religion

Bad Faith Effort

By in history, non compos mentis, religion, the madness of crowds, waiting for the barbarians

It’s difficult to say what amuses me the most about the way our revanchists do their utmost to deny the separation of church and state. On the one hand, you would think people who are so extremely concerned to make sure that every citizen regularly displays a gaudy excess of sentimental patriotism, lest the nation collapse from a lack of self-esteem, would be constantly harping on one of the things we Myrrhkins can all be justifiably proud of. As I mentioned recently, we’ve grown so used to the idea that metaphysical differences are not worth bloodshed that it can be easy to forget just how long it took for us to get to that point. Fifteen hundred years of Christianity being synonymous with state power, and we never did get around to acting on all those supposed ethics at its core, but a mere couple hundred years of secularism have already accomplished far more. Even many colonial religious groups understood this, realizing it would be in most of their better interests to keep any one denomination from enjoying state favoritism.

On the other hand, this is a situation that would appear to be tailor-made for the ideological template they favor — in a country where the government got out of the religion business, where it established a, shall we say, free marketplace of religious ideas, religion in all its forms flourished as a result, and has maintained a dynamic vibrancy ever since. In Europe, where many nations still nominally have an official state religion, the practice of it has become a hollow, empty ritual that no one even cares enough about to bother ending it. But where are the teabaggers with misspelled signs demanding you keep your government hands off their religion? Most of them seem to be just fine with the idea that the full muscle power of the government should be used to make sure no citizen goes five minutes without being reminded that Jesus died for them (the pathetic insecurity underlying this incessant need to preach and proselytize to a captive audience is pretty hilarious in its own right).
There are days when I just say bring it on. Let me just nestle into a nice, remote spot out of the way with plenty of refreshments and watch all these idiots battle in the streets over which group of Southern Baptist splitters gets to preside over the terminal decline of their tradition into meaningless irrelevance.

Very Superstitious, Nothing More to Say

By in foolosophy, nietzsche, psychology, religion, spiritual-not-religious

Maria Amir:

A believer can never truly stomach a sceptic, because the latter’s refusal to take anything for granted is always perceived as a slight. For some inexplicable reason, a sceptic can never simply be acknowledged as someone who has made the choice to stick with the logical over the illogical and it is always, always taken personally.

I think this is true, but not always in such a straightforward way — I have no doubt that many believers are able to tolerate the presence of skeptics by viewing them with mildly amused condescension and pity (if not caricatural contempt), although, of course, you could easily argue that such poses are a way to cover for feelings of inferiority. Defensiveness is usually a sign of a lack of confidence and assuredness. Arguing is simply fun to do, of course, but when you find yourself feeling that little extra bit of emotional urgency to prove that you do so know what you’re talking about, it might be a sign that you aren’t so sure about it yourself. And when it comes to metaphysical beliefs, well, as Mark Twain said, faith is believing what you know ain’t so, hence the understandable anxiety about being challenged.
She’s talking specifically about skepticism with regards to religion, spirituality and superstition, but this same dynamic manifests itself in other ways, too. As someone who, in many ways, just doesn’t neatly fit in with a lot of groups, doesn’t care to join in many popular communal activities, I find myself often having to try to gently deflect such invitations without provoking the all-too-common reactions she mentions. In many cases, I honestly don’t care what other people enjoy doing and don’t think any less of them for doing it, but they do often take a demurral as a personal rejection, not a simple difference of opinion or taste. People don’t seem to trust a person who holds too many things at arm’s length. Someone who appears to constantly maintain a detached, analytic outlook is someone who can’t be counted on (or manipulated). There has to be something you’re willing to entirely (and publicly) give yourself over to without any hesitation to appear to be fully human in their eyes, whether it be church, sports, romantic/sexual passion, drinking with the boys, or popular entertainment. Too much self-control makes you seem dangerous.
In the longest and remotest ages of the human race there was quite a different sting of conscience from that of the present day. At present one only feels responsible for what one intends and for what one does, and we have our pride in ourselves. All our professors of jurisprudence start with this sentiment of individual independence and pleasure, as if the source of right had taken its rise here from the beginning. But throughout the longest period in the life of mankind there was nothing more terrible to a person than to feel himself independent. To be alone, to feel independent, neither to obey nor to rule, to represent an individual – that was no pleasure to a person then, but a punishment; he was condemned “to be an individual.” Freedom of thought was regarded as discomfort personified. While we feel law and regulation as constraint and loss, people formerly regarded egoism as a painful thing, and a veritable evil. For a person to be himself, to value himself according to his own measure and weight – that was then quite distasteful. The inclination to such a thing would have been regarded as madness; for all miseries and terrors were associated with being alone. At that time the “free will” had bad conscience in close proximity to it; and the less independently a person acted, the more the herd-instinct, and not his personal character, expressed itself in his conduct, so much the more moral did he esteem himself. All that did injury to the herd, whether the individual had intended it or not, then caused him a sting of conscience – and his neighbor likewise, indeed the whole herd! It is in this respect , that we have most changed our mode of thinking.
– Nietzsche

Adam’s Curse

By in alan watts, foolosophy, mythology, religion

Wrath James Wright:

Like so many other Christians I had chosen to view the story of Adam and Eve as a metaphor for something. I just wasn’t sure for what.

