Atheism, Economics, Family and Friends

Here we are in West Los Angeles. For the uninitiated, the swanky part of town. Observe yourself at the junction of Beverly Hills, Belair, Santa Monica and Brentwood. We're not "in the money", though viewed from South Central or Compton, I suppose we are. We're here by the luck of my genetic draw. My father bought the house I now own, back in 1955 for $11,500. At the height of the housing bubble, homes in our neighborhood were selling for between $900K and 1.2 million. Meanwhile, I spent the majority of my working life as a blue collar employee and never made over 60K a year. Our millionaire status was strictly on paper.

Despite being a 55 year old, unemployed, house hermit (a recluse in a city of 4 million), fluctuating between deep and mild depression, things could be a lot worse - and maybe they will be. One thing everyone will agree on - Jesus ain't gonna help me out. As Patti Smith said back in 1975, he "died for somebody's sins - but not mine". Anyway, my wife of 26 years is a "twice born" as Sarge likes to call them, so we even have that angle covered. As if I cared. Can you imagine a depressed atheist finding out that not only is there a god, but he just happens to be the one the Christians dreamed up? Double-dose Zoloft, anyone?

The spouse (Rosa) and I aren't a couple anymore, though we are legally married, do spend a lot of time under the same roof (when she's not in Hawaii with the boyfriend), working on the same bills and we get along surprisingly well. I'd consider her one of my 2 or 3 best friends, and I figure she'd rate me right about there as well. For a Christian, she isn't the worst. She was for Proposition 8, but also for Obama. She's against abortion but thinks giving condoms to African prostitutes makes a lot more sense than teaching abstinence. Get the picture? No sooner does she make my head swell out to explosive proportions than she says something that mellows me out like a double Jack Daniels on the rocks. And if you get past the theoretical bullshit, and down to daily living, she's a genuinely caring person. In fact, she's a bit of a sucker for helping the down and out. Which explains both why she likes me and why I could never dislike her.

She now actively encourages me to see other women, but that would be too unhermit-like. While I'm sexually straight (despite the proximity of West Los Angeles and West Hollywood) I have "changed" (OK, not like that). I have been a celibate for 3 years (now there's a good hermit). There could be psychological issues, definitely no physiological ones, but mainly it's a choice. I've gone from being a complete pig in my earlier years to a great friend to females (and to their issues), but I've figured out that the genetic prime directive has consistently gotten me into problems throughout my life. I don't think I'm cut out to be both lover and friend and, at least at this point in life, friendship seems to be a lot more valuable.

Back to Rosa - we have some of my kids together! And her family adores me (no, I don't know why. But they are great - and there are a lot of them. They've managed to transplant themselves from the Caribbean, not just to California but to within a half mile of my house). I cherish them too. It's pretty cool to be a white California guy of Oklahoma ancestry and find yourself enmeshed with a close-knit Latino family hailing from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. They are even very accepting of my other child, whose birth was uncomfortably close to that of my second child with Rosa (I have a 25 year old son and two 20 year old daughters - both born in March - yeah, I know. Leave it alone). We are all about as tight as a wandering tribe of Taino Indians (I think I'm the medicine man). Perilous financial rapids are much less formidable when 20 canoes are strapped together.

Evolution can't disprove God!

So says the Vatican.

And they are absolutely right - evolution proves god is superfluous.

Additionally it proves (as if anyone should really need yet more proof) that any literal reading of the holy texts is sheer silliness.

In the early 1800s, the French mathematician Laplace presented Napoleon with a copy of his great five-volume work on the solar system, the Mechanique Celeste (Celestial Mechanics). Aware that the books contained no mention of God, Napoleon taunted him, “Monsieur Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its Creator.” Laplace answered, famously and brusquely: “Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothese-la,” “I have had no need of that hypothesis.”

If you don't know where god came from, what it is, what it wants, what it is doing, what its connection is to the universe as we can observe it - then what do you need a religion for?

Can't - Prove there is no god

Can - prove that religion is a worthless pile of crap.

A Roman Catholic archbishop says the abortion of twins carried by a 9-year-old girl who allegedly was raped by her stepfather means excommunication for the girl's mother and her doctors.

Despite the nature of the case, the church had to hold its line against abortion, Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho said in an interview aired Thursday by Globo television.

"The law of God is higher than any human laws," he said. "When a human law — that is, a law enacted by human legislators — is against the law of God, that law has no value. The adults who approved, who carried out this abortion have incurred excommunication." (Source)

The "law" of god? Sounds more like a badly failed hypothesis.

David Byrne still great

Saw him on the Colbert Report. Hasn't lost a thing. Except his brown hair.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

David Byrne Pt. 2

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor

Joke of the Day
Stand-Up Comedy

Or listen to the whole album, streaming. Of course he hopes you'll buy it.

A look back. From his 1984 movie "Stop Making Sense", he and the Talking Heads doing the classic "Life During Wartime".

Definitions

A few I've come across recently -

Atheism - Seeing the rose through world colored glasses.
Apologetics - Articulating the reasons for why you are wrong.
Conscience (religious) - The little voice in your head assuring you that an invisible man is watching.
Life - a sexually transmitted disease with 100% mortality.
Wisdom - Knowing what to do, with what you know.

