Hobby Horses Away

 https://youtu.be/dcAzzTIN0lc?si=Fi2TmWoU3icE0_PE

YouTube video which stimulated discussion between B. and me.  (Well, at least it got me riding one of my favorite hobby horses again.)

Me:  Although he expands it to Greek and Roman civilization while I was limiting it to Chinese and Indian civilization, here's a very interesting YouTube presentation which makes the point I've been making for 40 years.

(Why  civilizations fall from internal corruption.)

I especially concur with his point about the humanities. I remember in elementary school learning about getting on the bandwagon and other manipulative techniques. Even in the insanely paranoid anti-communist 50s, some of us were actually taught how to think critically...in elementary school.

...I'm watching this as I record to you. His point about the Mayans has been seriously questioned. Human caused ecological collapse is no longer considered to be, necessarily, a correct cause for their collapse.

B:  What are the conditions that enable anti-expert, anti-competent sentiment  at scale?

Me:  This is one really complicated situation about which I've given to which I have devoted a great deal of thought over the past few decades. Again, I trace the origin of it all to Ronald Reagan.  Naturally, he too had his roots, but I still think that we can point to that one man as the source of so many of today's miseries.

Reagan brought religion into politics in a way it had never been before. Up till then, all politicians gave it lip service and it was just a background to the campaign. Reagan was the first to make religion one of the critical elements of his administration, separating the good and holy from the other party.

He also did away with the Fairness Act, which kept news media from slanting toward one party or another but instead creation kept it simply reporting news. Up till then, there was at least the dream of reporters who investigated and whose purpose was to probe the actions of politicians rather than to get them elected. (Of course, this was after the age of yellow journalism.)

He also opened the airways to the highest bidder. Previously, once a year networks had to prove that they were serving the public interest and were providing public service in their programming. Much of what they presented was nonsense but at least they had to put on a good show.  After Reagan opened the airways, the highest bidder got what he wanted and the crazy nut cases who spread their wild conspiracy theories at two or three in the morning on a.m. radio suddenly were "journalists" on major networks.  

One of the ways in which networks formally proved that they were serving the public interest was their excellent and accurate news reporting. It took a loss. That seeming failure simply proved, or at least was offered as proof, that the network really cared about the public good and it was willing to lose money in order to provide accurate reporting. Today that sounds like a very lame and very bad joke.

Current news is very profitable entertainment and clickbait.  It is now so political that I am surprised they don't simply declare their party affiliation.

In other words, we need good leadership. The hope that what Reagan was doing would be overturned when a Democrat got back in office was quickly crushed by Bill Clinton's betrayal of everything the Democratic party  stood for, to be replaced by triangulation and neoliberalism.

Most people are not leader material. Traditionally, most of them were glad not to be. Today everybody is their own leader. They do their own research by rushing around biased media finding something that makes them feel good rather than think well. Then they rush around making themselves into their own private influencers and leaders by spreading the nonsense.

The conservatives at this time have two things right, but not in detail. The first is that our nation is in desperately bad trouble. What they don't understand is that the trouble afflicting our nation is them.

The second is that we need a good strong leader.  What they don't understand is that we need an honest, sincere, and intelligent leader who still understands what the term "public service" really means.

It would certainly also help if he was at least minimally honest.

We are here because the billionaires and the religious extremists formed an unholy alliance very similar to that of Ibn Saud and Ibn Wahhab.  That is, a religious dictatorship which supports the brutality and exploitation of the ruling class in return for creating the one and only official religion.

They want America to become at least a Christian version of Saudi Arabia, if not a Christian Iran. 

So far they're succeeding. 

In self-defense, let me conclude by pointing out that you did ask. I know you've heard much of this, if not all of it from me before, but, as I said 40 years ago,  I'm ringing a fire bell in the night and, as Peter Paul and Mary sang, I've got a bell and I've just gotta keep ringing it. 

