pikachu i choose you

Does being grateful make you happier? Does a deep reverence for the universe, its intricate workings and its bountiful mysteries invoke an awe that in turn fosters an all encompassing connection with all that is? There's a great big mostly empty, ever expanding balloon that we're all floating in. One day our fortunes will reverse, and it will begin to deflate and collapse in upon itself, and us. As for now, we're still here, living, breathing, this is a very nice way to be. I suppose I should be thankful.

Does mediating your experience of the sublime through a chosen deity increase your ability to transcend the banal elements of reality, allowing a greater way to reach out and grasp the divine? The godless among us have wondered "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful, without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too." Take the world at face value, embellishment effaces its beauty. Others of the same persuasion have pointed to faulty design as proof positive that The Designer is incompetent at best, but more likely non-existent. For the atheist (and I am one of them) the world is simultaneously beautiful and ugly, and both forms of aesthetic indicate that there is no god.

In spite of this, (and many far more compelling reasons not to believe) I am still fond of the notion of worship as a means of appreciation for, and recognition that I am not the center of (I often forget), the universe. My two favorite authors -- and now we move to men who make up worlds rather than obsess over the "real" one -- Alan Moore, and Grant Morrison, are iconoclasts in the realm of beliefs. The former worships Glycon an ancient Roman hand puppet/snake god, the latter believes he was abducted by aliens and has had personal visitations from Superman. Both believe in magic. Such audacity in the face of our sometimes soul crushing modernity. I would love to try on different gods as one might a pair of shoes or other items of clothing. I'm not fond of snakes per se, but Ozomahtli, an Aztek monkey god? Now there's a definite possibility. That will do for now.

faith, knowledge and the art of confusion 3

part 1 and part 2

Allow me to remove my hardcore atheist hat for a moment. It fit well enough, aside from the flow of blood being cut off to my brain.

"Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions." Friedrich Nietzsche, you always know exactly the right thing to say. I've gone from mormon true believer to logical positivist (who harbors great sympathy for existentialism), and now traverse a middle way that is a strange extreme of its own. An opposition to oppositions. A state of being where all possibilities exist even if only in one's mind. I am a walking talking Hegelian dialectic.

The human capacity for self deception is nearly infinite. Why not exploit this fact? The grand narratives have failed us. God [the unreliable narrator] is dead. All that is left is chaos and our predilection to impose order. Indulgence of personal bias is the apotheosis of autotelic experience. Walk in a waking dream. We live in postmodernity. Everything is a construct. Everything is a power game. He who writes the rules wins the gold. We see the man behind the curtain and can joyfully embrace the world anyway (after filtering it to conform comfortably to our own specifications).

If you were sick and believed at heart that no cure existed, would you really do all in your power to reclaim your health? There is nobility in striving for the impossible. Lie to yourself, the results may be surprising. All progress through history has been driven by the discoveries of men and women who had faith in an idea that had not yet been proven. This type of unfounded belief may underpin all action that leads to any worthwhile achievement.

There is nothing more satisfying than stating matters of opinion as if they are absolute fact. I create my world one truth or lie at a time, it doesn't much matter which. "If the facts don't fit the theory change the facts." (Will you permit yet another Nietzsche quote?) "there are no truths, only interpretations." We can and do reshape the world in our image. Best then to select a philosophy robust enough to withstand the paradoxes and tensions of a dynamic mode of interface with the universe. Create axioms that need not be self evident, like: Everything that happens to me is for my best benefit. Whether they are true is not as important as if they are useful.

Umm, this is madness. Where did I put my hat?

***

Faith: inventing what is true -- Loren

faith, knowledge and the art of confusion 1

Faith: not wanting to know what is true -- Friedrich Nietzsche

When I was young and foolish, my favorite comic book character was Daredevil: The Man Without Fear, a blind catholic vigilante. Now that I am old and foolish I have become what my younger self would have despised the most: a non-blind (in more ways than one), atheist, liberal... I am Loren: Man without Faith

Why faith?

Why is this held up as a virtue by so many people?

