Sorry, Thank You, Yay!

When some people move away from faith, they don't move away from the culture. Many of the Atheists I know are Jewish. The Atheists who were Christian hesitate to say the same thing. Alain De Botton talks about Atheism 2.0. Basically, moving on from the break-up/divorce stage to the co-parenting phase. Raising the importance of 'what is best for the child'. Many of us still live in communities where we have important relationships that bind us, despite intense pain we'd rather be rid of. Where the Escape Hatch isn't there any more. At that point, it isn't a question of who is right. It is a question of 'What is the next best step?'

Today is Yom Kippur. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. A day when you genuinely say sorry to people for the things you have done wrong in the last year. Traditionally, it is attached to a 25 hour fast. As it so happens, fasts are actually good for your stomach. A little like brushing your teeth for the insides. An annual spring clean is a good idea. A day of reflection on your missteps is also a good idea.

Yom Kippur

Another non-religious holiday I have always like the idea of, even if the origins are controversial, is Thanksgiving. Although there are other connections, it dovetailed with the seasonal harvest. An annual celebration giving thanks for what we have. Quite often as the religious tones changed, the holidays survived. Keep the tree, change the decorations. Saying thank you is a good idea no matter what you believe.

Thanksgiving

Another one I love is Diwali. A festival of lights. A celebration of knowledge beating ignorance. A celebration that despite the major struggles we face, we tend to chip away at them. Lights shine if we let them.

Diwali

There are lots of difficulties in the world. Lots of fights and clashes and issues and pain. We don't have to go nuclear on the whole situation though. We don't have to rage, and burn, and slash, and destroy. We can still build on the good bits. See the good bits. As Bruce Lee said, 'Use what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own'.

The Good Stuff

The first job I ever wanted as a little boy was to be a Minister. I grew up in the Methodist Church, but which church I would work in kind of depended on the girl I liked at the time. Westville has lots of different churches. It was explained to me that being a 'Minister in the Catholic Church' would be a complicated way of getting the girl. My crush/stalker behaviour shifted to the Anglican church a little later. The first girl was kind enough to give the second 'helpful hints and tips on how to get rid of Trevor'. I later ended up at the Baptist Church, and had fortunately learnt to play nice. My love letters to the crush at the time were mostly in my journal.

Things were also getting a little more serious on the philosophical side of things. I was a very serious teenager. I wanted to become a member of the church. Membership of the Baptist Church entailed getting baptised. I had been baptised as a baby. In the Methodist Church, you have infant baptism and later get confirmed. In the Baptist Church, you need to be baptised as an adult. The belief being that you need to be fully conscious of the commitment you are making. From my perspective it was the same thing. From people I cared abouts perspective, it was a big deal. Confirmation wasn't the same a Baptism. Being 'rebaptised' would be me saying my first baptism was meaningless. My social circle and community revolved around the Baptist Church, but I didn't want to upset those close to me. So I went back to the Methodist Church I had grown up in for confirmation classes. It always bugged me that these 'semantic' differences caused division between what I saw as the Christian community. For others these differences were not semantic, they were an important part of their belief.

When I later read 'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel, it resonated deeply. Before the true adventure of an ocean journey starts, Pi flips and flops between various churches, temples, mosques and synagogues. To be fair, his motivations were more wholesome than mine considering my stalkerish tendencies. But to be fair to me, as a little boy - having a crush basically just meant I thought the girls were awesome. And they were. Even their rebuffs were kind. Pi went from place to place taking the best bits. Looking for a story that resonated.

We are all very bad at changing our minds. We can change them, and do all the time, but the process is very slow. All of us are hypocrites. We have issues that we feel passionately about and release our righteous anger, and we have moral blind spots where we don't even notice the damage we do. What gives me optimism is that when two ideas conflict, we struggle with that conflict. Slowly we change what we think to accommodate the belief that is more important to us. I think we tend to shift toward the good stuff. Not all the time, but more often than not. Alain De Botton has done a wonderful TED talk where he talks about how people who don't believe in religion, can start to engage in the good stuff of religion.