A lot of people have criticized the myth for what seems to be an endorsement of ignorance, a hostility to the sort of knowledge that has improved human existence. But I always liked the interpretation Alan Watts gave, where he viewed the apple as containing the mixed blessing of self-knowledge. Reflective knowledge, if you prefer. Self-consciousness. The sort of abstract thinking we do with the neocortex. We lost the ability to be “natural” like other animals. Our instincts are constantly at war with our considered values. There is no one way, determined by biology and environment, for humans to live. We truly are free to make our own way, but we often want to be free of the responsibility, and we long for the comfort of simply acting without thinking. We ask ourselves questions of purpose that we can’t satisfactorily answer. We don’t know how to simply be.

How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth

By in history, mythology, religion, spiritual-not-religious

The problem is that this tidy narrative is an American myth. The real story of religion in America’s past is an often awkward, frequently embarrassing and occasionally bloody tale that most civics books and high-school texts either paper over or shunt to the side. And much of the recent conversation about America’s ideal of religious freedom has paid lip service to this comforting tableau.
From the earliest arrival of Europeans on America’s shores, religion has often been a cudgel, used to discriminate, suppress and even kill the foreign, the “heretic” and the “unbeliever”—including the “heathen” natives already here. Moreover, while it is true that the vast majority of early-generation Americans were Christian, the pitched battles between various Protestant sects and, more explosively, between Protestants and Catholics, present an unavoidable contradiction to the widely held notion that America is a “Christian nation.”
…America can still be, as Madison perceived the nation in 1785, “an Asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every Nation and Religion.” But recognizing that deep religious discord has been part of America’s social DNA is a healthy and necessary step. When we acknowledge that dark past, perhaps the nation will return to that “promised…lustre” of which Madison so grandiloquently wrote.
This is what I was saying a while back with regards to another popular myth, most commonly expressed in the form of those COEXIST stickers and t-shirts. And I do mean “myth” in the specific sense of a story that expresses aspirations, values or perennial themes rather than historical truth. Let no one doubt that I’m all in favor of aspiring to create a society where religious beliefs are treated in the same way as other lifestyle choices: expressions of personality, peccadilloes at worst, not worth fighting about. But if you’re a religious person, you might regard me warily upon hearing this. Why would a fire-breathing atheist and aspirtualist like myself be supportive of this? Don’t I want a scorched-earth campaign against all metaphysical woo-woo to eliminate it for once and for all? Well, no, actually, partially because a society that demands of its members that they subordinate their beliefs about God, the human soul, the afterlife and holy books to a general principle of living and letting live is already a fully secular one.
What irritates me to no end about the COEXISTers is that they act as if this has been the inherent character of religion itself all along. It’s almost like a form of ingratitude — they refuse to recognize what a truly revolutionary innovation it was to separate church and state and how beneficial it was for everyone, especially believers. That is what permeated our cultural consciousness to the extent that we can hardly comprehend a person who thinks doctrinal differences are matters of life and death; after all, aren’t all religions just different paths to the same truth, different names for the same God? But at the time that Jefferson and Madison were implementing these new ideas, you could still find examples of people in Europe being tortured and executed as a result of sectarian fanaticism and mob rule, or for such heinous offenses as being rumored to have failed to remove one’s hat before a religious procession, as well as possessing a copy of Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary. That sort of thing was still typical behavior in “civilized” Europe, and had been ever since Constantine. It didn’t change until it was forced to. By all means, enjoy this postmodern form of domesticated religious tolerance that’s so commonplace now! Just don’t forget that it was secularism that gave it to you.

Born Against

By in foolosophy, philosophy, religion, spiritual-not-religious

Brad Warner:

The history of philosophy throughout the world has been a struggle between two basic fundamental systems — idealism and materialism. Spirituality is a kind of idealism. It takes the view that the spiritual world, the world of ideas, imagination, and mental formations, is the true reality. Matter is regarded as secondary at best or sometimes even as nonexistent. We are spirits trapped inside bodies made of gross matter – and some bodies are a lot grosser than others – and the way to happiness, according to the idealists, is to get free of this material world and its miseries. In many Eastern philosophies we are told, “I am not this body. I am the spiritual soul within.”

