On natural disasters & belief

(cc) U.S. Pacific Fleet, Flickr.com

Like many of us, I have been moved recently by the tragedy which has taken place in Japan, and have continuing concerns for the people there. After viewing some of the incredible footage of the waves which overtook urban areas, one can only imagine such devastation. Some towns and neighborhoods have been completely wiped away and the death toll seems likely over 10,000 from last reports.

It seems to frequently be the case after these kinds of major disasters for people to talk of 'acts of God' and speculate about causes of supernatural agency. Indeed, this has been thought about by people throughout history. Ancient Greeks, for example, would attribute floods to not having paid enough tribute to Poseidon. Today, most of us now understand why earthquakes and resulting tsunamis happen. The overwhelming evidence gathered by those who have carefully studied the situation have shown it has to do with plate tectonics and stresses that build up in the earth's crust. There is apparently no mystery to the process in general, as difficult as it may be to predict it or deal with the tragic human consequences.

In pointing this out, I mean no disrespect to those who have various religious beliefs. But I think its important to communicate about how different are the worldviews of different subgroups of people. Many people with supernatural beliefs may not understand how strange it seems to many of us that there would actually be people in modern times who seriously attribute natural disasters to the actions of invisible entities like gods or other spirits. To draw a causal link between moral behavior and natural disasters seems so bizarre and incomprehensible to some of us that it truly underscores just how incredibly diverse are our two mindsets and our two pictures of the universe we occupy.

Some of the faithful similarly find it so hard to imagine not having these beliefs that they suspect the others may be denying the beliefs in word only and think we secretly believe them or at least wonder about them. Some faithful I have spoken to don't seem to fully comprehend just how completely out of the question the prospect of supernatural agency in natural disasters (or in general) is for a naturalist-minded person. They may not realize that many of us seriously, deep down, do not consider for a microsecond the idea has any legitimacy at all, finding it almost incomprehensible ourselves that someone could give it even momentary credence, much less have a committed belief in it.

This explains why, unfortunately, it is so easy for naturalists like myself to slip into insulting-sounding phrasing when addressing those beliefs. We mean to communicate just how outlandish the concept seems to us, but it often seems the only way to do so is to reference other examples which both sides may agree are equally unlikely (like the Tooth Fairy for example, since both sides are not likely to ever hesitate for a moment over whether or not she exists). While these analogies may serve the purpose of communicating the severity of disregard many naturalists have for the likelihood of particular supernatural claims, they also seem to be comparing believers to children or to stupid people, and are therefore very insulting. Or, the faithful may suspect that the naturalist is exaggerating and that they really don't have an equally deep non-suspicion of the Tooth Fairy as they do for God - which, in reference to many of us, would truly be a mistake.

Some naturalists don't care if they are insulting, or perhaps even intend to be insulting. But for those of us who really do not believe that faithful people are less intelligent and sincerely want to be respectful to all people regardless of their religion, it creates a challenging problem. How do we make sure we are adequately communicating that we really, really don't consider the possibility of "a supernatural being making earthquakes to punish us for our behavior" to be a possibility worthy of serious consideration? How do we ensure that, once we have communicated it, the other side understands just how deep the view is and how completely absent any suspicion of it being true is in our minds? How do we communicate the baffling feeling we get when we see that others sincerely believe these things, without sounding insulting or disrespectful of their beliefs?

Further, how do we communicate the fact that our dismissal of such possibilities as worthy of serious consideration is not taken with hubris or taken flippantly, but that we have arrived at our beliefs sincerely as best as we have been able to honestly assess them? So often, people on all sides tend to vilify those with differing beliefs or assume unwholesome motivations. While some people genuinely are intellectually dishonest or have malicious intent, many people with incredibly different views about the nature of our universe are equally good, sincere, intelligent, honest, and humble people and it is a shame when they fail to recognize one another.

One solution would be for naturalists to remain silent, but I think that it's important for people of different beliefs to have meaningful dialogue about them. That is an important part of us all getting along with one another, rather than building up misconceptions about one another.

The good news is that, regardless of why we all think natural disasters occur, we can nevertheless work together to help those afflicted, and that is the most important thing.

Skeptic and humanitarian reformer challenges religious establishment

(cc) Sim (tassie.sim), Flickr.com

In a place where a big religious majority reigned, quite a lot of people believed what religious leaders told them, and they followed all kinds of superstitious beliefs, attributing things to divine action. They thought they had a soul that would survive death, or so they were told.

