We are all children

I work at a university. As with many universities we have a child care center on campus. These children have tenders who take them out for expeditions around campus. The babies go in baby buses--something like large wheelbarrows or others like very large wagons, with the kids in there like a pile of bunnies. The older kids, roughly ages three to six, get led around on a long rope, looking like miniature sherpas heading for K2.

Today I saw a line of these children brought to a grassy field that is enclosed by fence on three sides. It's large enough to serve as a soccer or lacrosse field. Plenty of room. Their handlers unleashed the kids and I saw them gesture out across the field:  go! run! 

Some kids took off like rockets. They ran dead-out. If there had been no fence they'd probably still be running. Others were less sure. They ran for a time, looked around and saw that the others were still running, so off they went again. A few tired and had to catch a breather.

By and large, this little selection of little humanity ran in a herd. One, though, had trouble getting out of the starting gate. Everyone else ran, but she just stood there, next to the adults. I don't think they even noticed her for a while. Eventually they gave her personal instructions:  go! run!  and off she went.

Then there was the non-conformist. She ran to the middle of the field and sat down. There she remained while the activity of the others went on around her. After a time she was summoned back by the grownups. Go! Run! She ran maybe ten or fifteen feet. Then, deciding that this did not conform with her vision of the word, she turned around and ran the other direction.  She was quite happy with this. She ran about twenty yards, turned around and came back. She had made up her own goal and achieved it, even as everyone else was doing more or less as told.

At the other end of the field, by the far fence, our human herd had run up against a problem in teleology. They'd been told go! run! but the instructions had left open what to do when there was no more room to run. Some tagged up and headed back toward the adults, but others milled around underneath the soccer goal post. Unclear on the concept. Gradually, enough were returning that most of the herd headed back as well. A handful remained at the far end, deciding that casual conversation and rolling in the grass was more appealing than another long jog. Some of these had to be fetched.

I suggest no profound insight from this. I only offer it as a kind of scatter chart of human behavior; an affirmation of humanity and a commentary on our limitations.

"I don't claim to have a proof that God cannot exist. It's just that I consider the state of the evidence on the God question to be similar to that on the werewolf question."  John McCarthy (1927-2011)

Atheism and Politics

There should be a separation between Church and State.

This is a fundamental tenet in American culture and in some others as well. It's a conclusion we reached through many hard years of fighting religious wars in the West. It's a lesson still not learned in most other cultures, who pay dearly for their foolishness.

The question of the day is this:  if religion should be kept out of politics, ought atheism be kept out as well?  I'm not entirely sure what that means, but it strikes me that instilling a policy of unbelief in religion at a political level is itself a kind of act of faith. Maybe what we atheists should do is to allow religious people to be in politics all they want, just so long as they don't set policy or pass legislation based on that religion. On the other side, atheists ought not be able to set policy or pass legislation based on their disbelief in or distaste for religion. I reckon that would extend to all religions.

It's rather a moot point since religion is so deeply embedded in our political dialog. I merely raise the point, to record it here.

Justice is Done

This has been bugging me, so I'm writing it in order to be done with it.

From the day the SEALs nailed bin Laden, from the very day of the event, I have heard people talk about how justice has been done, how his death closes a chapter, that the families of his victims have gained a degree of closure.

Et cetera, inter alia.

What bothers me? Am I some sort of terrorist-lover?  Well, my discomfort concerns not one dead Arab but rather the debate in this country over the death penalty. It concerns what is good, for geese and for ganders.

If the right thing to do, to avenge the deaths of bin Laden's victims, is to hunt the muther down and kill him; if not only the victims but their families and indeed even all of their countrymen cry out for blood; if it's not only right but necessary that such a killer himself be killed, then surely the same must hold true for the domestic serial killer, the child-murderer, or the plain ol' ordinary cold-blooded homicidal maniac.

If it's justice, then it's justice.

I kept waiting to hear someone make an excuse, a rationale, a distinction. This killing was justified because it was in connection with war. However absurd a definition of war this present activity may be, it would at least provide the pretense of a distinction. I'm a historian. I understand how governments have to pretend things are true that are not.

