Killing Your Sacred Cows since 1992

"What Is My Cat Thinking?: The Essential Guide to Understanding Pet Behavior" by Gwen Bailey. The book could have been more carefully edited, but I liked all the photos of cats in different poses and the explanation of what the pose (or ear and tail movements) were likely to signify: friendship, aggression, fear, etc. The author seems to really know her animal behavior science.

and

"God is Not Great" by Christopher Hitchens, as an audiobook read by the author. The context was especially amusing since J. and I listened to this during a road trip through the Bible Belt where there are homemade billboards with "Jesus Loves You" and the 10 commandments posted near the highway, particularly in rural Kentucky. I knew a lot already about what he had to say about Christianity and Judaism, but I learned something from his critiques of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and a few other minor sects. Not likely to be read by diehard believers, this would be an informative read for anyone on the fence and an entertaining read for an established atheist such as myself.

My full comments on both books here.

I feel like somehow the universe has conspired to educate me about other cultures and expand my mind. Or maybe I just "put it out to the universe" without realizing it.  In the last week, I've had some really fun conversations with strangers from fairly diverse backgrounds.

1) The most shallow but funny conversation happened last week with an older black guy who was waiting at the auto shop for his car to be looked at. He told me that he'd been hit by a drunk that morning after dropping his grandchild off at work. He told me some other horror stories about crazy Ypsilanti drivers, including the time he was sitting in his car at a red light and got hit by a cop. "They're worse drivers than we are!" he said.

2) Last night, I hung out with a guy from India who reccently came to the states as a contract I.T. worker. We talked for a little over an hour, and I learned a lot about his take on Indian family life, racism (he thinks it's worse in the U.K. than in America, but I noted that he hadn't spent much time in the South) and a variety of other topics. One interesting thing I learned was that he became an atheist after witnessing the 1992 ethnic and religious riots in Bombay (now Mumbai)  when he was a student there. He said at that time he had the most Muslim friends of any Hindu he knew, and he was really scared through the whole thing. He thought it was ridiculous and awful and had no use for religion after that.

3) I was at the auto repair shop AGAIN today and had another incidence of having a total stranger just start talking to me. He was a nice Vietnamese man who had spent some time under communist rule. He saw I was carrying a copy of "The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living" by the Dalai Lama and talked to me for about a half hour about Tibet, Buddhism and how I handle Jehovah's Witnesses who come to the door (I just don't answer the doorbell, typically).

This last incident flowed from a recent interest in learning more about the Dalai Lama. I'm not Buddhist, though I respect a lot of the teachings of Buddhism and especially the Dalai Lama's forward-thinking approach to harmony between science and Buddhist thought. A few years ago, I read Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama. I loved the fact that-- unlike religious leaders from many other traditions-- when science contradicts his faith, he's more likely to revise his philosophy of religion than to reject the science. I'm also fairly interested in brain science, psychology and the idea that we can choose to be happy and content even when outside events and circumstances are trying or tragic.

Fast forward to a few months ago: I watched Seven Years in Tibet which was a flawed film but gave me some information about the history of Tibet's conflict with China. More recently, I watched 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama. The New Age music and the documentary maker's somewhat overly-reverential tone made it more of a 3-star film than a 5-star film, but the cinematography of the Himalayas, the streets of India, the ceremonies and festivals was spectacular. I also love listening to the Dalai Lama speak- he sound a bit like Yoda with a hint of PeeWee Herman. (As an aside, is it really sick and wrong of me that when they showed old black and white footage of him at age 19-20 I thought he was kind of hot in a nerdy sort of way?) I also learned more about the politics of the Free Tibet movement and Chinese communist disdain for Tibet's religious tradition and so on. Also, did you know that both Google and Yahoo! agreed to censor the results of searches for keywords like "Tibet" and "Dalai Lama" to only show Chinese government-approved pages?

It's been strange, fun and educational. I wonder what's next...

For simianpower, the Walken dancing:
http://www.astralwerks.com/fbs/woc/

For dionysus1999. You need to read "The God Delusion," too. I was listening to the bit about cargo cults in the car this morning, and I know you'd enjoy it. You might also like these links:

http://stupac2.blogspot.com/2006/10/cargo-cults.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Frum

I always thought the British were a little more sensible about religious frenzies, the scientific method, not letting religion muck about with teaching science. So, it's too bad to hear that creationists nonsense is getting taught in schools over there. Luckily, scientists there are fighting back.

(link found via pharyngula)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=382694&in_page_id=1770

"Leading scientists have launched an unprecedented attack on the teaching of creationist theories in Tony Blair's flagship academies. Britain's most prestigious scientific body, the Royal Society, said children were being confused by the teaching of the Bible's creation story in science lessons.

It follows a recent revival in creationist thinking, most notably in three schools supported by multi-millionaire car dealer and evangelical Christian Sir Peter Vardy. In a statement issued today, the Royal Society defends Darwin's theory of evolution as the best explanation for life on earth.