But then came a philosopher who challenged that with a strong skepticism. He told people, don’t believe something because it’s in scripture, or because your religious leaders tell you it’s true - only believe what you can verify for yourself to be true. He also told them that things didn’t happen because of divine providence, fate, or randomness, but because of cause and effect. He said all things that happened did so because of the conditions that lead to them. And he went further. He told people that they themselves were the product of these conditions and causes, their minds were the sum of many different faculties and functions, and they had no permanent self.

When people asked him, “What about the ultimate cause of existence?” or, “What about the afterlife?” he answered that those questions were not important to having a happy life, and they were not necessary to relieve their pain, worries, and suffering. He himself had tried both luxurious wealth and strict religious self denial, and none of it had delivered what it promised.

Instead, he taught them practical ways to calm themselves, focus their attention on positive things, practice moderation, be more aware of their world, be more mindful of their destructive emotions and handle them better, and develop their empathy to be more compassionate to one another. People only imperfectly practiced what he taught, and over time a lot of other ideas (some he would likely oppose) were layered on top of his views as they spread into many cultures.

Nevertheless, he did all this without ever reading Socrates or any others from his academy, without the compassionate examples of Gandhi or Jesus, without the ethics of Kant, without the rational or scientific methods discovered during the Enlightenment, and without the benefit of modern neuroscience (which is now studying his methods). That’s because he did this 2,500 years ago.

This skeptical heretic was named Siddhartha Gautama, and for his wisdom he was called the enlightened one, or ‘the Buddha’.

Prerequisites to ethical understanding

Equanimity is more rare a treasure
than pleasure. (cc) Mark McQuitty
(Tingy), Flickr.com.

I've noticed it is sometimes difficult to convince some people of why ethics matters. Recently I've realized this is because there are certain realizations that must be achieved before ethics can be comprehended.

By ethics I do not mean such things as the Ten Commandments or other authoritarian rules. Those are merely extortion and have little to do with true ethics.

One of the reasons some people are incapable of understanding the nature of true ethics is because they still believe that wisdom consists of, or results in, avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure. However, pain is unavoidable, and pleasure always fleeting.

Thirst for pleasure is unyielding. Any particular instance of pleasure never lasts and yet there are always new opportunities for pleasure. So pursuing pleasure is like trying to horde water flowing in a stream with your bare hands. There is nothing necessarily wrong with pleasure, but as a path to the good life it is both pointless and unnecessary as a subject of pursuit.

What we may find over time is that something else is far more important to the good life - more rare, and difficult to capture, but also more lasting once obtained - which is equanimity, contentment, or true happiness. Although pleasure may temporarily distract us from our lack of true happiness, it is quite a different thing from mere pleasure, in both its form and the manner in which we can obtain it and hold on to it.

Meanwhile, on the matter of pain, over time we may find that although it is unavoidable, we can learn how to confront it.

But in pursuing the good life, first we must abandon the notion that wisdom is about avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure. Then we must understand how to cope with pain, tell the difference between happiness and pleasure, and learn that the former is the more central to a good life. Rather than 'avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure' we move to 'handling pain and pursuing long term equanimity and peace'. Only once that shift has been made is someone ready to comprehend what true ethics is about, and why they ought to be ethical.

A message inspired by Dr. King

Yesterday I spent a little time viewing interviews with, and documentaries of, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his struggle against injustice and inequality. There was a particular aspect that struck me on this occasion, likely one of many which are relevant to our nation today.

In his interviews and speeches Dr. King often spoke, not only of freeing blacks, but also of freeing whites. He noted that segregation had two bad effects, in that it gave black people a false sense of inferiority and gave white people a false sense of superiority. He referred to the situation with those white supremacists as a psychological harm from which they needed to be freed, as a matter of having compassion for one's enemies. In his most famous 1963 speech, everyone remembers his use of the phrase "free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we are free at last". But more of the quote reveals who precisely the "we" pronoun refers to:

"...when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'"

So everyone, whites included, will give thanks that they are free. Free from hate, free from the burden of constant struggle to maintain dominance, free from the psychological harm of evil to the mind and conscience. Dr. King fully understood and realized what Gandhi understood through the doctrine of karma and what Socrates and his students understood - that when we do evil we harm ourselves, and that the oppressor is victimized along with his victim.

