Ramblin

When somebody presses me for a religious affiliation, these days I tend to say, “The closest thing to what I believe is Buddhism, but I’m not a Buddhist.“  I put it in quotes here because it really has become a canned answer.  Since most people who press me for a religious affiliation tend to be some flavor of Christian and expect some flavor of Christian as a response, I usually get blank, confused stares and then a shrug of the shoulders and a change of conversation.  Which, happily, is the response I’m generally going for. 

I love so many things about the Buddhist philosophy, and think Siddartha got so much stuff right that it kinda blows my mind sometimes.  But I can’t get fully onboard because of the insane layers of dogma and the lack of respect for human imagination.  Particularly music.

Lots of people get around this stuff, take what works and call themselves Buddhists anyway.  I have no problem with that.  But for me, the distrust of dogma runs pretty deep. 

Back many years ago during an election cycle, a friend of mine was proposing a personal project where he dug into the planks of all parties to find out where he truly stands politically.  I sent him this and occasionally like to revisit it to see if my opinions have changed:

Remember, my friend, that saying and doing are two entirely different things. I don't care which color in the political kaleidoscope you land on, just make sure in your research you remember to consider what people who call themselves republicans, democrats, libertarians, etc. do in the real world.

I strongly believe that government has overreached itself and needs to be pruned back to an acceptable level. This was something the republicans were preaching from Alaska to Florida - yet once in office, republicans have pursued the exact opposite direction. I don't mean to pick on them, every political group has these inconsistencies. I'm a registered democrat, but the Clinton years blew that out of the water for me (don't get me wrong - I'd take Billy over any Bush any day).

I'm for gay marriage, legalizing drugs and the death penalty in certain cases. I'm for birth control, sex ed and multi-cultural religious education in schools. I'm against teaching intelligent design in a Science class, but see no reason why you shouldn't mention it in a Political Science class. I have deep concerns about abortion and think we have a decent compromise allowing legal abortions in the first trimester. I'm for stem cell research and against circumcision of children (let 'em get it done as adults if they want it). I want alternative fuels and vehicles that run them NOW, but I think, since we're over there, we should find a way to win this Iraq thing. (Can't really call it a war somehow) I like capitalism, but I don't understand how a nation can consider itself civilized without making basic food, shelter, education and healthcare available to everyone (they don't have to avail themselves, but the safety net should be in place). We have the resources to do it - why isn't it getting done? I don't think illegal immigrants should have licenses, and I'd be all for gun control, except I refuse to mess with the Bill of Rights. If you take one of those rights away, the rest will fall just as quickly. I have the right to free speech until I yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Other people have the right to have guns until they SHOOT SOMEBODY...and we already have laws on the books about that. We don't need more.

I have no idea where I fall on the political spectrum these days. I'm not a hypocritical bully (most of the time) so I can't call myself republican and I have a spine, so democrat doesn't really fit either.

So, what do I believe now?

I believe I’m a bad writer who can’t focus well for long periods of time.  Beyond that, I’d add that I believe from what I’m reading that yes, Global Warming or Climate Change or whatever we’re calling it these days, is real.  I don’t believe humans are the root cause, but I do believe we are accelerating and exacerbating the problem.  On the other hand, although I cannot remember the name of the person (I think a woman) who countered Malthus, I think she was somewhat right.  Humans are adaptable.  It’s one of our best traits and we maintain this adaptability with technology.  The technology to solve a population problem is almost always available, for example de-salination plants, but it may not be cost-effective at the beginning stages.  Once the problem becomes pressing enough, or the technology improves, the cost-benefit analysis changes and we sail merrily along into the next big issue.

Of course, to a certain extent Malthus was right, too.  And anyone who passed third grade earth science should know that every organism has limits.  Overpopulation will always lead to either running out of resources (starvation), breeding of disease (plague), or drowning in it’s own output.  Humans are just another species on the planet and we are responsive to the same environmental pressures as any other critters.  I grew up in Michigan, where they have a deer hunting season every year.  One of the explanations they give to tender young children who are sobbing their eyes out over daddy heading off to kill Bambi’s mom is that without hunting season the deer will overpopulate the woods and starve.  It’s kinder to thin the herd and give the survivors a better chance.