FEMA Follies

 My friend Susan posted:   "News broke yesterday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had advised federal emergency workers to evacuate Rutherford County, North Carolina, which was hit hard by Hurricane Helene, because of concerns about their safety after Trump and MAGA Republicans spread the false rumor that federal agents are forcing people off their land to start lithium mining projects. The alert came after the U.S. Forest Service sent an email to federal responders saying that National Guard troops had encountered armed militia saying they were “hunting FEMA.” FEMA officials will no longer go door-to-door with disaster assistance, but instead will stay in fixed locations." Heather Cox Richardson

I commented:   In a recent call to a radio program, a caller revealed that he and his wife were deeply worried about his father-in-law. They did not live in Florida and so could not help him. His home had been severely damaged by the hurricane, he had no power, and he was going hungry. When they told him to get aid from FEMA, he informed them that FEMA was trying to give him money, but he refused  to take it because he had heard on right wing media that if you take aid from FEMA they will steal your home

The caller concluded that this is a cult in action.

Feeling Blue

 

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/the-quiet-revolution-of-the-sabbath

The article presents a very interesting mix of the value of keeping the sabbath both from  personal and legal viewpoints.  Strictly nostalgically, I cannot help but recall the joy of Sundays. We didn't go to church very often, which I preferred to avoid, but it was the day for the Sunday papers to arrive. It was a day for me to read through the comic pages with full page presentations instead of mere strips (and also in full color not black-and-white). Then I would go to the political pages which similarly went in depth and at length rather than the brief snippets that had been presented during the week.   Finally, I hit the arts pages, which always interested me.

It was a day when my mother used her cast-iron cookware to make Sunday breakfast. I recall it as an extensive and rather elaborate meal, although honestly I can only really remember her carefully spooning hot oil on top of the egg yolks so they could be flipped over without breaking and sitting in my favorite spot at the kitchen nook I could glance at the window at the playground surrounded by the apartments in which we lived in Germany.  

But even as a child what I really resented about Sunday was the blue laws. I did not appreciate the idea of not being able to go to the store.  

At the time it never occurred to me, but now I have to wonder, if Sunday is so utterly sacred and precious how is it that the priests, ministers, and pastors get away with working on that day? 😏

God Save Our Wimpy God!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2iiZSgu5Uqw

Although there were only eight or nine people involved, I think it is reasonable to call them a mob. They came into an area that had been rented and in which they had no right to interfere. But they came to save the chapel for Jesus.

One of the leaders  (Napier) declared, "We didn't go  there out of hatred of these people. We went there because we wanted to make sure the House of the Lord wasn't being disrespected … there was about eight or nine of us… The people in the chapel said they were doing nothing wrong, and I asked if they were there to worship Jesus, and a few started raising the voices at me, so I told him just to get their stuff-that we weren't there to argue and I even help gather the things and pack them to their cars.

... if they want to do that stuff, they can do it in their own homes or buildings or wherever else, but it's not happening in Jesus house as long as I'm around to defend it…"

What was 'that stuff'? It was using the chapel as a retreat and safe space for members to meditate or pray according to their own individual desires and beliefs. Why were the crusading Christians in a panic and defending God from the horrible attack that God could not defend himself against? (It is funny how wimpy and weak their God is.  He can't do anything for himself and he requires mobs to do it for him yet somehow he's all powerful?) Someone had placed an ohm symbol in the chapel in case anyone wanted to meditate in the Buddhist fashion. Obviously Jesus would be totally destroyed by that. You know, kind of like a vampire and a cross.

I would certainly have felt threatened and would not have welcomed this interference in our rented property. It's a public venue but it was being rented by a private organization. This is the kind of fundamentalist activity you expect from the Taliban, but that's not surprising. These individuals are the Christian Taliban.

Also unsurprisingly,  the leader of the mob who is quoted above is an ex-con.

I remind everybody once again that I am not opposed to Christianity. I am a Christian.  But I'm tired of having to say to people that I'm not one of that kind of Christian. The world does not need a single one of that kind of Christian to be found anywhere on the face of the planet.

What Problem?

 Quite a telling discussion, giving insight into the unwillingness to face, much less deal with, the extremism our nation is suffering from today. I haven't bothered to post the link to the article because my post quotes enough of it to make the point clear.

Me:  I don't even remember where in the Bible it says blessed are the murderers or the lynch mobs, but I assure you this Pastor firmly believes that he is a Christian. 

I disagree.

