Belief

I’ve always had a soft spot for the 80s band, Mike and the Mechanics, and especially, the song, I Believe. It’s a catchy tune with to me, amusing lyrics, with the coda of “I believe in most everything.” As someone who tends to believe in almost nothing that isn’t based in hard evidence (other than the essential goodness of humankind, of course), it somehow made me understand the power of belief.

Belief is important or at least faith is. Take for example, a recent breakthrough in a lab in British Columbia where scientists have managed to isolate a superheated plasma behind a spinning vortex of liquid metal. It is, they say, a critical step in creating a commercial fusion reactor. My favorite part of the story, apart from the image of metal vortex, was their faith that they will be able to have shovels in the ground by the end of the decade. You would need faith to include the oldest joke in physics (Fusion power is just ten years away, and always will be) into your announcement of imminent success.

But at least their faith is based on something real, an accomplishment they can point to and say: see it is possible, we’ve done this so there must be a next step.

For me, most expressions of faith (summarized in Shakespeare in Love as “I don’t know, it’s a miracle.”) immediately sets me looking for the man behind the curtain and by man, I don’t mean God or even a wizard, I mean a trickster or, not to put too fine a point on it, a charlatan. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good magic show as well as the next guy. Make an elephant appear on stage and I’ll applaud; make a card change its suit, right in front of my eyes, I’ll be flabbergasted.

But I still know it’s nothing but a trick based almost entirely on misdirection and the persistence of vision, with maybe a few technical assists. With enough skill, you can, to cherry pick Lincoln, fool all of the people some of the time.

There is, despite UFO conspiracy theorists, no hard evidence of intelligent life beyond this planet (yeah, I know, not a lot of it for intelligent life on this planet). Those who are convinced it must exist, respond that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Yet, it is one simple step to say the absence of evidence is evidence of presence. And there you are, right in the heart of conspiracy country. You know the place: the country of the blind where the one-eyed man is king. They follow that one-eyed man literally because they have blind faith. And if he leads them over a cliff, they will be happy lemmings believing they can fly, until they hit the bottom.

Studies show that people who wrap themselves in conspiracy lack critical thinking skills. Gosh, now there’s a study result that comes as a surprise. It’s not their fault entirely—nobody chooses to be a dupe. In fact it often takes considerable evidence by parents, pastors, teachers and trolls to get people into the most unhuman of conditions: incuriosity. How did that 4-year old who never stopped asking why turn into someone willing to swallow not just the big lie but all the little ones that precede it?

I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

Maybe we need to do like they do in Finland and teach critical thinking in kindergarten. And for the adults, perhaps a quick lesson in card tricks is in order. Maybe if they see how easy it is to fool others, they will realize how easy it was to be fooled.

Well, that’s what I believe anyway.

In the meantime, if mystery is what you’re after, try In the Shadow of Versailles, set in 1919 Paris.

Freedom

Everywhere man is born free and everywhere he is in chains. So thought Jean Jacques Rousseau back before the French Revolution. One wonders what he might think now. Plus ça change… and all that, I guess.

Freedom is relative, of course. Very much a case of the chains half on or half off. In the West, we often talk about how free we are and, yet, whenever someone chooses to exercise that freedom, say by refusing to stand up when an anthem was played, we get all sorts of responses – such as the pastor who stated at a football game (to wild cheers) that anyone who refused to stand, should be shot.

That struck home since, on occasion, I’ve refused to stand for such ceremonies. I got some dirty looks – or, this being Canada, some sidelong glances – but no one pulled a gun on me. Of course, talk is one thing – it’s a free country isn’t it? – but action is quite another. “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”

Religious freedom is one area where people become particularly confused. They feel that their freedom has been limited if they aren’t allowed to impose their views and values on other people, aren’t allowed to be paid by the government but refuse to serve citizens if they don’t like the cut of their jib. It’s public service folks! If you want a cult-run state, move to North Korea.