Still don’t know if I buy that reasoning.  Partially because it’s my standard emotional response to identify with the underdog or in this case victim.  Thinning the herd makes logical sense, until it’s you or someone you love that doesn’t make the cut.  Then it’s barbaric and unfair.

In fact (yes I’m heading out on another tangent), I’ve found that any logical idea taken to an extreme is bound to end up at best as ludicrous, at worst as genocide.  The secret of making things work, whether it’s political systems or baking, is always in the balance.  Capitalism is not the great satan, but allowed to run riot without regulation it really does discount people in favor of cash.  Actually, given the basic greedy nature of us funny, talking apes, almost any economic or political system gets overrun by greed sooner or later.  It seems to be a fundamental  characteristic of the species.

But build in some checks and balances that allow for the flawed nature of individuals, and almost any political or economic system can work – until someone finds a way around the rules.  And someone is always looking for a way around the rules.  Always.  Hell, I’ve rolled through a couple of stop signs myself occasionally, and I fully believe in the traffic laws.

Anyway, this rambling post brought to you by a woman stuck at home waiting for a server to crash.  Expect another pointless diatribe right around Christmas when I will once again be at home and on-call for days.  Oh the joy.

Government

Here's the problem as I see it, there are different sectors of our national life and they have unique concerns. Trying to apply one model to all sectors ensures failure for all of them.

Business\Economic Sector - concerned with benefitting those who have the money to invest more. If you are not an investor, you are a servant to those who are.

Government Sector - concerned with benefitting the most number of people. It provides infrastructure and military protection that no individual can afford. It mediates conflicts between individual rights and corporate interests.

Healthcare\Social Services Sector - concerned with benefitting the greater society by assisting those who cannot physically or financially aid themselves.

Education Sector - concerned with benefitting the society as a whole by providing the future generation with skills and knowledge that will be needed to physically and financially benefit themselves and others.

Capitalism is a great model, for the Business Sector. It is absolutely the right model to apply there. But the last few administrations have all made the critical error of trying to apply the right model for the Business Sector to the other three sectors, where it is not helpful and in most cases is actually detrimental.

Government operating to benefit investors is universally recognized as corruption. Government is supposed to regulate industry and require individual sacrifice in return for providing social stability and reliable economic growth.

Healthcare\Social Services operating to benefit investors is in direct opposition to the foundational goals of benefitting the society as a whole by taking care of the people who cannot take care of themselves.

Education operating to benefit investors creates a foundational rift between the rich and the poor that ensures eventual revolution.

Perhaps there should be a separation between Business and State even more clearly than we need and require the separation between Church and State.

10 Commandments

1. Don't kill - if you can avoid it. Unless you have to for (immediate) defense of self or others, or to eat. Notice, this does not say "Don't kill nice people" or "Don't kill people in your particular group" or even just "Don't kill other humans".
2. Don't steal - exceptions are made for literal starvation, otherwise if it's not yours, behave.
3. Don't lie - if you can avoid it. Telling your grandmother you love her meatloaf is fine.
4. Don't rape - period. Really? Somebody actually has to state this one? Wow.
5. Don't maim, torture, mutilate, kick, etc. - Again...Really???? Tell me this is a rule everybody just knows...
6. No slavery - period.
7. Treat people equally - until their actions earn either praise or caution.  Then be fair, and if you can't be fair, err in the direction of kindness.
8. Educate yourself - and others, when it's not obnoxious.
9. Think things through - just this one would help immensely.
10. Control only yourself - let other people make their own decisions.

Elevatorgate

Elevatorgate.
Oy.
Not as quick as I'd like recap:

One man, possibly clueless, probably drunk, asked one woman, who had already indicated that she was not interested in making any sexual connections that evening, back to his room.  They were in an elevator at 4am.
The woman involved (Rebecca Watson) happened to mention this in an off-hand way during a videoblog she was doing on other subjects.  It was casual, calm, and not in any way aggressive or whiny.  She said, "Guys?  Don't do that."  She said it made her uncomfortable and left it there, going on to other more interesting subjects, I believe it was robots.  At this point, there were a few people paying attention, mostly college kids and Skeptics (notice the capital S).

People in college are at a specific point in their psycho-social development.  One where they are still negotiating what is and isn't appropriate conduct for sexual advances and a few of the female students at a specific college strongly disagreed with the original blogger's stated preference not to be propositioned when she had already indicated she was not interested.
The original blogger (Rebecca) happened to be giving a speech at this specific college and called out one of the female students who had disagreed with her as an example of someone who undermines feminism.