> Hate pastor says trans-supportive parents should be "shot in back of the head"

"We can string them up above a bridge so that the public can see the consequences of that kind of wickedness."<

D:  These hate pastors are apparently all over the country, some working in mega-churches.  According to Wikipedia-

Capital punishment in the Bible refers to instances in the Bible where death is called for as a punishment and also instances where it is proscribed or prohibited. A case against capital punishment can be made from John 8, where Jesus speaks words that can be construed as condemning the practice.[1] There are however many more Bible verses that command and condone capital punishment, and examples of it being carried out. Sins that were punishable by death include homicide, striking one's parents, kidnapping, cursing one's parents, witchcraft and divination, bestiality, worshiping other gods, violating the Sabbath, child sacrifice, adultery, incest, and male homosexual intercourse (there is no biblical legal punishment for lesbians).

Me :   Way back, about 10 years ago or so, I was speaking with the philosophy club out at the VVC and pointed out to them that the Christian Dominionists (started by Rushdoony) were very quiet about it but were heavily influencing the evangelical movement in America. They want to bring back the death penalty including for children who are defiant or "curse" their parents. 

Once again the rise of this extremism parallels the abandonment of organized religion by younger Americans. I refer to them as the anti-evangelicals. Instead of spreading the good word they drive people away from it.

L: And you believe what’s said on media ? There are writers  just dreaming up stuff to stir people up . Remember their medicine show only makes $ when folks watch .

Me: L it's not just on the media. I watched the preacher preach this message. He recorded it at his own church. He's proud of it.

I have watched quite a number of other "Christian" preachers say very similar things. Not reports. Their own broadcasts of themselves. 

I know there's a lot in the world you don't like. I don't like a lot of it either. But at least I can  face it and acknowledge it's real.

Why Fight?

A relative posted that she was thankful to her non-Christian friends and family who are not judging her for having become an active Christian. Unfortunately, some have judged her negatively for this change in her life.

Hey kid. Couldn’t stop thinking about your post so I decided to respond to it in more detail.  You know me well enough to know I believe in a great deal of tolerance. Agree or disagree, we all should respect each other‘s opinions and beliefs by not forcing them on each other.
What too many people don’t seem to be willing to understand today is that there are different ways of deciding what is true, how we can know what is true, and even what we can know is true. In philosophy this is called your epistemology.
Generally speaking, in ancient Greece there were considered to be two different epistemologies. Two different ways of knowing truth.  Certainly there were some Greeks who preferred one over the other, but as a general rule, both were considered respectable and mutually interacting, even mutually supportive ways of determining reality. One was logos which means ‘the word’.  It is the basis for logic and empirical science as we know it today. The other was mythos which meant ‘story’.
Evenly highly regarded biologist Stephen Jay Gould referred to what he called two magisteria. That is, two different ways of determining truth. Being a scientist, one of course was logos which is what we use is the basis for logic and science today. But the other one, which he equally respected, was mythos. He said each have their own areas where they should be considered to be superior and they should not be seen in conflict.
Mythos may sound  automatically false to us today but to the Greeks it simply meant another way of knowing. Not the logical way but the spiritual emotional way.
Unfortunately, in American society today there are extremists on both sides who want to turn this into some kind of football game or maybe even a war. One side must win and the other side must lose.
To me this makes no sense. The world is a very big place. If someone says I’m going to move and the person to being spoken to asks to the North Pole or the South Pole? You know there’s something wrong with the person who can’t realize there’s an entire planet in between the North and South Poles.
One of my most favorite quotes ever is about people trying to comprehend and make sense of God.
“A dog might as well contemplate the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can.“ The very tolerant and thoroughly scientific Charles Darwin said that. It’s a good rule for life in general. God is beyond our comprehension so let us all hope and believe what we can. Also, let’s not fight about it.  ☺️