This is the message our nation needs to hear as it struggles obsessively to maintain dominance over the world. Since we abandoned non-entanglement principles after World War II, our history has been one of continuous warfare. Only the names and locations have changed. Meanwhile, we have grown our military far beyond several of the next-sized militaries on the planet combined, comprising a substantial amount of our resources as we continue into debt. Further, we have divided these expenses into a different category, psychologically setting apart other expenses as "discretionary" - as if the money we choose to spend on our massive military is not at our discretion. We pretend to ourselves that these expenses and such a military is necessary to 'defend' our nation. Yet, at the same time, that military is not solely at home. Over our long period of warfare from WWII to the present, in our relentless effort to gain tactical domination over the globe, we have extended a network of permanent military bases within the territories of other sovereign nations. Yes, at their request or with their permission in most cases - but not without contention from locals and not without financial or spiritual costs to us as a people. And while we speak of military use as a 'last resort', when one maintains such a gigantic military dominance and widespread presence, the temptation to resort to it whenever a challenge arises becomes so great as to be nearly irresistible. This was made clear by our shocking and unimaginable turn of national character as we embraced a doctrine of self-initiated wars of choice.

And as we spread ourselves more and more, we make ourselves broad targets and we give ourselves much to lose. With so much to lose, and taking more hits, we feel more and more threatened rather than more safe. We fear that letting up any at all will result in our cities being bombed and our nation falling to enemy forces. We falsely believe that the proper response to feeling threatened in this way is to seek greater control. We believe if we had more control, more bases, more military might, more violations of personal liberty, that we will be more safe. Yet this only broadens our target and further inflames our adversaries. Thus we continue in a never-ending cycle of fear and power mongering; a trap of our own creation.

There is a reason some nations, even those with little or no military, are not hated and threatened by others. Yet, unfortunately, many of us cannot even see the insanity of our situation as it has become in the last decade, let alone the last six. We have become normalized to it, or forgotten our way. But Dr. King's message holds true between nations just as it does within nations. Isn't it time we began to let go of the fear to which we've become enslaved, shrug off our heavy burden of the master, and began to seek greater brotherhood with our neighbors?

Dalai Lama: non-religious people can be good too

Copyright © The Office
of His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama has over 1.2 million 'likers' of his Facebook page. It's probably maintained by assistants I'd guess, but it seems to be official in that it has inside information on his travels, schedule, and seems to be real messages from him.

Anyway, he wrote recently about the relationship between goodness and religious belief...

"My belief is that the various religious traditions have great potential to increase compassion, the sense of caring for one another, and the spirit of reconciliation. However, I believe that a human being, without religious faith, can be a very good person - sincere, a good heart, having a sense of concern for others - without belief in a particular religious faith."

We Humanists would agree! :)

[See also: Why this Humanist admires the Dalai Lama]

Progress vs consumerism

Merry Consumas!
(cc) khaybe, Flickr.com

Especially as a person gets older and they see their incomes go up while their free time goes down, it becomes more and more tempting to simply buy things for people for the holidays. With online shopping it's become even easier, and many people are now getting gift cards. Between those two, gift selection has become little more than a few clicks of a mouse and a deduction from the bank account - and it feels about as meaningless. Many people want something media-related, such as movies, music, and the like and these kinds of products are becoming more virtual and easier to obtain and transfer, making the process all the more shallow. This is not only an issue when it comes to problems with consumption, but also with the real meaning and value of a time where giving and sharing something real is important.

But this past holiday season my wife and I made some progress in our aim to make things less focused on consumerism, which I was happy about. We both gave more presents that came from things we made ourselves, and spent our own time on, rather than bought purely in stores. As an artist, I painted some pictures and my wife made baked goods.

But we still have a ways to go. We still bought several things from stores, bought online, and gave some gift cards. When asked for our wish lists by friends and family, we also asked for purchased media and other goods. So now that we're at the start of a new year, I'm looking ahead at birthdays and next winter solstice and trying to plan things out. After all, the issue has not been so much about money as it has been about the much more scarce resource: time. Therefore, it seems to me the really meaningful gifts are those that involve giving of that more precious commodity. This can take the form of making things for others, or of spending that quality time directly with them.

But how do we tell people, "No, I'm not going to give you that season of your favorite TV show you've told me you wanted"? And, when they ask us what we want, how do we tell them, "Don't get me anything you're going to simply buy"?

This year, when I gave my dad a picture I had painted of his beloved dog, he doted over it and really seemed to appreciate it far more than any gift card or store bought item I'd ever gotten him. So that answered for me the first question. Even if people tell you what they want, they'll more appreciate something they can't simply go buy themselves. As for the second question, it might help them to ask for something specific like, "I'd like to spend an afternoon with you" or "I'd like one of those scrapbooks you like to make".

