You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August 2008.
Normally, I steer clear of blogging about American politics. The American Presidential race is more than adequately covered on a great many other atheist blogs, including No More Hornets, Spanish Inquisitor, Evolutionary Middleman, Apostate’s Chapel, Grumpy Lion and many others. These guys are actually in America, so it’s of not inconsiderable importance to them who gets to be in charge. Without exception (at least not that I’ve found so far), such bloggers have done their research, investigated the issues and given considerable thought to their opinions on the matter. However, as a piece in yesterday’s Guardian supplement indicates, not all their countrymen have done the same…
A couple of quotes:
“‘You don’t want a President with no connection to Christianity,’ she says.
But he [Obama] is a Christian, I reply, to her surprise.
‘Really? I’d heard he was a Muslim.’”“He goes on:’And what about his [Obama's] religion, he can’t just drop his religion.’
What do you mean, I ask.
‘He’s a Muslim’
No, he’s not. He’s a Christian.
‘Well he should make it clear he stands by Christian values in America. That he doesn’t hold those other values… Just because he’s a Muslim, he should make it clear he doesn’t believe in suicide bombing and killing’”“‘I wouldn’t want to see it in my lifetime.’
A black presidency?
‘I wouldn’t like to see it, OK?’
She gives me a look of cold steel that announces the conversation is over.”
Are there people in America who are really that stupid? Is Obama going to lose to McCain simply because the voting public are so pathetically uniformed that they equate black people with Muslims? I realise that not all Americans are the same sort of pig-ignorant fucktards that Ed Pilkington encountered on his brief sojourn away from New York, but it’s bloody worrying that such people are amongst those deciding the future of the nation (in fact, given the USA’s global hegemony, the future of the planet). Please, America, get yourself informed before you start voting. The information is readily available – if you’re at least semi-literate and have access to the internet or a newspaper, you can find out the facts before you blow your vote on McCain simply because you’re too damn dumb to figure out what a Muslim is.
For fuck’s sake, people!
Being fairly small people, Wifeshui and I are equipped with rather limited bladder capacity. We can just about make it through a feature-length film, but anything much above that necessitates much leg-crossing and wincing. As a result, we have almost never slept the entire night through without one or other (or, usually, both) of us getting up to go to the loo. Wifeshui manages this entire operation with her eyes shut, but being male (and unwilling to compromise my masculinity by sitting down to piss) I have to have some light by which to aim. This is fine up until the point where I have to return to bed, which requires that I turn the light off, and, with my night-vision destroyed by the blinding bathroom flurescents, blunder back to the bedroom in pitch-blackness.
Ever since I was a child I’ve been afraid of the dark – not the actual darkness, as such, but of what it might conceal – and this fear is compounded at night by the fact that I’m usually not wearing my spectacles. Those few yards back to the bedroom, therefore, are undertaken in a state of near-blindness, which only serves to increase my consternation over what might be hiding just beyond my vision. Axe-murderers, scary little Japanese girls with too much hair, sadists in pig-masks, zombies, aliens, Mick Hucknall… any one of these hideous terrors could be lurking in the hallway with me, and I wouldn’t be able to see it.
Now, I consider myself a rational man. I know, with certainty, that such things are not actually in my flat. This does nothing to assuage the fear, though, since it’s a primal thing, an underlying hangover from my evolutionary past. Back then, the night was a dangerous place of leopards, snakes and poisonous spiders, and a healthy fear of the unseen could well ensure an individual’s survival. In a modern, civilised city, though, it’s deucedly inconvenient. I easily subsume my nocturnal tremors of timidity, pushing them back with the mental bulldozer of rationality, but it occurs to me that maybe not everyone has that skill.
When I was a small child, and feared ghosts and goblins at night, I developed an interesting coping strategy. Rather than telling myself (as I do now) that such things are unreal and that I should stop being so silly, I instead contrived a complex system of other fantasy beasties to keep the fears in check. The witch who lived outside the toilet window, for example, was prevented from coming into the house by a group of imps who lived over the garage, and the imps were in turn restrained because they were afraid of the scary dwarf who lived in the attic. He wouldn’t come into my room, though, because the stairs were inhabited by an invisible snake, and so on. Looking back, it seems to me a simpler (less imaginative?) system would have posited some sort of benevolent household god as a protector from the dark. Is it possible, then, that early humans created their deities out of fear – fear of the dark, fear of the unknown, fear of the lurking terrors that hid just outside their peripheral vision at night? I can certainly envisage that happening. From our ancient, ape-like ancestors we inherited an overactive sense of danger, poor night vision, abstract imagination skills – a fertile mix that, to my mind, is the perfect breeding ground for gods and monsters.
I’ve outgrown the need to create imaginary protectors to keep away the imaginary dangers. A quick survey of the world’s religions, though, suggests that not everyone has followed suit.
