07.29.08
Posted in Richard Wade at 1:00 pm by Richard Wade
I want to offer an explanation for my last post a few days ago, “In God’s Name.” It was an experiment to see if an implicit message can be more powerful than an explicit one, if it works at all. Clearly it didn’t and it was completely misunderstood. Oh well, that’s how experiments often go.
Most of the atheist readers missed the point. That’s not their fault because the story was not intended for them. The target audience was those Christians who resemble the second Christian in the story. Several of them comment on this blog and I’m sure that more lurk here. I was hoping to start a productive dialogue with them.
But up to the time of this writing none of them have commented so I’m obviously fishing with the wrong bait. So for the benefit of those who read it and were perplexed, annoyed or disappointed here is the explicit version of what I was trying to do, which probably won’t be any more effective but at least I’ll be understood:
Firstly, It wasn’t about God or the afterlife or atheists getting into heaven through good works or anything scriptural. No, this is what I was trying to say:
To liberal and mainstream Christians: Bigots are co-opting and hijacking your religion. They’re promoting their hatred, abuse and domination of gays, atheists, the followers of other religions and anybody else who doesn’t exactly agree with them including you, all under the guise of God’s word, the one that you say you value so much. They’re doing despicable things in your God’s name. Your response to this is so small, so weak and so quiet that you will have no effect in stopping them. If you let them keep going they’ll bring back all the vehicles of hate they used to enjoy: racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and despotic authoritarianism. To them, Jesus is just a source of credibility and power. Following his example is not even considered.
If all that you do is to pray about this, forgive me but I don’t think that is going to be enough. I know you don’t rely entirely on prayer to respond to crises; I’ve watched you. You may pray for God’s help with many things, but when the river overflows you also fill sandbags. When your kid is sick you also take her to the doctor. When your neighbors are hungry you also give them food. When someone is being beaten you also drive off the attacker. When your house is on fire you also fight the fire.
Christians, your house is on fire.
This is a living example of Edmund Burke’s maxim, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Ask yourself which is the greater sin: to commit an injustice against others because you believe it is what God wants, or to see what you know is an injustice and stand by doing nothing to stop it.
I have written about this before and invariably get the following five responses from Christians:
- Arguing that those bigots are not real Christians. Are you saying that means it’s none of your business? If you aren’t willing to take action to stop these “counterfeit” Christians from inflicting their cruelty in the name of God, of what value is your “genuine” faith?
- Nice sounding slogans like “The power of love is greater than the love of power.” Wake up. That’s a lullaby to put yourself back to sleep. That’s the sloth of the heart.
- Whining about how they outnumber you. That is a cop-out and probably not true anyway. They’re just louder. Besides, the Bible is full of stories about the hopelessly outnumbered triumphing.
- Apologizing for your lack of effective action. The apology was acceptable years ago, but after the umpteenth time, it’s worn out.
- Talking about the little things you are doing. Why not big things? Why do we only hear about them from you, rather than in the papers? For instance, why aren’t you picketing outside The Christian Action League of North Carolina and other institutions of faith-based hate in every city? When atheists protest such things they’re dismissed as, well, atheists. If six Christian churches did the same protesting wherever it occurs it would be big news. You say they have a bigot’s radio show? Pool your money and get a louder show. Show boldly that they don’t speak for you or for the God you believe in. Make it big, loud, joyful but most importantly, effective.
Don’t leave it up to non-believers to get in the bigots’ faces and slow them down, showing more courage and compassion than people who claim to follow Christ. Are you going to let atheists better you in the love-thy-neighbor-as-thyself department? Love is measured by what you do, not by what nice thoughts you think as you sit there letting people get victimized in God’s name. There aren’t enough atheists, humanists and otherwise secular folks to continue to be the spearhead of this fight. You far outnumber us. We need you. Everyone needs you. Now, not later.
Let’s work together. We can all enjoy arguing about the existence of God after we’ve put out the fire.
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07.20.08
Posted in Richard Wade at 10:00 am by Richard Wade
At the end of their lives two Christians and an atheist came before God. To the first Christian God asked, “What did you do in your life, my child?”
