Atheist Holidays

Atheists should have their own holidays. It seems a pity to have to piggy-back off of religious holidays--we should have our own. I've looked around a bit and the ideas I've found are pretty lame. Winter solstice? Seriously?

http://atheism.about.com/od/adviceforatheists/a/hol_alternative.htm

I say we should just appropriate some. New Year's Day seems a good one. So is July 4. Arbor Day is another. April 1, of course. And we certainly should invent Atheism Day. You get the drift.

The more interesting question is: how should atheist holidays be celebrated? With rituals? I'm going to have to think more about this, but I'm too sleepy just now.

An Atheist Thanksgiving

Thanks for coming.

Can we watch the game? Thanks!

Thanks for helping.

Thanks for buying the turkey.

Thanks for buying the wine.

Thanks for making supper.

Pass the gravy. Thanks.

Thanks for giving your time.

Thanks for giving your money.

Thanks for giving your labor.

Thanks

for giving

thanks.

Explaining Good

Much theological debate swirls around the issue of explaining Evil. If God is Good, why does He allow Evil? Many very fancy answers to this question have been put forward.

Nobody seems to trouble themselves over the question of why Good happens.

Evil appears to require explanation. Good is taken for granted. I regard this not as commentary not on the gods but on humans. We assume good is natural. Good is unforced. It happens continuously, if unopposed by other forces. So it's Evil that requires explanation.

This means that human beings are naturally good. Not, I hasten to add, a positive good in the sense of going around doing Good Deeds; rather, a neutral good, a sort of generalize benign attitude and behavior that does no harm intentionally, though I think most of us think that kindness is also natural.

The view of humans as essentially sinful or even merely flawed or incomplete, is profoundly disturbed. It is a deliberately perverse view of human nature that cannot find anything better to do than to invent some impossible ideal and then blame us for not measuring up to it. Original sin is in this view quite a trick, for it places an unforgivable sin impossibly out of reach or hope of correction. It's as if we all of us raised our children repeatedly blaming them for something they never did and cannot amend.

The atheist is not compelled to explain Evil any more than he is compelled to explain Good. The only task before the atheist is to explain Human. And that is challenge enough.

Still smilin'

The Church Militant

If religion were just religion (i.e., the following of a religio), I'd have no problem with it. For the atheist, it is just another superstition. When a religion evangelizes, it becomes an annoyance. When a religion becomes militant, only then does it become dangerous.

Militant churches are fascinating and can even be thrilling, much the same way an army can be. Fascinating, that is, to someone who studies them; for those who are their victims, they are merely terrifying. Most religions either go through a militant phase or have militant aspects or wings to them, and I argue that it's theology that produces this militancy, and here the behavior of religion is pretty close to the behavior of most any other ideology.

To put it another way, the trouble stems not from the fact that it's a religion but from the fact that human beings have this tendency to ideology and militancy. If they happen to be religious, then those tendencies get expressed in religious terms. If they happen to be areligious, or live in a society in which the secular arm is the stronger, the tendencies get expressed in the secular idioms of philosophy and whatever-ism.

Capitalism, communism, fascism, monarchialism, even the ideology of democracy (my spellcheck complains democratism is not a word), all are in this sense religions. And we see that all of them have their version of the Church Militant. It's no good condemning religions for their religious wars unless we're prepared to condemn these ideologies for their secular wars. All believe their wars are just, and all are hated by their victims.

Which is another way of me saying what I say over and over again. We have to distinguish between not believing in gods (atheism) and condemning religion, either specifically or generally. There's no point in condemning religion because "religion" doesn't exist. There are only people, doing things. What we are condemning is our fellow human beings. I'm fine with that. Only then does one begin to consider how matters might be amended.

Or, to put it more succinctly: hate the sinner, not the sin. ;-)

Postscript:

Okay, this is funny as hell. I posted the above and Blogger came back with a Google ad . . . for Scientology!

Do You Know Jesus?

(hit it, maestro)

If you knew Jesus

Like I know Jesus

Oy, oy, oy what a guuuy!

WWJD

What would Jesus do?

Why, he'd just die, wouldn't he?

Tribute to Transcendentalism

Once I lived a worldly life, filled with
Tasks and toys and all earthly joys, and
It was all about me.

