiness at the top of this mountain felt like something real, something tangible, and not simply mass superstitious willfull delusion. (That needs a better word; is there a word that describes The Emperor Wears No Clothes syndrome? Mass delusion, hysteria, or hypnosis don't really cut it because we need something to connotate the willfullness of it.)

There is always a very real sense of excitement when one visits such places, places where the advancement of the human race has occurred, is still occurring, and will always occur as long as there are those who use their minds rather than their emotions to peer into reality. Or at least engage in the attempt.

It's a feeling of utter joy and freedom, something I never did feel as a member of a certain religion. Perhaps, in light of my previous paragraph, I ought not to use the word 'feeling'. Obviously I don't mean that emotions are evil; though they do lead one into error quite handily, especially during investigations. One should feel one's emotions, take pleasure in them, even use them in any form of expression you might choose, but never be guided by them.

Well enough of traveller's philosophy. Suffice it to say, I prefer a big metal telescope on a mountaintop to a guru any day.

So getting back to the details of my pilgrimmage; having a whole day and night until my departure from the desert around Tucson, I decided to take part in the evening observation program which they offer nightly. It was awesome. First they take you on a brief sunset tour of a few choice spots on the peak.

Then they let us into one of the working telescope domes for a brief lecture and demonstration of stuff. You know, sciencey stuff.

But the absolute high point was of course actual observation. We got to play with one of the telescopes. A dinky one to be sure, as far as Kitt Peak scopes go, but certainly a more powerful one than I've ever had the opportunity to use before.

We got to see moon craters, a binary star system, and Jupiter's cloud bands. it was pretty freaking sweet. In the advanced observing program for amateur astronomers, they let you use their digital telescope cameras to take and keep pictures of stuff that you choose to look at. But that program costs like $500 and is a sleepover so, not in the cards for me on this trip. (Or should I say, not in the STARS for me on this trip? Yuk snort! No, no I guess I shouldn't.) Next time.

I also got to sit around and take cool night photos while other people got a turn at the eyepiece so, win win all around. I took a metric ton of these, but I'll spare you and post only the money shot.

And that's pretty much it. It was quite a hushed evening, meditative even; there's a stillness on an astronomer's mound at night, even among a group of other stargazers, that has to be experienced to be appreciated, hence all of my holy comparisons.

There was an infrared camera inside, and I couldn't resist a parting shot of myself in the monitor. Creepy right?

And now I am currently on my Honeymoon! You know, with that girl I married. It's been a great trip so far, but I just wanted to get these Kitt Peak pix up before the onslaught of European photos begin.

Jesus Struck By Lightning: Initial Response, Hilarity In Appreciation Of Irony Finer Than Wine. Then, Anti-Religious Philosophy.

So God Jr. was recently struck by lightning. Jesus H. Christ. If you haven’t heard about it, the article is here. This is a very important event in world history, in the history of philosophy, and of religion. You may scoff, but I believe that future scholars will refer to the burning of fiberglass Jesus as a major turning point in the mental evolution of mankind. Here’s why: It disproves everything that Christians hold dear, no matter how you look at it. And before the outrage takes hold of you, if you’re a Christian, I will allow that it only disproves everything that fundamentalist Christians hold dear, and not necessarily the other, more middle of the road Christians. And my argument for this case is thus:

God is sick of hearing about Jesus already. If you believe that everything is controlled by God, and things such as Hurricane Katrina are a sign that God hates Fags, then the striking of a statue of Jesus by lightning is the clearest sign you can get that God hates Jesus. Don’t like that conclusion? Well try this one:

2)      There is no God, or God doesn’t talk to you. Why would a God who exists send such a confusing message? If you believe that God is in charge of everything, and sends messages via lighting, hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes, why would he confuse his followers in such a crucial time in history? Well, he didn’t. Lightning strikes, i.e. Acts of God, are random and purposeless in nature. At the very least, if this doesn’t prove that there is no God to you, it should prove that he takes no hand in things and lets the chips fall where they may. Therefore, fags, dikes, and liberals are not to blame for Katrina. But wait, you still believe he sends you messages through, not random acts of kindness but of destructive nature? Idiot. Well, here’s really the only possible message:

        God doesn’t like your rhetoric. If you insist on believing in a God who controls everything, then this can only mean that He hates your ugly religion, and is accusing you of worshiping false idols. Stop pretending to know what he wants of you already. Perhaps instead of trying to browbeat the world with Jesus, you should just try and be a good person. Live and let live. So he struck down your false idol, i.e. your false image of who and what Jesus was, in order to get you to consider the falseness of your damned religion.

 Whichever way it goes, it’s a sure sign that the Universe is not what you think.

My San Diego Mission Of Religious Decommission

San Diego. Eh. I don't see what all the fuss is about. I had a job there for 7 days the other week. Julie lived there for a short time after college, so I used some miles to bring her along to give me a tour of her old stomping grounds. The thing about San Diego that sucks is that it's ALL highway. Want to go a couple of blocks away for dinner? Get on the highway. Not because it's a shortcut, but because the only roads are highways. But one thing we found that was super cool in San Diego was the Geisel Library on the San Diego campus of the University of California.

Cool right? Because he once said that if he were to ever design a building that it would look like that, it is named in honor of this guy:

 

The human, not the cat. You know, that one there with the hat. We happened to be there on the good Dr.'s 106th Birthday, and they had a few of his sketches on Display.

Apparently they were also going to have their annual birthday party for him out in front of the library, with punch and pie, but they canceled that this year due to some racial incidents that have recently plagued the University. It apparently began with the Compton Cookout, a frat party where guests were supposed to come dressed as racial stereotypes, and then someone put a KKK hood over the Dr. Suess statue's head, and then someone hung a noose in the library. It's all very weird and I don't understand it. I thought that California was supposed to be a bastion of tolerance? For different types of people at least, as long as they drive a hybrid, are vegetarians, and recycle, etc etc... Well I guess I was myth-taken. Between their unusually deep economic troubles, their recent vote against equal rights for homosexuals, and now this, I'd have to say that things are going downhill over there, and that's a bad sign for the rest of us, shall we say, less plastic liberals in the country. (Not to mention what's happening to public education in Texas; not that it's a surprise as such, just that every day our once great nation gets weirder and weirder and more willfully ignorant, and it's happening at an alarming rate. Dollhouse.)

All I can say is, if you're going to cancel the birthday party of the man who wrote 'The Sneetches' and 'The Butter Battle Book', well, the terrorists win again. I mean the racists! The racists win again. Whatever. Same thing. Bad people scaring good people into reacting ineffectually. (Thanks for stealing my thunder by the way, Miss Luongo. :)

Well anyway. We took a drive up the Pacific highway, which is "one of the good ones"... highways, I mean. Obviously. We stopped on an oceanside cliff in La Jolla.

Paragliding is cool. My friend Dirk, when we lived in Germany, used to snowboard all day, then strap on his paraglider and fly down to the river where his VW Van (which he called his toybox) was waiting with his kayak, and he'd kayak down the river into town. One of his less insane friends of course usually had to help him out with the logistics of that of course.

The last adventure of ours of note, besides lunch on Laguna Beach and a corona in Tijuana, was our visit to San Juan Capistrano. There's some famous mission there. You know, a church built by missionaries back in the early days of westward expansion for the purpose of bringing God's word to those stupid heathen Native Americans.

And how best to make these savages understand that God means business?

 Why stand around and be all holier than they while making them do all the laundry, of course! And then make them build the building that honors your God through slave labor!

That will teach those stupid dumbbrain injuns to not have ever heard about Jesus. Everyone knows you can not teach an injun to be holy except by showing 'em how, with ancient European holy martial art; holy-shit-I'm-so-holy-stance!

I especially love how the present day mission museum was ashamed enough of these dioramas to shove them in a back corner that I was super lucky to find but not enough to, you know, get rid of them.

So what did I learn about the San Juan Capistrano Mission?

That priests love being in authority over children of ALL ethnicity. And are very holy fucking creepy about that fact. Isn't that right, Pope Friendly? Seriously! Look at this guy! He is the best Pope ever, because he gives the creepy shivers like no other! Hey Pope Child Molester! I have a funny religious joke for you: What do you call a pregnant virgin? A fucking liar!

Now It's MY Turn To Indulge A Little, Pope Craphead!

"Repentance alone is of no help; grace cannot be bought with repentance; it cannot in any way be bought."

"If His churches and priests were like Christ Himself, there would be no need of poets."
-Hermann Hesse

So speaking of religion, here's a fascinating little fact that just came across my desk. Ever hear of indulgences, or Johann Tetzel? Well, in point of fact, Johann was a German Dominican preacher who in the year of our lordy lord lord 1517 was trying to raise money for the construction of St. Peter's Basilica; Yes that's correct, an integral part of that huge, garish, ostentatious monument to man's power and greed known as the Vatican.

 

In order to fund this little project, Johann travelled around to towns and villages. Rather than to say to them, "Hey poor people, we're trying to build this monstrous church in Rome that will display Catholic power to the world, how about giving us your milk money to, you know, help a Friar out?", he instead went around singing a little ditty that is now known (by me, anyway) as the Indulgence Rag. It goes: "As soon as a coin in the coffer rings / the soul from purgatory springs." Yes, in point of fact, he created one of Satan's moste potente minde controlle gimmicks, the very first Advertisement Jingle.

Basically the premise is that, if you've been less than good but not quite bad enough to go to hell, you can buy your way out of Purgatory, because the Pope had the authority to tell God who deserves to go to Heaven, and God had to listen. And the Pope would perform this small task for even the poorest meanest villiager out of the kindness of his cold black heart, and for a small, meaningless fee, of course. And not to forget, he would not have even offered the poor people this kindly ease of mind had he not needed cash to build his big crappity church. So there's Papal altruism for you.

I feel that there is something extremely poetic about the world's first ad jingle being composed and utilized by a Catholic priest trying to scam poor people into giving him their last copper in order to build the most gaudy, useless building in the world. On the one side, it's poetic because essentially, advertising in that respect hasn't changed; advertisers would love for people to still believe that buying stuff will save your soul, and in a sense they've continued to create this sense in people. The feeling that buying those shoes or my new Canon Xsi will make us happy, complete in some way. It's a gaping hole in every shoppers chest that can never be filled, and the only thing I'm not entirely sure of is how exactly it got there. My bet is that the Church created this need in people by selling them indulgences, and has continued to exploit it ever since, but even if it's always been there, an integral part of Man's nature, there is no denying that the Church first learned of it and exploited it through Johann Tetzel.

On the other side it's also poetic, because it helps to bathe the Pope and the Catholic Church in it's own ugly light. The questions that weren't thought about in 1517 by dirty uneducated villagers can be easily asked now. So, why does God, whose Son supposedly upended all of the money changer's tables in front of the Temple, give a rat's ass about 2 copper bits when it comes to men's souls? Of course he doesn't. This episode in the Church's history clearly shows what a corrupt, scamming pile of God Turd the Catholic Church really is. They thought they could get away with this because people were stupid and uneducated, but history didn't forget, and now we may still be stupid, but at least we're educated enough to recognize a hustle when we see one. This is what organized religion is really all about; Getting butts in seats by using the fear of eternal hell or purgatory and offering salvation through the application of a little magical formula, and don't forget to tithe on the way out, y'all.

Anyway, the wikipedia page on Johann Tetzel is here, and the article which turned me on to this very illuminating tidbit is here. I'm going to leave this rant with another picture I took during my visit to the Vatican a few years back. It's a shot of the escalator leading up to the Vatican Museum entrance, and it sure looks a lot like many Christain fantasist's idea of the stairway to heaven to me... wonder if that's what the Catholic church was going for? A little not-so-subliminal advertising? What do you think?

 

 

The Power Of Chick Compels You

Ever wonder what really happened to the dinosaurs? Chick knows! Click on the comic to read more!