And the internet began to roil.

There were lots of arguments back and forth about whether the speaker should have called out the student (who was present at the lecture) or whether that was an abuse of power\privilege.  There was another thread to the discussion that kind of took over, and that was whether any real offense had happened in the elevator.
Several well-regarded Skeptical blogs (capital S again) jumped into the troubled waters, usually on Rebecca's side.  A couple on the side of the student.  Apologists for the Elevator Guy (now referred to as EG) showed up.  Most of this was following along totally expected lines.  Until a best-selling author and revered Skeptic (Richard Dawkins) jumped into the mix with a completely bizarre comment comparing the elevator pass to genital mutilation and suggesting that Rebecca sit down and shut up.

Manure, meet Ventilating System.

The atheist and skeptical communities are filled to the brim with social misfits.  We're all geeks in one form or another.  Usually, that gives us a sense of connection and we celebrate it.  Unfortunately, in the particular areas of sex and romance, that lack of social understanding makes things...more difficult.
Turns out a lot of people have trouble with empathy on both sides of the gender divide.  Men, who can't see why the woman in question was uncomfortable, and women, who can't see why anyone would find it confusing.
It is confusing.  The guys are right on that much.  Social rules are complex and depend on a lot of things that don't translate well into bullet points - body language, facial expression, vocal tone, etc., etc. And even then, the rules change with each environment and each different person.
The situation in the elevator made the original videoblogger uncomfortable.  It was a personal reaction to a complex combination of factors.  She called it out in the way of giving a clue to future men who might be inclined to do the same thing in the same environment that this was not the way to approach her.
The exact same situation might have flattered the college student.  She's a different person in a different place in her life with different experiences and different expectations.
The exact same situation might have terrified another woman.  If her history led her to be wary and aware of the possibilities of sexual assault in an enclosed space with a stranger.
Social interactions vary.  It's tough to nail down specific rules that work all the time in every situation with every different person.  And it's difficult for lots of people to deal with that lack of clarity.

My take on the original video - Rebecca said nothing out of line.  She described a situation, stated her personal preferences and got on with her life.
My take on calling out the student - That seems a little awkward.  I would have taken another route but I can agree to disagree on that one.
My take on the response from Dawkins - Holy motherfucking shit, man!  What the fuck was that about, motherfucker?  (Sorry, my weird sense of humor is surfacing there.  I have also started carrying around packs of chewing gum in case I find myself in an elevator with the man, I intend to chew quite loudly.) - but seriously, while I can appreciate that the man was probably trying to bring a little perspective to a heated internet thread, those comments were tone-deaf given the absolute kindest possible interpretation.  He may have meant well, but what he did was tell another person that they had no right to speak for themselves.  All Rebecca said was that the encounter made her uncomfortable.  She wasn't screaming for anybody's head on a platter or calling EG a rapist.  She absolutely had a right to express her own feelings on the situation.  Period.  Dawkins, however much I respect his contributions on other subjects, is dead wrong on this one.

Sensing a Theme

http://www.atheist.ie/2011/06/dublin-declaration-on-religion-in-public-life-opinions-welcome/

I prefer Declaration A, myself.

Why

I was reading lists other people have written up about why they are atheists and I was noticing some overlap in my own beliefs, but also some things I really didn't care about or didn't think applied.  So I've decided to write out my own. 

I'm an atheist.  I've come to this after a long and personal struggle with wanting desperately to believe in any deity that would have me as an acolyte.  But I kept running up against unyielding facts and hard experience.  Eventually, the realization dawned that there was no benevolent being looking out for me or anybody else.  It was a great loss and I was deeply depressed, angry, and grieved for quite a while.

So, what led me to lose my religion?  Why do I not believe in god?  Is there anything that leaves the door open?  Does life have meaning or purpose without god or religion?   I'll try to avoid too much navel-gazing on this stuff, but since in the end all belief is a personal experience, I'll apologize right now for the extra lint. 