Of course, time being what it is, we're likely to see less gifts exchanging hands, but I think that's ok. None of this is really about stuff we need. Oh one last thing - if you have kids, instead of asking them, "what do you want for Christmas?" how about, "What are you going to do for your friends and family for Christmas this year?"

My hope is to eventually transition to some specific sets of personal rules whereby I do not give gifts unless they are something I put time and thought into, and perhaps some other rules of thumb to make gift giving occasions more meaningful.

Top 10 posts of 2010

Now that we're nearing the end of the year, I will follow my tradition of selecting a 'top 10' from among my posts over the past 12 months. They are chosen based on (1) how much original thought of my own is present in them, (2) how important the concept is to the overall focus I'd like my work to represent, (3) how entertaining or interesting I think the post is. All listings are in order of posting. Without further ado, here they are:


TOP 10 POSTS FROM 2010
Two approaches to desire
A response to Sam Harris on moral questions
David Brooks & Justin Bieber on "Happiness"
Do you have a sense of progress in your walk?
On loving humanity
Taking a pass on wisdom?
Stoic Compassion
The hidden vice
What we worship
Jesus in New York

I also keep a collection of top 10 posts from previous years, and I've selected from among those a top 10 list of all my posts (going back to 2004). The full top 10 page can be viewed HERE.

Best wishes to all my readers for a happy new year!

Charter for Compassion live webcast Thu, Nov 18th

Karen Armstrong

Photo: (c) Charter for Compassion.

This Thursday, November 18, 2010, the Charter for Compassion will be celebrating it's one-year anniversary with a live webcast, taking place 10:00am CST (Houston time). Viewers will be able to see it then by visiting www.charterforcompassion.org.

When the Charter was first unveiled I reported on it, which can be read HERE. The project was initiated by former nun, author, and religious historian Karen Armstrong after winning a prize from TED for her presentation on the topic. The Charter was then developed over about a year and 9 months and involved leaders from multiple faiths and others. By 10 months into the process 150,000 people from over 180 nations had submitted suggestions for the charter and a Council of Conscience then formulated the final draft. It called for all people and ethical centers to recommit themselves to the golden rule. Since then, there have been efforts to promote it and causes which are consistent with its message.

One of my aims in my articles, essays, and occasional speaking engagements, has been to reassert the central and foundational role of compassion in Humanism so I, of course, endorse their efforts. The webcast on the 18th will include talks on compassion from Karen Armstrong, Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, Matthieu Ricard, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, Chade-Meng Tan, Krista Tippett, Fred Luskin, and more.

Twellow adds Humanism category

Twellow adds Humanism category.

Photo: Twellow logo (c) WebProNews.

Twellow Humanism!

In response to my request, the website Twellow (www.twellow.com), a "yellow pages" for Twitter users recently added Humanism as a sub-category to its Religion & Spirituality section. The popular website allows users looking for interesting Twitter accounts to follow to browse by topics and categories, as one would in a yellow pages telephone directory. It also has a handy feature called Twellowhood, that lets the user find people in their city.

I use Twitter to put out announcements of my new articles, as well as some other occasional notes that may be of interest to my readers. As such, I wanted to update my profile on Twellow. When selecting categories yesterday, I noticed there were many other faiths and traditions listed under the Religion & Spirituality section, but not Humanism. So I emailed them the following request:

I am writing to ask that you please add Humanism as a sub-category under Religion & Spirituality. Humanism, though a minority, is a major tradition with a long history. Humanist organizations, both local, national, and international exist all over the world. In many European nations their populations are significant. There is a Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University. Many notable figures such as scientist Carl Sagan, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, and noted writer Kurt Vonnegut are Humanists, as are many Nobel prize winners today.

Humanists outnumber some of the sub-categories you already have listed, and many are twitter users. While Humanism is non-theistic, so is Buddhism. Like Buddhism, Humanism is more than mere atheism and has specific principles.

I am a Humanist minister who writes one of many Humanist columns on Humanism for newspapers and other publications (in my case, the Houston Chronicle and Examiner) and would appreciate being able to list myself by my actual tradition.

For more information, please see:

International Humanist & Ethical Union
http://www.iheu.org/

American Humanist Association
http://www.americanhumanist.org/

Council for Secular Humanism
http://www.secularhumanism.org/

Humanism at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism_%28life_stance%29

Thank you :)

Daniel Strain
Humanist Minister

This morning, to my surprise, Twellow responded with the following:

Hi Daniel,

I am pleased to announce that "Humanism" has been added to Twellow's 'Religion & Spirituality' category. The respective URL of this new category is provided below.

http://www.twellow.com/category_users/cat_id/3008

Please be sure to follow @twellow (http://www.twitter.com/twellow) for future category additions and updates.