Chick is now online, and all of his wonderful messages in cartoon can be perused at your leisure! Chick tracts were around when I was really young, and I remember one in particular that scared the living crap out of me. Something about an MC 500 foot Jesus coming to rip my guts out. I love how evil all non-Christians are in Chick's fabulous brain.

Incest and murder are my things? Comedy gold. But there are many many other classics, including one about how to convert Muslims to Christianity by insulting Allah!

And one of my personal favorites about a rather testy old Evolution teacher. Those bad science professors sure need some calming Christ in their life, don't they?

Have you noticed how all of the main characters, both good and evil, in Chick tracts are white? Well, don't feel left out, people of color. Lest you think Chick might be racist, Chick made a tract for you, too! (I pasted the description onto the tract cover from the main tract listing page)

And not to spoil the ending of Oops! or anything, but I also think it's important to note that Chick gives black people a very important role in his mythos:

There are other tracts made just especially for the blacks too. There's Soul Sisters, (featuring black Adam & Eve and a black Angel! See? Chick's no racist!) Who Loves You?, and Chick even took the time to kindly redraw the Allah Had No Son tract just for them! He retitled it Who is Allah?

And no post about Chick would be complete with out a tract about the totalitarian rule of the costumed anti-Christ during the last days on Earth before Jesus comes to rule the world. Sadly, we don't get to see Jesus in a Batman-like costume come and pummel the joker here, but I guess the implication is enough to get Chick's message across.

A panel from this strip explains away all the contradictions about Christians who are anti-environmentalist, and who cheer on nuclear wars and unrest in Israel:

That's why I'm so excited? Christians are freaking scary sometimes, dude. Oh, keep this one on the down-low for now, but Chick doesn't like Queers much, neither... or maybe he's afraid of them? Hard to tell. Wonder why a straight guy is afraid of a couple of other guys holding hands?

Gulp! Gay Hippies! Or perhaps the implication is that all hippies are Jerry Garcia lookalike commie fags... not sure. All I know is, it's no big deal, it's all a joke to me! Proposition Hate? Nah... Proposition GREAT!

Another one of my favorites is an interesting piece of cartoon art titled Last Rites. It's theme is essentially how wrong Catholics are about God and his rules, and it starts off with, you know, an ordinary everyday non-Christian couple driving a car.

 

They accidentally run over a good Catholic man who dies and goes in front of God for judgment, who then informs the poor Catholic man that he's been doing it wrong and will therefore burn in Hell for all eternity. The Catholic man complains to God and says that he went to church, and did everything the Priests told him he had to do to go to Heaven, that this isn't fair! How was he to know that there was a better way? Well, says God, Chick Tracts would have straightened you out!

Apparently, Chick Tracts are so awesome that now even God is using them to witness to us and to save our souls. Jerry Falwell & Pat Robertson are out, Chick is in. I hope everybody got that memo.

Soulless Meat Products Of War

I ran across this article on this guy because of email alerts I get from Google on any news out there relating to my imprisoned boss from Iraq. The article barely mentions my old boss, but this guy, Colonel Frank Wismer III, is a real piece of work. He's an Episcopalian Army Chaplain; you know, a believer in the Bible and Jesus and peace and love, and the article says this:

"Wismer, whose awards include the Bronze Star Medal and the Combat Action Badge, passes on to readers many lessons he learned while in Iraq. Here's one: "Going to war is an incredibly fantastic experience if one lives through it…One year in Iraq revealed things about community that the church was not able to reveal to me in 50-some years. I say that not as a criticism of the church, but to highlight the incredible bond that is established by individuals who survive the horrors of war."

Going to war is an incredibly fantastic experience? Because of the bond soldiers get while protecting each other and killing the other guy? I think he's missed the point of his religion. I mean, I get the bond thing, I really do. I've been in several situations which can never be understood by anyone who wasn't there with me, and this certainly creates a bond, so I can maybe imagine what being in the life or death struggles of combat can do for friendships, though I'm not sure what that has to do with religion. But this is a supposed man of God, talking about how great war is without any sense of irony. I'm not sure that "Onward Christian Soldiers" was meant as a literal call to literal bloody war, dude. My understanding, from having grown up in the church, was that we were being called to fight a purely spiritual war to convert human souls to God, and I'm not sure how you can justify turning people into soulless meat product in even a just war, let alone the atrocious moral and criminal mess that has been Bush's campaign in Iraq, as a so-called man of God.

"The big picture, he suggests, are the strategic objectives that led to the invasion of Iraq -- to fight the war on terror outside of America's borders, to plant democracy in a part of the world that spawns terror; to isolate neighboring Syria, influence a democratic movement in Iran and give notice Saudi Arabia that it cannot tolerate a strict, conservative brand of the Muslim faith practiced there and harbor Islamic militants."

He's agreeing with the sentiments in this paragraph, by the way, calling the lies and misinformation that led to our illegal and immoral war in Iraq "strategic objectives." And he feels that his God is okay with fighting the war on terror, America's war on terror, outside of America's borders. This, to me, is a most horrific sentiment. That a supposed Christian man thinks it is okay to take our battles and fight them in someone else's home. We've taken our war on terrorism, which now we all know had absolutely nothing to do with Saddam Hussein, Iraq or terrorism, and destroyed those innocent people's lives and homes, and he thinks this is what we as God's army had a right to do.

I don't know. I've never understood how any church can justify Army Chaplains who are also war mongers for the church. In my mind, if an Army Chaplain were to be living up to his beliefs, he should only be there to encourage moral behavior among the troops, (Hey guys, when you're out there today, please don't rape and kill any Iraqi women and their families. They're God's children too, you know) and to do everything in their power to help end conflicts, not promote them.

If you really want an extreme lefty belief here, I'm pretty sure that, were Jesus everything the Bible says he was, he'd vastly disapprove of the very concept of Army Chaplains. Men of God have no business in war, except perhaps to be there independently, (not on the military payroll) and being compassionate to all people involved while doing whatever possible to end it. However, he's actually against withdrawing our presence in Iraq, mostly because of how he thinks it would make us look.

"To pullout our troops out of Iraq now would be a colossal mistake and send that country to chaos," he says. "Strategically that would not be helpful. We would be seen as a people only in something for a short time, not for the long haul."

"I would like to see the Iranian government be able to manage, the military be able to protect the country from without and the police to protect it from within. Then there can be phased withdrawals, but that needs to be done over time."

Iranian Government? I hope that was just a misprint and not a telling slip of the tongue, dude.

Ghouls & Goblins & Palin Oh My! It's Going To Be The Scariest Halloween Yet!

I haven't been around much lately, I know. My question is, have any of us? For myself, I've been consumed with fear and paranoia over the state of the economy. My 401k has less money in it now than what was put into it out of my original paychecks. My stocks... well, as I've said before; when in 2050 they are teaching schoolchildren in the most powerful Nation in the world (my prediction: Eurasia) about the great world stock market crash of '08, my picture will be in the book as the poster child for those who bought in at exactly the worst moment in history. Maybe. I'm sticking it out in case my fears are incorrect.

Also, I've been consumed with the fear that no matter how many nonsensical utterings of bullshit come out of Sarah Palin's mouth, we still might be forced to look at her pasty vapid psycho doll eyed face for the next four years. If that happens, it'll be the final nail in the coffin of our country. She's deeply stupid (yet thinks she's smarter than everyone and that no one can see through to her motivations) and masks it poorly with down-home stylings meant to fool the common man into thinking she's like one of them. She's playing on the irrational blue collar disdain of elitists, which is scary because apparently the present down-home version of an elitist is someone with an education who speaks with knowledge and authority on a given subject. Apparently, the people with whom Palin is trying to connect would rather the officials in charge of their government not understand how to answer basic questions and mask their ignorance with folksy exclamations which make no sense. I CAN NOT believe that people are being taken in by her and McCain, especially after realizing finally that they've been taken in by Bush for the last 8 years.

It's embarrassing to have these people on the world stage representing us, and if you're voting for Palin (to hell with McCain; he's irrelevant and will keel over soon) shame on you, dupe. Well, the polls do currently favor Obama of course, but not by a wide enough margin to quell my disbelief.

Another thing I'm afraid of lately is this Creation Museum in Kentucky. It's a museum. Dedicated to Creationism. And people are visiting it in droves. Creationism is the belief that the world was created by God around this time of the year on a Monday morning in 4004 BC. Dinosaur bones and all. Now, the belief in God, the Bible, and its literal truth, is a Faith. Faith, not Science. The line between the two concepts is under attack. Science is the search for truth, based on verifiable fact. Faith is the belief in something for which you have no proof. I have no problem with people of Faith going to Church and learning about what they believe in. I just wish they'd stop trying to force their beliefs into the schoolroom. It's dangerous and useless. Education in America is already severely limited these days. I met a Gas Station attendant in Germany who studied math for fun and spoke four languages. Most European students can talk intelligently and at great length about world politics, and know where Eritrea is on a map. There are people like that in the States, to be sure, but they get made fun of and called geeks. Something that modern day religious Americans seem to forget is that part of the reason why America is such a great place to live is that we once valued a secular education, and our prosperity comes from the application of our knowledge AND hard work. And on Sundays and at mealtimes, God was valued and thanked in many homes, sure, but at the end of the work day, God helps those who help themselves. Deceiving ourselves into thinking that faith needs to compete with science is not going to help anybody, because it's false. When it comes to science, religion tends to breed rather a hostile attitude of indifference because what difference does science make when Jesus is coming back to turn the Earth into blood soup and all the people who are looking forward to this disaster get to skip it and go to Heaven for candy and unicorns? They tend to forget that, even according to the Bible, we are Stewards of the Earth, and as such will be held responsible for it one day, one way or another.

Granted, science has caused a lot of problems on this Earth. Next to all the good things like medicine and movie theaters. But at this point, Science is also the only tool we have to save ourselves, and subverting it with Bible stories is NOT the way to go.

So now I come to the thing I'm actually afraid of this morning, the real reason behind this post. I get up and begin my routine as usual; perform the daily miracle of turning tap water into coffee. Eat breakfast. Drink some pre-miracled water, gulp down my daily plethora of vitamins with a big glass of more tap water, brush my teeth with tap water from the bathroom sink. I go sit down at my computer for my daily stock torture, notice I have a message on my phone. It's my landlord, Frank, telling me they put out a warning last night not to drink the tap water, not even after boiling it, and that it might not be safe to even bathe in until further notice; I listen to this as I'm taking another long sip of coffee. SO, I call Frank back to see if I need to go to the hospital, and he says he doesn't know; he's on his way up to the borough office to find out what's going on. Meanwhile, I wait here, typing out my ranty fears in this post, wondering how sick I can expect to be at any moment. I continue drinking my coffee because, what the hell, what's done is done.

I finally get a call back from Frank. Apparently, someone who lives next to the town Water Tower saw three guys hanging around the tower. Climbing it and other shady behavior. Neighbors called it in, water's being checked to see if terrorists poisoned it. I live in a very small town; that water tower probably supplies about 5 or 6 hundred people.

I make more coffee and drink a big fat glass of tap water. Laugh and shake my head. More disbelief, more wonderment at how afraid people are, and how much America is being ruled by their fears. I laugh as my stocks tumble. Screw it. It's only money. President Palin? Ha! Good joke! She'll only hasten the downfall of this abominable government we're stuck with! The terrorists have already won anyway. They've shown us how weak and vulnerable we've become, all on our own. Thank God I got to see Stereolab at the Fillmore in NYC before I died. Miss Luongo and I went up to see them last week with my friends Jeff and Steph. Pure aural pleasure.