I sit back, sometimes, in a deeply philosophical type pose, and wonder. How did this come about, what were we thinking and why don't I think that way anymore? When I say "that way" I'm referring to faith of a religious variety. The form that steps outside the realm of standard everyday decision making and into other worldly speculation and then claims these metaphysical musings as absolute truth.

Granted we all exercise faith in varying degrees whenever we undertake a task, of that there is no doubt. It is a crucial ingredient in a crude form of empiricism that drives our actions. We make a hypothesis based on our beliefs and desires: "Girls are awesome." We test our hypothesis: "She's a terrifying monster that feeds only on the hearts of men." Sometimes things don't work out as well as we might have anticipated. No matter the result of our various experiments we can be assured of a reliable feedback loop, which will either verify, or falsify our original postulate; carry us closer to, or further from our initial goal. In the end, there is a simple way of knowing if our faith is well founded.

Contrariwise, generally religious faith for the zealot requires no such feedback loop to sustain itself. Answers to a heart felt prayer are left open to the discretion and perhaps imagination of the penitent soul who offered up the supplication. A reply may take the form of a person, a tingly sensation in the bosom, a silhouette of Jesus in a taco. There is no clear indicator as to whether or not a prayer has been definitively answered by some god-like being, only interpretations.

Sometimes people receive what they feel is an affirmative answer. Perhaps they prayed to pass an exam, studied and then passed. A miracle? It should be noted that those who study for exams greatly increase their chances of passing them. Sometimes I want it to be sunny outside and often the weather will oblige. Am I then to conclude that weather patterns are subject to my whims (even though there are times that the two do not correspond)? Or is it more sensible to conclude that the laws of nature are simply going about their usual business and that cloud formations and my desires only intermittently correlate by chance, and not by some supernatural trick of wishful thinking? We shall leave aside, for now, claims of truly miraculous answers to prayer.

On the other hand, you could pray for years for a particular result and be disappointed. Was this due to lack of faith? Was the answer no? Was the answer some kind of obscure communication that was somehow overlooked? Again, it is hard to tell. The person of faith will say if you are perceptive, open to God, you will know when the answers have come whatever they be. Why settle for this method which offers results that have the appearance of being capriciously and arbitrarily dealt out (if you believe in a god), when there is a more direct and useful course: Trying to do things yourself. When asked how it is that one "knows" that an answer has been given you may hear "the spirit told me" (translation: I feel like I got an answer). Dig a little deeper for the basis of this knowledge, question how feeling good about something guarantees truth, and you may well discover that this person has faith that they know.

This is were I become confused. In many instances in religious speech "faith" and "knowledge" are used interchangeably forming a nice foundation for circular arguments. When a person says they know that god lives, particularly in the mormon tradition, they are making a truth claim about the state of the world: There are such things as gods, they are corporeal, they/it exist(s) etc. The grounds for the veracity of this statement is that they feel it is true, therefore it must be true, independent of ever having seen or not seen said being. "Ah so you think god is real because you feel good about that prospect? Well that's more akin to faith isn't? You haven't quite verified it yet?" No, not think: know. Faith is knowing. This is a shocking form of epistemology to be sure. You can't really explain peoples experiences away, they belong to them after all and are invulnerable to intellectual scrutiny, but is it too much to ask that if we're going to communicate that we at least speak the same language first?

TBC

on being a dickhead or I'm right, you're wrong and you suck

One of the four horsemen of militant atheism is dying. "In the Tibetan philosophy, Sylvia Plath sense of the word, we're all dying. But you're not dying in the way [Christopher Hitchens] is dying." (YES! Another Fight Club quote!). He's got esophagus cancer. I guess that's what happens when you smoke ten thousand packets of cigarettes a day. Is this result any real surprise? If only he'd extrapolated the most logical outcome of his careless actions before it all came to this. What an idiot. Wow, being totally insensitive is fun.

OK, this is the part where I stop being a dickhead...