I’m writing this on my father-in-law’s computer, since my trusty iMac (which dates back to about 1947) has finally packed up and died. Unfortunately, this means there will be very little Right To Think activity until I can somehow locate sufficient funds for a replacement.
Feel free to keep adding comments, and I’ll put stuff up on occasions when I can get to the Internet, but there may be a slight lull for a while…
Because the predominant faiths that we in the West encounter tend to be Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism (in roughly that order), we in the atheosphere tend to be pretty well informed about the doctrines and practices of these religions. In a new intermittent series on Right To Think, I’m going to hopefully redress the balance a bit by looking at some of the world’s more obscure belief systems, starting with the always entertaining Raëlism.
If, like many of my friends, you follow Formula One racing with a fervour as passionate as any mendicant pilgrim, you could do worse than pick a faith founded by a professional sports driver. Claude Vorilhon was a test-driver and motorsports journalist until 1973, when he allegedly encountered an extraterrestrial who (speaking perfect French) informed Vorilhon that he was to be a messenger to the people of Earth, and should probably jack in the sports writing in favour of founding a new religion. Vorilhon did as he was told, changing his name to Raël and starting up the International Raëlian Movement. In a nutshell, the Raëlians believe that life on earth was created by advanced extraterrestrial humans called Elohim (name sound familiar?), and that all other religions stem from encounters with these beings. The goal of Raëlism is to prepare the world to welcome back the Elohim, who will help us advance to their god-like status.
Describing Raëlism as a religion actually does them a bit of a disservice – technichally speaking, Raël and his followers are strict atheists. They follow a doctrine of empirical naturalism, claiming that the physical universe encompasses all that exists and denying the existence of a soul or a metaphysical god. Ironically, in researching their belief system, I found that Raëlians have almost the exact same morals, arguments and theories that I do, with the notable exception of their UFO fixation. Unfortunately this is a fairly central tenet of their faith…
Raëlism is frowned upon by many because of its strong focus on human sexuality – they consider love to be the solution to societies problems, but emphasise the Sixties idea of “free love” above others. They have also drawn fire for their use of the swastika as a symbol, which slightly buggered their attempts to purchase land in Israel for their Elohim welcome mat.
Another slightly controversial belief is the Raëlian fondness for cloning. Cloniad, a company founded by Raël, purports to be at the forefront of human cloning technology – in 2003 they claimed to have created the first human clone, but the evidence produced was sketchy at best. Raëlism views cloning as the route to human immortality, and has pursued it (as well as other transhuman technologies, such as genetic engineering and nanotechnology) since the religion’s inception.
If you happen to be an atheist with a fondness for exogenesis, you could do worse than seek out the Raëlians. In the final assessment, though, their naturalistic worldview is only a front for a faith system as weird as any other religion, based on belief and not on evidence. A charismatic leader and a liberal agenda may be attractive traits, but if you aren’t a UFO nut, you will probably find gaping holes in the fabric of Raëlism.
Anyone know what’s happening with Friendly Atheist? The site’s been down since yesterday – apparently they’ve “exceeded their CPU quota”.
It looked for a long time as though Aramaic, the original dialect spoken by Jesus and pals, was going to die out – native speakers are confined to three small townships in Syria. Now, though, it seems as though you too can learn to talk like the Lord (should you so desire).
I’m a big fan of resurrecting dead languages (Wifeshui is Cornish, and the language of her fathers is also currently undergoing a linguistic resurrection), but this sounds a bit dubious to me. The fact that it took European influence to jumpstart the creation of the Aramaic Language Institute smacks slightly of bandwagon jumping. Nevertheless, the preservation of ancient languages is a noble goal, and one can only hope that Aramaic continues to survive. Religion has proved effective in keeping a number of languages alive which might otherwise have died out (Latin is a good example), so maybe there’s hope for Marian and her friends yet.
Prayer, as has been established before, doesn’t work. It’s just occurred to me though – prayer is actually a bit insulting to God. It presupposes certain divine characteristics which are a little… patronising.
First off, intercessionary prayer assumes that God doesn’t know best. It’s basically saying, “Hey, God? No offence, but here’s how I think you could have handled things a little better.” Not only that, it also suggests the Big Guy In The Sky doesn’t actually know what’s going on down below. I can just envision Him sitting on his big-ass gold throne, saying, “You want Me to redirect a hurricane? What hurricane? Wher- oh shit, sorry Florida. Yeah, took My eye off the ball a bit there…” Asking God to intervene on human behalf assumes both that we know better, and also that God’s not watching – if someone suggested to me that I was both stupid and unobservant, I’d be disinclined to grant their prayers. Maybe that’s why God never answers.*
There’s also an unspoken assertion that God’s a bit deaf – witness how church bulletins and evangelists exhort their followers to pray in unison for something, as though sheer volume will get God’s attention. Either that, or they assume God’s will is a democratic process, a sort of divine “American Idol”, where the prayer request with the most votes gets answered. The God of the Bible doesn’t really strike me as the type to be swayed by the popular vote, though. If anything, he sticks up for the minority – as long as that minority happen to be His chosen people, and they have a bit of heathen- massacring to get done.
