21 May 2011

Some things will always make the Smiling Atheist smile. This is one of them:
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20101201/NEWS06/12010350/-1/testpage/Nashville+billboards+claim+Jesus+will+return+May+21++2011

Here's one of the things I don't figure. If we know the end is coming, and we know the nature of that end (most go to Hell, the Elect are saved), then is there really anything to do?  I doubt a last-second conversion is going to do the trick. Should we really all gather on a hilltop? Why?  I figure, Jesus can just come over to the house if he's got business with me. Otherwise, I'm just going to watch Dexter until the lights go out.

Or, alternatively, I do believe the drill is that there will be an anti-Christ and there's that thousand-year reign and such. We've got plenty of time. Just relax. You'd still better mow the lawn.

Then there's this, from the article. Family Radio says they "want to save their friends and neighbors from God's judgments."  Pardon?  It's in the power of mortals to save other mortals from God's judgment? Kewl.

Finally, is there any significance to the fact that 21 May 2011 is on a Saturday? Score one for the Seventh-Day Adventists?

Well. At least the Christian God will end the world before those rotten Mayans can.

On a more serious note, the passage from Mark 13:32 (you'll have to read the whole business for the background) says something really interesting to me. Specifically,
"But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. "

The Father knows a thing that the Son does not? Extraordinary! That seems to undercut the post-Nicaean understanding of the nature of the Trinity. I really, honestly do feel sorry for the untold legions of theologians who tried so valiantly to bring any sort of consistency out of the chaotic collection that is the Christian Bible.

I'll have a vent, eh

I got my stick an' I got my hat

You best believe, honey, I'm all dat

Benny and his Jets today attacked "atheist extremism" and "aggressive secularism". I suppose his pontiffiness would be happier with passive secularism or atheist moderation.  

First of all, let me say that atheist extremism in the defense of liberty is no crime. 

Second, let me say that anyone wearing that much gold simply cannot be taken seriously. 

There's a reason why the Brits went on a tear about Popery and His He-ness ought to recognize that he's a guest in the Isles and not take such a popier-than-thou tone with his hosts. Then again, popes have a long history of scolding. They acquired the buttinsky disease early on and have never got over it, not even when told to get lost.

Doesn't he look like he has a jet pack on and is getting ready to launch?

I don't mind folks being Catholic. To each his own, sez I. But I do mind when any leader decides that he gets to decide, regardless of the topic. I hold to this principle aggressively, thankee kindly. I also like my history straight, hold the holy water, and his statement that Christianity is the foundation of British freedoms goes so far wide of the mark that it's both irritating and laughable at the same time. I'm not sure which freedoms he had in mind when saying that; I doubt any particular ones at all. It sounds like the sort of fuzzy-minded generalizations that I try hard to teach my students to avoid.

Wouldn't you like to see some kung-fu moves with that Staff of Holiness +6?

What few responses I've read from the secularists sound decidedly un-aggressive, and none of the atheist remarks are in the least bit extreme, and nary a neo-nazi among 'em. I suppose the pope knows some folks I don't. 

My recommendation to Il Papa is: stick to the kindly-old-man remarks like the ones you made later today in Glasgow. Encourage the young priests, fortify the faithful, and don't presume to judge the rest of us. I think your User's Manual has a passage about that somewhere.

Spiritualism and Religion

Spiritualism. You know the type.

"I believe in God but I don't believe in any organized religion."

By which they mean: I've chosen all the warmFuzzyHappy parts about religion and keep away from the oppressiveRegulatedScary bits.

 This is nonsense and worse than nonsense. Nobody believes in a God without the context of religion because that's how we learned about God in the first place. We read about Him. We saw the movie. The choice of the spiritualist isn't the choice of a genuine religious, it's the choice of the protester (not to say 'protestant'), the half-committed, the revisionist. It's a person who refuses to accept the discipline and instruction of an organized religion while stubbornly claiming that his happy-blanket is just as good or better. That may be a comfort to the individual, but it offers nothing to the human condition.

And the Smilin' Atheist says that if you aren't offering something to the human condition, then you aren't offering anything at all. Mysticism goes nowhere. Monasticism is the epitome of self-indulgence. "Get on up-a", to quote the sage, "get on the scene."