Addendum: He Who Has Ears, Let Him Hear

"The United States is a Christian nation founded upon Christian principles and beliefs."
-pres George W. Bush

"The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion."
-PRESIDENT George Washington

"I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature."
-PRESIDENT Thomas Jefferson

"The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my religion."
-PRESIDENT Abraham Lincoln

"A just government has no need for the clergy or the church."
-PRESIDENT James Madison

"I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end... where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice."
-PRESIDENT John F. Kennedy

"I don’t know that atheists should be considered patriots, nor should they be considered citizens".
-pres George "Daddy" Bush

"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand they do less easily move against him believing that he has the gods on his side."
-Aristotle

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
-Seneca

"We admit of no government by divine right....The only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed"

-William Henry Harrison

"The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum"
-Havelock Ellis

"Civilization will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest"
-Emile Zola

"Nature and nature’s laws lay hid by night

God said "let there be Newton and all was light"

-Alexander Pope

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not Omnipotent.
Is he able but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is God both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?"

AND
"Why should I fear death?
If I am, then death is not.
If Death is, then I am not.
Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?
Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear.

Religious tyranny did domineer.
At length the mighty one of Greece
Began to assent the liberty of man."

-Epicurus

"There is in every village a torch and an extinguisher: the schoolteacher and the priest."
-Victor Hugo

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the reasoning of a single individual"
AND
"To command their professors of astronomy [or even, gasp, evolution] to refute their own observations is to command them not to see what they do see and not to understand what they do understand."
-Galileo Galilei

"All the religions are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent."
-Tennessee Williams

"The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not."
-Eric Hoffer

"Those who seek consolation in existing churches often pay for their peace of mind with a tacit agreement to ignore a great deal of what is known about the way the world works."
-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshiped anything but himself."
AND
"Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause; He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws."
-Sir Richard Francis Burton

"To believe in God or in a guiding force because someone tells you to is the height of stupidity. We are given senses to receive our information within. With our own eyes we see, and with our own skin we feel. With our intelligence, it is intended that we understand. But each person must puzzle it out for himself or herself."
-Sophy Burnham

"What about the statue in California currently said to be crying bloody tears? Why worry about the alleged weeping of a plaster effigy when so many actual human beings have reason to cry?"
-Anna Quindlen

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
-Steven Weinberg

"A cult is a religion with no political power."
-Tom Wolfe

"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring."
-Chuck Palahniuk

I Bring You The TEN [CRASH!] Um, FIFTEEN Commandments!

"There is in every village a torch and an extinguisher: the schoolteacher and the priest."
-Victor Hugo

The Athiest’s Commandments from ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins. The first ten are from a website he found while researching his book, then XI through XIV are his own additions, and XV is mine, as well as the comments in brackets.

 I. Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.

 II. In all things, strive to cause no harm.

III. Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.

 IV. Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.

 V. Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.

 VI. Always seek to be learning something new.

 VII. Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.

 VIII. Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you. [But don’t let them get away with faulty reasoning without a fight. Besides, maybe they’ll prove you wrong and that’s good too.]

 IX. Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.

 X. Question everything.

 XI. Enjoy your own sex life (so long as it damages nobody else) and leave others to enjoy theirs in private whatever their inclinations, which are none of your business.

 XII. Do not discriminate or oppress on the on the basis of sex, race or (as far as possible) species.

 XIII. Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.

 XIV. Value the future on a timescale longer than your own.

 XV.  Patriotism is a lie. Religion is a lie. God is an unknown. [Patriotism and Religion are not even compatible, and yet most Patriotic Americans are Religious too. Here, I’ll prove it:

 a) Patriotism = My country is #1, above and beyond all others, right or wrong.

  b) My Country is run by old rich cowards who want our young idealistic men to kill for their comforts

c) Religion says thou shall not kill. [even if that commandment is the only part of the Old Testament which actually says that, because otherwise God sanctioned quite a lot of killin’ and rapin’ in those days.]

  d) Therefore, Patriotism & Religion can not go hand in hand. Yet somehow, when combined in the mind of deeply uncritical people, they do.

I’m not saying I'm an atheist. But I am saying that I share a lot more in common with an atheist than with religious thinkers these days. And here's the reason. One time in Church, I remember my pastor doing that whole thing where he says that a lot of people out there in the world will try to tell good Christians that the Bible is full of lies and contradictions. His response to the congregation? "Well I'm here to tell you that the Bible is NOT full of lies!" Brilliant, carry on, Pastor. What? That's all you got? Huh. Anyway I think I related this story in somewhat more detail once before, here.

But the realization that I eventually came to is that belief in God is fundamentally, in the mind of religion at any rate, an insidious and lazy way of avoiding the issue of Life, The Universe, and Everything. What I mean is, one thing that many religious types use to try to convince people that evolution is bunk is the idea that the world is too complicated, too amazing, too wonderful to have all just happened by random chance, it must have been created. (Here's a YouTube I will NEVER get tired of, which is a prime example of that sort of reasoning. If, of all horrors, you find the banana argument compelling, please watch this one also. Thanks again, GoDrex! )

First off, anyone who has taken the time to attempt to understand evolution would never say that. Evolution is anything but random, which is part of its beauty and power. Secondly, all they've done by this argument is show a lack of logical thought. SO, you're saying that the Universe is too complicated and "well designed" to have just happened? So, there must be a Creator. Well then, logically, any possible Creator has to be larger and more well designed than the object of his creation. A hammer and anvil do not forge a blacksmith, for instance. Therefore essentially all that this argument has done is to push the question back a step and in reality, magnify it. Rather than believe in the apparent existence of a complicated and evolved Universe (based on verifiable fact), you'd rather believe in the apparent existence of an even larger and more complicated, magical Creator.

I'm not saying that definitively there's no God, which is why I'm not an atheist. (Although according to Dawkins' scale of atheism, I am a 5th or 6th degree atheist, with a 7th degree atheist believing absolutely %100 in the non-existence of God. I will always leave room for the possibility, if not the probability.) I'm just pointing out the weakness of logic in the Religious mind. And I AM saying that IF there's a God, he's not the God of that great work of fiction, the Bible. I think that IF there is a Creator, the only thing that he really gave us are our hearts and our minds, which are very effective tools when reason and logic are applied, and I think he'd be very disappointed in Religion.

For anybody who has read 'The God Delusion', it's apparent that I've used much of Dawkins' material here. In my own idiosyncratic way, of course. But I feel that it's a book which has provided me with a clear way of thinking about ideas which I've held for a while.

Basically what it all boils down to for me is this: Religious apologists have NEVER been able to prove the existence of God or the veracity of the Bible through either Science, logic, or reason. Which makes sense according to the Fundamental Religious version of "logic" anyway; it's all about faith, regardless of the facts. (Dinosaur bones were purposefully planted there to test our faith.) So why do they keep trying? Why do they want Creationism, sorry, Intelligent Design, taught in science classes? Science is about verifiable fact, religion is about faith. You don't see scientists banging on the doors of churches, trying to force Sunday school teachers to teach evolution. Although, the inevitable backlash has already begun with the likes of Dawkins. He's tired of Religion's interference in the world of reality, hence the book. It's time for the Religious to accept that faith is based on nothing verifiable, and that they are welcome to it. 

And his main points are good ones; You don't need Religion to be moral, brainwashing children with religion is immoral (Christians don't call it brainwashing when they do it, but what else would you call it when, in a different religion such as Islam for example, brainwashed children grow up to steer planes into buildings in the name of their faith?), and he (and I) would be the first one to believe in the existence of God should there ever be proof of his existence. In the meantime, people should stop fighting, brainwashing, and killing each other over minor differences in opinion as to his nature. Something tells me that should your particular version of God turn out to be the real one, he'd still be very pissed at you for adhering to such nonsense and calamity. Unless of course you're Jewish. The Old Testament God was an asshole.

On a final note, I want to reiterate what I believe to be Dawkins' most imperative point in his book: There is no such thing as a Christian child, a Muslim child, an atheist child, or a Buddhist child etc. There are only Children of Christian parents, Children of Muslim parents, Children of atheist parents, and Children of Buddhist parents etc. Until children are mature enough to have weighed all the facts and decide for themselves, they are only children. After all, no one says that their child is a Marxist, or a Democrat, or a Communist. It's ok to wait until the child is of age to decide for itself what its political leanings are, and the same needs to be true of religion.

The Synchroni-City Of Atlanta

So remember that picture of the Dalai Lama that I found in that Rudy Rucker book from a few posts back? Well, I found out where the photo was taken! Sort of. Yesterday was my first real free day since coming to Atlanta, and they claim to have the largest aquarium in the world here so I decided that I'd go check it out. I love aquariums. I've been using that picture of the Dalai Lama as a bookmark, naturally enough, and I brought my latest Rudy Rucker book with me to read when I stopped for coffee or some such after I got tired of looking at big fish tanks. 

Incidentally, I was talking to one of the guys in the class earlier, asking him about stuff to do in Atlanta, and he got real excited telling me all about the Coca-Cola museum. Yeah, that's right. He was nearly frothing as he told me that they let you try every coke flavor ever made, and that they had this display of coke cans from around the world! The Korean one was particularly sublime, apparently. The highest artistic commercial expression of design and functionality.

And people wonder why I think most of America is such a wasteland of consumerism.

Atlanta's other big attractions according to the hotel's brochure rack were the UPS museum and a grand tour of CNN's offices, and something called The Underground which is a historical area of the city with lots of "unique shopping". Also, a guided city tour... on Segways. Urgh. So, suffice it to say, I wasn't really expecting much out of my day there, other than the aquarium.

The aquarium was pretty sweet. Although, it made me finally realize that no aquarium is ever going to hold up to my childhood memories of going to the aquarium in Boston with my family. Whenever I remember it, it seems gigantic, bigger than any aquarium could possibly be, with a huge 6 level cylindrical tank which you walked up a spiral ramp around, looking at thousands of fish, sharks, and a blue whale inside. I know I know, very unlikely, but I said it was a childhood memory. Those kind of memories tend to grow up along with you. Anyway, the one in Atlanta has four whale-sharks, and they're fairly large. And hammerhead sharks, and those ones with a long saw for a nose. So I was happy. Oh! And Manta-Rays. I love Manta-Rays. They're my favorite aquatic animal.

Anyway, I finished up in the aquarium at around 2:00, and decided I would head over to the Underground, which sounded mildly more interesting than the UPS museum. The coke museum was right next door to the aquarium, but I couldn't bring myself to do it, I just couldn't. I thought about it for a minute, and started walking towards it, but when I saw the ticket line I realized that my soul would truly be damned to hell if I actually paid to go in the ... coca-cola... museum... So I backed away slowly and made for the Underground.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Underground... I saw a sign, a very interesting sign, that said 'Dalai Lama. Free event. 3:00 - 6:00'. I saw some hippie-looking people standing around, so I asked one of them half-jokingly if that meant that the Dalai Lama was really going to be there. And you know, he was. So, I went and saw the Dalai Lama. He was making an acceptance speech in the Olympic Park there, because Emory University had made him a Distinguished Visiting Professor, or some such. On the way in, just before going through park security, there were some fundies hanging around across the street screaming at people that they were going to hell if they listened to the Dalai Lama, and trying to hide the Dalai Lama signs by standing in front of them. Fundies are soooo cute and adorable, with their childish ways and grammar, I just had to snap a photo.

So it seemed like there were thousands of people in the park, waiting to see the Dalai Lama Show. Being bored, and having a camera in my hand, I took a few gratuitous crowd shots.

The girls holding the flag there kept shouting "Free Tibet! Stop killing the monks!" And I kept thinking, "Nobody here is killing any monks, nor are we enslaving Tibet. What are they getting so agitated about? They should go to the Chinese embassy. Or if it's Americans they want to shout at, they can go to Washington and chant about leaving Iraq and to stop murdering innocent Iraqi people. That at least is something worth yelling at a large gathering of Americans about. Oh wait, I get it, we're on TV." Oh, and did I mention that it was pouring rain all day, right up until around noon? Atlanta was having a pretty serious drought until yesterday. So people kept being all smug all day and saying that the Dalai Lama brought the rain with him, but that it stopped long enough for him to speak, because the rain started up again at around 7pm. True enough as far as it goes, although all that really concerned me about it was how the buildings kept disappearing into the clouds. Atlanta is kind of pretty with low clouds.