Prayers of adoration are similarly flawed. Is God, an all-powerful, omniscient superbeing, really so insecure that he needs constant reassurance that He’s the best? From humans, no less? I’m reminded of the scene from Monty Python’s “Meaning Of Life”:
“Let us praise God. Oh Lord… Oooh you are so big… So absolutely huge… Gosh, we’re all really impressed down here I can tell you… Forgive Us, O Lord, for this dreadful toadying. And barefaced flattery. But you are so strong and, well, just so super. Fan – tastic. Amen.”
So this is the God Christians assume when they pray, a deaf, unobservant, tractable, insecure egomaniac whose good graces can be obtained only by sufficient levels of pusillanimous sycophancy, and who (the evidence suggests) ignores petitioners anyway, preferring the “mysterious ways” approach. I’ll stick with atheism, thanks.
*Okay, God does sometimes answer…
Being without my voice for the last few days (vague painful croaking noises have formed the limit of my vocabulary since Friday) has reminded me of the time I once took a vow of silence, and I thought I’d share my memories of the experience.
I was 22, and a devout Taoist (inasmuch as Taoists can be devout). It came into my head one day that I needed some sort of spiritual discipline in my life, and since I enjoyed my food far too much to try fasting, a vow of silence seemed the most obvious course. I settled on a one week limit, figuring that seven days would be long enough to reap the profound benefits of enlightenment that were no doubt headed my way.
The first hurdle was my job. At the time, I worked in a call-centre, and a call-centre employee who refuses to speak is not a particularly useful member of staff. My boss took a dim view of the situation when I announced that I wasn’t going to be talking for a week, and insisted that I took a holiday in order to fulfil my vow – my cries of religious persecution went unheeded. Taoism wasn’t covered in the employee handbook, and I had slightly burned my bridges some months earlier by refusing to work Sundays on religious grounds (no such grounds existed, of course, I just wanted to make sure I got a regular day off). My flatmates were a further obstacle; whilst moderately sympathetic, they thought I was being very weird, and were mildly discouraging. Nonetheless, the week of silence went ahead as planned.
I’d already informed the two guys at our local corner shop of my intentions, so they weren’t too surprised when I showed up with little flashcards to communicate my wishes to them. Since I occasionally turned up in their shop wearing a dressing gown and slippers, I think they had come to expect a degree of eccentricity. The supermarket was more taxing, though; it’s easy to be thought rude when you respond to all questions (“Do you have a reward card? Are you collecting school vouchers? Do you need any stamps or phone top-ups?”) with a taciturn shake of the head. Bus travel became impossible – how would the driver know where I was going? – and conversations were limited to: “Still not talking, then?” *nod*.
As you’ve probably already guessed, enlightenment was not forthcoming. I did learn a couple of useful lessons, though. The first was that, in spite of my customary loquacity, much of what I said in daily life was irrelevant, mindless shit. I realised, as I bit my tongue rather than inserting my inspired interjection into the conversation, that what I’d been planning to say wasn’t witty, or clever, or wise, but a bit pathetic and sad; and that I only wanted to speak in order that people thought I had something to say. Unable to slot my own titbits of genius into discussions, I learned the value of listening. It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of ignoring someone else’s side of a conversation, seeing the bits when they’re talking as a chance to think about your next statement. Being unable to speak, I had no next statement to consider, and so listened intently instead. It’s a habit that I’ve taken pains to encourage ever since. In a way, listening is about sublimating one’s ego, allowing someone else’s voice to be heard and enabling one to fully understand another’s opinion. It’s a great talent to learn.
I also discovered the joy of silently sharing someone else’s space. My flatmates, when I was alone with them individually, soon tired of having one-sided conversations and lapsed into an equally silent mode. This was in no way uncomfortable, and I’ve since been able to shed the fear of those lulls and pauses in conversation that used to so embarrass me. Now, I view the silence as a chance to reflect on the other person’s words, or an opportunity to just enjoy their company without having to eke out strained small talk about the weather or the colour of the curtains.
So that’s the story of my brief flirtation with Trappism. I won’t be trying it again, but the lessons learned were valuable, and still influence me today. If you decide you might like to give it a try, I recommend two things. Firstly, aim not for enlightenment, but simply to learn a valuable truth. Second – get a bus pass.