The first Christian said, “I praised your name by driving out sinners from our society. I reviled and shunned and beat and imprisoned and even killed those who did not believe in you as I did, and those who did not live by your word exactly as I did. I made their lives miserable to glorify your name.”
God: “So you used my name to justify your hatred and cruelty to your brothers and sisters.”
First Christian: “I… I thought I was doing your will, my Lord.”
God: “You were doing your own will and misusing my name.”
Turning then to the second Christian God asked, “And what did you do in your life, my child?”
The second Christian replied, “I believed in you with all my heart and praised your name in my prayers.”
God: “And what did you do for your brothers and sisters who suffered at the hands of those who misused my name for their cruelty?”
Second Christian: “I, uh, I felt sorry for them and I hoped that those who were cruel would stop misusing your name.”
God: “Show me the hand you raised to stop the cruelty that was done to your brothers and sisters in my name.”
Second Christian: “I raised neither hand, my Lord.”
God: “Show me the hand you extended to comfort and heal your brothers and sisters who suffered cruelty that was done in my name.”
Second Christian: “I extended neither hand, my Lord.”
God: “So you praised my name in your prayers but you did nothing for your brothers and sisters who suffered from cruelty done in my name.”
Finally, God turned to the atheist and said, “And now you my child, what did you do in your life?”
The atheist said, “I spent no time believing in you or praising your name. Instead I spoke out against hatred done in your name. For that I was reviled and shunned in your name. I worked hard to stop injustice and cruelty to others done in your name. For that I was beaten and imprisoned in your name. I fought against the horrors that were done around the world in your name. For that I was killed in your name.”
To the atheist God said, “You may go inside, my child and join the feast.” To the two Christians God said, “You two will stay out here for the time being, while you consider that your brothers and sisters needed your love and your help far more than I needed you to praise my name.”
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06.29.08
Posted in Richard Wade at 3:00 pm by Richard Wade
I like to dream up future scenarios with just one or two set conditions in the proposition and see where they might go as kind of thought experiments. It’s a game that any number can play, and the fun is in seeing how each person’s logic, imagination and present view of the world lead them to different conclusions. The great part is unless you live long enough to reach the future you envision, no one can prove you wrong. Though we don’t learn much about the future, we can discover quite a lot about the various ways we see things:
Imagine the world a few or several generations from now. Our civilization has somehow survived (after some serious casualties) the climate crisis, the oil crisis, the food supply crisis, the radical Islam crisis, the emergent diseases crisis, the nuclear proliferation crisis, the overpopulation crisis (partly from big losses caused by those other crises), and a couple of crises we haven’t even seen coming down the tubes yet. It’s far from perfect but the world is basically stable at least for a while.
Imagine that society’s interest in the present major religions has greatly diminished. The U.S., or whatever it is called, is now even more secular than Europe was in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The familiar religions are not an important part of most people’s lives, and the very few who still practice them are viewed as quaint, quirky, or whimsical, similar to the way we presently view Civil War reenactment groups or the Society for Creative Anachronism.
Without the ubiquitous presence of the major religions, what would happen with people’s tendency for magical thinking, superstition or religiosity? Would they diminish and would people become increasingly rational in all their affairs, or not? Would superstitions both old or new fade away, continue to thrive or even increase? Would new religions spring up, based on yet unknown developments in society, science or technology? How would society react to these things? Would freedom of thought and belief continue or would such things be discouraged, suppressed or even outlawed?
What do you imagine?
Technorati Tags: atheist, atheism
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06.15.08
Posted in Richard Wade at 4:31 am by Richard Wade
It’s our earthly fathers with whom we have our father issues. It’s our earthly fathers who abandoned us or nurtured us, who ignored or paid attention to us, who abused or protected us, our earthly fathers whom we never knew, slightly knew, or knew all too well. We have felt for them love, hate, wonder, disinterest, trust, suspicion, generosity and jealousy. Our relationship with our fathers has always been complicated.
Many children grow up with an absent parent and most often the missing parent is the father. Fathers are taken away by their callowness, their courage, their fecklessness or their fidelity. They sail away unknowing of their fatherhood, march off to die in war, slink out to avoid responsibility or live on the road bound to their responsibility. They might be present physically but still absent emotionally, made unavailable to us by distraction, worry, addiction or the aloofness of a misguided version of masculinity.