Anyway, after a bunch of Tibetans playing music, a three piece Atlanta jazz band, then more Tibetans wearing those yellow half-moon hat things and doing that deep OM chant, the Dalai Lama finally took the stage. He's such a nice old man. He thanked Emory University for making him a professor, although he did say that they shouldn't expect him to be around teaching classes much because he's very lazy. Much laughter and applause.

Then he spoke for an hour or so, in his charming broken English, often stopping mid-sentence to ask his translator "Whatssa Name?", about world peace and all that. Since he's the supposed reincarnation of the Buddha of compassion, he had some nice things to say about that. He said that compassion is not a religious idea, that he did not learn these important values from Buddhism, but from his mother. Compassion is born into every human being because after you are born, your survival depends upon the care of another human being. Turtles, who are abandoned on the beach by their mothers, Salmon, whose mothers die after spawning, and some animals whose mothers eat them, insects and so on, they are likely not capable of compassion. Compassion is therefore a human instinct, not a religious idea. He made a very clear point to say that religion is really not so very important, but that compassion is. If you believe in God, that is wonderful, but it is more important to have love and compassion. I think I can get behind that.

After the Dalai Lama Show was over, I saw a bunch of Tibetan monks hanging out so I walked over to them and did the little bow thing that everybody does when those guys are around. Very friendly guys. I pulled out my Rudy Rucker book, and showed them my bookmark and asked them if they knew where the photo had been taken. They smiled and one of them said "Oh, very good picture of His Holiness. This look like when he was in Mambamaramamabakok India."

So there you have it. Some things that I learned today: People holding signs and chanting slogans generally ought to be mistrusted, but people holding children are beautiful, (The Dalai Lama also said that "It is everyone's duty to give maximum affection to their children. It is not my duty though, because I'm a monk. Ha ha.") and that the Photo of His Holiness that fell out of Rudy Rucker's book was probably taken in Mambamaramamabakok, India. And I thought my trip was going to be boring. Sheesh. So the moral of this story is, if you avoid going to the easy, obvious things which commercialism would have you do such as cola museums, you get to see the Dalai Lama, have certain pressing photo-origin questions answered, and be condemned to hell for it by people who claim to follow Jesus, who, by the way, also preached a message of love and compassion. I flipped them the bird. A really fun day, as far as I'm concerned.

I Was Fated To Choose To Write This Post In An Idiosyncratic Manner

There's an old conundrum bandied about in philosophical and spiritual circles about whether or not our lives, the universe, and everything are driven by free will or are pre-destined. I believe the Catholics like to call it pre-determination, which is the specific opinion that God has chosen all of our destinies, made all of our choices for us.

Leaving out the existence of God or lack thereof argument for the moment, this has always struck me as an idiotic and short-sighted position on the matter for religious types. The whole point behind the oldest Christian moral, that of Adam and Eve, is about giving man a choice between happy-go-lucky gardening in Eden or the loss of their innocence in exchange for cold hard knowledge. In other words, the very first choice in the Bible that was given to man by God was to do as he will; ignore the fruit tree as commanded, or eat some and suffer. That's what I believe what the kids are calling free will these days is. God wanted to see what Adam was made of, so he gave him a choice. So I really don't understand where all this religious pre-determination nonsense comes from. Probably some crusty old robed dude with a superiority complex sitting in the Vatican thinking up ways to justify his job.

Leaving pre-determination behind as anachronistic and moving on to the more philosophical aspect of the question, known as pre-destination, we begin to tread more logical ground. Pre-destination makes more sense to me as an idea because of some of the revelations of modern science, actually. Namely, the fact that Einstein discovered that Time is in reality not something that hasn't happened yet, but merely a 4th dimension. In other words, Time is quite possibly all of a piece; what we consider the past, present, and future are extremely subjective and actually may conceivably exist in the Universe all at once, and we are like mites on a round table or cavemen on a globe, too small to see the shape of it, but destined to travel in circles while believing we walk in a straight line. In other words, everything that ever was, is, or will be, exists right here and now, but our little minds are not large enough to perceive more than a tiny bit of it at any particular instant, which we call the present. By this logic, our futures have already happened and there is no changing them, and this is where the more philosophical side of the pre-destiny of our lives argument comes from. And you can still blame God if you want, or shake your hand futilely at the sky and rail against unpersonified fate. Whichever tickles your angry fancy.

Of course, logically, this breaks down for me also. The fact that our futures have already happened, are happening, or will happen, doesn't really mean anything. In other words, even if the future is all laid out, so are the choices we made at those points in our destiny. If the future is as set in stone as our past, well, you made your choices then, you're choosing to read this now, (sorry about that), and you will choose in a moment to get up and get more coffee. I've never understood why pre-destination has to cancel out free will. Just because the future exists doesn't mean your mind isn't there also to perceive it and make those choices.

I think it's just an outdated religious question that got out of hand, and a good example of people who think that they are logical not being logical. There's no reason to think that just because the future exists means that we didn't get to choose how it unfolded, barring any more data on the matter.

If you're wondering why I seem to be using the word logic a lot (See? I can get it right from time to time!) lately, it's because I'm apparently an INTJ and that's allegedly just how we operate, according to Personality Theory. So, now that I know that, I've spent a lot (See? I did it again!) of time thinking about logical conundrums. So, do I think logically because I choose to, or pecause Personality Theory (or God, or Fate) dictates that I should, hmm? Am I even thinking logically? I think that most people think that they think things through, so, it's entirely possible that I'm deluding myself.

One thing that I think that I am fated, predestined, or just simply chose to be is the kind of person that likes to play Devil's advocate. I often like to argue with people whether I agree with what I'm arguing for or not. Usually I do it just to irritate my friend Scott, but I enjoy the argument for argument's sake, also. I'll never forget the time when I turned my Mom's face pastier white than snow could dare to dream to be; I must have been like 1 or 2 years old, tops. I realize that that is an awfully young age to have such a vivid memory of, but if you'd seen the look on my Mom's face, you'd never have forgotten it either. I remember thinking, in a vague sort of way, that I wanted to get a reaction out of her just to see what would happen. We went to church every Sunday, where there was a lot of talk about God, and Jesus, and all that, and being so young I liked it all. Good vs. Evil was a concept I appreciated and I liked Jesus well enough. But again, I was looking for a reaction, and I remember walking into the kitchen and very innocently stating to my mother in a sweet little 2 year old boy voice, "Mom, I hate Jesus."

Well, I got a reaction all right. I hadn't realized it would be such a controversial statement. I remember being shocked by her anger and by what I didn't recognize at the time as her own shock and fear; I believe I actually thought she would think it was a funny joke. You know, two-year old humor. It took a long time to convince her that I didn't really mean it, which was really hard because I don't think I had the words at my disposal to explain myself at that age. It was a very strict lesson that arguments about ideas are not always well-handled by others, and also taught me that I sometimes enjoy getting a reaction out of them, regardless.

An Impassioned Argument Using Not Only Logic, But Mixed Metaphors And Guts, Too.

I think I've got it aalllll figgered out, man.  I know why stupid people always seem to win out in this world, why logic has left the building. It's really quite simple. Say two people are having an argument about something. Anything. For instance, who can run faster, Superman or the Flash? Or who would win in a fight, a Caveman or an Astronaut? Or whether Ann Coulter is a mutant or not. Anything. Say one of the people involved in the argument is an intelligent, logical being. A Rational, as a sop to Miss Luongo's personality theory obsession. Convinced that conclusions ought to be reached with actual facts taken into consideration, each step of the argument followed by the next logical step, based on actual evidence. Say the other debator is... well, less rational. A Guardian type. Convinced that little niceties such as good conclusions based on logical thought are less important than following what your gut says is right, because we all know that following your gut is always such a good idea. Passionate argument is proof enough for them.
In the immortal words of Howard W. Campbell Jr.:

"The truth of your leader August Craptower, and those like him, will be with mankind forever, as long as there are men and women who listen to their guts instead of their minds."
                    -From Mother Night

August Craptower was a leader in the neo-nazi community in Kurt Vonnegut's little morality play there. August Craptower, George Bush, same thing.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that say these two are having an argument. The logical one states his case. He won't usually be all impassioned and heartfelt and all up in people's guts because he feels that the logic of his case, the obvious rightness of what he's saying based on rational thought, will shine through and people will get it, and as long as the people listening aren't totally evil they'll agree with him because he's right. I'm not saying that the logical person is infallible here, only that when he's thought things through clearly, he tends to firmly believe he's on the side of right, and based on fact and evidence, or lack of actual evidence of nuclear weapons in Iraq thereof, feels that any other course of action is insane. The Flash can run faster than Superman, because DC comics has made a point of that many times. The Flash can go so fast he vibrates through walls. Superman can fly faster than the Flash can run, but that wasn't the question. Ok maybe there is no logic there, really, but you get where I'm coming from.

So, the logical guy makes his case, and steps back, knowing that after the evidence he's presented, there can be no argument, unless new facts are brought to light which he then will have to deal with. Then the less logical, yet more impassioned Guardian type steps up. He is also convinced of his rightness, but not because of any facts or evidence, excepting perhaps the tidbit that of course God created the world because look at the banana! (It was made to fit a Man's hand (or a monkey's...) and has a natural pull-tab, like a soda can! You can't evolve something like that! (Except that actually, man has cultivated the banana for centuries, making it what it is today, somewhat showing how evolution can work at an accelerated pace, but never mind that bit of fact.))

No, he's convinced of his rightness because he feels it can't be any other way. Of course Saddam is evil and has Weapons of Mass Destruction. He's all dark skin toned and has an evil laugh, and besides, G.W.B. wouldn't lie to us, not the President! He's more than a man, he's God's chosen leader for the greatest nation on Earth! Of course God is on America's side, otherwise we wouldn't be so powerful! He's on our side, just like he was on the side of history's other greatest empires, like Rome, and Egypt... oh wait, they don't usually take the logic that far, you know, because then they'd have to change their opinion. No, the illogical side of this argument will do whatever it takes to win the argument, because he feels right. He'll use facts that are perceived, he'll even make shit up, take things out of context and use them to prove his view of things. And the other guy, the logical one, will tend to sit back and laugh at the other guy's antics, because obviously he's an idiot, and nobody's going to buy that junk... Except of course, that they do.

Why? Well, my rather simple theory is that, since the greater part of the human population are these so-called Guardian types, sheep in other words, they will believe whoever talks longer and louder. Look at that guy, they say, he is so heartfelt and he won't shut up. Obviously he believes what he's saying. That whistleblower over there, who used to be a weapons inspector in Iraq, only offered a cold assesment that he found no WMD. But this guy, he knows that there are weapons over there, if only we keep looking! And he's never even been over there, so that shows you the strength of his conviction!

Logical people don't seem to believe what they're saying, because they offer things as cold fact and then stop talking once they've reached their conclusion, because once an actual case has been reached based on facts, there's really not much left to say. Illogical people seem to believe what they're saying because they never shut up and get louder and louder and more O'Reilly about it, and because they never seem to reach an actual logical conclusion, feel the need to make up for it with volume and heart. And the sucker that is the human race eats it up.

It's all very sad, but based on this fact alone, I'd say that the human race doesn't have a whole lot of time left. As races go, that is. The inevitable conclusion to a race gone with the Pied Piper is extinction. Unless lemmings learn to actually use their minds and not only their guts.

Anecdotal Evidence To Support My Claim Of Superior Knowledge... You'd Eat It Up If I Performed It Live To A Catchy Gospel, Rock Or Rap Tune!

While I'm waiting for inspiration on the eternally boring question of what to do next with my life to strike, as it has been so kind to do in the past, I am always on the lookout for new things to blog about. It helps keep my sanity, you see. In that rather pitiable spirit, here is something I woke up thinking about this morning; the why and wherefore of religion. So yes, if you are not in the mood for another rant on messiestobjects' tired, banal views on religion and why it's bad for you, feel free to bail now.