It accuses the Government of failing in its duty to ensure pupils at state schools, including the academies, learn the value of genuine science."

---
On a related note, with craziness about "Intelligent Design" in the curriculum abounding in several states recently, it makes me extra-proud to live in an area that has chosen a book about evolution, "Beak of the Finch," as the community read for this year. It'll probably be one of the next books I pick up to read for my "50 books in '06."

http://www.ypsilibrary.org/events/ann_arbor_ypsilanti_reads_2006.shtml

I thought dionysus1999 and simianpower would especially appreciate this one (found via mattarnold's journal):

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2005/db051218.gif

As part of my book on CD kick, I'm reading "Destructive Emotions." It's about the overlap between Buddhist philosophy of the mind and neuropsychology, and I'm gaining new respect for Buddhism and the Dalai Lama. I think it's especially neat that he thinks that if science proves a tenet of Buddhism wrong (for instance, when he was a boy, Buddhist cosmology still said the earth was flat), then Buddhism should change to align itself with the science. He's doing that to make Buddhism relevant and creditable in the modern world, and I think that's pretty cool.

I think novapsyche would like this book a great deal.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553801716/103-9190195-0501447?v=glance

I've said before to a friend that I'm a little too much of a nature-worshipper to feel comfortable around rabid atheists, but too much a rationalist to fit in with the pagans.

My current label, which I'm pretty comfortable with, though, is "atheist."

I guess the basics of why I am an atheist are:

1) I know of no compelling evidence for the supernatural/God
2) I have no intutitive feeling that there *must* be a god
3) The various religions of the world all have some truth in them, and all have elements of what I consider to be nonsense, so I can't align myself with any particular one of them
4) Most religions, especially Judeo-Christian-Islamic, put a great deal of emphasis on faith and believing in the unseen, which, in my opinion, contributes to an overall paucity of rational thinking in their inherents
5) I believe irrational thinking and superstition contribute to a great deal of suffering in the world
6) If you're going to pick a religion, you should pick one that helps you live an ethical life an find your way through the world. No religion I have found yet has helped me do that. Paganism was the closest. Atheism is the best fit for me, personally.

What I'm NOT saying:

1) Religion promotes only evil and no good. Obviously false. Examples abound like Catholic Hospitals and Islamic charities that feed the poor, etc. You have to take the good with the bad when you give examples like that though-- Catholic hospitals are a mixed blessing. Yes, you get medical care, as long as you don't want birth control, a vasectomy, an abortion, to unhook your loved one in a vegetative state, etc.

2) Religious groups are the ONLY groups that perpetuate evil and suffering. Obviously false. As a friend pointed out, political affiliations and other groups can contribute to "us vs. them" and other societal problems. A priest friend of mine pointed out that atrocities were carried out under an ostensibly atheist regime in Communist Russia as well.

3) people who are religious are stupid and haven't examined their own beliefs. Also, demonstrably not true. I know many theologians who struggle mightily with philosophical issues like "the problem of evil and suffering" or whether one can prove the existence of God. I even know fundamentalists who are very intelligent and thoughful. They're just extremely good at "compartmentalizing" their knowlege.

I called myself a pagan for many years(after I recovered from fundamentalist Christianity), but I was always more interested in it for the celebration of the seasons and the sacred drama and the fun myths than having any kind of "higher power" to believe in.

Post Sept. 11, I became disenchanted with all religion, not just mainstream religion. I believe that belief in the supernatural world/spiritual world is the root of a lot of nonsense and grief in this world. I believe that no outside force is going to swoop in and save us, and if things are going to improve in the world, we're going to have to do it ourselves.

I have a re-occurring dream, not exactly a nightmare, but an unpleasant dream. It has lots of variations, but the basics are that I'm at the church I grew up in, at a service. I'm not sure why I'm there, except my mother has probably guilted me into going. I either get disgruntled with the sermon or something else, and I have to find a way out of there, but something usually gets in my way. Sometimes I end up having to walk a couple miles to get away, or something else comes up that makes it difficult for me to leave. I almost always wake up feeling angry.

I had the dream again last night, and it was just the smug faces of the congregants that got my goat-- we'd not even gotten to the sermon in this dream. I announced loudly that I really didn't like much of anybody there, and left the building. Only when I got out to the parking lot and looked back through the window, I saw a commotion. I was convinced that the commotion was due to my mother having a heart attack and dying, so I had to go back into the church building, but when I got there, I could see that the commotion was a bunch of people looking for a decorative pin that fell off the top hat of one of the male congregants (top hat?!?).

The obvious interpretation is that I'm really glad to have escaped my fundamentalist Christian upbringing, but my family makes it difficult to cast it off altogether. However, it's really odd that there doesn't seem to be any regular event (like a phone call with my Mom or something) that triggers these dreams.