https://users.manchester.edu/FacStaff/SSNaragon/Kant/LP/Readings/Armstrong,%20Mythos-Logos.html
> In most premodern cultures, there were two recognized ways of thinking, speaking, and acquiring knowledge.  The Greeks called them mythos and logos.  Both were essential and neither was considered superior to the other; they were not in conflict but complementary.  Each had its own sphere of competence, and it was considered unwise to mix the two.  Logos (“reason”) was the pragmatic mode of thought that enabled people to function effectively in the world.  It had, therefore, to correspond accurately to external reality.  People have always needed logos to make an efficient weapon, organize their societies, or plan an expedition.  Logos was forward-looking, continually on the lookoout for new ways of controlling the environment, improving old insights, or inventing something fresh.  Logos was essential to the survival of our species.  But it had its limitations: it could not assuage human grief or find ultimate meaning in life’s struggles.  For that people turned to mythos or “myth.”
Today we live in a society of scientific logos, and myth has fallen into disrepute.
In popular parlance, a “myth” is something that is not true.  But in the past, myth was not self-indulgent fantasy; rather, like logos, it helped people to live effectively in our confusing world, though in a different way.  Myths may have told stories about the gods, but they were really focused on the more elusive, puzzling, and tragic aspects of the human predicament that lay outside the remit of logos.<

Through A Mirror Darkly

 Bobby has been sending me some interesting links to philosophers/scientists making very interesting points. This is my response to one of those links.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWo7-azGHic

Kaufman was very interesting; a bit dense and rushed, but interesting. While I was listening to him I experienced one of those gestalt breakthroughs. As you know, I’ve been puzzling for years and asking, why is it that, in the absence of clear and compelling evidence, highly intelligent individuals insist that they have no free will but they are merely robots composed of biochemical/biomechanical phenomena which were 100% predictable to be exactly what they are today and what they will be forever (or at least as long as the universe exists) at the moment of the big bang?

Since the evidence is unclear at this point (although they keep insisting the evidence absolutely proves that point, said evidence is woefully inadequate to draw a final conclusion) what would compel an otherwise intelligent, even powerful, human being to decide that he has no free will, has no choice, and is not only a machine but a totally unintelligent machine which only manages to delude itself into its belief system, that is, the concept that there is an individual standing there thinking and saying these things.

This is understandable position for a dangerous individual who is causing great harm to society. He could argue it’s not my fault. I can’t help myself. I have no ability to control anything. I don’t even really exist.*  Again, however, this seems a very strange position for a highly respected and influential  member of society to take.  This is all the more true when you look at the passion with which they defend this position. It is not, in their minds, sufficient to believe it themselves or even to share this belief with those who agree. No! They must evangelize. They must spread the good word that none of us actually exist, that we are not real,  that we have no free will and are completely subject to the unfeeling will of reductionist mathematical physics.

As I listened to this presentation, I was suddenly struck by that what should have been obvious from the very first time I asked myself the question. They are true believers. Evidence is not valued by them because evidence threatens the possibility that their true belief just might possibly not be correct.  This is not to say that that belief is necessarily wrong, although, obviously, I think it is.  Instead,  it explains why they are so determined to degrade their own status so as to present themselves as no more conscious or capable of free will than a rock rolling in a stream or a maple seed fluttering in the breeze.

You might ask, why then would intelligent people who are so capable of an unusually large measure of control in their lives be so determined to deny that they have any? What, exactly, is that explanation?  I believe, and this is the greatest insight that occurred to me while listening to this presentation, that this is because they are in fact identical down at the most basic emotional level with the creationists and science deniers.

They do not deny science, to be sure. Yet,  although they are excellent scientists, when it comes to this philosophic issue, they transform into true believers for whom evidence, science, and logic are mere enemies of their deep rooted faith.   Remember that young earth creationists also insist that science is on their side. If you simply Google young earth creationism you will quickly find a large number of articles and YouTube presentations declaring that coal seams prove Noah’s flood or that fossils and even science in general proves Noah’s flood.   It is absurd nonsense, but it is affirmed with the same passion with which of these highly skilled and normally very logical scientists who usually develop conclusions based firmly on the data now devote themselves to contorting the data to fit their preconception.  Again, exactly the way creations do.

The greatest insight which dawned on me today was that the reason for doing this is exactly the same as that of any true believer, including the creationists. It is the need for certainty. We live in a very uncertain, chaotic world. Even that which should be predictable if you know everything is subject to chaos theory wherein even the tiniest variation will make a radical change in the ultimate outcome.  Just as so many people turn to conspiracy theories and blind religious faith in order to gain some sense of sanity and order in our so disordered and unpredictable universe, these scientists are turning to reductionist particle physics in order to create a structure for our universe which, if not desirable, is at least predictable.  As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be.