True, spiritualism doesn't necessarily imply quietism, but that's the direction in which it tends. As for me, give me that old-time religion. Gods and priests and rituals and rules ... I get that. I understand that, where it comes from, where it goes, and where it doesn't go. When you make up your own rules nobody gets to judge you; it keeps you safe, but it also checks you out from the human condition, which is fundamentally social. Man is a political animal, as a former rock star says, and only the idiot pretends he is not part of the polis. If you *are* going to drop out, at least do so to form a new society. That's what the Protestants did, and they get props for that at least.

The spiritualist, though, offers nothing, asks for nothing, abides by nothing, and yet claims to have something. What is it, you ask. It's personal, comes the reply. Oh. Well. Off you go then. The Smilin' Atheist sez: only religions have belief; spiritualists have make-believe. It's all nonsense, but there are grades of nonsense, ain't there?

How Religion Happens

I've been meaning to comment on this for a few months. Not long after the earthquake in Haiti, a few weeks after, I heard a news story. The reporter interviewed a local who talked about the destruction of this and that building. She spoke specifically of the destruction of churches, always a somewhat awkward bit when dealing with natural disasters.

Yes, she said, many churches were destroyed in the earthquake, and many of the faithful were having a hard time understanding why God should have allowed (or caused) such a thing. She went on to observe, however, that in her church, the crucifix didn't fall down, even though the rest of the building did. Moreover, the same had been the case in churches all across Haiti. The churches fell, but not the crucifixes.

Thus were the faithful justified in their faith.

Now, chances are, this nice lady did not go around Haiti personally verifying this little factoid. It's practically the very definition of faith that one doesn't check, one simply believes. I have no doubt that this "fact" has passed into legend, at least within her own circle if not more widely, where it will be immune from checking for ever more.

And it hit me then and there: this is how religion happens. Faced with calamity, we struggle to make sense out of the random cruelty of the universe. We see a thing, or think we see it, or we hear of a thing, and this thing both justifies and comforts us, so we cling to it and nurture it, and we would never dream of subjecting it to anything like objective verification. It's as if we believed we'd learned to fly by flapping our arms. Why would a fellow want to stop flapping his arms? Just to check? Get outta here.

So, in churches all across Haiti, the buildings fell but the crucifixes stood, and surely this Means Something, though people won't say what. They'll just repeat the story to one another and nod their heads and be comforted.

Flap, flap, flap.

When You Wish Upon A Star

Makes no difference who you are.

Or where you are. Or what church you attend. Or what you believe or disbelieve. Or which pair of socks you wore last Thursday.

This is really, really difficult for us humans to accept. Like a child denied a treat, we continue to find ways to expect, to ask, to hope. And then, when some hoped-for thing actually happens, we naturally attribute it to that church, that belief, that pair of socks, because otherwise we must face the universe without hope.

I'm okay with that. In fact, I'm profoundly satisfied with that. I want to look at the universe without flinching. I don't find the universe to be exciting or beautiful (pace Carl Sagan); rather, I find it to be largely empty with random acts of violence, a subset of which I happen to like. The universe does occasionally surprise me, but mostly it's pretty dull. Human beings, otoh, are eternally surprising. Yes, the universe will one day snuff out all of us, but that doesn't make us any less valued, no more than does the fact that a flower will one day fade lessen in the slightest its present beauty.

So, a pox on the desperate hopefulness of religions. Whether its a hope for heaven or nirvana or just avoiding the wrath of the sky god -- or indeed the hope for being cured of a disease or to have the home team win or to get out of this damned foxhole alive -- no matter, I say, it all detracts from our humanity. It demeans us and lessens us. Let us have an end to chanting, an end to prayer circles, an end to offerings. Let us stop trying to petition the Lord with prayer. He ain't at home anyway.

What if all the energy spent in prayerful wishing were spent in doing, instead?

The Fool Hath Said In His Heart

This is a repost from my first year of this blog. It's worth re-stating, with some even-handed additions.


There is no God.
There is no Thor, no Odin, Loki, Freya or Jormungand. 
There is no Yahweh, there is no Allah.
There is no Zeus, no Ares, no Isis nor Osiris.
There is no Brahma, no Kuber, no Yama or Shiva or Ashwini Kumara.
There is no Anguta, no Shakura, no Selu, Sedna or Ocasta.
There is no jaguar god, no elephant god, no coyote god, no bear god, no guinea pig god.
There is no god of the sun, of the moon, of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, any of the asteroids, nor of the comets nor of disabled orbiting satellites.
There is no Chenresig, no Maitreya, no Vajrasattva, no Manjushri.
There is no Akongo, no Gua, no Zin or Yo or Mon or So.

What, did you think your particular god was different somehow? 