Or they believe in freedom religion but only for their own. Daesh (ISIS if you like) is all for freedom of religion – you’re free to convert anytime you like. And if you don’t… well, you have no one to blame for yourself.

But, of course, freedom can take many forms. In some places, people have proposed right-to-work legislation – even imposed it – but what they really want to do is take away your freedom of association, or put it more bluntly, they want to outlaw unions. And why not? Employment they say is a matter of a contract between two people – a boss and a worker. It’s a bit like saying that anyone can get in the ring with the heavyweight champion of the world and expect a fair fight.

Still, we have the right to vote, right? Well, we do as long as someone is watching. But look away for even a moment, and someone will start to find ways to exclude some voters. Voter registration and identification is just a modern form of the Jim Crow laws that were designed to keep black Americans from voting or the Indian Act in Canada that denied indigenous people the vote into the 1960s. Even when we talk of wasted votes or design systems where votes don’t really matter, we find ways to limit political freedom – at least for some of us. The very wealthy can always buy whatever freedom they want and often do.

Still, not all is lost. In the West at least, what used to be solved by force of arms – war and revolution – is now achieved through voter revolts and populist movements. Not always pretty but less likely to enslave us. And if it does we can turn to another old time thinker who said, echoing Rousseau: Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.

And that’s ten minutes.

Capricious Gods

If there were a God, there would be no question that he would best be described as capricious – unpredictable, moody and arbitrary. This idea would come as no surprise to ancient peoples. The Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Israelites would have no difficulty understanding the concept.

The gods could and likely would act in any way that suited their moods at the moment. Life was a constant struggle to try to figure out exactly what that mood might be and how to ameliorate it. That was why auguries and sacrifices were so important. Yet, even if you lived an exemplary life, that was no reason to think the gods wouldn’t suddenly turn on you and visit all sorts of unpleasantness down upon your head. Just ask Job.

While the gods were unpredictable to the ancients, he was not unknowable. If a man was struck down with a wasting disease, it wasn’t hard to know why. He had clearly offended one of the gods and was being punished for it. Not much to do but to make a sacrifice and hope for the best. The idea that god works in mysterious ways was completely foreign to the ancient mind.

Why would god choose to kill a good man and let a bad one live? Again it’s not hard to figure out. The good man was struck down precisely because he was good – he had clearly embarrassed Apollo by his goodness or his talent or even his piety. He had to go. As for the bad man? Well, the gods love to torment their creations. Undoubtedly, Hermes was getting great pleasure out this tricky little weasel and wanted the game to go on for a while.

The modern Christian – and I suppose those of other faiths – have a more difficult problem. They can hardly accept that a loving and forgiving god could operate except for the best of reasons. It’s fascinating to watch them try to explain why four-year old children get cancer and die. God must have wanted him in heaven is the most mealy-mouthed answer. To which I might say – what the hell for? He’s God – he can’t possibly need anything. We can’t know God’s mind, they respond

Of course, some so-called Christians have no difficulty in figuring it all out. It is the sins of… you pick it, liberals, homosexuals, Obama, Muslims – whatever. God is angry and he’s showing it by letting all these terrible things happen. You would think that an all-powerful and all-knowing God would be smart enough to know exactly who is pissing him off and powerful enough to punish them directly.

Which I guess is why they are so much more interested in the old testament than the new – a god who is capricious and who, as Shakespeare said: is like wanton boys to flies, is so much easier to envision as one who will do your dirty work for you.

Yeah, I’m pissed off this week. A good, gentle, brilliant man fell down some stairs and died. Another, an abusive, addicted, violent, limited man fell down some stairs the same day and lived. And someone told me it was God’s will. Yeah, I get that, even if Jesus wouldn’t.

And that’s ten minutes.

 

Merry Merry

Merry Christmas everyone. Or Happy Hanukkah. Joyous Kwanza. If it was occurring this time of year – it very seldom is – I’d wish you a pleasant Ramadan. Certainly, have a fine Solstice or Saturnalia. Festivus for the rest of us for those Seinfeld fans (I don’t worship at that particular altar). I’m sure I’ve left some out. There are just so many religions; it’s hard for an atheist to keep track.