Christopher is probably the most witty and entertaining part of the formidable four headed atheist monster, so I like him (has anyone listened to Sam Harris? Dude, puts me in a coma). It's a sad, sad thing that he's got cancer now and I wish him a full recovery. A wish is probably as good as a prayer, which isn't very good at all, but it's the thought that counts even if counting in this case doesn't amount to much. Chris and friends probably played a small part in my born again Zen Atheist Experience, so I owe them a debt of gratitude. However, their approach often surprises and offends me. Maybe the new sickly Chris will be more gentle, more easy to be entreated, doubtful and even if he was he wouldn't look to me to point him in the right direction, but let's just pretend shall we. Here's some free advice mate:

Please stop painting every single person who believes in a god with the same brush. The Dalai Lama is not equivalent to Ayatollah Khomeini. Taking the most extreme and insidious examples of a group as an accurate representation of an entire group (especially a group as diverse as believers) is stupid. Ever heard of non-binary thinking my friends? This is stereotyping of the worst variety, some might even call it prejudice/bigotry. Feeding the homeless ≠ flying planes into buildings. Sort of the same starting point (inspired by belief in god)? Yeah. Same result? No. See this is easy.

Are you really so shocked that people accuse you of being arrogant? You shit on everything they hold dear. Your retort to the accusation is that religionists believe they have all the answers (answers which are impossible to know if you're epistemology is based on modernity), so they're the arrogant ones. Well played, but hey essentially insinuating that you're more humble than your opponents is always a self-defeating argument, you loose.

Guess what? Here's a fun fact: everyone's an idiot at some point or another, not just the 90%of people on earth who believe in some kind of god. Everyone. Stop acting like you and your ilk are hyper rational all the time. You're not, you're human, you make mistakes too, like smoking too much.

Finally, (I'm getting tired) just because you're right doesn't mean you get to be a douche. So, I should probably stop bringing up the smoking thing. Remaining humble while maintaining that you occupy a superior position of knowledge or anything else is almost impossible. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. No one likes a smug know-it-all asshole. You're lucky that you're funny. I think I'm right right now, so I'm elucidating my position in the hopes that I'll disabuse you of your erroneous ways. OK this is harder than I thought, I already sound like a condescending dick. Umm, good luck... Let me finish by saying that I think your world view is right, I just don't like the way you present it sometimes.

Well, I believe I've made my point. Can we all take a moment now and commit to being just a tad more humble, just like lil ol' me.

how to become an atheist in 3 easy steps part 2, god is dead and we killed him

THE nOW

Compare where I was at the beginning of my blogging adventure, a hardcore TBM, to me today, a softcore atheist and part-time apostate, oh and a 30 year old YSA ward rep (how did that happen?). A journey that began with obedience to an apostle of the most high god ended by degrees - after John Dehlin's unintended expose had its way with me - in tears, a brain aneurysm and a month long bender. Note to self: mental breakdowns and alcohol don't mix.

Shortly there after I developed a deep and abiding suspicion that I had just walked into the brick wall that was my own willful ignorance of anything other than what I had been lead to believe. The wall looked as if it had been placed there for a special purpose, and who was I, young as I was and so unacquainted with men and things to come to any certain conclusion what was truly right and what was truly wrong. A definitive decision was put on hold, while I sullenly swept the shattered pieces of my treasured beliefs and new found doubts under the rug.

I'm a wannabe skeptical, secular, intellectual and also a backslider. I like to act like I'm dumb, but hold the irrefutable belief that I'm smarter than everyone else, which is completely ludicrous. So, I value being smart, and especially being right, and yet I kept finding myself drawn back to the fold. After the initial shock wore off, which unfortunately did not take my growing list of "issues" with it, I made a treaty between the bifurcated warring factions inside of me and thought pretty much: fuck it, I'm in. Mormon true-believer it is. God, as they say, had other plans.

If Nietzsche put God in the coffin, these guys surely punched the final nails in for me.

• Bob McCue, who reminded me of pious liars, and philosopher despots
• The church is not true podcast, which reminded me that it's not
• and the Mormon Expression, Book of Abraham podcast, which reminded me how bat-shit crazy it is to believe that Joseph translated anything literally

Arising from the smoldering scraps of my alcoholically catalytic puke, was a stronger, better Loren. Like Pheonix, of X-men fame, without the red hair, boobs or a rockin' spandex leotard (although the latter and middle, would be an all-new, all-different x-something turn), I was ready to blow up the universe. It happened as I lay down one night around about 6 months ago. It finally sank in. This is not true, it's really not true, holy shit, I can't believe it, it's not true. Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. I sat up and decided I was ready to take my life back.