And Therefore: We're in deep shit

Given: Most people in the world are religious,

And Given: Most people retain the religion of their parents and community,

And Given: Most religious people breed at higher rates than non-believers.

Therefore: This shit ain't going anywhere, soon.

Is it true that in a world of 6.7 billion people, nearly 6 billion believe in some sort of magical causation for the natural world and that if you are among the minority in any particular population group you are at greater risk of marginalization, incarceration or execution?

Yes? I thought so. This is Insane Asylum Earth. And we ain't running this show.

The Root of Human Suffering: The Five Primary Mechanisms of Differentiation

It’s been discussed on this blog previously, but I’d like to go into some depth on the old problem of “Us Vs. Them”. Apparently we are hard-wired for setting up needless barriers, but that doesn’t mean we can’t recognize what we do and fight against it. I’ve identified five ways in which we cause ourselves endless pain. Perhaps you can think of, and add, others.

Gender, Sexuality, Race, Nationality and Religion.

To truly be able to express love towards all of our fellow Homo sapiens, we have to work constantly at setting aside all prejudices that arise from our dividing into these groups and in thinking that there is some innate superiority of one over another (or all others) in these five categories.

Males and females have to accept that their gender is not “the best”. Heterosexuals, most particularly, must be able to embrace the fact that everyone is different – whether it is genetic or a learned behavior. All races will have to finally conclude that the genetic differences of physical appearance are tiny and that every human is more alike than a zebra and horse, a cheetah and a leopard, a rat and a mouse or a turtle and a tortoise.

The final two mechanisms of differentiation are the hardest to overcome in many ways yet, unlike the first three, are entirely creations of Homo sapiens.

The borders that define our nationalities are ever-changing and brought about by weapons and blood. How is it that we put so much import on a person living 20 feet away across a border between Mexico and the United States, France and Spain, China and India? It’s completely appropriate to have some modest pride in where we are from, and the achievements of those in close proximity. But not at the expense of the dignity of those living elsewhere. If we can see our national boundries as no more important than the difference of two neighboring cities, then we will have achieved much.

As an atheist, I would love for everyone to share my extreme skepticism of the supernatural. Knowing this isn’t possible, is it really too much to hope that people who insist on believing in gods to simply acknowledge that if there is such a thing, that the gods must be much greater than any religion teaches them as being? That they can’t possibly know exactly what their god is or wants and shouldn’t presume to know, not only for themselves but for every other human being? That if the gods are Love, then the gods would most certainly not want humans to cause suffering to other humans?

Hell (or paradise) freezing over

And here comes Homo evolutis.

This is an example of what makes the TED Talks so great.

Nailing themselves to a cross

Phillychief points out that some Christians are up to their old ways - theft. This time they stole a Darwin sign that had been paid for by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Wasn't one of the guys who was supposedly hung up next to Jesus, there for stealing?

No need to get upset over this though. Haven't we all noticed that everytime they go (further) bonkers they simply create more press coverage and demonstrate the weakness of their position than if they would just shut up?

The Mockery of Christians

(And others who embrace fundamental or literal superstitions)


It’s heart-breaking that, more than 200 years since the The Enlightenment, a significant majority of the world's population still clings desperately, unrelentingly, to superstition. Secularists have spent most of that time either ignoring the faithful or attempting to use rational discourse in an effort to wean our childish brothers and sisters off of the comforting tit of religion. Some gains have been made. But, largely, our attempt has been futile.

It seems certain that it will never completely disappear, but the real problem is not with those who scorn an atheistic worldview simply because they think there are many mysterious aspects to the universe. We have to be willing to live with less literalist beliefs about the universe, such as those imagined by Spinoza or Einstein. The problem lies with those who claim to know with certainty what those mysteries are, how they affect us and how we should live our lives in order to achieve harmony with these mysterious forces.

Reason has little or no value in dealing with such people, any more than giving a chimpanzee an injection of small-pox vaccine is likely to protect the ape from disease. Our human, chimp-like, fundamentalists have a natural immunity to the otherwise powerful medicine of rational thought – at least where it concerns issues of the supernatural.

It’s time to lay aside all pretext of the “friendly atheist” bringing enlightenment to the less fortunate. The way to make some societal headway in this problem is with the use of a blunter instrument. Many have already taken to the use of derisive tactics when engaging religionists, and have been roundly criticized for doing so (often from other rational thinkers). Most of the criticism however, has come from those who have been the very target of what they hysterically call “militant atheism”. The fact that they become so inflamed by this so-called “militancy” might be a clue that they themselves recognize its power and, in so fearing it, have tried to stifle further outbursts from secular thinkers by labeling it with a name that sounds much worse than it is in reality.

Why should mockery succeed where reason has barely made a dent? Because no one enjoys being the village idiot, the class dummy, the one whose pants are hemmed 3 inches too high, revealing the white socks tucked into 2 mismatched dress shoes. As George W. Bush’s presidency slowly imploded over 8 years, nothing was more powerful in bringing about the public disdain than the impression that he was mentally inadequate for the position he held. While difficult to predict, societal memes can be a powerful tool - unfortunately, more powerful than the use of reason alone.

There is no point in making enemies of those who simply think there are mysteries beyond what humankind can ever solve. It is important to make clear in our scorn and jeers that we speak of those who claim to know the “answers” through whatever superstition they cling to. These people are our little regressive half-chimp relatives. Have some fun with them.