But I never heard the strained rhetoric, the disingenuous lie. All I heard was an honest and heart-felt emotion. Good. The sonofabitch is dead. He had it coming.

Fellow citizens, I put it to you. If the death penalty is wrong, then killing bin Laden was wrong and those SEALs are murderers. Or, if you prefer, what was done over there in Pakistan in our name was right, and every state in the Union should hang 'em high. Death by automatic weapon, at the very least.

There, I've said my piece. 

Atheists march

A headline today reads
Spanish atheist march banned in Easter Week
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13158138

This business highlights one of my chief complaints about my fellow atheists; namely, confusing atheism with religious antagonism.  These Spanish so-called atheists wanted to march right past Catholic churches (hard to avoid, in Madrid!) during Easter ceremonies. Their intent plainly is to provoke.

I have no problem with provocation. By all means tweak those Catholic noses, some of which deserve tweaking. And make your point that in Spain, separation of Church and State is a bit of a shadow play.

But don't call it atheism. This is anti-Catholicism, unadulterated.

The atheist doesn't care a fig for the outrages of this or that religion, or at least it's not his atheism that is outraged. His moral sensibilities may be, and that's fine. Any of us can condemn any number of aspects of any number of religions on the grounds of human decency or violation of civil law, and so on.

But atheism merely says there are no gods. It's a simple enough proposition, self-sufficient. Many people, though, make the moral leap to the active statement that believing in gods is Bad. And should be not only condemned but fought against.

I disagree. Believing in gods is not Bad, it's merely silly. Pointless. Delusional. I'll condemn evil done in the name of anything, gods included, but then I'm condemning the man who did the act, not the ideology that he employed to justify his actions to himself. Hate the sinner, not the sin, to counterfeit a phrase.

I'm not glad that the marches in Madrid were banned. Yes there probably would have been clashes and the civil authorities were probably behaving responsibly, but you still have to let people march and let the confrontations happen and then clean up afterward. Let them dance, let them dance, although they may not be the only ones [Young: 3:8-11]

But call yourselves Catholic Haters of Spain or something. Not atheists. You give us a bad rep.

Al-Jazeerah at TED

A fascinating and moving talk from a report who was there, more than once.

He makes a wonderful statement about nine minutes in. He says the oppressive governments "had lost the power to deceive."  What a great summation of the core nature of the State.

The other inspiring moment for me was at the end where he talks about how it's the young people in these countries who are leading the way, who have more wisdom than the old people. That does this old radical's heart much good, to see someone ... anyone ... anywhere ... doing what we failed to do. Bring real change.

On the Uses of History

Sometimes I think the main use of history is for the nurturing of old grudges, to keep the wounds open. When I hear some commentator say how in order to understand a region we must keep in mind its history, what he is really saying is that every slight, every outrage, every transgression must be dragged out over and over, so that each side might feel justified in its anger.

Surely this is how God sees the world. Every sin is present, every failing fresh. No wonder there's no forgiveness to be had, except by special dispensation. God is no historian, in this view; God is a politician. The historian understands that the past is past. The politician insists the past is present, which perspective only condemns it to be our future as well.

On Divine Love

For God so loved the world that He said "aw screw it, everybody goes straight to Heaven when they die, and my kid can stay home."

 -- Skip 3:16

The Coming Irrelevance of the Nation-State

Since this is now my Last Blog Standing, I'll be writing about more than just atheism here, and this is the first of such posts.

Recent events, along with the history courses I teach, have caused me to think a good deal about the nature of power relations in our world. We've had something called the nation-state for three or four centuries now, depending on how fussy one is about definitions. In its pure form, there is perfect correlation between nation and state; that is, between a "people" (natio) and the geo-political entity that governs that people.

This notion is extremely powerful, though it's been the source of endless grief, as drawing clear lines around a people turns out to be rather difficult. Far more blood has been shed between nations than was ever shed between religions. Nevertheless, it appears to be the only political form we can imagine.