Like Tupac said: It's time for [me] to start makin' some changes. Some one get me a sledge hammer. Hello Wall it's just you, me and mjollnir now.

to summarize:

1. believe in the literalistic correlated version of mormonism
2. discover abhorrently disturbing facts about the literalistic correlated version of mormonism
3. lose all faith in religion

and that's how to become an atheist in 3 easy steps...

step 4 keep going anyway?

TBC in part 3, where to from here?

totally random unrelated atheistic musings

I have an idea let's burn down all the myths that have ever been and replace them with strong atheism/human secularism/extreme positivism. This truly is the answer to all the world's ills. As I sit here peering down aloft my exalted perch of intellectual superiority, suffering from carpel-tunnel syndrome of the shoulder due to an excessive amount of patting my own back, I am often amused and bemused by the irrational behavior of the wandering body of ignoble ingrates that form the core body of the rest of humanity. Rule number 1: Don't be dumb.

The flying spaghetti monster (barely funny the first time it was used, which only makes it all the more hilarious today -- OK I'm lying it is pretty funny) or God or My Little Pony and Friends are figments of the imagination formulated to dull the impact of the oncoming scythe of death . Each unfalsifiable yet the former is widely worshiped, while the middle and latter have yet to spawn a comparable measure of religious devotion. Having big balls and long noodles while impressive by any objective standard, subjectively speaking it is an untenable deity. I don't like the thought of any God(s) that may taste better than I do. On a related note I've never tried pony.

If it's shiny, they will come. Occam's razor: The most likely explanation is the one which is most boring. I often dream literally of being an accountant, not to pitch a tent over an entire cross-section of society, a tent would be too big. Occam's razor is very sharp and I am very boring.

Can't we all just get along? I have fathoms of tolerance for all peoples, especially those that agree with me. I am Mormon and Atheist. I operate at two opposing ends of an undefined spectrum of thought. My head will explode at any time now.

Kobe Bryant and the March of the Militant Atheists

This is not called Tenuous Connections for nothing.

Is raising your child in a religion a form of child abuse? (I guess it depends which one) Some people certainly think so. What is it about religion that bugs people so much? I mean besides all the wars, and rampant hypocrisy when you get down to it, religious life is all about improving yourself as a person. I guess there's also the metaphysics, which seem totally absurd in today's secular culture.

Speaking of modern culture, Kobe Bryant is arguably the greatest basketball player in the world, I don't think so, but many people do. Certainly he's right up the top though. But if we're talking greatest of all time, this is where the critics start spewing vitriol in Kobe's direction. You see there's a great divide between Kobe and the player of all players, Michael Jordan. Kobe unfortunately had the gall to fool us into to believing that he was just like Mike and the way he played during stretches reinforced the notion that maybe, just possibly, he was even better. Then the 2008 NBA finals happened. What a disappointment. Kobe was just a Jordan counterfeit, oh sure he looked, he played, he walked and talked like the real deal, but number 23 he was not (argh, Yoda speak alert).

Kobe may be a lie but science provides a provisional evolutionary march towards ever elusive Truth. It may never answer the Big Questions though, like is there a point to life? People look to God for that type of thing. It enrages scientists like Richard Dawkins that religion has such a firm grip on civilization partly because the answers it offers can't be tested objectively (and hating on it seems to sell a lot of books, which is probably as good a reason as any to make a fuss). For Atheists religion is like Kobe Bryant, a highly provocative entity that doesn't quiet live up to its promise, but because it's so tantalizing close to the real deal --for some people -- it generates anger because it's trying to fool us and our Mama never done raised no fools. We too smart for that crap, ya heard. Hey, it's a bit of a stretch, but Kobe's on the decline and Atheism's on the rise, if you look sideways enough there's a causal connection there somewhere.

Kobe ≠ Jordan = Religion ≠ Truth = (Atheism = Science) ≈ Truth = I'm a misunderstood genius