As those of you who have read Trick Or Treatment will know, Simon Singh is not entirely enthusiastic about chiropractors cracking people’s bones with nary an ounce of medical evidence. So much so that he wrote an article about it – which the Guardian have since pulled due to the threat of legal action by a bunch of self-appointed “doctors”. I look forward to this case – although UK libel law places the burden of proof on the defendant, Singh has already gathered his evidence in Trick Or Treatment, so won’t have to look around too hard to lay his hands on the necessary papers. This could well backfire vigorously in the face of the BCA, and that will be fun to watch!
***edit: Holford Watch have complied an exhaustive list of links and resources for those who want to delve deeper into this mockery of the legal system.***
Last night, Wifeshui was assailed by nausea thanks to some dodgy prawn sandwiches she encountered at a wedding over the weekend. I spent the night in great distress – there’s nothing one can really do in such a situation, but the need to somehow assist, the desire to “make it better” is phenomenally strong. So it was that I found myself contemplating reiki, acupressure and even prayer in the desperate hope that these irrational idiocies would maybe help my beloved to recover (in my defence I’m currently suffering from a stinking head cold, so my mental faculties are not presently at their peak…)
Anyway, this prompted me to consider something that has been on my mind for a couple of days now, namely, the emotional need for religion. One of the reasons it’s so hard to debate faith with the faithful is that they have a hefty emotional investment in continuing to believe. I think I can narrow this down to four main factors, although I invite readers to suggest any others they come up with:
The need to make a difference
This is precisely what I was experiencing last night. In a world largely beyond our personal control, faith grants the illusion that we can somehow affect our surroundings. Thus, quackery substitutes for medicine, hippy nonsense masquerades as science and prayer fills in for politics. The irony, of course, is that these things are actually disempowering activities. When we choose to apply our time and effort to a faith-based solution rather than a practical one, we give up all hope of achieving any form of change, and abandon ourselves to the whims of fate. Unfettered by such ideas, atheists and humanists can apply themselves to a course of action that will actually make a difference – lobbying their MP, organising a petition, staging a rally, finding a new drug, developing new technology or (in my case last night) making a cup of tea…
The need to feel loved
The idea of an all-powerful superbeing who cares specifically for you and takes a personal interest in everything you do (a “sky-daddy”, to use the popular phrase) is an attractive one. Who doesn’t want to be loved unconditionally? Okay, maybe not completely unconditionally – you have to believe in a specific dogma (varying from sect to sect), and there are certain rules you can’t break – but in the Christian tradition at least, you have the opportunity of being loved forever, and that’s a powerful draw.
The love of a non-existent deity, however, is a worthless thing. How does God show his love? By making the occasional statue cry? By revealing himself in food products? Or perhaps by destroying cities and slaughtering thousands? Oh, Christians will trot out the old, “He sent His Son to die on the cross,” line, but in order to accept that you have to be onboard with the idea of God’s existence in the first place, and as Brian recently pointed out so succinctly, it’s not like it made a lot of difference…
If you want to be loved, seek the love of other humans (of, if you’re a total social inadequate, buy a puppy.) They can express their love in tangible terms, in ways you can see and feel.
The need to escape death
This one’s a biggie. Evo recently put up a good post on this topic, which is worth a read. Essentially, people fear death. It’s a difficult thing to accept that the little bundle of opinions, ideas, prejudices, feelings and musings that make you unique will one day cease to be, and so any belief system offering a get-out clause is guaranteed to attract its fair share of adherents.
If you don’t like the idea of being gone and forgotten, then do something memorable! Leave a legacy! Make the world a better place, so that people in years to come will remember you with gratitude and pride. Try not to be remembered for blowing stuff up or genocide, though, it won’t make you popular.
The need to be instructed
“Tired of thinking for yourself? Fed up with making your own decisions? You need NEW Religo-Faith™! Our dedicated staff will tell you what to do, when to do it, and even how to clean up afterwards! Order now, and we’ll throw in a FREE extra commandment or prohibition, especially for you! Religo-Faith™ – because thinking is such a drag!”
People don’t like thinking. Sad but true. Apathy has been with us for our entire history, and for every person who stands up and revolutionises our world, there are countless hundreds who sit in front of the TV eating Quavers. One of the strengths of faith is that it can mobilise people by letting them off the hook where thought is concerned. Belief negates the need to work out your life for yourself; just “leave it in God’s hands” and you can go back to watching the football.
I don’t think I need to explain why this is A Bad Thing.
The psychological crutch which religion provides is a powerful support, but in the end unnecessary. People can stand unaided, as I and my fellow faithfreeists prove on a daily basis. Perhaps a form of mental physiotherapy is required before all belief can be abandoned, but I can assure all religionists of one, certain thing – you don’t need it.
***edit: Gregory has just put up a post on the same topic (see comments section below) – here’s the link!***
Recent Comments