First, let me take a moment to say that our marketing department informs us that readers of this here blog tend to have a significant interest in sex, Buddhism, Nazi garden gnomes and plainspoken philosophizing, so with that in mind, I feel confident in asserting that they may find it rewarding to check out Warner’s new book (and/or his previous ones) as well as his blog, Hardcore Zen, conveniently located in the sidebar to your right for your browsing convenience. (He doesn’t have much to say about the Nazi garden gnomes, but you’ll find the other topics covered in exquisite detail.)
So. Regarding his definition of spirituality, well… yes and no. It’s certainly true, as the “spirit” part of the word would indicate, that there is a strong ascetic streak of denying or devaluing the worth or reality of the physical, empirical world in spiritual practices, but that’s obviously true of traditional religion as well. Now, you know me — I think it’s clear that “spirit” and “soul” are useful only as poetic metaphors at best, and there is no such thing as an eternal, translucent essence to living beings that survives the body’s death and floats on to inhabit a newborn host like a virus, while carrying with it some sort of moral scorecard that needs to be reviewed and validated every so often. But if not taken to Platonic extremes, the world of ideas, imagination and mental formations is a perfectly nice place to spend one’s time. Maybe this more balanced appreciation could be called cerebral, intellectual, reflective, contemplative, or philosophical to indicate a love of “thinking about thinking”, as one definition of philosophy has it, a passionate enjoyment of ideas for their own sake, regardless of any necessarily practical import to them. The ascetic tendency, I think, should just be left to its old description of capital-I Idealism.
Another meaning of the word “spirituality” is one I feel to be much more applicable to the way it manifests itself in Western culture: a different brand of religion for those who feel themselves to be too cool or independent for religion. Yes, I’m being snide on purpose in reducing spirituality to the level of a marketing gimmick, much as I would be toward people who think choosing one brand of carbonated sugar water shows them to possess greater discernment and more refined taste than people who prefer the more popular alternatives. It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: This clearly does not apply to everyone who self-describes as “spiritual”. Some, or even many, of those people are honest, open-minded seekers with an omnivorous appetite for knowledge and a sense of intellectual integrity that keeps them from settling for pat answers. Etymological preferences aside, I have no problem with them, and I trust they can read between the lines when confronted with a quarrelsome bastard like myself and realize I’m not aiming at them. But there are a million other people who will sing their praises. I don’t need to be one more. I’m more interested in presumptuously poking at what I see as a frequent display of smug, complacent ignorance that pervades the whole “spiritual-not-religious” culture, and aside from this dude, I don’t see anyone else taking that approach.
Warner goes on to explain that spiritualism and materialism are both still “-isms”, and as such, are theoretical frameworks about reality rather than the bare perception of reality, which is an important distinction. This is what I’ve always understood Zen to be, a philosophical tool for clearing away the mental, theoretical debris that prevents us from perceiving what is right in front of our noses, not a belief, practice or official uniform to be accepted from authority. Many people have long recognized Idealism as being full of this sort of debris. I think it’s time that we start recognizing that spirituality as popularly described has accumulated a fair share of its own and begin challenging it accordingly.

Pablo Picasso Never Got Called an Asshole

By in foolosophy, nietzsche, religion, spiritual-not-religious

Juan Cole:

But the Maher strategy is a little disturbing, as well, since that she was a religious seeker in her youth is not actually very relevant to her contemporary candidacy. O’Donnell’s story is a sad reminder that many religious seekers, who experiment with a number of traditions, are not actually so much open-minded as in search of a narrative about life that will give them certainty (the Society of Krishna Consciousness is as close as Hinduism gets to fundamentalism in its own right). Once O’Donnell settled on right wing Christianity, she became insufferable. And that is what should damn her politically– that she wants to impose her sectarian morality on all of us– not that she tried out other fundamentalisms when young.

On the one hand, the hypocrisy of fundamentalists is a mainstay of political humor. On the other hand, fundamentalist Christians loveloveLOVE them some redemption stories. The more depraved the former lifestyle, the sweeter the victory at the end when the sinner finally accepts Jesus’s love, and the more raucous the cheering. So I doubt these embarrassing video clips are really going to have much effect on O’Donnell’s candidacy beyond giving the blogosphere some cheap laffs. And I agree — I really don’t care at all what sort of crazy shit she said and did when she was young, whether she was earnest about it or not. I don’t want people like her near public policy, but their psychological issues are their own problem. All in all, none of this is very interesting.
Instead, this caught my eye because of its relevance to what I’ve discussed a few times with Noel and Shanna, Pillars of the Comment Section. Cole points out something that hadn’t occurred to me in so many words before, that the appearance of open-mindedness can be very different from the reality of it. The Huffington Post is glad to hear all and sundry variations on a New Age mysticism theme, but the editors aren’t accepting of criticism any more than most people are. And while many of those who partake of buffet-style spirituality are open to cosmetic diversity, the underlying themes of their world-bazaar beliefs are pretty predictable and uniform, as is their defensive reaction to being challenged and questioned.
Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with concluding that you agree with what so many philosophies have emphasized to varying degrees over the centuries: live and let live; we’re here to see each other through, not see through each other; all that good stuff. Novelty in one’s philosophical thinking isn’t necessarily a virtue here; it may just be a restless grasping for stimulation. But for some people, being comfortable and feeling reassurance isn’t necessarily enough. Occasionally, it isn’t even desirable. Some of the most valuable experiences of our lives come as a result of pain and stress that we would never have willingly chosen beforehand. And while John Gray may be right that the siren song of pursuing truth for its own sake is a secular holdover from Christianity, and possibly not good for one’s mental health at that, the quest to place one’s convictions upon the firmest possible ground seems a noble one to me; there are certainly worse ways to spend a life.
And some people see life as an ongoing work of art, where the important thing is to live as an intriguing character in a life that tells a compelling story. To the extent that I’ve managed to incorporate elements of this mindset into my own life, I’ve found that I can more easily appreciate the stark differences between others and myself without feeling any need to reconcile them. They don’t appear to me so much as threats to my way of being or insults to my way of seeing the world, they appear as useful provocations that allow me to enhance my own thoughts and character. We’re not all ultimately alike, and I’m glad for it. I don’t want to convert people. I don’t think everyone else could or should end up in agreement with me. I just want them to provide me with some good jousting.
A twofer from Nietzsche to close with:
A very popular error – having the courage of one’s convictions: Rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack upon one’s convictions.
Even if we were mad enough to consider all our opinions true, we should still not want them alone to exist: I cannot see why it should be desirable that truth alone should rule and be omnipotent; it is enough for me that it should possess great power. But it must be able to struggle and have great opponents, and one must be able to find relief from it from time to time in untruth – otherwise, it will become boring, powerless and tasteless to us, and make us the same.

