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 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

blogging the BoM

Here's how it is. Every general conference or so we are encouraged to do three basic things everyday: Study, pray, and serve. Sure we could tie everything up neatly in the large unwieldy bow that is KTC (Keep The Commandments), but if we ever want to get anywhere we need to rip that parcel open and start unpacking what we mean; take one step out from KTC toward specificity and we have what those Commandments are: Love God, Love others, and Love ourselves. Love is not the easiest thing to qualify on earth, it can get irrational and complicated, so it's nice that we're given simple practices to keep us in the right state day-to-day (hopefully) to start spreading the love like purple dinosaurs. 

Can it really be that simple? Do those three basics and everything starts falling into place? I don't know. I've rarely sustained all three together for prolonged periods of time. Service: Does self-serving count? Prayer: do it most days, but I allow myself to get too mechanical too often.

I'll hold off discussing these two for now (and dream of tomorrows that may never come), lets talk sticks. The scriptures are meant to give us direction not just by what they say, but by opening us up to the promptings of the spirit. It's some obedience thing right. IF you study the scrips, THEN you get the spirit. Sounds like a fair trade.

All told that gives us well over 2000 pages to chose from. That's a lot of light reading. Where to start? Talk to most modern Apostles and they'd recommend the Book of Mormon. If called upon to rank the canon in order of most interesting to least interesting to read, my list would look something like this:

1. The Old Testament
2. The Doctrine and Covenants
3. The New Testament
4. The Pearl of Great Price
5. The Book of Mormon

For some reason I've never been super excited to read the BoM (well I don't really get excited about scripture study in general, but I have my moments, the OT gets me going sometimes  and tops the list because some of it is just so bizarre). Recently I came across an interview on NPR with David Plotz, semi-practicing Jew, who'd lost touch with the Good Book. After incidentally encountering the tale of Dinah's rape and her Brothers reaction at his cousins bat mitzvah, he decided that there was a lot he didn't know about the Bible and subsequently went on to blog about his adventure of reading every word (which is now a book). 

What a brilliant idea. After years of going through the motions in my scripture study, I think I'll follow David Plotz's lead and blog my study of the Book of Mormon (and maybe even the Old Testament). Heaven help us.  Making religion real for me, that's what it's all about, not just empty ceremony, not that ceremony is necessarily empty, it's just how I respond to it often.

Check out A. J. Jacobs in the video above, he's taken things to the next level by actually doing what the Bible says. I'm not quite ready to leap into an entire year or even an entire month yet of complete dedication by strict obedience. I'll start reading consistently, then I'll worry about living the stuff. Still I can't help but be inspired by these men, it's amazing what a little internet surfing can do for you spiritually. 

which religion has the best retirement plan?

the following may offend virgins, 2nd councilors, Muslims, Mormons and people with no sense of humour...



Good morning brothers and sisters,

I'm grateful to be here on this most staggering sabbath-like occasion. You know I was walking down the road the other day, true story, innocently minding my own business, as we boulevardier types are want to do, and one of these freaks, I think we call them councillors approaches me. We're all brothers and sisters right, so I play along. Hello brother so and so hows the old the watcha madosie thinga majig. This sets him off, he tells me all about the intricacies of mowing his lawn, his shoddy investment deals, his son on a mission and his other son who's got 5-10 for armed robbery and his life dedicated to becoming a chartered accountant. You can't fault the man's small talk skills, he had me right were he wanted me and I was totally oblivious.

One minute we're discussing the wonders of compound interest the next I'm holding a white envelope in my hand (which whiteness was above that of all that I ever before I had seen). By the way you don't mind being the final speaker this Sunday now do you. Do you a lot of good, plenty of blessings and all that, well all the best I'll be on my way. I had know idea, none. If I pass out from sheer inability to live up to the task at hand please bear with me, I had a difficult childhood and Sister Robins is glaring at me in an intensely unsettling way. And I'm profoundly grateful to the bishopric for this assignment. Thank you, thank you.

*waffles for five more minutes*

Thanks again. Today I've been assigned to speak on the topic: "Which religion has the best retirement plan." Where do you begin with something like that ,I mean we all know the answer already. Am I right? Huh? That's what I thought too then I started doing a little digging. It's funny, it's like the bishop really new what I needed to focus on at this point in my life. Lets begin with Islam. Now here's a religion with some real, how shall I say, big kahunas. I mean 72 virgins. 72!?! Each!?! Gentlemen I believe we have a winner...

...to be continued

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