Better an unpleasant certainty than the fear of the bleak, dark, and unknown forest, or, as we have all heard so many times, better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

This has been an issue which has puzzled me so greatly and so deeply for so very long. Why did I suddenly realize it in the middle of Kaufman's talk? I don’t know. I don’t even remember exactly what he was saying at the moment I realized it. Of course, his talk was declaring that there are things greater than mere mathematical reductionism and utterly predictable classical physics, I was thinking about the topic thanks to his insights, but at what exact point I suddenly realized this, I cannot say. Now that I have realized it,  it seems so blatantly obvious I wonder how I could have  been so dimwitted as to not see it from the very beginning. I can only turn as a defense to the brilliant Thomas Huxley who, upon reading Darwin’s theory of natural selection, is purported to have declared “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Sometimes the most insightful and, in the case of Darwin, brilliant insights are blatantly obvious…after someone finally realizes them.

*This also fits with the opening of Sapolsky’s first lecture (which I also enjoyed very much.  I intend to watch the rest of his course).   As he spoke I was struck by the memory of an interesting article I read some years back.  One of the terrifying events of the past, now unfortunately all too common, was when a sniper took over a tower at, I believe, the University of Texas, and began randomly shooting people. As I recall, he was the individual that was the subject of this later article. The point is that an individual, whoever he was, was changing from a highly respected and healthy member of society into something very strange. He eventually did commit murders and I’m fairly certain he was the sniper. After his death it was discovered that he had written a request for an autopsy after his demise. He felt something was wrong with his brain. Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, the autopsy revealed a large tumor which was interfering with his higher brain functions.

He knew that something was wrong with him. He didn’t know the cause but he could feel his sense of self fading away. He could feel the sense of free will fading away.  As you know, my own belief is that we do have free will but it is very much constrained by our biology and the uncaring laws of reductionist mathematical physics. That is bleak. That is indeed a dark and terrifying forest. However,  there is a light within that forest, and the light is our sense of self, our sense of free will, at our struggle to maintain those against the forces of a universe that doesn’t care about us in any way, manner, or form.

Article Of Faith

 

https://apple.news/AN7nlmhN5Rku8XphHr10nEw

Very interesting article which I might have ignored had it not been in Scientific American.  It does make some excellent points. I remember reading an article in the LA Times perhaps 30 years ago which pointed out that while Europe was very secular and non-religious, that was in terms of organized religion. Most Europeans were, in fact, quite spiritual. They believed in something, whether it was an amorphous spirit of humanity or the Gaia hypothesis.

I used to complain (when the Next Generation was still an ongoing series), that, while every starship had a counselor, it seemed wrong that there weren’t any chaplains.  Chaplains are an essential component of military service and I couldn’t see the “non-military” but somehow incredibly militaristic Starfleet not having a chaplain’s corps.

I expected America to follow Europe’s lead and then, eventually, the rest of the world to get there too. However, organized religion in Europe has not ceased to exist, so I expected it would still remain an important, if minority, part of human existence.

In the decades since, the decline in organized religion in America has been following the European model. (Europe starting it all back in the days of the French revolution and we just taking own sweet time to get around to it.)

 Furthermore, the decline in organized religion in Europe has also increased (with the exception of new immigrants, especially Muslims).

In other words, it more and more looks as if Star Trek had it right and I had it wrong. Organized religion may in fact continue to fade away in the world as it has in Europe, while a generalized, individualized spirituality will likely remain.

Which means I’m also in agreement with this article. Counselors (along with their psychiatrist/psychologist colleagues) should be aware of spirituality, if not religion. It can be a very useful tool in treating emotional disorders.

>The study also revealed key opportunities in patient care, particularly for younger and seemingly secular patients. Psychiatric folklore has long suggested that psychotic, manic and obsessive patients gravitate more toward spirituality, as do older adults. Our findings, however, suggest that patients benefited from SPIRIT irrespective of their diagnosis or age. Apparently, depressed millennials are just as likely to want and benefit from spiritual psychotherapy as geriatric patients.

Our results also suggest that spiritual care is not only for religious individuals. The largest group of patients to voluntarily attend SPIRIT (39 percent of our sample) were individuals with no religious affiliation at all. Apparently many nonreligious people still seek spirituality, especially in times of distress. In fact, such individuals may be most likely to attend spiritual psychotherapy because their spiritual needs are otherwise ignored.<

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN

 

An interesting discussion with my friend Bobby, which I am re-posting here because I think it’s interesting.