One day I felt, despite all of that, I'd somehow lost myself.

So I leaped off the corporate ladder;
I conceded the race to the rats
And landed in strange fields.

I saw that it is a crime to eat other creatures, and became a vegan,
And was happier for it.
I rejected violence, became a pacifist,
Saw the futility and falsity of politics,
Turned away from the world,
And was the happier for it.

I gave away my toys and cars,
Said farewell to family and friends and my dog,
Joined an ashram, living by meditation and donation,
And was happier for it.

Now, I spend each day in contented contemplation,
Aiming ever for ego-obliteration,
Living in the moment
Peaceful and resolved,
Because at long last,
It's only about me.

Atheism is for Adults Only

When I was twelve I announced to my parents that I was an atheist. The informed me that I could not be an atheist as I was too young to make such a decision.

At the time, the statement struck me as outrageous, without knowing why. I think it was just a very young man's reaction to being told he wasn't supposed to believe what he believed. Later, I realized it was simply because my declaration scandalized my parents and that this was merely what they said out of shock and surprise.

But all these years later the incident comes back to me and makes me think that most profound of human thoughts: *huh*.

Ain't it odd, that whether Muslim or Hindu or Jew or Christian, you can be a child and be a believer. You can be a toddler -- you can be born a Hindu or a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew.

But it takes a grown-up to be an atheist.

*huh*

The Plant Wizard

I'm reading, and really enjoying, "The 42nd Parallel" by John Dos Passos. In it, among many treasures, is this poem, which I reproduce here. Seems like the right place for it.

Luther Burbank was born in a brick farmhouse in Lancaster Mass
he walked round the woods one winter
crunching through the shinycrusted snow
stumbled into a little dell where a warm spring was
and found the grass green and the weeds sprouting
and skunk cabbage pushing up a potent thumb,
He went home and sat by the stove and read Darwin
Struggle for Existence Origin of Species Natural
Selection that wasn't what they taught in church,
so Luther Burbank ceased to believe moved to Lunenburg,
found a seedball in a potato plant
sowed the seed and cashed in on Mr. Darwin's Natural Selection
on Spencer and Huxley
with the Burbank Potato.

Young man go west;
Luther Burbank went to Santa Rosa
full of his dreams of green grass in winter ever-
blooming flowers ever-
bearing berries; Luther Burbank
could cash in on Natural Selection Luther Burbank
carried his apocalyptic dream of green grass in winter
and seedless berries and stoneless plums and thornless roses brambles cactus -
winters were bleak in that bleak
brick farmhouse in bleak Massachusetts -
out to sunny Santa Rosa;
and he was a sunny old man
where roses bloomed all year
everblooming everbearing
hybrids.

America was hybrid
America should cash in on Natural Selection.
He was an infidel he believed in Darwin and Natural
Selection and the influence of the mighty dead
and a good firm shipper's fruit
suitable for canning.
He was one of the grand old men until the churches
and the congregations
got wind that he was an infidel and believed
in Darwin.
Luther Burbank had never a thought of evil,
selecting improved hybrids for America
those sunny years in Santa Rosa.
But he brushed down a wasp's nest that time;
he wouldn't give up Darwin and Natural Selection
and they stung him and he died
puzzled.
They buried him under a cedartree.
His favorite photograph
was of a little tot
standing beside a bed of hybrid
everblooming double Shasta daisies
with never a thought of evil
And Mount Shasta
in the background, used to be a volcano
but they don't have volcanos
any more.

Buddhism blows

There is in the West a sort of intellectual fad of long standing that presents Buddhism as better in one way or another than Christianity. Part of the reason is easy to understand: you don't get many Buddhist crusades or Buddhist jihads or that sort of thing. Pacifism is a core value. Who can hate that, right?

Well, I can. I've many reasons but let's deal with just two. Buddhism is an aristocrat's religion, and it's fundamentally anti-human. To be fair, most religions are the latter, but it's not a statement you're likely to hear much directed at this particular religion.

First, it's always bothered me that Buddhism was founded by the son of a prince. Most religions are merely bundles of tribal customs and never get beyond that. We used to dismiss those as superstitions. Today we're more magnanimous in our language but also less precise. There really is a difference between pagan animalism and a true religion. Topic for another post.