Ok, let's start with something glaring -

1) There are lots of religions - some say there is one god, some say there is one god with  different forms, some say there are lots of different gods.  I have this sense that most religions are in agreement that people should be nicer to each other and inflicting harm is bad, but some involve ritual sacrifice (which is definitely harmful to the sacrifice) and others just don't care as long as the deity they worship gets whatever it is that is demanded from its followers.   Start getting comparative between religions and the differences in the basic rules begin to get overwhelming.  One religion dances to praise their almighty, another considers dancing a sin.  One religion says Saturday is the sabbath, another says Sunday, another has no sabbath at all.  Try to correlate this stuff and it will make your head spin.  The fact that there are multiple competing religions, most willing to kill heretics and non-believers to advance their own viewpoint, is - to me - convincing evidence that there is no deity guiding everything in a particular direction.

2) The existence of evil - no god intervened to save Anne Frank from the nazis, no god intervened to save a Korean missionary in Iraq from getting his head chopped off at the beginning of the current war, no god intervened to stop a 13 year old boy from being locked in a cage and tortured by his own parents until he died and they buried him in a garbage bag.  If any god existed and allowed this stuff to happen, he\she\it should be caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  There really is no excuse for this kind of negligence.  Religious sages will nod their heads sadly and talk about free will and\or god working in mysterious ways - I call bullshit - and I'm swearing because response to that argument requires it.  Any god that allowed this kind of torment and grief is not worth believing in.  Period.

3) Natural disasters - not all pain and grief is inflicted on human beings by human beings.  Sometimes it's inflicted by earthquakes or drought or tsunamis.  If god gets credit for creating the world, then he\she\it did a piss-poor job.  The pieces don't quite fit together, the weather isn't consistent for supporting life, and why exactly do mosquitos exist?

4) Even within religions, the rules don't make sense - I'll stick with Christianity on this one to illustrate the point.  Rape and slavery are allowed, but not swearing or graven images?  The rules of every religion are tied into the local culture where it developed and end up being contradictory when it gets exported to a new region or as the culture evolves.  Slavery was entirely fine in the ancient tribal past, but now is recognized as just plain evil.  So what do you do with the passages in the holy book that refer to or list the acceptable number and prices for slaves?  Relegate them to the bin because apparently god changed his\her\its mind?  It wasn't evil yesterday, but it is today?   What's going to be evil tomorrow?  And that's just the internal conflict in one religion on one subject.

5) Other planets\universes - Just out of curiosity, if god created the universe, why did he\she\it make it so big?  What are those other planets doing out there?  Do they serve some religious purpose?  It seems kind of wasteful if humans on one little planet are the point of all existence and the focus of attention from some deity, for that deity to have created lots of other planets in lots of other solar systems, with or without some other form of life.

6) Missing Physical evidence - I'm aware that you cannot prove a negative.  I am aware that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but it doesn't make a great case for existence of the absent evidence, either.  The thing about deities is they leave no bones or bodies.  There is no physical proof to dig up or house in a museum.  There can be what you want to call circumstantial evidence - for instance, if a small band of people wander for years in a desert, you can often locate trash piles, etc. proving that they were there thousands of years after the fact.  People build entire careers out of trying to find that kind of evidence for unlikely events from whatever holy book they follow.  So far, the evidence that has turned up has been questionable at best, usually more easily interpreted by natural rather than supernatural means, and often turned out to be an active hoax.

7) Existing Physical evidence - On the opposite side, we have a fossil record.  We can see life evolving from simple to more complex forms over millions of years.  We have physical proof of neanderthal settlements, including some sort of religion they followed that had something to do with deer bones and ochre.  We have physical proof of nomads and desert tribes, their leftover food and cultural practices.  I have a niece who chooses to believe that the bones were put in the ground to fool us.  Is it easier to believe in a god that creates false evidence against it's own existence, or to believe that the bones and fossils exist because the creatures that left them behind existed?

8) Behavior of Believers - Even with the physical evidence pointing in the atheist direction, I'm a practical woman and I might be able to justify belief in a deity if believing in one led to being more truthful, moral, or kind.  With the exception of one area, it seems to work in the other direction.  The number of atheists in prison is fairly low, especially compared to the percentages of atheists in the general population.  Atheists generally pride themselves on dealing directly with reality and taking responsbility for their own actions, whereas people who believe in almost any deity tend to treat them as imaginary friends and pray to them for favors when they would be better served by relying on their own actions.  The single area where believers generally do better than atheists is in the public kindness category.  Religious types tend to contribute more time, money and effort to charitable organizations than atheists do.  I could offer explanations for that around group membership, etc.  but frankly, I'm just going to acknowledge that this is one instance where believers have it all over non-believers.  (Non-believers should make a point of doing better, since having no deity to rely on leaves us dependent on each other in trying times.)