Shall I Compare Thee to Summer’s Eve®?

By in fresh hell, moralizing, religion, samesecks

Thou art more douchey, and more intemperate.

Now, while it’s obviously normal to feel repulsed at what a sociopath Vox Day is, I have to point out to those who have heretofore been blissfully unaware of his existence that I don’t think he has any special animus toward gays (or the “orientationally challenged”, as he calls them); the Scourge of Atheism seems to have issues with females and dusky foreigners as well. And woe betide any toddlers that happen to step between Vox and his God!
Pay attention, parents: this is what happens when the only bedtime story you let your son hear is the Marquis de Sade’s Justine.
Yeesh. Are you feeling a sort of numb chill in the core of your humanity that won’t seem to thaw out after reading all that? Are you stunned as you try to contemplate how a “Christian libertarian” managed to distill the absolute worst traits of both into a uniquely poisonous brew? Are you baffled as to how the orderlies don’t notice him chewing through the straitjacket and leather restraints in order to blog? Well, let’s try to laugh through the horror, what do you say? How about a classic joke?
Q: What’s the first thing Vox Day does after sex with his wife?

Hypatia’s Revenge

By in atheism, jests japes jokes jollies, religion

Speaking of that Pew survey:

On average, people who took the survey answered half the questions incorrectly, and many flubbed even questions about their own faith.
Those who scored the highest were atheists and agnostics, as well as two religious minorities: Jews and Mormons. The results were the same even after the researchers controlled for factors like age and racial differences.
“Even after all these other factors, including education, are taken into account, atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons still outperform all the other religious groups in our survey,” said Greg Smith, a senior researcher at Pew.
That finding might surprise some, but not Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists, an advocacy group for nonbelievers that was founded by Madalyn Murray O’Hair.
“I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people,” Mr. Silverman said. “Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That’s how you make atheists.”
Zing!

If the Mountain Won’t Come to Muhammad, Fuck It, He’ll Invent His Own Mountain

By in foolosophy, religion, spiritual-not-religious

The religious message is “less clear when you wear an Om and you have no idea what it means,” says Prothero. “Smooshing the Buddha together with a cross and star of David has a clearer message of someone who is spiritual and doesn’t belong to one religion.”
He adds that even though all of these symbols may be floating through the fashion world on shiny gold bangles or set with diamonds, people should be religiously literate and know what the symbols they’re wearing stand for. “I’m torn. Sometimes I do get annoyed when venerable religious symbols get dumbed down, but when has it never been like that? Besides, all religions are just different paths up the same mountain.”
Of course, those who claim that the world’s religions are different paths up the same mountain do not deny the undeniable fact that they differ in some particulars… It is to deny that those differences matter, however. From this perspective, whether God has a body (yes, say Mormons; no, say Muslims) or whether human beings have souls (yes, say Hindus; no, say Buddhists) is of no account because, as Hindu teacher Swami Sivananda writes, “The fundamentals or essentials of all religions are the same. There is difference only in the nonessentials.”
This is a lovely sentiment but it is untrue, disrespectful, and dangerous.
Hee hee. Hope those two can work out their profound differences! Anyway, blatant contradictions aside, I’m actually sympathetic to the devoutly religious who have to see meaningful symbols of their beliefs used as trendy accessories by airheaded celebrities and fashionistas. I mean, I’d be willing to bet that 99% of the time, when you see someone “smooshing the Buddha together with a cross and a star of David”, the “clearer message” you’re actually getting is one of a vapid twit who doesn’t understand anything about any of them, but ooh, shiny bauble look purty, must have, must have!
While I’m being generous toward my bête noire here, let me also concur with a typical complaint you hear from traditional quarters regarding this buffet-style spirituality: it also can encourage a sort of dilettantism, a shallow tendency to stay right where you are and look for various concepts and themes to basically wall yourself in, to tell yourself what you want to hear. Sort of like how allowing high school students to set their own curriculum might lead to them concluding that the Twilight series is the pinnacle of all fiction and there’s no need to try anything that doesn’t cater to the way they feel right here, right now. One of the possible benefits to picking one faith/tradition and sticking to it is that you’re forced to grapple with issues and concepts and rules that might not appeal to you or make sense initially, and out of that, a new kind of understanding might result, if not acceptance. Growth through struggle. Too many of the spiritual-not-religious types are complacent and looking to avoid struggle, having already settled into a comfortable niche, and are now just looking to accentuate it with exotic accoutrements.