But I send each and every one of you Seasons’ Greetings – for whatever it means to you. That, after all, is the nature of communication. I send a message – containing what is meaningful to me – and you receive it and place your interpretation on it.

Some might say this is a war on Christmas. Which is to say, a war on exclusiveness. A war on imposing your particular religious views on everyone around you. Which, if you are an evangelical whatever, is exactly what your religion requires of you. I say whatever, because proselytization is not simply a Christian thing.

Anyway, all I’m really trying to say is that I grok this Christmas thing. Or things. It is, after all, a very amorphous event. Celebrated at solstice (or damn close to it) despite the fact the birth being celebrated was almost certainly a spring one (shepherds in their fields or big clue: Lamb of God; lambs being born in the spring). There was a lot of competition with other holidays and if you weren’t doing the solstice thing, you weren’t doing it right. I often wonder what would have happened if all these religions had been born at the equator where the solstice is just another day.

Then, of course, there are all those northern European tie-ins. Christmas trees and lights – bringing nature indoors, which by the way is specifically condemned in the Bible. And of course Santa Claus, who has as much to do with Krampus as Saint Nicholas (‘he knows if you’ve been bad or good’ is kind of a threat of punishment, isn’t it?).

For those who think Christmas has become too commercial – that part is in the Bible. Those three wise guys didn’t exactly stint on the birthday gifts. Gold and incense is kind of neat but myrrh? Wasn’t that used in embalming? Well, I guess they knew what was coming; they were Magi after all (which is just a fancy word for magician or fortune-teller).

But none of it really matters. I like it when people wish me Merry Christmas and I like to wish it back at them. Because what they are really wishing me is peace, joy and happiness. What they are hoping for is a new beginning better than the last messed up year. Why would anyone object to that? Sure a few cranky curmudgeons might get their knickers in a knot and proclaim their atheism from the mountaintop but who cares? They are no more fun than those supersensitive church goers who find offence at everything.

So Merry Christmas or whatever it is you celebrate. And if you don’t celebrate anything? I wish you well, my friend, I wish you well.

And that’s ten minutes (which is taking a few days off for Christmas).

Religious Violence

Is religion inherently violent? Certainly there are those who will say it is. Or rather they will say Islam is. You can find those claims if you like – usually made by people who have an outside’s view of that religion. There are others who will tell you that all religions are inherently violent. That faith itself is the basis of violent behavior.

I’m not one of those people. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no big fan of religion. It is a colossal waste of human time and energy. It is sometimes used to oppress people; it is often used to defraud them. The good that religious people do is neither different nor greater than the good done by the irreligious. And make no mistake; people have done great violence in the name of religion. All people, all religions, everywhere.

It’s hard to do violence in the name of atheism but a few people have even managed it. Not Hitler  – he was a self-proclaimed Catholic – but others.

See, that’s the thing. People do violence. And, sometimes they use religion as an excuse. Some may even use it as a motivation. Nobody gets off the hook for that.

Yet, if religion was a cause of violence, we’d be in a lot of trouble. There are literally billions of devoted people in the world. If religion drove them to violence, we’d all soon be dead. Yet, in fact, the world is getting less violent. Don’t take my word for it – there is good solid research to show it is true. The world is also getting more secular but the trend away from violence predates that change.

Why people like the barbarians of Daesh are driven to commit atrocities is unclear. Some of it is based on ideology rooted in what is clearly a misinterpretation of Islam just as Anders Breivik in Norway murdered scores of people because he misunderstood Christianity, just as Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Myanmar clearly misunderstand the teachings of Buddha. I could go on – as I said people have committed acts of violence and terrorism for a long time for a lot of reasons.

You might as well ask if politics is inherently violent. Think of all the acts of violence committed in the name of one ideology or the other – right or left, authoritarian or anarchist, they all do it.

People are violent and usually don’t need any reason at all to be that way – except to justify themselves. Violence is a tool to get what you want – money power, sex. We are all wired to respond to violence – a few by fighting, many by fleeing, some by freezing. Frozen people do not resist.