Small wonder that many religions make The Absent One a father figure. He is the one mysteriously missing, longed for yet feared, absent yet present in stories repeated until we know them by rote. He is the one we learn about only from our mothers, those with aprons or the Mother Church. Regardless of her reassurances of His love and the reasons she gives, we never fully understand why He isn’t here.
But our earthly fathers were here and may still be here. Whether or not they gave us themselves, they at least gave us life. They gave us half of what we are, perhaps deliberately or accidentally in their microscopic donation to our mothers, their partner for a single night, a few years or a lifetime. They may have given us much more, both good and bad, painful and pleasant, obvious and still obscure. They may have been fathers on many levels.
So here’s to the earthly fathers, and simultaneously here’s to the daughters and sons who make them fathers, for one cannot be without the other. We must honor our earthly fathers whether they are honorable or not, present or not, available or not, approachable or not, dedicated or not, known or not. They are half of us so when we honor them we honor ourselves.
Those of us who are fathers honor our own fathers by showing our children the dedication our fathers showed us or by showing the dedication that they would have, could have or should have given us. We honor them by being better.
Happy Fathers’ Day.
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05.26.08
Posted in Richard Wade, Friendly Atheist at 11:52 pm by Richard Wade
I got a Letter from God…
…and it was really creepy.
I’m not usually interested in posting the “religion sucks” kind of threads, but sometimes the outrage gets to be just too much to ignore. A few days ago this arrived in the mail:
The envelope is covered front and back with gushy prayers and promises for my spiritual, physical and financial blessings, in all-caps with half of the words underlined in red. It is from the Saint Matthew’s Churches, apparently a very large organization centered in Tulsa, Oklahoma with a very large church in Texas and a very large website with over 80 pages.
A Google search for “saint matthew’s church tulsa” results in dozens of sites complaining and warning of rip-offs and scams by this place. Things get confusing because there are also hundreds of Saint Matthew’s Churches around the world that are not connected in any way to this group.
The envelope contained several pages of effusive wishes for my prosperity, prayers, snips of scripture, saccharin pictures and the expected testimonials about how people’s prayers, brokered by Saint Matthew’s, had been answered. Of the five testimonials, one was about someone’s leg pain disappearing and the other four were about getting cash, with heavenly largesse ranging from $5,000 to $46,888.20. (It’s reassuring to know that the Angels of Accounts Payable get it down to the very penny.) So it was clear to which of my various base motives they were trying to appeal.
A sealed page contained a letter to me directly from God, but he didn’t sign it. (Damn. That autograph would have made me a bundle on eBay.) Guess what? God types in all caps. I FIGURE HIS VOICE IS REALLY, REALLY LOUD SINCE HE’S GOD AND ALL, AND SO THAT IS HOW HE HAS TO TYPE.
(ahem) There was a check-off list of several things I could have the good people of St. M’s pray for on my behalf, ranging from saving my soul through many material benefits to a dollar sign with a long blank line where I could fill in whatever amount I want. Almost as an afterthought they added a space where I could donate money to their church. One might think that if they were so good at convincing God to give others so much moola, they wouldn’t need small donations from humans.
Normally I would have simply tossed the whole thing in the trash, but this caught my eye:
It’s an eleven by sixteen inch “prayer rug” that I was told to kneel on, pray on and then send back to the church so someone else can use it too. Mine was not wrinkled, so it must not have been a “pre-owned” prayer rug. It said it was “soaked in the power of prayer for you.” Soaked? I sniffed it and held it up to the light. Apparently the power of prayer is odorless and doesn’t stain paper. I was also instructed to stare at the closed eyes of Jesus and after a while I would see his eyes open up and look back at me! Well, I didn’t try the kneeling but I did try the staring.