Titus Androgynous

By in beards, jests japes jokes jollies, religion, samesecks, waiting for the barbarians

Via PZ, this is funny:

In western countries in particular, a few years ago beards were often confused with a segment of society that reflected rebellion, namely the “hippy” movement of the 60’s and 70’s. It was felt that we should not in any way resemble those that reflected an attitude like this, or the drug culture that went along with it. We have to separate ourselves from that, and to have a beard a few years ago could be confusing, especially to an older generation of people at that time that were especially repulsed at the conduct of those of the younger generation. Even though we are some 30 or 40 years removed from that situation that existed during the late 60’s and early 70’s, it has been proven by experts that some people on some subconscious level do not trust a man with a beard. The underlying message that some get from a beard is that if you have one, you have something to hide, as if you are hiding behind the beard. I have even heard that idea expressed in sales courses that I have taken for secular activities. Beards are discouraged by some sales trainers because of the subconscious message that some people receive from a person with a beard, and some feel that a person without a beard generally speaking has a more professional appearance than a person who does.
…In the 1950s, in the the USA, beards were widely unpopular among the general public and most men who wore one were immediately perceived as beatniks (and later, hippies). In that American, Cold War climate, a young man who didn’t sport a military-esque brush cut and bare chin was out-of-hand labeled a communist or homosexual.
Beatniks, commies and homos, oh, my! But wait a minute…so, acting too stereotypically feminine will get a man accused of being queer, but sporting a beard, the quintessential symbol of masculinity and testosterone…also means you’re a gender traitor? Damn, they’ve got us coming and going, don’t they? Sort of like how they used to say that a witch could present herself as a beautiful young girl or a repulsive old hag. If I didn’t know better, I’d think all this paranoia was reflective of some weird psychological turmoil on the part of the accusers.
In all honesty, one of the greatest things about living among such uptight reactionaries is that they make it so easy to be subversive. No need to actually do anything confrontational or destructive, just let your facial hair follow its natural course!
Speaking of which, here’s another slander I’ve heard a time or twenty in my life:

Paul, the apostle, said something similar in 1Cor 11:14 about long hair being a dishonor to a man… Obviously Paul’s words were intended for his militant Roman contemporaries. That society started the cropped military haircut and clean-shaven face to keep lice to a minimum and avoid giving an enemy something to grab, in a skirmish.

Well, we might have many parallels with ancient Rome, but I’m pretty sure modern hygiene and grooming have rendered the lice issue largely irrelevant. And we blow our enemies up with robot planes from the safety of a control center far away from the battlefield, so I don’t think hand-to-hand combat is as prevalent as it used to be, either. But that’s okay; like I said, hidebound traditions make such easy targets. And at least we don’t have to worry about being crucified for undermining social cohesiveness anymore.
And speaking of that, I find it most amusing of all that these people have no problem worshiping a savior who is constantly portrayed as having…long hair and a beard. Imagine the mental strife that would result should they be additionally forced to admit that a man born 2,000 years ago in Palestine wouldn’t have looked like a white Westerner.

In the Depths of Their Humanity, All I Saw Was Bloodless Ideology

By in atheism, history, jesus tie-dyed for your sins, moralizing, non compos mentis, religion, waiting for the barbarians

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but the perpetually aggrieved Bill Donohue is a steaming, whistling little teakettle of a man, forever boiling over one thing or another. What is it this time, Bill?

The pope did not go far enough. Radical atheists like the British Humanist Association should apologize for Hitler. But they should not stop there. They also need to issue an apology for the 67 million innocent men, women and children murdered under Stalin, and the 77 million innocent Chinese killed by Mao. Hitler, Stalin and Mao were all driven by a radical atheism, a militant and fundamentally dogmatic brand of secular extremism. It was this anti-religious impulse that allowed them to become mass murderers. By contrast, a grand total of 1,394 were killed during the 250 years of the Inquisition, most all of whom were murdered by secular authorities.

Yawn. Same old, same old. I’ve heard this so many times it’s starting to sound in my ears like the way adults talk in the Peanuts TV shows: Mwuh mwah muh mwah mwah mooah. Hitler an atheist? Nope. Stalin and Mao primarily driven by radical atheism? Pick your favorite response.

But let’s leave Mr. Donohue to his angry jitterbug on the stove burner and take a closer look at the more interesting theme here. One thing all three of those famous monsters actually had in common with Christianity was a belief in the teleological progression of history toward utopia, as well as in the redemptive, cleansing power of blood and violent sacrifice. Biblical scholars are united in saying that Jesus, assuming he actually existed as a historical person, was just one in a long line of Jewish apocalypticists. I know they don’t tend to emphasize this in devotional readings for some reason, but the entire point of his ministry was to prepare anyone who would listen for the coming end of the world, with violent retribution for all whom he felt deserving, followed by endless paradise. Since then, whether it’s based on visions of heaven, the classless society, or living in perfect harmony with nature, this idea that the ends justify the means pops up repeatedly throughout history. Utopia is waiting just around the bend, right after we get through the great purification by flood, fire, earthquakes or mass murder. It honestly has nothing to do with religion or the lack thereof. It’s an abstract concept of perfection that isn’t exclusive to anyone in particular.