And of course there are causes for violence – which include poverty, powerlessness, fear of the other, fractured economies, criminal tendencies and human venality.

There are those who think that violence must be met with more violence. The evidence for that succeeding is pretty slim. When you look at why the world is becoming less violent, clearly it is not because of more violence. It is because we are also remarkably good at cooperating, at building societies, negotiating ways of living, of talking and working together for a better world.

Because most people don’t like to be hurt. Most people do not like hurting others. Most people believe in the golden rule: do unto others… And you don’t need religion to know that. But it’s surprising how many religions preach it.

And that’s a little more than ten minutes.

Root Causes

A week tomorrow I’m heading for Turkey for a long anticipated vacation. So, you can imagine I wasn’t happy to hear that nearly 90 people were killed when bombs went off at a peace rally in Ankara. The fact I’m not going anywhere near the capital is hardly a consolation.

Still, I know that if I die in Turkey it is more likely because my hot air balloon crashed or I had a heart attack from too much Turkish Delight and too many flights of stairs. Neither is likely but both are more likely than being killed by a terrorist (if terrorists it was) even in a country with growing unrest.

So – unless my wife gets too nervous – I plan to go ahead with my visit. It is a beautiful country with a fascinating culture and, by all accounts, a very friendly populace. I won’t wander into any political demonstrations – it is not my business to do so – but other than that I will go about my business. I’ll be wary but I always am when visiting a place I don’t know. The best way to get mugged is to look like you don’t belong so I’ll try to look confidant and like an old hand.

The upsetting thing – apart for the sorrow I feel for those who were killed today – is that Turkey has long been a stalwart of secular democratic institutions. It is a multi-party system that was a democracy when other countries in the region, when other countries in Europe, were not. Now, it seems to have changed, though my Turkish friends say it is not quite changed as much as the western press seems to believe.

I have my suspicions as to what happened. The current president and former Prime Minister is a charismatic leader who wishes to break down the secular nature of the state and bring a greater influence of religion into government. He was recently rebuffed in elections but instead of cooperating with other parties, chose to call another election to try and get his way. Let’s hope he is rebuffed once again. The fact he is playing the fear card is eerily familiar to the Canadian election but as we see the consequences are greater.

This is not an attack on Islam; it is an attack on any inclusion of religion in the operation of government. I’m as concerned about the Republican desire to make America into a so-called “Christian” nation as I am with Turkey – or for that matter, parts of India where religious based parties dominate state governments.

Religion is a private matter even when conducted in public. Although I am an atheist and view church as a tremendous waste of time, energy and resources, if it works for you, feel free to practice it in the way you see fit. But keep it out of government. It always leads to chaos, discrimination and, yes, violence.

The greatest thing that may have happened in the evolution of British democracy was making the church explicitly subservient to the state. Religion is all well and good but it is always about dividing the believers from the non-believers. Only the state has room for everyone. Only the state can promote freedom and equality. As Canadians say: only good government brings peace and order.

And that’s ten minutes.

Symbols

Some people wear their religion on their sleeve; others hang it around their necks or put it on top of their heads or over their faces. A few carry it in their back pocket; more keep it on the tip of their tongue. Of course you can find symbols festooning churches and mosques and synagogues and temples of all kinds and plenty of people have articles of faith in their homes.

You are certainly meant to notice these expressions of faith but heaven help you if you mention them or suggest they might be a bit over the top. What you do in the privacy of your own home is of course your business – well, that’s the theory – but sometimes it does get a bit tiresome seeing pictures of torture and despair staring down at you while you’re trying to enjoy the hors d’oerves. Though you can get used to it pretty quick. At least I can. To me religious symbols are little more than decoration – good art and bad, judged for its own merits and not on some cosmic scale.