I often worry about publicly talking about my views on religion, because I know that my family, who are devout Christians, care about me and therefore worry that my soul is condemned to a fiery eternity for saying such brash things as I tend to do. The problem is that I know that no amount of discourse will ever bridge the gap between what they believe and what I believe, and so I tend to keep my mouth shut and avoid the topic. The fact of the matter is that people, once they reach a certain stage in their lives, and have given the matter serious thought and/or credence in their lives, are almost never capable of changing their minds. There's actually scientific evidence somewhere out there about the hardening of our minds as we get older, although don't look to me for details as it's something I read a long time ago. Something about our neural pathways being wide open when we're babies, gradually becoming more solidified or defined as we apply words to objects, and later becoming downright jungle elephant paths in our brains as we ascribe our beliefs to ideas. In other words, the more times you tread a path, the easier it is to follow that same path the next time you go that way. It's very hard for even the most open minded person keeping pre-set personal beliefs or perceived truths out of our rational observations as we get older. But that's really not the point of this.

I thought that this time, rather than expounding on why I think religion (Not God! I think I've been rather clear on the difference in my mind in the past.) is not only false but unhealthy, I would rather explain how I came to these ideas in the first place. Not that I'm special in regards to my beliefs; lots of people share them. I just feel I have a unique perspective, being a reformed religious type rather than the offspring of godless academics.

I was born and raised a Christian, and generally speaking I think that in some ways it did me good. Or at least, I believe I have a highly sensitive view of Good Vs. Evil, and I think that's a good thing. I also don't believe it's unhealthy to walk around with the constant feeling that somebody is looking over my shoulder, whether it's true or not. It can be a valuable mental trick. The first time I started doubting was at a Christian rock concert I went to with a church youth group. The performer was a guy that went by the name of Carmen, whose stuff I actually liked. I had a tape of his; I was probably 13 or 14 years old at the time. Anyway, we were at this concert and he had been singing his tunes, with no band... lip synching. But whatever; at the time I didn't know that was cheesy and nobody seemed to care anyway. But he would stop every once in a while and preach a little bit, and there were two things in particular that he said at one point that just kind of made me go, "ummm, really?"

The first was minor, as indicators often are, but it made me think a little bit. Apparently The Grateful Dead were playing that same night at another venue up the street, and Carmen was all like "Let me tell you, The Grateful Dead may be sinners who think it's cool to be dead, but tonight we here are grateful to be alive in Jesus!!" Much cheering ensued. But I was kind of like, and I didn't even know all that much about them, but I knew enough to know that they didn't actually want to be dead, at least not in the sense that Carmen was saying. He was saying it like they were willful emissaries of Satan or something. In their Wikipedia entry, it says that they chose the name in this manner:

The name "Grateful Dead" was chosen from a dictionary. Some claim it was a Funk & Wagnalls, others, the Bardo Thodol (Tibetan Book Of the Dead), but according to Phil Lesh, in his biography (pp. 62), "...Jer (Garcia)  picked up an old Britannica World Language Dictionary...(and)...In that silvery elf-voice he said to me, 'Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?'" The definition there was "A song meant to show a lost soul to the other side."

So, it was really pure hippie bullshit, but hardly Satanic. This statement of Carmen's, when I thought about it later, made me begin paying attention to preachers and to begin the realization that most of what they say is off the cuff and full of assumptions. They often, especially at that time in the 80s, called things Satanic which they merely didn't understand or was associated with things which they found personally distasteful. It made me realize that they often didn't really know what they were talking about, which is a shattering blow to a religion that claims to have knowledge of the truth of the way of things. If you can't back up simple statements of fact, why should I take it on faith that you know what you're doing in other areas? Faith belongs to God anyway, supposedly, not preachers.

The second thing he said, later that night, was a larger issue for me. Towards the end of the show, when he'd just played his biggest hit to a crowd of young screaming christian rock idolators, (And I admit, I was one of them. I loved that song.) he bellowed out, "I can feel the spirit of Jesus here with us tonight! Can you feel the holy spirit in the room? He's speaking to all of us, can you feel his love, right here right now!!?" And, as my fist was in the air and everyone around me, tears of joy in their eyes and answering with a heartfelt "Yes! I feel him! I feel Jesus!", and I, about to join in and add my agreeing sentiment, had an odd sensation. I was still for a moment, and kind of quietly thought to myself, (and I'm paraphrasing, of course; it was a long time ago in a mindset far, far away. But I remember very well what was going through my head in spirit. Snicker.) "Jesus? Huh. Actually, what I'm feeling is awe for the rock star that just lip synched that awesome song and got my fist pumping and adrenaline rushing, and has even made me feel good about being a Christian since I'm in a large group of people that feels the same way and we're all cheering for Jesus, but one thing I don't feel, and have never felt, actually, is anything spiritual. It actually feels a lot like that time I got all excited and heart-full when Luke Skywalker blew up the Death Star. That made me SO happy, and that's the kind of elation I'm feeling right now, so, unless Jesus had something to do with the destruction of the Death Star, and said destruction was a spiritual event, I don't think that what I'm feeling right now is him in the room."

Now that I'm slightly wiser, I can add even more significance to that event. It was a rally, pure and simple. The theatrics and speeches that those guys use is no different than, say, Hitler's Nazi rallies. Or the Republican party rallies. It's a leader taking advantage of the psychology of mob mentality, and getting the crowd all worked up into a frenzy, and directing that energy in a desired direction. Jesus is not actually in the room, folks. The emperor is wearing no clothes. This doesn't in and of itself mean that what is being preached is bunk, (The Reverend Horton Heat, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, The actual message of love preached by Jesus himself, (which you can hear if you you read closely between the lines) for some examples) but I think it's important to be aware when age-old crowd control techniques are being used on you. In other words, if the leader is being honest with his agenda in such a rally, he's trying to passionately convince you of the logic of his argument, not passionately trying to beat you over the head with a scary dogma.

Anyway, for some reason, that night my mind opened up a little bit to more rational thought and always afterwards I applied a much more critical eye to what was going on around me. It's not like all of a sudden I ceased being a Christian. In some ways I always will be; you can't really escape your roots, and anyway I have never confused the sins of men, even self-proclaimed spiritual men, with a failing on God's part. One of the facts of nature that I will always hold dear, in my slowly hardening neural pathways, is that men are quite capable of committing acts of good and decency without invoking God, and men are capable of choosing to commit the most heinous evils without needing Satan as a scapegoat. People make their own choices, plain and simple. Blaming Satan or thanking God, or vice versa, is a cheap and easy way of avoiding responsibility.

I remember, one time in church, I was listening to the pastor give his sunday sermon; He was addressing a germaine issue: "Some people say that the Bible contradicts itself. They say that the Bible was written by men, and is not the true word of God. Well folks, I'm here today to tell you that those people have been misled by Satan, and that they are liars! The Bible does not contradict itself! It is God's word, handed down to us by his prophets, and it is the truth!" I kept waiting for him to expand his argument, but that was all he had; a bald statement containing bold word stresses. I kept thinking to myself, That's it!? That's Christianity's argument for itself?! And for the record, there was no paraphrasing there. I remember very clearly that day, and what he said. It felt like an extremely disingenuous thing to say... basically he was saying, believe that the Bible is the literal truth and word of God, because I say so, AND so does the Bible itself. So there. Which struck me as rather circular and unproductive logic... That's pretty much what all the religious leaders are saying, all the time.

Another extremely revealing experience I had, I've already blogged about here.

Anyway, this is a conversation I've been having with myself for a very long time now, and I could go on and on, but those are a few of the more important moments which made me switch gears a little bit. Basically, I've come to the conclusion that in order to come to grips with God, the Universe, and Everything, one has to distance oneself from the religions of men, because they are a framework for misdirection, power, and corruption. If there is a God, then love and understanding come from him, not religion, and not men's inane preachings. If there is not a God, then love and understanding come from chemicals and neural pathways. If there is a God, then there is only one thing which he gave me in order to understand him. Not the Bible, not Pat Robertson, not even Jesus. Men took control of those things, and handed them down to me the way they wanted me to see them. No, what He gave me is my mind. We have this amazing tool which is capable of rational thought, and the application of that tool has yielded more knowledge about the nature of the Universe than any preacher or prophet ever has. If there is no God, well, thank evolution for my mind. If there is a God, He invented evolution. Either way, it's all good.

Now that I'm done preaching, for the moment, I'll leave you with a YouLube that I found of that Carmen song I used to love so much, as performed via Lipsynch by some church kids. I'm kind of cringing about the fact that I used to like this song... I remembered it as being much cooler. I can only offer extreme brainwashing as an excuse. Anyway, in this video, God is a bearded girl, so, enjoy! ... or not. I myself had to stop it just a few minutes in, or I was going to cringe myself into a fetal position.

Cookies, Robert Redford, The Antichrist, And The Real Reasons Why These Things Ought To Scare You

While my brother is away at school, I've been temporarily occupying his room in my Dad's house until I figure out where to go next. After I get back from Thailand I'll have to seriously start thinking about that.
Anyway my point is that on my brother's bookshelf is 'The Purpose Driven Life' by Rick Warren and the entire 12 book series of 'Left Behind' by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. This constitutes some of the scariest pop right-wing christian fundamentalist lieterature (misspelling intended) out there. I worry about my brother. I'd recently read a very good article about the series, and Revelation end-of-times thinking in general, by Joe Bageant, who I was turned on to by Heather and Miss Luongo... those ladies are always finding good stuff out there. But I was thinking about it, and I realized that I've never actually read any of those books, and we Godless perverts are always making fun of doltish fundie preachers who declaim against Evolution without ever really having actually read Charles Darwin's book, or tried to understand the theory in any useful way. One should always know what one is up against. While I have read the Bible, I've been out of the loop on the latest developments in advanced Christian thought, SO, I decided to start with what I consider the easier of the two, the 12 book fictitious series about Tim LaHaye's vision of a post-rapture world. Tim LaHaye is by the way, let me just say, a total freak, dude. Click on this super-scary picture of him shooting laser beams of evil out of his eyes to be led to his website where you will find a most entertaining intro before going to his main page, where you will find his very own voodoo version of that Myers-Briggs personality theory that Miss Luongo is so fond of, as well as vague descriptions of himself and all the books, ministries, and projects he's involved in, with links taking you to where you can buy his stuff, but nothing too personal, I'm afraid. He's got some nice jewelry, though, huh?
Anyway, I'm almost halfway through the third book, but let me tell you that before the end of the first chapter of the first book I decided that I could easily devote a whole new blog to the reading of the series on which I post something every time I came across a statement that was either grossly mis-informed, ignorant, fallacious, or just plain made me laugh at it's own tunnel-vision certitude that it knew the truth based on no facts whatsoever. I realized by the third chapter that I would need a month for each book if I actually tried doing that, and I really want to get through them and be done with it. But, having made the claim, I will attempt to at least illustrate my point just a bit, here. Here's a quote right off of book 1 page 1, which may seem rather minor, but it illustrates something about the fundie mind which I feel is important to understand:

"God was OK with Rayford Steele. Rayford even enjoyed church occasionally. But since Irene [Rayford Steele's wife] had hooked up with a smaller congregation and was into weekly Bible studies and church every Sunday, Rayford had become uncomfortable. Hers was not a church where people gave you the benefit of the doubt, assumed the best about you, and let you be. People there had actually asked him, to his face, what God was doing in his life."