We have a tendency to focus on areas of disagreement in debates. This ends up casting more heat than light on most arguments. When last were you in a discussion where someone had their argument broken down, and so changed their mind? Normally we just look for a new argument. If the ideal is a consistent, good philosophy that allows us, our family, our community and the rest of the world to live deeply fulfilling lives perhaps we would do better to focus on the good stuff? We can allow a bull quota for the stuff we disagree on, and politely change the subject but stay engaged.

Over time, I think people iron out their issues. I think people are good. I think the best bits win.

Enemies of Reason

In the video below, Richard Dawkins interviews Derren Brown as part of his "Enemies of Reason" series.

One of the key questions he is trying to get at is (to paraphrase): if a lot of stuff such as Fortune Tellers, Mystics and Astrology is simply not true, at what point should the leaders/"spreaders of falsity" take accountability for simply lying? Put differently, how many of them know that what they are doing/saying is false or misleading, but do it anyway?

A lot of people use the, 'it does no harm' logic to accept crazy beliefs. In some cases, the false beliefs may actually do good. Does it matter if something is wrong but leads to a good conclusion? The age old question of is lying about the Jews in your basement to the Nazis wrong? Clearly it is not. So, is a person all dressed up as a fortune teller who is just cold reading doing good or harm if someone believes it to be true? What if it gives them comfort and does no harm?

I think the case for dispelling falsity where it is doing harm is very compelling. This would be Dawkin's logic for essentially being an 'evangelical athiest'. Post 9/11, he has been on a crusade of sorts to de-stigmatise Athiesm with the belief that many of the world's problems are caused by fanatical beliefs that have no founding.

The counter argument is that religion (even if false) can give hope, comfort, and a sense of community.

I guess there is no clear answer and all this is rather murky.

Faking it?

Derren Brown's 'Tricks of the Mind' is fascinating. It doesn't go into too much detail, but does give a bunch of links to books on various subjects if you do want to go deeper. He is a skeptic who does things anyway. 

One particular area he talks about is hypnosis, which he doesn't believe is an 'altered state'. When it works, it works because of 4 reasons (in his opinion):

1. The subject is faking it, and is being encouraged to fake it by the hypnotist.
2. The subject is faking, but only because he feels too embarrassed to call a halt to his performance.
3. The subject is really trying to experience the suggestions and is helping the process along by doing his best not to 'block' them, and really 'going for it'.
4. The subject is again very happy to help the process along by acting out the suggestions regardless of any strange compulsion not to do so, but at the same time is the sort of person who can easily 'forget himself' and seize the permission granted by the hypnotic demonstration to act outrageously. Afterwards, it is more comfortable for him to put his actions down to an amazing experience he can't explain and believe he was in a special state. Most probably he will believe the hypnotist has his perceived ability anyway, so it is easy to take this step.

I am a bit of an extrovert myself and am up for this sort of thing. So once, myself and a similarly extroverted friend were at a hypnotist show and both went up. Difference was... it worked for him (and the hypnotist said it didn't require much effort), and not with me. It didn't work with me, because I was very keen to 'really' experience it and not fake it. The whole time I was conscious of what was going on. So was the friend. The difference was, that when it came to suggestions that I thought if I did I was clearly faking, I didn't do them... so I walked off the stage fairly early, disappointed. He went on with it. He says he felt really relaxed and like he could stop at any time. Perhaps it was because he could... but just didn't want to, and was less worried about 'faking it' than me. This seems the most likely to me. He is a great guy, and not nearly as concerned about being 'judged' as I was (even if I would be the only person who knew the truth).

It kind of reminded me of when I was younger and very involved in the Church. When there was a 'slain in the spirit' wave with a number of fellow church goers speaking in tongue and having various ticks. I was super keen to experience this, and really wanted to... but didn't want to fake it. So didn't. And much like the hypnotist show, I would leave disappointed.

But... what if all this is is a deep relaxation, openness to suggestibility and in a safe environment where you are not putting on any pretense at all? Since reading these bits and pieces, I have been more actively giving this a go in my Yoga classes. And it does make a substantial difference. The 'magic altered state' of hypnosis/meditation etc. is perhaps no more than a willingness to relax, focus and believe something possible.

So, you can be a skeptical atheist and still get the good stuff without the guilt. Awesome.