9) Where is heaven?  And hell?  Where are they physically located?  Yeah...me either.

10) I Am Not Afraid - Actually, I'm afraid of most things.  I'm afraid of getting into a car wreck, I'm afraid of catching the latest virus or losing my job, I'm afraid of earthquakes, and tsunamis, and my fellow human beings.  But I am not afraid of god.  I'm making my best guess based on the evidence and you know what?  It looks like there is no such critter.  I have stood outside in a thunderstorm, waiting for some deity to hit the smite button. No lightning bolts have struck me so far.  Funny that.  As time goes by and there is no divine retribution I am more convinced that either I'm right, or if there is a god, he\she\it doesn't care what I think.

OK!  So that's my top 10 reasons why I do not believe there is a god.  The next logical question is, Is there any reason to think that god exists?  And oddly, there are a couple of things that leave the door open.  Usually, it's a God-of-the-Gaps argument, but still worth mentioning, I think.

1) There is a difference between being alive and being dead.  If, you've ever seen an animal or fish actually die, you know there is an indefinable quality that changes.  One minute you're looking at your beloved pet or loved one, then suddenly they simply aren't there anymore.  Science is working at creating life from inert chemicals, but hasn't quite gotten there yet, partially because we haven't gotten a firm grasp on what constitutes life and further consciousness.  That we haven't figured it out yet could be considered evidence that it is beyond our capabilities and would require some kind of god to get things started.  I think that's a stretch.  Just because I don't understand algebra doesn't mean it's beyond human understanding, so just because we as a species don't currently understand life and consciousness doesn't mean it's beyond our understanding forever.

2) There are things we cannot perceive with our senses.  Dark energy and Dark matter spring to mind.  We have evolved to perceive only those things that directly and materially affect us.  So who's to say that there isn't a being out there in a universe we can't reach or made of particles we can't perceive?  On the other hand, if there is he\she\it doesn't seem to be able to interact with us.  So, if god exists but can't be interacted with, does it matter?  If a tree falls in the forest...

3) Coincidences - this is one that gets short shrift from people who understand statistics and is considered very convincing by people who don't.  If my cousin calls at the very moment I am thinking of her, it's a coincidence not necessarily divine intervention, but it can feel like there was something supernatural about it.  Most likely, coincidences are just random chance since everything is bound to happen to somebody sooner or later.  But we human apes are hard-wired to see patterns and meaning everywhere, so they feel like they contain hints of a supernatural being intervening in our existence.  Kind of like medieval knights thought that eclipses were signs from god.  Personally, I'm not buying this one now, but I remember how convinced I was when I was younger and looking for evidence to buttress my existing beliefs.

4) Also, I've personally had one of those strange religious experiences that may or may not have been a seizure in the temporal lobe (have had an MRI - my brain is "unremarkable").  I was driving home from work around 3am.  It was raining.  There was an older, homeless-looking man and a young girl in a pink raincoat walking on opposite sides of the street.  There was the strangest sensation of a veil being lifted as I watched the old man cross the street in front of my car and I clearly saw that this man was God.  My eyes glanced over at the young girl in the pink raincoat who was running now, and I could see that she was God, too.  And all the people I saw or met over the next four days were God, as well.  The grass was God.  The cactus were God.  The bricks in the buildings were there because God had willed them to be.  In the middle of the fourth day, the veiled dropped back down.  I was left with the certainty that God existed, but was nothing like I had ever been taught.  God wasn't some old man in the clouds, God was us.  God was every one of us and in everything we had ever built.

I have since come to believe that there is no "God", no old man in the sky looking down on us with judgement and capriciousness, but that we - and by "we" I mean every particle in the known universe - are part of a larger organism the way a molecule in the cell in the tip of the nail on my thumb is part of a human being.  If there are rules, we make them.  If there is good and evil in the world, we bring it about because of our own actions.  If things are going to get better, we have to take the initiative.  There is no cavalry coming.  Help is not on the way.  We have to take care of each other because we are part of each other and there is no other option available, no god to nurture or guide us.   I have seen god - and god is us.