As I’ve said before, I expect that we’re in for some hard times in the next few decades as the glory days of life in America fade further into the past, and we face choices over how far we’re willing to go to maintain our privileged position in the world, especially as nations like India and China look to get some of our standard of living for themselves. Perhaps some more equitable, balanced lifestyle will be the end result of our downward spiral, but human nature being what it is, I’m not optimistic. And because of that, I don’t see any reason to gleefully anticipate the chaos and upheaval that may come. Hell, I’d be happy to be wrong. For me, a rule of thumb is that if you’re so attached to your ideological convictions that you would rather see widespread suffering on a massive scale than to have to revise those convictions, if you can envision that sort of suffering while feeling smug over having accurately predicted it, you might just be the kind of zealot we’re talking about here.

Musical Mysticism

By in atheism, foolosophy, music, nietzsche, philosophy, religion, the big sleep

Let’s fall in love with music
The driving force of our livings
The only international language
Divine glory, the expression
The knees bow, the tongue confesses
The lord of lords, the king of kings
– Mother Love Bone

In keeping with this, we find that the interest inspired by philosophical and also religious systems has its strongest and essential point absolutely in the dogma of some future existence after death. Although the latter systems seem to make the existence of their gods the main point, and to defend this most strenuously, at bottom this is only because they have tied up their teaching on immortality therewith, and regard the one as inseparable from the other; this alone is really of importance to them. For if we could guarantee their dogma of immortality to them in some other way, the lively ardour for their gods would at once cool; and it would make way for almost complete indifference if, conversely, the absolute impossibility of any immortality were demonstrated to them. For interest in the existence of the gods would vanish with the hope of a closer acquaintance with them, down to what residue might be bound up with their possible influence on the events of the present life. But if continued existence after death could also be proved to be incompatible with the existence of gods, because, let us, say, it presupposed originality of mode of existence, they would soon sacrifice these gods to their own immortality and be eager for atheism. The fact that the really materialistic as well as the absolutely sceptical systems have never been able to obtain a general or lasting influence is attributable to the same reason.

The early Christians were, ironically enough, called atheists by the Romans because they refused to recognize the state gods. In somewhat the same way, I call myself an atheist because, as far as the common conception of God in my culture is concerned, I am. I don’t believe in any sort of personal god, which, as I keep asserting, is the only kind anyone is really interested in, and I myself am not interested in a god that has to be defined out of existence to be kept away from the prying eyes and grasping hands of science. But it’s always worth repeating, I think, that I don’t even consider the existence of God or the lack thereof to be all that important. It’s fun to argue about, in a mental exercise, intellectual sparring sort of way, but as the man just said, the only reason anyone even cares is because their ideas about personal immortality are all caught up in it. I’m not aware of any cultures that worship anything like the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent Christian God without a corresponding belief in personal immortality (though perhaps I should check with Pascal Boyer again and see if I forgot some), but some schools of Buddhism have managed to hold a belief in personal identity surviving physical death without any deity being involved. The thought of death, the knowledge of its inevitability, gives us all pause at the least, if it doesn’t inspire outright fear. We want to believe that it’s not really the end for us. Everything else flows from that. In keeping with that, I feel that disbelief in the “self” is far more radical than mere atheism, and more relevant to the heart of religious belief. If you’re not going to experience any reality except life in this world, and the most God is ever going to bother revealing about himself is vague images to thrill superstitious old ladies in the form of a stain on the wall, a burnt section of their waffles, or writing on a cat, then all that existential angst disappears in a puff, and all the tons of paper wasted on tortured attempts at theodicy can be used to start fires in cold weather.
But continuing with our themes of personal identity, life, death and nineteenth-century German philosophy, here’s an interview with Nietzsche scholar Julian Young that touches on a type of immortality I can fully endorse:

How did Nietzsche’s ideas about music affect his philosophy?
“Without music life would be an error” is a great T-shirt slogan, but its meaning is far from obvious. Here is how Nietzsche glosses his aphorism in a letter from 1888, the last year of his sanity:
“Music … frees me from myself, it sobers me up from myself, as though I survey the scene from a great distance … It is very strange. It is as though I had bathed in some natural element. Life without music is simply an error, exhausting, an exile.”
Nietzsche’s first book, The Birth of Tragedy, dedicated to Richard Wagner, is constructed around the duality between the “Apollonian” and the “Dionysian.” Apollo stands for intellect, reason, control, form, boundary-drawing and thus individuality. Dionysus stands for the opposites of these; for intuition, sensuality, feeling, abandon, formlessness, for the overcoming of individuality, absorption into the collective. Crucially, Apollo stands for language and Dionysus for music. What, therefore, music does is to–as we indeed say–”take one out of oneself.” Music transports us from the Apollonian realm of individuals to which our everyday self belongs and into the Dionysian unity. Music is mystical.
Since the human essence is the will to live–or for Nietzsche, the “will to power”–the worst thing that can happen to us is death. Death is our greatest fear, so that without some way of stilling it we cannot flourish. This is why musical mysticism is important. In transcending the everyday ego we are delivered from “the anxiety brought by time and death.” Through absorption into what Tristan und Isolde calls the “waves of the All,” we receive the promise and experience of immortality.
Later on, Nietzsche realized that not all music is Dionysian. Much classical music, based as it is on the geometrical forms of dance and march, is firmly rooted in the Apollonian. Yet as the 1888 letter indicates, he never abandoned the musical “antidote” to death. Without music, life would be anxiety and then extinction. Without music, life would be an “exile” from the realm of immortality.