I was looking around my own house the other day and concluded that if anyone were to judge me by my decorations, they might assume I’m an animist – a person who sees god in the works of nature. There are oodles of flowers on my balcony which I dutifully tend and my walls and shelves are covered in depictions of animals – photos, paintings, carvings and sculptures. At last count there were 28 of them – more than enough to turn the condo into some sort of spiritual centre.

Of course, anyone who knows me would understand that these things mostly reflect my enjoyment of kitschy souvenirs. The closest thing to a spiritual experience I ever have is when I consult my electronic cat-in-a-box executive decision maker. Like the oracle at Delphi, Bright Eyes often delivers mysterious and contradictory responses to the questions posed. Like most religions, this leaves me free to interpret the results to my own liking. At least most religions where they don’t stone you for getting it wrong.

Outward displays of faith often seem to me to be more about the community than any real connection to the divine. After all doesn’t God or the gods – in case you have a pantheon – judge the inner man and woman? What purpose outward displays then if not to conform to the communal demands of family and authority? Much of the religious passion and outrage seems more about the secular concern for control than anything else.

But maybe that’s just me. I’ve never been one to judge a person by their covering.

But that’s ten minutes.

Fundamental

While you might think that fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Jews and fundamentalist Muslims and fundamentalist Hindus would have nothing in common and would, indeed, despise each other, you might be wrong. All fundamentalism shares common characteristics: an adherence to specific text and teachings, a belief that they are literally true, a focus on received wisdom – that is, all knowledge descends from a divine source, and so on.

But what really unites them is a hatred of change which in the modern world represents a hatred of progress. Certainly fundamentalists embrace the benefits of modern science while preferring not to know how it works. In fact in some cases they would argue that it doesn’t matter how it works – it is only a gift of God and he works in mysterious ways.

Fundamentalists always look to the past – not the real past, of course, but a convenient past that always has a mystical quality and that supports the social and political status quo. Hence, the universal disempowerment of women.

You see this in politics as well. When Fox News commentators wonder  or more likely pronounce what the Founding Fathers wanted or meant, they don’t care what they actually wanted or meant. Rather they attempt to selectively turn certain words and phrases into some sort of frozen edict – wisdom translated directly from the past to the present without interpretation. They of course totally ignore their own twisted interpretation.

Because, of course, one of the other things they hate is complexity. The idea that everything isn’t black and white turns their guts to water and makes their hands shake. It makes them want to reach for their guns. Which, perhaps, is why their emotional range is limited to fear and anger.

Not surprisingly, they have devised ways to avoid complexity. One study of fundamentalists found that on average, they have only read 17% of their sacred text. It may be a different 17% from sect to sect but this narrow reading ensures they avoid contradiction and, most importantly, anything that might disturb the smooth course of their thinking.

Fundamentalists want everything to remain the way it was – they want to return the world to its original state. Barring that, they want to blow up the modern world and all its complex, change-embracing ways.

Progressives are hardly perfect and they are frequently in doubt. In fact, some of us embrace doubt as the only rational way to approach the world. If we refuse to doubt, then what do we have to think about? Unlike our fundamentalist brethren – and to a lesser extent our conservative colleagues—progressives are less concerned with where we’ve been than we are with where we are going.

We seldom want to destroy the world – we’re too interested in how it’s all going to turn out.

And that’s ten minutes.

Leviticus (Redacted)

Everybody knows all about Leviticus. In fact, most of us are sick to death of the old boy. According to this ancient sheep-herder, it is an abomination for a man to lie with man like a woman. Fundamentalists particularly like this one: they even tattoo the verse on their arms. Which is ironic, of course, since Leviticus thought tattoos were an abomination, as well. Irony is, sadly, wasted on bigots.

Leviticus went on to condemn the eating of bacon and shrimps on the barbie; football was also not on the to do list (touching the skin of a pig being a sin). You can find the whole list here if you are so inclined. Some of it is pretty good advice, I think, such as the prohibition of selling your daughter into prostitution. Just good parenting, I say, but it must have been a fairly common practice if it rates a verse or two in the Bible. Hmmm, makes you wonder why the other stuff got a mention, too. Others are a bit tough, like not mixing two fabrics in clothing – Walmart is clearly a den of iniquity.