This is minor, but it is the first of many rather disingenuous statements made by non-Christians about Christians throughout the series so far. Rayford is surprised that fundamentalist Christians, after a sermon on sunday at a fundamentalist church, actually want to talk to him about God? Heaven forfend! That is so crazy that fundies, like, take their beliefs so seriously! In the Left Behind books, Non-Christians are constantly surprised by the honesty, forthrightness and vigor of a Christian's beliefs, excepting only those who are merrily skipping down the path to the Antichrist's side. Reading these books has made me remember my own thought processes when I was a younger church-going Christian myself. Christians, despite being the largest most powerful religious group in America, tend to feel persecuted and not listened to. For no apparent reason. It's as though they think that the only non-Christian, if you're not a direct servant of Satan, is one who has simply not thought it all through, or doesn't understand the horrors that will befall unbelievers when a vengeful bloody Jesus (long gone is the messiah of love) returns after the rapture. They can't conceive of someone who has read about and understood their religion, and despite being a good person, has decided it was all a load of crap. They think we don't understand what they have found to be the truth in their lives, that we are simply misguided. I would like to bet a LOT of money on the fact that at least %90 of fundamental religious types call themselves believers only because the idea of an MC 900 foot Jesus coming to rip their guts out if they don't become Born Again has scared the living shit out of them. (Or eternity in Hell, yadda yadda. It's all the same idea.) That and/or for the other self-evident reason that these books have reminded me of: Rapture and Tribulation are the ultimate infantile vengeance fantasy. Anybody ever get this taunt on the playground? "My daddy/big brother/whomever can beat up your daddy/big brother/whomever/you!" We all so desperately want to be right, on the winning side, the side that gets cookies for good behaviour. (Not that it means anything, but the authors of the Left Behind books have this weird fascination with cookies. Cookies seem to be around at some of the more touching moments a little too often. Cookies, and Robert Redford. The Antichrist is described in some seriously homoerotic terms more than once by different characters as a more dashing, sexier Robert Redford.) No one wants to be on the losing side of an argument. And these guys have found the biggest daddy and the most horrible retribution ever with which to side with, and are looking forward to the day when everyone who disagrees with them will get what's coming to 'em.
This, make no mistake 'O ye who seek only spiritual comfort, is a religion of fear. It is not based on truth, or righteousness, or most importantly, love. They want to scare the hell out of you, literally, so that you will join their cause, give them money, and spread the fright to others. I'm not saying they don't believe their own crap; I'm sure they do. But they do not believe in Good. Another quote:

"Would it fade, her preoccupation with the end of the world, with the love of Jesus, with the salvation of souls? Lately she had been reading everything she could get her hands on about the rapture of the church. "Can you imagine, Rafe," she exulted, "Jesus coming back to get us before we die?"
"Yeah boy," he said peeking over the top of his newspaper, "that would kill me."
She was not amused. "If I didn't know what would happen to me," she said, "I wouldn't be glib about it."
"I do know what would happen to me," he insisted, "I'd be dead, gone, finis. But you of course would fly right up to heaven."
He hadn't meant to offend her, he was just having fun. When she turned away he rose and pursued her. He spun her around and tried to kiss her, but she was cold. "Come on, Irene," he said. "Tell me thousands would just keel over if they saw Jesus coming back for all the good people."
She had pulled away in tears. "I've told you and told you. Saved people aren't good people, they're--"
"Just forgiven, yeah I know," he said, feeling rejected and vulnerable in his own living room. He returned to his chair and his paper. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm happy for you that you can feel so cocksure."
"I only believe what the Bible says," Irene said.

Notice that LaHaye's idea of a perfect Christian (Irene and others like her throughout the world are raptured right off the bat) is one who became a heartfelt born again believer over her obsession with rapture lieterature? (Again, misspelling intentional.) And of course the other important point, saved people aren't good people, they're just forgiven. i.e., they picked the winning side. Of course there's more to that dogma than just that, they believe in living good lives as well; Jesus demands more than just lip service. But their idea of good lives and, well, good-people-not-saved-people's ideas of what is right and wrong are very different. The unfortunate side-effect of believing in a world gone to hell and a Saviour who is going to come and trash the place anyway, is that the world is no longer worth saving; the only worthy cause is trying to convert people they like and condemning to a very scary end those they disagree with, even trying to keep an eye out for the Antichrist. (Henry Kissinger? Ted Kennedy? Barack Obama? Any liberal gay Jew that happens by?) Forget trying to save the environment, ending the war in Iraq, or approving of stem-cell research (which hurts no one, least of all the dead-end biological goo it comes from!) to help people, or a hundred other issues which, if the fundamental right had any concern for them, they could help to do a world of good. They look forward to the end of the world, and indeed, applaud anything that looks like it might bring the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse closer. Sign up for 'ol Tim "laser-eye" LaHaye's newsletter for timely messages on current events related to Biblical prophecy. He might as well gleefully rub his hands and echo one of our President's most foolish comments; "Bring them on!"
I will end this by saying that there are certain things in the Bible that I believe to be true; even certain things in Revelations. Not simply because they are in the Bible, but because they are truths which are self evident to anybody who looks for such truths. Jesus' message of love and compassion, for example. But we are talking about end-time stuff here, and so something out of Revelations which I believe is that there will be many false prophets... can you guess who's at the top of my false prophet list?

I Was All Like, Yeah, And He Was All Like, Nuh-uh, And I Was All Like, Dude, Yeah-huh

I was over at Cosmic Variance yesterday and got into a small discussion with the guy who wrote this post about Richard Dawkins, and after going back and forth a couple of times (comment #s 66-70 & 72-73), was rather solidly given the "talk to the hand, buddy". I'm not sure if it's because I was not being clear enough in my argument, or if it's just that I'm an embarassing moron to have show up on your science blog and blather on about a subject which I have no degree in...
The gist of it was that I initially posted a comment saying that I don't understand atheism any more than I understand religious certainty, and that I felt that the more reasonable philosophy for a rational person (which I assume scientists generally are) to assume is agnosticism. Atheism, to me, is every bit as much a belief based on no empirical evidence as [pick a religion] is. I've never understood how anyone, especially scientists who require proof of everything, can say that God does not exist, end of story. There is no proof that he does and there is no proof that he doesn't! How can you prove that God does not exist? You can't! And Mark (the writer over at CV) came back with a more delineated definition of what atheism meant to him: "Atheism means that you do not believe in god, not that you will say with absolute certainty that one does not exist."
I looked up atheism on wikipedia, and sure enough, most atheistic philosophers assume that definition. Which really kind of throws me for a loop... that statement makes no more scientific sense than the idea of religious faith, which atheists spend so much time bashing. What that's saying is that you believe that God does not exist, not that you know. So then atheists, by that statement, really are the exact opposite side of the coin from religious wack-os, with about the same amount of rationality! Both sides are stating a belief about God or the lack of one, with nothing empirical backing either up.
When I tried explaining that, and that agnosticism seemed a much more rational approach for a scientist, he didn't seem to get my point (which is likely my own fault; my reasoning seems clear to me but I'm sure it's muddier than I think it is, half the time) and didn't acknowledge that he, by using that definition of atheism, was stating a belief. Instead he said that he felt uncomfortable with "beliefs", and that on the subject of the currently unprovable, he'd rather state "I don't know" and then try to figure out the truth... Then I pointed out that that is exactly what agnosticism is! Agnosticism means simply, lack of knowledge. I said that we were actually in agreement, and that we were just approaching the same conclusion from different sides... then he never responded to me again. There are of course many possible reasons for this, the most likely that he was simply getting annoyed with me. I admit, were I in his shoes and some snot-nose was trying to out-comment me on my own blog, I'd snub him down right quick also.
But it's a discussion which has many facets and I'm really intrigued, which is why I'm having trouble shutting up about it.
The thing about agnosticism is, of course, that like atheism, it can also have a couple of different interpretations. I think that Mark and other sciencey smart-guy types tend to shy away from agnosticism because it does have certain religious overtones. Gnostics were an early sect of Christianity that purported to have an insider's spiritual knowledge; Agnostics chose the name for themselves precisely because they want to say that they do not have any such luck. However, some people that call themselves Agnostics believe very firmly in God, but that any knowledge of such a vastly superior being is currently unknowable to the likes of us hairless apes. That's probably why certain rationals prefer the moniker of atheism, because while they won't say with certainty that there is no God, they prefer to have the cloak of what seems more likely in this Universe to them as being the case, the disbelief in God, keeping all possible distance from any sort of religious flavoring whatsoever.
To me, Agnosticism means that maybe there is, maybe there ain't. If he wants me to know, he'll tell me. If I don't hear from him, well, we will just have to wait until all the facts are in. Meanwhile, I don't need religion to tell me to be nice to other people (well, at least not to kill or actively harm them... being nice is often a tall order in the face of the ignorant) regardless of what they choose to say they believe the truth to be, and Agnosticism won't stop me from knowing that evolution is a fact or from eagerly awaiting any news about more great scientific discoveries that open more doors to the Universe for our tiny, hungry little brains.
After reading about the many different types of agnostics on the wikipedia page, I'd have to say I'm a Weak Agnostic, but that I prefer the alt-term of Open Agnostic. As I said on CV, The Universe is God, science is his means of communication, and it is a scientist’s duty to follow wherever that may lead, whether it proves that God is intelligent or accidental. (Ok I just added a few bits there... I'm always editing myself. It's a problem.)
I am willing to be wrong about any of this... I don't in fact have a degree on this subject and it's not like I've read anybody's thesis on atheism vs. agnosticism... chances are, they're identical viewpoints with different tones. Atheism just sticks in my craw (what's a craw?) because it seems to me to be an irrational viewpoint shared by a large group of people who are in most other matters extremely rational.

The World Is Full Of Tools

So, what with the fact that I have uploaded all of my pictures from Istanbul, Cappadocia, and my tour of the South Aegean region, and typed in descriptions of each one, not to mention the other day's post and now this one, you might think I seem to have more time on my hands than a traveller should. Well, I'm back in Istanbul with a few days to kill, and while I'm still making it out there everyday, I have seen most of the city, and so I'm taking advantage of the good internet and downtime to catch up on a bunch of stuff.
One thing I've noticed online in the last few days is an upsurge in the scientific community against religion, starting with a really thoughtful post over at Cosmic Varience, and then today an article on NY Times which I just finished reading and is the cause of this out-of-travel rant.
Of course, we've been hearing alot of this noise from Richard Dawkins recently since the publiction of his book, but it seems to be stepping up a notch in the rest of science-land as well.
In the post on CV, Natalie Angier basically states her disatisfaction with scientists who wail about the whole Darwin/Creationism controversy, yet fail to step up to the plate against the scientifically ludricrous Virgin Birth. She feels that it's Science's duty to tackle all forms of such preposterous false beliefs. Have some balls, labcoats! Put Occam's Razor on Mary and see what theory you can dredge up there!
Then today, the NY Times article discussed a forum that occured earlier this month at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., where a bunch of scientists brought out the idea of spearheading a movement to Evangelize science against religion. There were differing views among the scientists attending, with Dawkins and like-minded god-haters basically wanting to have Christian Concentration Camps along with Bible, Koran, and Book of Mormon burnings laughing all the way, while other more even-keeled scientists wish to press forward with the age old technique of testing hypothesis, re-testing, then showing the world proof of the veracity of science with cool toys like paved roads, penicillin, rubber gloves, and home theatre systems, and eventually staging a remake of the 'ol Baal vs. God play, where Elijah (I think it's Elijah, someone else will have to fact check for me 'cause I'm on a roll!) mocks the Baal worshippers and says ok, if Baal is so great, tell him to make it rain! So they pray to Baal and weep and gnash and of course no rain comes. Then Elijah says, "Yo! Yahweh! Bring on the water!" And it dumps buckets of water and the Baal freaks freak out, only this time the scientists will be all like, okay God and Allah freaks, you guys pray to your grand high poo-bahs for a better video digital compression format than DVD, and we'll apply our science, and see who gets one first.
The reason behind all of this recent push for science to begin a more active fight against religion is, of course, due to the recent outbreak of the evils which religion has caused in the world, not to mention the very many evils caused by religion in the past. People like Dawkins think that if religion were done away with, the world would go all shiny and everybody would have spacecars and candy and live for a hundred years.
Here's my problem with all of that. Now, I am a great believer in science. I will agree with Dawkins insofar that if you're not, you're retarded because even the Amish need to churn butter, a very scientifically advanced dairy farm achievement. Well okay, it was advanced several hundred years ago or whatever, but it's still science. If you really believe that science is evil, go live in Cappadocia, but away from the main population of more advanced cave-dwellers, please.
The problem is, that in reality it is NOT religion which causes the larger of the world's evils. Oh sure, witch burnings, being afraid to sail off the edge of the flat Earth until thousands of years after the Greeks already knew the world was a ball, yeah. Totally religion. But the real problem isn't religion. Religions generally ask their followers to be nice to each other, it's just that their followers usually miss the point. "Each other" means, you know, everybody in the world, not this thing where it's taken as only your fellow Sunni muslims, and kill all the rest. The problem is people. People screw up religion, starting with people who only want to use religion as a means to power. The catholic church probably needs to be abolished. I despise the catholic church. Not because I hate god, but because the catholic church hates God; they've totally obliviated everything that Jesus had to say about real spirituality. They are the Pharisees reborn.
I'm afraid that getting rid of religion, much as Jesus abolished the old rules of Judaism, and Mohammed made a few addendums, and then so did Joseph Smith... well you see my point. There will rise up a science cult and people will still kill each other for scientific heresies. As long as there are people in the world who desire power over other people, there will be a way for them to get it, and if not religion, than something else. Religion is a tool, just like Science or Democracy or Communism. They all sound good at the beginning, but they can be used however the user wants. It's a baser human nature to be very very nasty to other humans in order to get to what they want.
I'm not saying that science shouldn't shed some light on some of mankind's fuzzier notions... Evolution is, I'm afraid, a fact, and I think it's important to teach it over Creationism... it's an old argument, but Evolution doesn't rule out God. I don't think that Science can or ever will. Science is the greatest, most effective tool we've ever come up with for understanding nature, but to a spiritual person, God is above and beyond the reach of nature. God's tool to make the universe could easily be Evolution.
But a war against religion is sort of self-defeating. What science really needs to concentrate on is George Bush's brain, and how it got that way. Also the Pope's. Rush Limbaugh's. Osama what's-his-face's. Michael Moore's. And Richard Dawkins'. And how to weed this us vs. them mentality out of the human race, you know? Make sure everybody gets up above that spinal cord thinking thing which Einstein pointed out as our main problem these days. Or at least make the Us, smart, creative, compassionate people, and the Them, power mad, intolerant, blind  freaks. Weed 'em out, yo.