Mama Weer All Crazee Now

By in augean stables, media/propaganda, religion, samesecks

One of these kids is doing his own thing
C’mon, can you tell me which one?
Can you guess which kid is doing his own thing?
Before my song is done?
And now my song is done.
– Sesame Street
On the Daily Show the other night, Jon Stewart and John Oliver discussed Terry Jones, the would-be Koran-burning pastor, by comparing him to other “lunatic” Christian preachers.
– Fred Phelps, famous for his “God Hates Fags” obsession and for taking his congregation of Midwestern bibletards around the country to picket people’s funerals for attention.
– Pat Robertson, famous for…oh, hell, just go read one of the many “Greatest Hits” compilations floating around out there.
– Jeremiah Wright, famous for being Barack Obama’s former pastor, and for suggesting that the HIV virus might have been deliberately created as a government conspiracy against black people, which isn’t quite as crazy as it sounds given other black experiences with government doctors. He also claimed that white people generally have no sense of rhythm, the crazy bastard. But what really pissed people off about him, and what prompted Obama’s public renunciation of him, is when he suggested that the September 11th attacks were motivated by American foreign policy. Oh, no he dih’unt! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
Stewart is probably the best pundit we have, and as I said before, I don’t expect him to be a radical firebrand, but sometimes this faux-evenhandedness really grates on my nerves.
…adding, what Glenn said.

Waste Not, Want Not

By in jests japes jokes jollies, religion, sex-you-all

I really don’t see what all the fuss is about here:

Long before she became the latest fascination of the political press and the cause-of-the-moment of the Tea Party movement, Christine O’Donnell (R-D.E.) was appearing on news outlets large and small extolling the sins of not just sex but masturbation.
The Delaware Republican, who is challenging Rep. Mike Castle in the state’s Senate primary and has earned the financial backing of a portion of the Tea Party movement, made an appearance in the MTV series “Sex In The 90s.” Entitled “The Safest Sex Of All,” the episode was ostensibly geared towards understanding the importance of abstinence. But O’Donnell’s guidance went a bit further. Masturbation, she argued, is not a moral substitute for sex. “The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. So you can’t masturbate without lust.”
“The reason that you don’t tell [people] that masturbation is the answer to AIDS and all these other problems that come with sex outside of marriage is because again it is not addressing the issue,” she extrapolated. “You’re just gonna create somebody who is, I was gonna say, toying with his sexuality. Pardon the pun.”
I certainly don’t want to be one of those shallow atheists who have no idea what “serious” religious thinkers have said on all sorts of weighty issues, so I checked with one of the most widely-known and respected authorities of all time, Thomas Aquinas, and after seeing what he had to say, well, I’m afraid that even Ms. O’Donnell might be looking a little too bleeding-heart-liberal for my taste with meek disapproval like that:

St. Thomas Aquinas went so far as to consider masturbation as more evil than forcible rape. His reasoning was that even though forcible rape might cause injury to another person, it could still result in procreation and therefore could not be peccatum contra naturam (a crime against nature), whereas masturbation was definitely against nature since it could never result in procreation. Aquinas no doubt had this text in mind when he wrote in the 13th century that “right reason declares the appointed end of sexual acts in procreation.”

It’s not just teabaggers who have allowed liberal propaganda to cloud their moral vision here, though. Look how many versions of Matthew 19:12 use obfuscatory language to mislead their readers about what Jesus was asking of his followers! Thank goodness Origen, at least, has provided us with a heroic example for all good Christian men to aspire to.

Show Your Work

By in atheism, augean stables, religion, science

Most of us have seen the movie Weekend at Bernie’s, right? Two guys going through all sorts of wacky hijinks in order to convince people that their dead boss is still alive, while going to hilariously desperate lengths to deflect any close scrutiny that might reveal the truth?