Recently, an archeological dig in the Levant turned up some ancient scrolls that included even more things that Leviticus found abominable. I’m happy to share them with you – the first time they’ve appeared in English.

It is an abomination to listen to the advice of your mother-in-law. According to the notes, this almost made the cut; it took a threat from Leviticus’s wife not to lie with him like a woman to keep it out.

Leviticus also included some positive admonishments in his redacted verses.

Glorious is the woman who gives her husband a pedicure.

She will be blessed who kisses the feet of her husband.

The feet of the weary man is a badge of honour in his faithfulness to God. It is not clear what this last one even means other than Leviticus seems to have had something of foot fetish.

Mockery as you know was big on the list of admonitions. No mocking of God and so on. Apparently he also included a prohibition of mocking Leviticus but his editor – the Big Guy – removed it as being too meta. I guess I can be thankful for this. Most people already think I’m going to burn; I’d hate to do it on a mocking –Leviticus rap.

But wait there’s more. Leviticus forbade the eating of insects with four legs unless they be jointed. Leviticus was clearly not an entomologist – insects all have six legs, jointed or not. Perhaps he was thinking of spiders who had been injured in the war. In the redacted version, Leviticus also forbade the eating of jalapenos (too hot), ice cream (too cold) and porridge (just right). Leviticus was well known for his culinary prescience.

I realize that I’ve probably pissed off my fundamentalist friends (sorry Jim-Bob) but sometimes I am overwhelmed with the need to be sarcastic – also an abomination in Leviticus’s eyes.

All I can say is Thank Heaven, I don’t believe in Hell.

But that’s ten minutes.

Respect

Some years ago I was visiting Chichen Itza in Mexico. It is one of the largest of the abandoned Mayan cities in the Yucatan peninsula – with many features including temples and ball courts. Though sometimes called a city, it was, in fact, even the days of the Mayan empires, a place with great religious significance. Most of the building there served the theological classes of that culture. It was therefore a sacred site.

Though the Mayan political system largely disappeared just prior to the arrival of Europeans, the people are still there. You can see it in their faces, many of which resemble those carved in stone. You can also see it in their religious rites where Catholicism is wedded to ancient Aboriginal traditions and practices. Like most Aboriginal peoples, these practices are closely tied to the land, especially waterfalls and jungle pools, as well as to man-made structures.

On this particular visit a small group of us were being escorted by a guide – actually a local college teacher – who was well-versed both in the history and current significance of the place. He asked us to speak in low tones and generally behave in a manner that we would adopt if we were visiting a gothic cathedral in Spain or England. Even if we didn’t believe, we should act with respect.

In the course of our tour we came across three or four twenty somethings, stretched out on one of the shelves of a pyramid, sunbathing. They were dressed only in their bathing suits – very skimpy ones. To say the guide was upset would be an understatement – you could see it in his face and body. But he calmly went to them and explained that they were violating a sacred place with their behavior and that local people – who had already lost so much to colonialism – would be offended and hurt by their actions. Maybe it was his manner; maybe these people (all Europeans) were more sensitive to issues of oppression than some others – but in any case they were clearly embarrassed (I told you they were nearly naked and I can attest that a full body blush is possible). They apologized profusely, gathered up their clothes and slunk away.

Respect is not a hard thing to grant people and cultures not our own but all too often tourists arrive in a place, completely ignorant of the people and places they are visiting. It is all just a theme park to them. They paid their money and they seem to feel they have a right to take the ride any way they please.

That’s what the situation in Malaysia is all about. People arrive from foreign lands and want to do something – they seem to have no idea that their actions may cause cultural earthquakes if not real ones. How is stripping off your clothes (with your sister!) and pissing on a sacred site different from doing it to a war memorial or in a church? Of course, there are some people who have no problem doing that either.

Maybe the ability to show respect for other cultures should be one of the questions people get asked before they are granted a visa to go.

But that’s ten minutes.