Hey Jim! How are you feeling after the booster of covid juice?

My friend, J, whose philosophies have driven him into a bout of nihilism, is struggling to find why anything matters. I briefly shared with him my personal 'aesthetic case' for meaning and significance in the world, basically that human being is an interesting phenomenon in the universe and could 'look' a lot of different ways - some 'better' than others and we influence that in some way.

It may be good fodder to chat about sometime -

He replied this morning clarifying his meaning of 'purpose' as meaning "to what end?" I replied:

-

I just saw your clarification, "to what end?" This is the right question to focus on precisely because I believe it's the wrong question we all hold.

"To what end?" showcases our expectation that the universe is teleological; it, and stuff among it, is designed according to purpose and if it doesn't, it is arbitrary. This, I believe, is a grave error we have all adopted since Aristotle asserted it as one of reality's four causes. It also allows the notion of an ultimate purpose, which drives smart men to nihilism, partly because answering with God doesn't solve the arbitrariness. Plato had Euthyphro underscore this. 

My view:

If the universe is computational in nature, then the question isn't "What is?" but "What's happening?" It views each moment of reality as a frontier of cycles of computation, processing forward. Reality describes a generative, self-evolving engine. A lot of stuff looks like it stays the same because some computation ensembles generate an equilibrium state, locations of homeostasis. Likewise, interacting frontiers can render new niches of reality for other computations to exploit, generating stuff that never was.

I think for us humans, our instincts to create and protect some stuff and stop others who'd impair that stuff betray our Aristotelian philosophies, and that's good. When we, say, want to stop the Woke or Puritanical Religiosos from infecting culture, for example, we see their potential impact on a destiny yet to be made. We see ourselves on the frontier of human being continually being written. I think this is right. 

I see you as a distinctive hypothesis of human being; your each enactment in the world entails your distinctive signature that just may become indelible upon the next cycles. 

And, those early humans who lacked these instincts never arrived. Nature selected them out. We are the inheritors of the instincts that change the future. We matter.

So, for me, when considering Purpose, instead of asking "to what end?," the question I prefer to ask is, "What's next?"

My reply:

Interesting problem and interesting timing. First, I have been a bit down from the second shot, though it didn’t hit me as hard as the first vaccination.

As for the problem of what’s the meaning of existence? Very interesting question. I’m going through a tough period right now for a wide variety of reasons. Much of which is that my life went so utterly differently than I planned and intended it to be.

I had a very difficult night last night struggling with those feelings. Most animals are well content with their existence is as long as they are comfortable and fed. That is enough. We humans seek a deeper meaning. You’re right that Aristotle made it a critical part of our general philosophy, but after all, he was just reflecting the reality of the human brain. We are so good at seeking patterns that we seek patterns and meaning in everything, including our own lives.

When we lived in Oklahoma, which means I was either five or six, I had a terrible meltdown and I remember standing in the doorway of the bedroom shouting at my mother, “I wish I’d never been born.”

The woman was shocked that a child so young saying that and told me, “But then you wouldn’t be here.  There wouldn’t be a you. And I said,”Yes that’s what I wish.”

I understood full well what I meant, but I didn’t know how to articulate it at that young age.

All my childhood I was torn by the fact that the world was such a vile horrible place and I didn’t want to live in such a vile horrible place. It was also during that period in Oklahoma that I first suddenly realized that I was going to die and it was evitable and it was no escaping it.  That despair was the most significant contributing factor.  This is the sort of thing that usually gets to a person in their 20s or 30s. But for me it when I was five or six.

Even I remember the moment it happened. I was dreaming one of those very vivid dreams I’ve had all my life which are so real that they are as real as any other memory.  Dreams I called dreamtime dreams in my own distorted version of the indigenous religion of Australia. In the dream there was a beautiful hill, which I was gazing down upon from above, as a group of mourners were going up carrying a casket. And I knew in the dream that I was dead. They were burying me. Two beautiful angels came down from heaven to carry my soul up to heaven because that’s what I’ve been taught happened, They reached down to hug the soul drifting up from the coffin. And nothing happened. They reached down to strain and struggle, but nothing happened. There was no soul. They turned to heaven and I woke up in terror.