There are some awkward exceptions, the United States being one of them. While other nation-states struggle with ethnic groups, there is still something like Russians and Chinese, but the only people who can lay claim to being Americans are the subjugated native peoples. We aren't a nation-state, and we've struggled with that hard fact for most of our history.

There may, however, be alternatives. The chief one may be the corporate state. One need not examine multinational corporations very deeply to see that they are very nearly invulnerable to the authority of a given nation-state. The multinational represents a huge collection of resources -- capital, people, technology -- in any given nation-state that is utterly outside that state's ability to command. Could states be built around corporations? Possibly, though it's not likely to happen soon. Corporations are getting a free ride from their host states. They don't need to provide security, social services, infrastructure, defense. All that is left to the state. We won't see a corporate state until nation-states begin to fail on a large scale.

And we do have failing states. The phrase has even entered the vocabulary. It should become possible to begin to chart the spread of failed states across the planet. It's a phrase that could not have existed in the 19thc.

We're beginning to recognize on a profound level that economics are quite beyond the ability of any one nation to control. This occurs at the most fundamental levels of food and water and continues right through manufacturing, technology, and communications. If we are indeed moving to a global village, then the nation-state is plainly irrelevant if not downright obstructionist.

What other alternatives exist? The religious state is a possibility. It's been a contender all along, but it's profoundly flawed. This is because religion is fundamentally a social expression and has no abstract or practical validity. Every time religion has tried to manage at a state level, it has fractured into schism. Every faction is an expression of its local culture, of its natio. There can be horrible tyranny for a time, but no enduring success in a religious state.

Another alternative has occurred to me, spurred by an observation that nation-states cut right across ecological boundaries. What about an eco-state? The most obvious candidate would be a river system with all its drainage. As ecological concerns begin to outweigh other matters, it might make sense to organize human society around such basic planetary factors.

Impractical? Of course. Everything is impractical until it is done. I don't see solutions but I do see possibilities. The corporate state is one. The religious state is another. The ecological state is a third.

I prefer the third. It is my fate, however, to live and die in a nation-state.

A Sense of Urgency

Never having been a religious man, I don't know how it is for them, but for us atheists, growing old gives one a sense of urgency. We know our time is playing out, that it's now or never, that we'd best buckle down and see about Getting Things Done.

I work best under a deadline. Pun intended.

Knowing that this life is but a pilgrimage through a vale of tears, that all our mortal endeavors are as dew fading on the grass, this all seems to me would make a fellow complacent in his later years. Makes him want to kick back and have a beer. Ball game's on soon. No time to mow the lawn or paint the house, so let's just fix a snack and settle in. Better times are comin'.

I don't get it. I honestly don't. How is this a better way to approach life? How is it more human to devalue human activity? For that's what all religions do. Forget about what you do here. Earthly things are trivial and corrupt, worth nothing in the divine scheme. It's eternity that counts. This holds for all religions, mind you. Even the ones that talk about reincarnation; it's the same message only strung out longer. There, what you do in this life counts, but only in context of your past and future reincarnations. You have one big, long life, with lots of iterations, but it's all justified only in terms of eternity. The Big Payoff. You've got it made only when you've left it all behind. Join with the Great Consciousness that is God and spend the rest of eternity laughing your ass off at all us poor cockroaches.

Well, I'll take Archy and Mehitabel any day of the week. Wotthehell.

What we do here does matter. What we do here is in fact the only thing that matters at all, insofar as mattering has any meaning whatsoever. Each of us should spend our time being the best us we know how to be, knowing that we have only this one throw of the dice. This is for me, as the song says, the essence of true romance. Its meaning is far more profound than any metaphysical so-called insight because this is human meaning. This is my-two-hands, dirt-under-your-feet meaning. This is meaning hard-won and shared, not meaning handed down and forever inscrutable.

The clock is ticking and ain't it a cheery sound? No it ain't, not at all. All clocks wind down. But I'll take that sound over the silence of the Spheres or the dreary drone of Om. Any time. All the time. It means we're still here and we still have things to do, meaning to create, mysteries to solve. That's a far better thing to have pressing upon one's heart than the awful, fruitless notion that we all need merely to get through this misery and wait upon Judgment Day in order to be justified.