What Have They Done?

The tragic farce that is the BP oil spill keeps bringing back to mind lines from Jim Morrison.

What have they done to the earth?
What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her,
Stabbed her with knives in the side of the dawn,
Tied her with fences and
Dragged her down.


Well, Jim, we still want the world and we still want it now,
but it turns out that it didn't matter if we had the numbers.
They had the guns.

Why Good Things Happen

Theologians have long wrestled with the thorny question of why God, who is Good, would allow bad things to happen (by which the religious always mean "happen to *people*"). I will not try to duplicate or even to discuss that conversation, for it's been well handled over the centuries. I think what explanations there are, are about as good as they're going to get.

What strikes me is no one discusses the logical inverse of this proposition. I personally have no trouble at all wondering why bad things happen. They just happen. Rocks fall and every once in a while some poor sap is underneath one of them. There's nothing really to explain, once you get past the physics.

It is a wonder, though, why good things happen. I suppose this is the great conundrum for the atheist. The religious don't have to explain it because God causes all good things, right? Problem solved. They then turn to the atheist, smiling smugly, and ask how in a world without God, anything good could possibly happen.

The question stems in part from the view of the religious that humanity is fundamentally flawed. Pick your religion, they all hold the same tenet: there is Something Better out there and it ain't us. So we need some sort of help, some discipline, some forgiveness, some catastrophe to happen and then and only then can we hope to become Better.

Wouldn't it be interesting, though, to suppose that neither Good nor Bad is in need of explanation. Humans do good things (or bad things) because we do things and some of these things are judged to be good and some are judged to be bad. We are judge, jury, prosecution, defense, the accused, and the victim. There is no god but us and we are our own prophet, thank you very much.

If you look at any particular time and any particular place, you'll find there's quite a bit more Good than Bad going on. Bad gets all the press, and Good is usually rather boring, but in sheer quantity over the course of twenty-four hours, basic decency wins. We're usually polite to one another. Most of us care for each other most of the time. Most of us like doing kind things for each other. What's to explain?

Yes, we can go grievously wrong from time to time. Spectacularly wrong. But it's from time to time, not all the time. It's some of us, not most of us. After all, being wicked takes work.

So, why do Good things happen? Because there are people.

BTW, if you read sacred texts that narrate the actions of gods, I'd say their record of doing Good Things versus doing Bad Things is heavily weighted toward the Bad. Gods tend to blow shit up, tear things down, kill people and animals. Only very occasionally, indeed almost randomly, do gods build cities, raise families, heal the sick, bring peace and justice, create beauty. Doesn't seem to be their specialty.

Separation of Atheist and State

We're all over separation of Church and State. It's a principle widely recognized in multiple countries, and we all see the unfortunate effects of failing to maintain that separation. But it occurred to me...should there be a separation of atheism and the State?

This gets tricky. The principle is that there should be a separation of the State from the Church, but not that there should be a separation between public service and religiosity or spirituality. Indeed, many feel there's a necessary link between strong spiritual values and being a good public servant. We draw the line, though, at using the power of the State to support any particular Church, or using the doctrine of any particular Church at informing public policy.

See? It gets interesting. I doubt any atheist would argue that the power of the State should be used to support atheism in any form. But what about using the principles of atheism to inform public policy? Should a State be organized on atheistic principles?

I think the answer lies more or less in  how we handle religion in the political sphere. Any given legislator is free to have his decisions underpinned, conditioned, influenced, by his personal beliefs, whether these are the beliefs of a religion or of atheism. Those in the judiciary are supposed to follow the Law, rather than any god or philosophy. With a legislator, the democratic assumption is that if the legislator belongs to a religion out of step with his constituency, and lets that influence too greatly influence his legislating, then the people vote him out. That can't happen with a judge. The executive is trickier, as only a handful of executives are elected.

In any event, the thought does bother me a bit. It's all very well to say to keep religion out of politics, but logically that argument should extend to any philosophy, and that doesn't feel right either. Separation of Existentialism and State?

Atheist Holidays solved

I thought about it and I have the solution.

Weekends are now officially atheist holidays.

All weekends, except for those that coincide with religious holidays. Wouldn't want to step on anyone's toes.

I like this solution because it gives to atheists more holidays (defined as non-work days) than any religion, which seems just. As for rituals associated with our holidays, I submit that they already exist: movies, parties, gaming,  dining, dancing, drinking, hanging out, going out, freaking out. In short, being human. What better way for atheists to celebrate?

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'