But among the real religions, if you will grant me the point for now, they all have humble origins. Moses was the son of a slave. Jesus was the son of a carpenter. Muhammad was the nephew of a shepherd (his daddy died when he was a kid and he was raised by his uncle). And then we have the son of a prince. So, right away, it gets my populist blood up.

This born-better-than-you person grows up sheltered then has his epiphany: golly, there are poor folk in the world. This causes him to re-evaluate himself and off he goes to find something more meaningful than silk pillows. Bully for him, I say, but this ain't a religion. At best it's a philosophy.

What turned it into a religion? Monks. And monks are parasites. Now, I like to watch a good shaolin ass-kickin' as well as the next guy, and monks to plenty of good work, no doubt about it. But the plain fact, figured out with clear eyes and in plain language by the Protestant reformers of the 16thc, is that monks are parasites. They don't exist without massive dedicated wealth. Wealth that would be better directed to the people. Because the wealth gets diverted *from* the people, these monks have time to sit around all day and develop a nice little philosophy into a full-blown religion with its requisite rites and structures that further divert the precious resources of a society. Piffle.

But all that we can lay to one side as a manifestation of Skip's social prejudices more than a true atheistic stance. It's a fair cop; I just hadda get it off my chest.

The other criticism is more serious. Buddhism did indeed develop into a sophisticated religion. What's not to like about it? The same thing not to like about most religions: their eschatology and their anthropology. They have a deeply flawed view of the human condition.

What is the ultimate aim of the Buddhist? To gain, or at least to seek, nirvana. And what is that? It's the dissolution of the self into the godhead.

How sick is that? The goal of a human is to become un-human. It's staggering that anyone would even begin to think this is a peachy idea. But we are taught in a thousand ways to despise the human condition and to believe that happiness can lie only outside our grasp (Alexander Pope here intentionally invoked). Every true religion teaches this, but Buddhism goes further than any of the others. It's not just the body that's annihilated, it's the will, the sense of self, all shred and echo of anything human, all of it must be suppressed, stripped away, burned up, lost forever. And this is supposed to be some sort of triumph.

Hey Buddhists, I have a news flash for you. I had friends who lost the LSD lottery and they achieved a complete loss of self right here on Earth. It's no great shakes. It's actually surprisingly easy to obliterate the self.

So. Buddhism blows, Ted. Blows most intensely, Bill. Stay away from it. It's poison. I've got a better alternative.

Stay here. Be you. Live long and prosper.

And keep smilin'

Atheist Ethics

You heard it said often that the fact the Golden Rule can be found in many religions is a proof both of its inherent truth and of its divine origin.

Nonsense. That fact that many religions have more or less the same moral code is proof of the code's human origin. All religions were invented by humans; therefore, their moral codes are going to be roughly the same.

Atheist ethics are therefore very similar to religious ethics--because they're all merely human ethics. Do (or don't do) unto others. Turn the other cheek. Be decent and neighborly. Don't steal or lie or murder.

Religions make a big deal out of these moral codes. To which the atheist replies: well, duh.

Of course we should be decent to one another, because we're all we've got. To harm others is ultimately only to harm ourselves. We need to behave ourselves not in hopes of some greater existence in the next life, but because this life is the only one we get and you ought not piss in your own nest.

It was easier to believe in god-stuff in earlier centuries in part because there was no real understanding that we are all in the same boat. Rather, people thought in terms of us and them: aristocrats and commoners, tribe and foreigner, saved and damned, this life and next life. It's much harder to maintain that myth now.

I picture religion as a log floating in a lake. For millenia we've clung to that log for fear of drowning. The atheist says, hey look, we can swim! Let's go see what we can find!

Smilin' all the way.

Foxhole faith

There are no atheists in foxholes. So goes the old saying, and I do hesitate a bit to disagree with Ernie Pyle, but I must insist.

Of course there are atheists in foxholes. One at least, right? Possibly two? And anyway, just because someone yells Oh God while being shelled doesn't exactly make them religious. It makes them scared.

The thing I wonder is: if the person in the foxhole is, say, Chinese, does the putative atheist suddenly convert to Confucianism? To Buddhism? If a Bangladeshi does he become a Muslim?