Been A Long Time Gone, Constantinople, Now It's Turkish Delight On A Moonlit Night

You know what's really great about Turkey? Turkish Delight is what. When I was a kid, I was really into the Chronicles of Narnia. I must have read all seven of those books about a hundred times by the time I was eight. In the first one, the one they've made the movie out of, the White Witch asks Edmund if he'd like anything, anything at all, and he asks for Turkish Delight. I never really was able to figure out what that was; this was way way pre-wikipedia, remember. For a long time I had this notion that it was some sort of sweet turkey pastie kind of thing... Once many years later the subject came up and someone told me it was a sort of taffy, which is closer to the truth than sweet turkey pastie, but still not quite right. Turkish Delight is a cube of one of a hundred different types of flavoured goo, (sorry I can't expound further on actual flavours; I'm not really well-versed there just yet. I think some are fruitish, but others are certainly not. One is definitely mint, and another may be a chocolatey coconutty kind of thing. Beyond that I'm stumped.) sometimes with nuts, pistachioes usually, and coated with confectioner's sugar. It's pretty awesome, and it was radical to finally sample the stuff I'd been wondering about since the days when I would knock on the back of my closet, hoping to stumble into a snow coated world where animals said silly things. You know, wacky words like the Brits use, guv'nor.
Another really awesome thing about Istanbul is the Whirling Dervishes. I've been to see them twice! They're not performances, per se, as they consider what they do to be a holy ceremony (a sema) whether there are people watching or not. They do charge admission, but if you try clapping, the one Dervish that looks the scariest will shake his head like you're a bunch of inbred oafs, and you don't dare clap again. The first time I saw them was definitely more of a tourist set-up, though. They perform once or twice a week at the Sirkeci train station, which was the terminus of the Oriental Express. It'll be funny if I take a train to Germany at the end of the month because I'll be approaching the famous rail route from the wrong way about!
Anyway, I say it was more a tourist set up because they advertise on every street on the day of a performance there and it's just an unused hall in the rail station where they set their (whirli-) gig up. You hear about Whirling Dervishes, and you go, huh, that's a weird thing. And then you find out that what they're all about is spinning around in order to get closer to God and you think, Heh! I must have been really close to God all those times I made myself sick doing that when I was 5! But then you find out that they are a really non-violent peace-and-love-centric Muslim Sufi sect who don't really think of it as Whirling so much as Dancing and you're all, wow, we could use more Muslim sects like that these days. Then you go and see them, and you got nothin'. It's a really pretty thing, actually, and I've even got a favorite Dervish, although I don't know his name because they haven't got trading cards yet. I mean, don't get me wrong, ultimately they're just spinning around in circles, but they are very graceful at it and seeing a bunch of 'em whirl around like that is really something. The first time there were only five of them, and apparently it was a sema-lite because the second time I went to see them was at the Mevlevi Monastery, where they hang their hats (which supposedly represent the tombstones of their egos) and there was alot more involved. First off, there were eight, count 'em eight Whirling Dervishes! (I'm saying this in a Sesame Street sing-song, by the way, but you can't tell that because this is type. A really inadequate medium for getting your point across economically, sometimes, isn't it?) Secondly, the building was a rather dojo-like space, much more somber, and the guests didn't need Scowling Dervish to warn them off clapping this time, although he was there and looked ready to. Thirdly, there were two extra guys there besides the Whirlers; an old guy that wore a slightly different hat and seemed to be the head-priest- who-has-whirled-to-God -so-many- times-that- he-doesn't- even-need-to-turn-a- little-bit-any- more, and another younger guy that sort of wandered about in between the Whirlers as if to make sure they were spinning their share... not really sure what he was about, actually. Anyway, as flippant as I am, it really was something to see and I actually felt like I was in a holy ceremony in church, even if it was only the church of an evil Muslim God. (Just Kidding! Allah, God and Yaweh are the same God, I know. It's the people who worship him differently that are crazy. Not because they worship differently, but because they have a tendency to judge, if not kill each other because they don't worship exactly the same way.)
Well anyway I of course got some video, which I would love to post but the internet here is so slow that I'd miss Krampus if I tried uploading any. I'll put a picture here that I'm really proud of, though, because it's a photostich! A real accomplishment when your subjects are human tops.

Other than those two things, Istanbul is fairly standard sightseeing fare. Alot of Mosques. Actually the only difference between big fancy Middle Eastern Mosques and big fancy European Churches, besides minor differences in décor, is that In the big fancy Churches they always make you take your hats off, but in the big fancy Mosques they always make you take your shoes off! They also encourage men to wear those not-yarmulke things and I would guess for the women to wear haijab, but I don't think they're allowed to worship with the men, so they like, stay outside and sweep the stairs or something. I haven't made it to the Bosphorous yet; it's cold and rainy most days. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, though, and if it is I'm doing a boat tour... the Bosphorous is the strait that divides the European Continent from the Asian Continent, so you can walk across the Bosphorous bridge from one to the other, and I so have to do that, too. Major Hypertrekking points.

An Open Letter To The Guys That Helped Steal My Country

Dear Religious Right,
The separation of Church and State is not a satanic anti-religious idea. It is a brilliant idea which protects the integrity of both institutions. Don't you see? Allow the recent Foley scandel to grant you the temporary stillness needed for reflective thought on the matter. It is a very good illustration. So is that whole deal where our "Christian values" government is actually trying to justify torture, while downplaying the actual severity of pain involved in their definition of what torture we should be allowed to practice. You see, the biggest flaw in current right-wing religious philosophy is the idea that you have the calling from above to take your moral values and make (your) God's law into man's law. I will ignore the obvious flaw for the moment, that you don't have the right to impose your belief system on others. Everybody knows that that is what is actually un-American, and is the reason why you never get invited to the cool kid's parties. The real problem is this: those people in the government who you've allied yourselves with are there because of power. If they truly valued God and a spiritual life, they would not be where they are. All you've done, by getting buddy buddy with the politicians, is given them a powerful tool with which to advance their own interests. They are not your friends! You thought that by using them to advance your interests in the government, that you could get what you wanted. But you are horribly wrong. They are using you, also, and what they want is power, and when they get that power, they do not truly advance a more spiritual country. They use religion to scare people and advance policies that will make them richer and more powerful. There are people pretending to be religious leaders to get you to follow them down this road. The separation of Church and State not only protects the people from having other's religious values shoved down their throats, but it also protects your religion from being warped and abused by power mad politicians. That separation protects the integrity of both institutions equally. Protect yourselves and get out of politics! Do not allow these twisted individuals to be false prophets! Do not allow them to claim that they are serving your agenda with one side of their face, and perverting it with the other! Give to Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar, and give to God what belongs to God; and in case Jesus didn't state that clearly enough, allow me to clarify further: DO NOT give to Bush what belongs to God, and DO NOT give to God what belongs to Bush!!!
God has spoken to me and said that it is so! Boo kids.
Sincerely,
The Guy That Had His Country Stolen While He Was Out Fishin'

Tangentially Speaking, Of Course

Oh man, I love finding out about stuff like this! It really reinforces my belief in an omniscient being watching over us... in order to get material for his stand-up act! It's not that Christians shouldn't be allowed to have sex toys; It's more that there's a group of them out there that wants to sell their own special Christian line of them, and their selling point is that they block out the images of naked people on the box which contains a now-Christianized jelly ring! It reminds me of the days when I listened to Christian Death Metal... boy did I feel silly when I figured out the inherent ridiculousness there.
I think the thing that really gets to me about Christian merchandizing is that it so blatantly spotlights the hypocrisy in modern American Christianity... In an age of Christian video games, which promote the bloody annihilation of everyone who doesn't agree with their particular brand, Christian mega-churches in which people cocoon themselves, living out the majority of their lives among like-minded fellows, Christian camps, Christian Rock, Rap, and Country, Christian lunchboxes, and now Christian sex toys, it seems like rather than Christianity standing up for itself as a personal, individual strength, that a person comes to and stands up for on his own, it is being sold out as yet another fascist crusade, a pre-packaged group activity meant to separate themselves from the world and think of itself as superior to all the unwashed hellbound... I believe the actual edict is to 'Be in the world, not of it,' not 'Be apart from the world, and manufacture your own line of Christ-approved eveningwear.' In a lot of ways it's beginning to remind me of the Muslim fundamentalism you see over here, in which it's ok to kill a woman for not wearing her Mohammed approved, Moqtada al-Sadr stamped Haijab in public, even if she's a Christian and not, in fact, Muslim. Of course, Rick Warren isn't quite there yet, but give his movement time, a few hundred years or so.