Young as I was, I realized that if I had never been born I would never exist and then I would never have to go to the horror of getting old and dying. Of course, it was also clear to me that it was too late. I wasn’t suicidal. After all, I feared dying. However, if I had never been born, I wouldn’t be there to be afraid.

As a parent now after all these years I realize how hard this must have been my mother, especially since she had told us when we were older that she was never supposed to have another child. The doctors had told her not to. My brother’s birth had been difficult for her and she was told not to take the risk of getting pregnant again.

(Interesting side story there because I think this contributed to her poor relationships with both my brother and me when we became adults. I think she wanted to take the chance to have another child because she was rather desperate to have a girl. This would explain how she could turn away from her sons and toward their first wives, and at the same time reject their second wives. Her first daughters-in-law became the girls she always wanted.)

So with this despairing situation so critical a part of the human psychology, we all seek to have some meaning and purpose in this horrible existence. We feel lost and desperate. However, as you pointed out, if we could only be warriors for God fighting a mighty battle suddenly we are incredibly significant and powerful beings.  Joining a religion is like joining a militia. Suddenly you’re not a nobody or a loser, you are part of the glorious crusade to… fill in the blank.

The other side of it is that if you do accept the universe as a material reality in which the random fluctuations of probability and chance rule, then what’s the point of our existence? Even if you were William Shakespeare or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, what does it all matter a million years from now?  Or two million. Or one billion. Or many trillion after the heat death of the universe?

I’ve struggled with that issue and answered it in various ways at different times of my life. Ultimately what I’ve come to conclude is that you simply must create your own meaning. The happiness and joy you feel is real. It may be fleeting, but it is real. So are the pain and grief. The function, the purpose we have is to make the world as much a better place as much and as much more enjoyable a place as we can. Not just for ourselves and our own, but for everyone. All right, in a billion years who will remember? Nevertheless, we added to this cold and indifferent universe, even if for a brief time, real joy, real pleasure.

From many this will not be enough.  However, I think it must be enough.

Let me repeat once again that if we are highest perfection in this world that God could create then God is an incredibly bad creator and we are an incredibly hideous failure.

On the other hand, if we are apes who have risen up by pulling on our own evolutionary bootstraps, what we have accomplished is remarkable and we have reason to be proud of it.

Of course, I would rather be part of a great heroic crusade and lived my life as I intended it, but even if those options had been accomplished, would it really matter in the history of the universe? There really aren’t any good answers, except that everyone must make their own sense of purpose and reality. One of the reasons I am offended by what I refer to as the fundamentalist evangelical atheists is that they insist on taking away the comfort that some people have found. They want to strip them of their meaning of life because the crusading atheist extremist is seeking his own meaning by destroying the meaning of others.

I doubt this will be of any help to anyone. It’s just the story of how I worked things out.   However, I think you’ll find it interesting.

Let me end by noting that, for all the depression, trouble, and stress that I sometimes feel, when I’m with my family or friends and times are good, life is joyful and beautiful and very worth living.  At those times there is no question in my mind.  It is good to be alive. It is good to be here.

There’s a reason that I enjoy the philosophy of Epicurus and the book of Ecclesiastes.

Now to put it a bit more poetically,

The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

-- Omar Khayyam

The Flood Receeds

 Facebook post in regard to the following article:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/04/gallup-poll-church-gop-christian-right-2024-democracy.html

Love them or hate them, the facts are clear and obvious. America is well on the way to ceasing to be a religious nation.

>On the eve of the 21st century, 8 percent of Americans identified with no religion in Gallup’s polling. Today, that figure is 21 percent.

... Two-thirds of Americans born before 1946 belong to a religious institution, according to Gallup. That drops to 58 percent among baby boomers, 50 percent among Generation X, and 36 percent among millennials (the pollster’s limited data from zoomers indicates that they are roughly as irreligious as their cooler, wiser immediate predecessors).<

Three data points mark a trend. Four data points plus a strong fifth indicator = Withering on the vine.

This is not a slight decline in religion, this is falling off the cliff.

Emotionally, nostalgically, I found this sad.  Considering how religion has perverted the political process and even rational thought in America, I find it comforting. Not unusual for me, finding two opposing positions well contained within my scope of self.