Thank you for your category suggestion and also for your continued interest in Twellow!

--
Chad Sweely
Support Analyst
Twellow.com

So I went back to my profile and added myself under the new category. In the process, I discovered that currently the number of Twitter accounts falling under the Humanism category outnumber those in the categories of Baha'i, Gnostic, Hare Krishna, Hinduism, Jehovah's Witnesses, New Age, Santeria, Scientology, Taoism, and even Unitarian Universalism. There are 16 other categories outnumbered by Humanism, which are other sorts of things, such as Interfaith or Feng Shui, for example.

I have made a request long ago to MySpace to add Humanism to its list of religion choices in the drop-down menu on the Details section of a person's profile. There was no response. Yesterday I was inspired to ask MySpace again to add Humanism - and got back a similar 'we'll look into it' form letter. I guess we'll see. If you'd like to contact MySpace and join me in requesting Humanism be added, you can click here.

Christian writer: why being gay is not a sin

Stacey Johnson Donovan,

(c) Stacey Johnson Donovan.

Today's post is from guest writer Stacey Johnson Donovan. Stacey writes romance novels and poetry. Her blog is, The Poetry Habit
***

Most people understand how this works, but just in case.

First off, don’t talk to me about Leviticus. Don’t even. Are you doing everything in Leviticus? Really? Every time you have your period, you go off by yourself for seven days and you don’t touch anything for fear of getting your lady cooties on it? And on the eighth day you take two pigeons or two turtles to a priest and have them sacrificed? And you don’t wear any clothes with mixed fibers…no rayon/spandex, no cotton/polyester? Your church doesn’t let any handicapped people near the altar? You think buying slaves is fine? If you believe everything in Leviticus, I think you are a terrible person, and also a very weird person. Seriously. Just shut up about Leviticus.

All right, what about the New Testament? Well, it's good to be a little knowledgeable here. When Paul wrote his letter to the Romans, he had just visited an area where people were having orgies in the temples, castrating themselves in honor of Venus, and having sex with child prostitutes. In that context, his talk about people exchanging the natural for the unnatural is probably a little more specific than being gay and lesbian. As far as Corinthians goes…no one is really sure what the Greek words “malakois” and “arsenokoitai” really mean. The most likely bet is that one of them refers to married men who use child prostitutes, which is in fact disgusting.

The truth is, I take Paul’s opinion with a grain of salt anyway, because he seemed to be okay with slavery also. I don’t know anything about slavery in his time and region, and I doubt that it matched the horrors and holocausts of slavery in the Americas, but I’m sure it was wrong. Anti-abolitionists and segregationists dug up Bible verses supporting their positions, too, but in the end most people listened to their innate understanding of good and evil.

Paul was human, a product of his era and his culture. I think it’s okay to recognize that people have evolved and become more enlightened in some ways over the centuries. As far as I can tell, Jesus was kind of hoping for that.

Speaking of Jesus, let's move on to the Gospels. What does Christ Himself say about same-sex couples?

Nothing.

If it’s important, why didn’t He mention it? If you believe He’s the Son of God, and perfect, I think it would be sort of heresy to suggest He just, like, forgot. You could say they neglected to write down the anti-gay rant part of the Sermon on the Mount, but whatever, I could argue that they left out the part when he said, “Blessed are the gays, for they are God’s favorites.” And honestly, my guess would seem more in character than yours.

The most logical conclusion is that Jesus didn't care if people were gay.

What did He care about? We know his Big Rules are Love God and Love One Another. Other favorite topics include taking care of poor people and working on improving yourself instead of going around judging others. Now whether you’re a Christian or not, you are almost certainly doing a better job at these things than I am, but you’ll probably still admit that just focusing on these things is plenty of a challenge for one lifetime.

Even if a Christian can't convince herself that it's okay to be gay, she should ask herself why other sins aren't condemned with the same fervor. Why aren't judgmental people kept away from children who might pick up their bad habits? Why aren't people who aren't generous enough with their money (i.e., almost all of us) ostracized? The argument that gays aren't trying to change doesn't hold up. Are you trying to become someone who sells all her belongings and gives all her money to the poor, like Jesus suggested? Is that going to happen soon? If not, then who are you to get up in arms about this one thing? And if so, I'll buy your elliptical machine, if it's cheap.