A Treatise On The Origins Of Religion And Political Movements

About ten or fifteen years ago... I'm not sure exactly when, but my brother and sister were very young; maybe 8 and 6 respectively, or somewhere around there. Anyway, at the time I was sitting in our living room, probably reading, anti-social bookworm that I was in those days, and my sister Katie was sitting by the entryway playing with one of those mid-size inflatable beach balls. My brother Peter came around the corner through the entryway and inadvertently kicked the ball out of Katie's hands, sending it soaring down the hallway. They both went after it at the same time, and as they were running down the hallway it quite accidentally became a race and they began laughing hysterically because they both realized it had been an accident, and they'd reacted the same way to it... I don't remember who got to the ball first, or maybe I didn't see, but by the time they got there they were laughing so hard with the shared experience that it didn't seem to matter who "won". They had just invented the greatest game ever for the two of them to play together.
So the next step of course was to re-create it. Once they finished falling all over themselves laughing, they gleefully ran back to the main entryway where Katie sat down with the ball and Peter went back around the corner. He "stealthily" came back and "accidentally" kicked the ball down the hallway again, and they both ran after it laughing. By the third or fourth time they played this marvelous new game, they began taking more serious note of who got to the ball first, which of course led to rules about what position Katie would be in when the ball was kicked, so that they had an equal chance of reaching the ball on time. By the fifth time they were no longer laughing, but still having fun, and another rule was added about no pushing or tripping, and perhaps another stating that once the ball was kicked, they had to each count to 3 seconds before running, and then the ball had to be thrown rather than kicked to better control the distance and final destination of the ball as kicking it could unfairly send it closer to one participant's side than the other's, or worse yet, break a lamp and get Mom angry.
By the tenth time they did this, they were arguing about a questionable rule, and whether it had really even been broken, and it seemed that the fun had gone out of it, yet the competition to see who the ultimate beachball-chasing champion was drove them to keep playing. At some point around the fifteenth game, a real fight broke out as one participant had committed an illegal offsides and wouldn't admit it, at least according to one witness, but the ref had unfortunately had his head turned at that moment. When they realized they didn't actually have a referee, they asked me to settle their dispute, but I told them I was reading a very important treatise on 20th century literature and could not be bothered, although of course I was watching closely and was quite secretly amused.
By the twentieth game, it became not so much a game, or even competition, as a full-out ice hockey-style brawl in the middle of the living room floor, at which time Mom came out, did a little yelling of her own, and sent them to their respective rooms.
This is a true story, with little to no embellishment, and it is an event which has been stuck in my mind for most of my adult life. I don't mean to embarass my younger siblings, who were of course very young at the time and behaved in a manner identical to that of children all over the world... but it illustrates something about human nature which I've never forgotten.

I Rant and I Rant, But I Know It's Not Helping Anything

So something you don't see in the news a whole lot about Iraq is the new fundamentalist trend. There is some really scary crap going on out in the streets of Baghdad, and I think the Bush Reich is trying to keep it on the down-low. There are roving gangs of fundamentalist Muslim bullies passing out fliers to Iraqis which state that any women wearing pants or men wearing shorts will be killed. All women must wear Haijab (those headcover things, so women's shameful hair remains covered). Men have to keep their shirts buttoned all the way to the top and must either shave their face completely or wear one of those Muslim-type beards, no mustaches or goatees or whatever. In other words, they are trying to impose strict muslim law, similar to what they have in Iran, upon a populace which has many secular muslims who don't believe in that strict an interpretation of muslim law, not to mention many smaller non-muslim populations such as the Christians, Jews, or Yezidis. I think it made the news last week about a team of Iraqi tennis players who were killed for wearing shorts, but one in particular that I know of has been kept silent. I only know about it because it happened in the neighborhood of one of my Iraqi friends; a 5 year old boy was gunned down in his front yard because he had on shorts and a tank top. This is so horrendous in so many ways that I think I'd be willing to murder the people that did it if I had the chance. There are many cases of women wearing pants being kidnapped off of the streets and being raped and killed. This doesn't lessen my desire to break one of the ten commandments at all. The hypocrisy involved in killing a 5 year old boy for something he can't possibly understand, or raping and killing a woman because she is so shameless a whore as to wear pants and let the world see her hair is... astounding, apalling, unbelievable, confounding, heart-rending, insane, incomprehensible, moronic, RETARDED! And I can't come up with enough other adjectives to make it clear how awful that is.
According to my friends, the people commiting these atrocities are largely not even Iraqi: They are Iranian fundamentalist nutjobs taking advantage of the situation here. The situation being that the Iraqi government now in place has neither the resources nor, to all appearances, the drive to take back the streets. And where, ultimately, does the blame for this all lie? George effin' Bush and his warmongering cronies, that's what. Man, I really hate those people. Here is a quote from an artcle I pulled off of Yahoo news from Stephen Elliott's blog:

"I got a note from a friend today. An American who works in Baghdad and does not want his identity revealed. He says women are being kidnapped and killed for the clothes they wear. He says women are being hunted. The country is in chaos. People are mourning the loss of Saddam Hussein, convinced things were better before.

It's an awful thing to think, that things might have been better under a murderous dictator. But it seems to be accepted wisdom among the diplomats. And even if it isn't true, still, if it is close enough that a sizable percentage could think it, then we have failed miserably.

We have failed miserably in Iraq. We have tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib, murdered civilians in Haditha. We turned our backs on the Geneva Accords and American values, promising to build democracy in the Middle East, and received only a failed state in return."

I stand behind what he's said here %100, based on what I've seen happen here in the last 3 years, from the American side of things and through my Iraqi friend's eyes. I am ashamed to be an American. Not because I hate my country, which I don't. I am ashamed of my government, and what it has accomplished toward making the world a lesser place to live in.
I apologize if I seem to be soapboxing an awful lot in my last several posts, but the situation is deteriorating so fast over here it breaks my heart. There are so many things that America and Americans have done here in Iraq that, when the patriot blinders are lifted, can be called evil, it makes me crazy. PSD mercenaries and marines killing innocent Iraqi civilians who happen to be standing there is nothing new, I'm afraid. It's been going on all along, but only now, with Bush's approval rating at %29, are people daring to put it in the news. These cowboy-types over here tend to lump all Arabs together in the terrorist category, regardless of the option God gave them at birth to use their brains to make rational distinctions, and their regard for life can at times equal a Nazi's regard for life in a concentration camp. Sure, that's an extreme thing to say, and when out in a danger zone you have to make quick decisions... I can't speak to that, anyway. I've never been in that situation. But I've seen how good Iraqi people are treated by cowboys in a safe place like the IZ, and more times than not it leaves the Iraqis with an impression of Americans as cruel masters, which they understandably resent.
I wish I had a constructive solution to offer along with all of my bilious criticism, but I don't. Just saying it's time for America to leave Iraq is not enough; we'd just be leaving them to the awful fate which we put in place for them. But staying only means a continuation of what we've been doing here all along: Nothing save serving our own interests and making their home worse for it.

Holy Claptrap & Good Hypertrekking Points

I'm back in the U.S.S.R, boy.... You don't know how lucky you are (da na na, da na na da na na...) Sorry. Beatles. I'm in Moscow. Got here a couple of hours ago. Haven't seen much yet, except that they don't call it 'McDonald's' here, they call it 'MAKPOKKLOP' or something. I've figured out that the Cyrillic 'P' is pronounced like we pronounce 'R', but beyond that I'm totally lost. They have this whole other alphabet... one of their letters looks like a very large triangle squatting on a coffee table, and another looks like a neutered asterisk. I can see Red Square from my hotel room... for all that money I paid to Space Adventures, I bet half of it went to this hotel. Talk about overdone... well, I have internet finally, so I won't complain.
So I came out good on the EKG! Whew! No problems there. Except for that whole thing with the... well never mind. I won't bore you with my medical history. Suffice it to say, when I die, I WILL be famous in certain medical communities. At any rate, I am healthy enough to fly in a Mig-25. Yay me. Or, as my friend Jen might say; "I KNOW!!!" (2!)  
So Jordan was okay...I got all my Dental, Cardio, and Optical stuff taken care of, (5 pairs of glasses! 5!! They're so cheap in Amman!) and then I took a couple of day trips. I went to Jerash, which is an old Roman Ruin city, and Ajloud, A castle that some old Muslim king (I want to say Saladin?) built on a big hill one day, and the next day I went to Jesus' Baptismal site, took another dip and mud coat in the Dead Sea, and went to Mount Nebo, where Moses gave up the ghost.  Very nice. The next day I was supposed to go to Petra, but I had already been there before. As anyone knows who is well-versed in the rules of hypertrekking, (and if you're not, go here.) back-tracking is best avoided, as points can not be awarded twice for the same destination. So, having one day left before I had to catch my plane to Moscow, I threw all caution to the wind and headed to Jerusalem. The border between Jordan and Israel is THE MOST HORRENDOUS BORDER EXPERIENCE EVER. I had a day, but I did not arrive in Jerusalem until noon, and I was lucky. I will pass some info on here, to anyone  who finds themselves at that border in the future: pay the 100 dollars for the V.I.P. transfer service! I wouldn't have done it, except that I only had a day, and after seeing what happened to the poor slobs that decided to save a bit of money and go the normal route, I thank Jehovah on my knees every day that I did take the V.I.P. service, otherwise I'd still be waiting to have my colon searched, and thanking the border guards for the opportunity.
At any rate, without going into a full-blown book about it, I will give you my two largest impressions of Jerusalem from the 5 hours I spent there. The First: It is the most multi-cultural, multi-religious place I have ever seen, and I am in awe that it hasn't exploded yet. The Jews bang their heads on the Western Wall (I was there on Sabbath) which is the only "truly" holy site that the Jews have in Jerusalem. Right on the other side of the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall, there is a Muslim Temple, which is the 3rd holiest site in the world for Muslims, which no one is allowed to enter, not even on the grounds, unless they are Muslim. This sucks for the Jews, because their Messiah won't be arriving until the Jewish temple is rebuilt there. I think that's why they bang their heads on the wall, but I could be wrong. My main thought here was, "Jews look silly enough with those funny hats, funny songs, funny dancing and really funny hairdos... banging their heads on the Wall probably isn't the best thing for them to be doing." But what's cool is that even though the Muslim Temple grounds are off-limits to infidels, I paid a guy 20 bucks to unlock the school door which abuts the temple grounds so that I could climb to the roof and sneak some photographs of the temple. I think that counts for some pretty good points.
The Christians don't really seem to have much of a presence in the city except for a few key spots... The stations of the cross of course, and a few churches. BUT... The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is located on the spot where, according to some long dead Greek Queen named Helena, Christ was whipped, nailed, hung, annointed, buried, and risen before Mary Magdalene, the church is a total Christian Denominational WARZONE! They have split the church into sections; The Greek Orthodox Christians have all of the good stuff, thanks to Helena, who built the Church in the first place. There is a particularly nasty fat bearded Greek priest at the door to Christ's tomb; I watched him grab a little old lady who was trying to cut in line to see the tomb and whip her around like a dead cat. There is a small section for the Coptic Christians; they have a piece of christ's original headstone, apparently, and burn lots of candles and incense. And you thought candles and incense was only for devil-people and pot-heads, shame on you. The Assyrian Christians have a small temple in the church, as well do the Ethiopian christians, perhaps more widely known as the Abyssinians. And the Franciscans... well, they seem to be the runts of the pack. They got Mary Magdalene's garden, where the angel appeared to her and told her to shut up, stop whinging, and go tell everybody that Jesus said "psyche!"... all of which brings me to the 2nd observation: Christians like to take really spiritual, holy things from their own religion, and bury them in churches. In the space of about 100 meters, I saw from Golgotha to all of the other places I just mentioned, and aside from the rocky top of Golgotha, which was displayed in a glass cover, I saw only marble, candles, and other holy claptrap. It appears that once something significant happens in the spiritual realm, the old Christians felt an urgent need to entomb it. And this is not the only place, because I also did a little mandatory border-hopping....
... And went to Bethlehem! Which is in Palestine territory. Great story. I asked a guy in the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre if I could get to Bethlehem before it got dark... he hesitated a second, looked at his watch, and said, "Normally, no way. But today you are lucky; you've met me. I have a cousin in Palestine. He has a car. We will go to the border and sneak around the guards, hop in my cousin's car, and he will take you to the Church of the Nativity, then bring you back."  Sweet! So we went and saw the Church of the Nativity. Same thing. The actual birthspot of Christ, the manger (5 feet away) and the altar of the 3 wise men, all buried fairly deep within a church. Nothing to indicate that the description in the Bible had anything to do with the reality you were seeing. Lots of Holy claptrap. There is something deep and important in that idea, but I will leave it alone. Come to your own conclusion. Anyway... I spent the night in Jerusalem, got up early and came back to Amman... the border crossing was a little easier, but not much, really. Now I'm in Moscow, and this is no longer a blog entry, but a massmail. Sorry about that.
I'll be posting pictures from these trips at my smugmug page real soon.