For some reason, I was reminded of that movie while reading this screed from Anthony McCarthy about religion and science.
Why is anyone paying attention to what Stephen Hawkings or most other scientists say about religion except on the basis of their presumed authority? And it’s the flimsiest kind of authority on the topic, based in a reputation gained in an entirely different field of study. As far as I have been able to see, Stephen Hawking has never published a scholarly paper on the subject in a reviewed journal so it’s not even passed that level of testing. Perhaps if he had tried his ideas in that academic realm he might have avoided limiting himself to one, very crude assumption about religious thinking, believing that all of it is as unaware of the vicissitudes of the study of religious questions as he obviously is.
Anyone who has read even a little of the rigorous, formal literature around various religions, would know that the contemporary critics of religion almost never have the slightest knowledge of what serious people have said on the topic.
Nameless contemporary critics “almost never” know what nameless “serious people” have said about it, eh? Well, that was most certainly, uh, precisely vague! As has been said many times before, it’s amusing to see how they don’t even bother trying to disguise this ridiculous double standard. The most unsophisticated, uneducated professions of faith are always accepted as valid and genuine; the most simpleminded believer is accepted to have had some meaningful experience of the truth of God’s existence. No one would think of scoffing at the faithful for daring to speak of their beliefs without having spent years in seminary first. Yet skeptics are constantly told that they must display intimate familiarity with the most irrelevant nuances of theological reasoning, from Augustine to Niebuhr, in front of a panel of judges who can hardly be said to be impartial, before their objections will be treated as “serious”. And you should be ashamed of yourself for suspecting that this is all just an elaborate exercise in keeping the goalposts in constant motion!
But lest you think I’m unsympathetic here, let me hasten to assure you that I know all too well what it is to suffer from this sort of doctrinaire purism. My sophomore-year geometry teacher, mathematical fascist that she was, repeatedly refused to consider the ornate brilliance of my thirty-step proofs, dogmatically insisting that I had failed to establish my given! So I fully appreciate how tiring it must be to have to listen to these philistines nattering on about how you need to provide some evidence that we should even take the idea of an invisible deity seriously to begin with before we can move to discussing all his/her/its glorious attributes.
Okay, seriously though, fine. It’s simple, really — put up or shut up. Devise whatever standardized religious literacy test you want. Name whoever you want as a “serious” source for us to familiarize ourselves with. I guarantee you there won’t be any problem finding an atheist who can ace it. Hell, we can start with an agnostic like Bart Ehrman right off the bat. Anything else you want to complain about?
Not a single law of science is anything other than the product of human thought. Not a single one of them has been developed except within a realm which excludes everything but what we can discover of the physical universe. I believe that exclusion is based in our experience and the extension of our logic, which, itself, is a means to address our experience of the physical universe.
…A passage in the Book of Isaiah that often comes to mind when thinking about this topic, is when God is said to have said, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”. Whatever else people have held about God, no matter how much of our limited minds and thoughts and even our crimes and injustices we have attributed to God, even the most anthropomorphic religion holds that God is not a human being. To think that God would be required to follow our laws of science or, indeed, any possible actual mechanisms of a universe created by God, is rather touchingly naive in a way that even the “ignorant goat herders” who are believed by the incredulous to have written the Bible were able to surpass.
Ah, yes, that’s the good stuff. Science and our conceptual ability are limited to being able to understand the “physical” universe, which we experience through our senses. God is beyond all that. God is like Emily Dickinson times infinity, hiding in a closed room he/she/it never leaves, slipping cryptic notes out every so often, written in a private language that can only be understood via mystical communion by those already inclined to believe in him/her/it. So how, then, asks the skeptic, are you, a fellow human with a similarly limited brain, capable of perceiving this mysterious “beyond”? What is this God you speak of, if he/she/it is too enormous to be caught in the puny little conceptual nets we humans are limited to using? And even if you claim we can’t look directly upon God in all his/her/its mind-shattering majesty, what discernible effects does this God have in the universe we live in, and what do they have to do with our cultural standards of morality? If even that’s too much to ask to see, well, could you at least tell me how an incomprehensible, imperceptible God is distinguishable at all from a nonexistent one? Can’t you point to some sort of common, shared experience we can use as a foundation for further discussion?
“Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe…”
Moving along.

It seems to be an emotional need of the new atheists to believe they have disposed of the question of purpose but most people seem to be unimpressed with that artificial substitute for reason. And that’s only one of the questions that we, mere mortals, have about the universe which we find ourselves in. I am more convinced as I see us destroying ourselves, to a large degree with the products of science and technology, that unless we include questions of purpose, justice, rights, morality and other entirely non-scientific features of human thought and culture, that science is inadequate in itself to ensure our continued existence.

I’m not sure who these nameless people are that think science alone is going to solve all of our problems independent of ethical or practical considerations, but assuming there are some out there somewhere, I’ll agree, he sure put them in their place. But once again — whatever solutions we come up with are going to have to come by way of communication over a shared experience. I’m not interested in what your particular favorite holy book says. I’m not going to take your word on the validity of the supposedly mystical insights you’ve had if you can’t even begin to express them in some form others can understand and relate to. And I don’t care how many religious authority figures in history have advocated the Golden Rule as a general ethical principle if I can reason my way there by myself.

The Metamorphosis of Narcissus (Hopefully)

By in atheism, george carlin, religion

Have you ever noticed that when you’re driving, anyone going slower than you is an idiot? And anyone going faster than you is a maniac? Why, I tell ya, folks, it’s a wonder we ever get anywhere at all these days, what with all the idiots and maniacs out there. Because no one ever drives at my speed.

– George Carlin

Religious people have no real interest in Dawkins, whom they find extreme, clinical, mechanical, and monolithic.

I’ve noticed this a lot lately, this apparent unspoken agreement to make Richard Dawkins the official representative of Atheist Fundamentalism®. From Boteach and other religious believers to Matt Taibbi to random blog commenters, I keep hearing about how Dawkins is humorless, ignorant, strident and intolerant. But I read The God Delusion, something I suspect many of his critics did not, and I didn’t see evidence of anything like that. The only real attempt I can recall from recent memory to actually engage in measured criticism of something he’s said, as opposed to just repeating the same declarative insults, was this recent column from Gary Gutting, and even that, well…
I’d really love it if we could arrive at a common understanding that this sort of thing is not an argument. It’s a psychological balancing mechanism, a way to position yourself as the voice of sensible, moderate reason, by drawing false equivalences between the fanatics on both sides of you (who are frequently invented if they don’t already exist).
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