 As for the political aspects, I’ve been saying since the days of Reagan that Republicans  have lost the war of demographics. America is changing. The only question is how much damage can the Republicans do before they’re finally forced out?

The answer is, much more than I thought they could!

The article concludes:

> Thus, the coming decade of U.S. politics may be defined, in part, by the struggle to prevent conservative Christianity from taking democracy down with it.<

12th Century Georgia On My Mind

 Copy of a Facebook post. I’ve been really neglectful of the blog I’ll try to keep up with it although a lot of it for a while maybe simply re-posts. They tend to be short but, I think, valuable.

In response to Georgia’s attempt to pass a law giving special privileges to right wing religious extremist Christians I posted:

Special laws for the religious, well, at least for the religious who are members of the exactly correct sect in the exactly correct religion. Sounds familiar for some reason. Oh, I remember. The Dark Ages.

From Wiki:

> In English law, the benefit of clergy (Law Latin: privilegium clericale) was originally a provision by which clergymen could claim that they were outside the jurisdiction of the secular courts and be tried instead in an ecclesiastical court under canon law.

...Over time, this proof of clergy-hood was replaced by a literacy test: defendants demonstrated their clerical status by reading from the Latin Bible... <

It all started with Henry II murdered St.Thomas and eventually went so bad that the illiterate could memorize a single Bible passage and pretend to be reading it so as be exempt from civil law.

Just as, thanks to right wing media and Q anon, we are returning the middle ages as we hunt imaginary devil worshiping cannibals, we are also returning to civil versus canon with special rules for the clergy.

I’ve been warning since the days of Reagan that if we didn’t watch it we would follow the same path as China and the great Islamic empires. Once the wealthiest and most powerful countries in the world, they became Third World countries is they turned inward, away from reality and into fundamentalism.

We’re still making “progress“.

Resurrection Of A Bookworm

 

https://quillette.com/2021/03/19/sex-drugs-and-antiquity/

A combination of a post from Facebook and an email to my friend Bobby.

You recently asked if I was reading any new books. here are a few. Two of them are light novels. The first is Ascendance of a Bookworm.  The manga,  the light novel and the anime. All so different in various aspects that are all quite interesting. 

Personally, I prefer to see the anime first for the visuals and color, then the manga for some more detail, and finally the light novel to see the original to gain even more detail and to experience the author’s original vision. Each one is informed by the last, so by watching them in reverse order, I see the most polished visual presentation which then contributes to my imagery as I read the other two.

Another one is Mushoku Tensei. The same as the above except there is a great deal of emotional depth to it. Some have condemned it as perverted (yes, even anime fans have done so) but in fact, while the main protagonist is a disgusting creep, the story is about his attempts to redeem himself when he’s given a second chance at life. In that context everything becomes very different in its implications.

Finally, I’ve been getting bored with Quillette. It’s becoming slowly but steadily radicalized. It’s hard to find anything in it now that isn’t unreasonable and knee-jerk conservative (old style conservative, meaning not the insanity that passes for the word today). This article surprised me coming from them. It certainly isn’t what I would call conservative. 

Also, I’m serious. I think I will have to break down and stretch my budget somehow to find the money to buy the book. No, I can’t get it from the library. I want to write notes in the margins. Libraries don’t like that. Or more accurately, librarians do not like that.

Very definitely they do not like it.  Do not  do this with library books.

https://quillette.com/2021/03/19/sex-drugs-and-antiquity/

 If the following excerpts don’t intrugue you and lead you to read the article, I can’t imagine what I could possibly do to get you interested.

I think I need to acquire the book.

> Was the original Holy Communion in fact a psychedelic Eucharist?

...  Miraculous wine clearly marks Jesus’s legacy in the Gospel of John, which also has Jesus calling himself “the True Vine.”

... Jesus the Wine God came to Rome.

... Christian wine is no ordinary wine. It is the blood of God that opens the gates of eternity, promising instant immortality.

... he urges us to make safe, delightfully intoxicating drugs as a positive human project.

... they make sober arguments for the right to intoxication.

What was Christianity originally like? What was its nature? How did people participate? The cruelty and fanaticism of the Proto orthodox was largely geared not only to crushing down those those first Christians and the faith as originally practiced, it was designed to completely destroy any memory or knowledge of it.