Or does this whole "aw shit I'm gonna die, God help me" thing only operate for Christians? Or is it only the Christian God who proffers some hope of saving my sorry ass? All other gods let me buy the farm?

Chicken

The true atheist is one who, when the time comes, doesn't chicken out.

Be Better than God

Live in the moment. Know your limitations as well as your strengths. Live and let live. ... be better than God.
Don't be angry or judgmental. Don't take credit for stuff you didn't do. Don't give something knowing you'll get it back and then pretend it was some big sacrifice. Don't be preachy. ... don't do as God does.
Be able to be surprised. Take delight in life even with its flaws. Be skeptical. ... be better than God.
Don't hold grudges. Don't make unrealistic rules and expect other people to follow them. Don't pull cheap stunts at dinner. ... don't do as God does.
Be humble. Be compassionate. Be patient. Be ... oh what's the word I'm looking for ... humane.


Still smilin'

Superbowl Sunday

It's the truest of American religious holidays. It's the anti-Easter, the one Sunday when the fewest people show up in the Christian churches.

I, personally, will be worshipping at the 1080i of my choice, where we will all partake in the communal Bowl's Supper, down communion wafers till we puke, and slam ... well, I have to admit it's mostly going to be coffee and juice. It's my one complaint about Superbowl Sunday: I have to be sober enough to drive home. Puts rather a damper on what otherwise could be a lively fourth quarter.

Anyway, even the football atheists lurk around the edges, peering in through the window, as it were, if for no other reason than to try from time to time to make sense of the mysteries. There we rise and sit and even kneel with the rhythmic regularity of Catholics. There we push aside all worldly concerns with the rigor of a Calvinist. There we strive to become one with the game, interpreting the signs, arguing fruitlessly with the high priests. If only miracles had instant replay and reviews ordered from the booth in the last two minutes.

In the end, some are saved while others are damned, and truly there's no sense in the fate of either. And, truly, Monday comes around and we're all still here and life goes on.

Still smilin'

God Bless America, and then call it a day

You hear it everywhere. It's on bumper stickers. It's in presidential inaugurations. It gets spoken like a cheer: Go, Yankees! God Bless America! Yay!

I got a question, here.

Shouldn't He have done it by now?

I mean, why we gotta keep askin'?

I mean, we ask God: hey, bless America. Then God does it. End of story, right?

You'd think.

Many claim God has already done it. America is so blessed, they say.

Fine and dandy! Maybe we should all give ol' God a break. You figure he gets irritated, we keep askin' him to do what he already done did?

See, it makes sense to have God bless a meal. The food gets blessed and then you eat it and then it's gone. New meal, new blessing.

When we ask God to bless a marriage, we don't have to keep asking for that one, do we? No! One and done. Makes sense. Now, blessing a sneeze, that makes no sense at all, but the religious can have a gimme on that.

Blessing the country, though ... I'm sorry, I have to call that one out. My favorites are the bumper stickers and the stitched wall plaques and the like. These are permanent appeals. It's like a little kid: Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom.... Sheesh, give it a rest.

The only thing I can figure is that God blessings are a sort of lottery. You can't win unless you play. So, everybody keeps asking God to bless the USA, and maybe somebody gets lucky and the blessing takes. And all those people who say the country is already blessed are just blowing smoke.

I dunno. Sometimes, these religious types are just plain loopy.

-= Skip =-
still smilin'

God-free for 45 years

I declared when I was twelve, and it still feels fine.

Told my parents: I'm an atheist. To which my father replied "no you're not" and that was the end of that discussion. I couldn't figure out how I could not be something I was. Being an atheist is as much a spiritual leap (if there were such a thing) as being any flavor of religious convert. It's not an opinion; it's a predicate of existence.

It was more, or perhaps less, than that as well. It was more a recognition that the whole business of religion was a song, and I was tone-deaf. I simply couldn't catch the rhythm, couldn't carry the melody. I couldn't even hear the choir. Some years later, I was told that all I had to do was "open my heart" as the phrase went, and God would enter. I gave that a try, as best I could. Felt bloody silly. Felt, indeed, like I was talking to the floor having to pretend it would suddenly make fried eggs. I soon stopped trying to please the people around my by playing their reindeer games.

So, merrily I roll along.

Still smilin'