Here is the truly cynical and diabolical part of this scam. As I stared at the face, slowly I began to see his eyes looking back at me! Extremely faint traces of irises and pupils had been subtly rendered onto the closed lids, taking advantage of a visual phenomenon where our retinas become fatigued after staring at a blank space and we begin to pick up low contrast details not noticed before. The effect doesn’t show up well on these internet jpg’s but I have enhanced the image here so you can see what I saw:
The effect was amazing and creepy. As an artist I was impressed but as a human I was really pissed off. The cynicism required to produce this very clever, carefully executed trick goes far beyond some preacher who sincerely believes his creed, wants to share it with others and needs some donations. There is a line that winds its convoluted way between promoting one’s beliefs out of devotion and an attempt at conscious, calculated deceit.
I realize there are many of these rackets but this is the one that came to my mailbox so I’m venting my disgust. This is a deliberate, shameless attempt to take advantage of unsophisticated folks who probably don’t have much money to spare. Some people might say there’s a sucker born every minute and for their stupidity they deserve abuse, but I cannot see how any person of conscience, whether theist or atheist could condone such a callous victimization of anyone, no matter how foolish, naïve or backward they might be.
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05.15.08
Posted in Richard Wade at 1:42 pm by Richard Wade
(ring, ring) “Hello?”
“Uh, hi Honey, it’s me.”
“Oh hi Sweetheart. What’s up?”
“Well, I just wanted to check to be sure, uh, are we okay with each other?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean in our marriage. Is our marriage okay?”
“Of course it is. What’s going on?”
“Well I just heard that the California Supreme Court ruled that no one can be discriminated against in their right to marry whomever they love, and that includes same-sex couples.”
“Wow! That’s great. What’s that have to do with our marriage?”
“Well, some people are saying that this is going to destroy marriage, and because our marriage is so important to me I just wanted to be sure it hasn’t been destroyed.”
(laughter) “Oh Sweetheart, you are so funny. Our marriage is up to us. It’s our creation that we make better or worse every day by the decisions we make. It can’t be destroyed by the gay couple next door who want to be married too. People who are afraid of that either have weak marriages, weak minds or small hearts.”
“Yeah I thought you’d say that Honey, but I just wanted to be sure.”
“Listen Sweetheart I’ll show you how strong our marriage is when I get home tonight. Okay?”
“Okay. Love ya, bye.”
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05.14.08
Posted in Richard Wade, Humor, Friendly Atheist at 9:34 pm by Richard Wade
The top Vatican astronomer says that it’s okay to believe in extraterrestrials, that it’s not contrary to the faith and that we should consider them as our brothers.
Jesuit Father Jose Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory, said Christians should consider alien life as an “extraterrestrial brother” and a part of God’s creation.
But wait, it gets better. He says they may not need redemption.
If aliens exist, they may be a different life form that does not need Christ’s redemption, the Vatican’s chief astronomer said.
Asked about implications that the discovery of alien life might pose for Christian redemption, Father Funes cited the Gospel parable of the shepherd who left his flock of 99 sheep in order to search for the one that was lost.
“We who belong to the human race could really be that lost sheep, the sinners who need a pastor,” he said.
“God became man in Jesus in order to save us. So if there are also other intelligent beings, it’s not a given that they need redemption. They might have remained in full friendship with their creator,” he said.
Father Funes went on to say that Christ’s incarnation and sacrifice was a unique and unrepeatable event. But he said he was sure that, if needed, God’s mercy would be offered to aliens, as it was to humans.
That last sentence made my imagination take off like a, well like a rocket.
(cue wiggly “imagination” dissolve)
2012: An alien interstellar spacecraft, not resembling a flying saucer at all but more like an enormous sea urchin on LSD lands in Bellflower, California. Why? Who knows? They’re aliens. Three bizarre machines disembark, each carrying a creature floating in a clear tank of multicolored liquid. The closest thing they resemble is a chambered nautilus but a hundred times weirder. Having monitored our broadcasts for the last 50 light years of their approach to us, they have some ability to translate our language, but it is not very accurate. We are as strange to them as they are to us. People are afraid at first, but after a while they begin to crowd around the creatures in their machine-suits. There seems to be something peaceful and wise about their appearance and their floating, almost dance-like movements. Some people attempt to communicate and the aliens seem to respond at least by turning toward those who are speaking. Understanding is creeping its fragile, tentative way forward when suddenly Ray Comfort breaks through the crowd, introduces himself with a tone of great importance and confronts them with his spiel about sin, salvation and hell fire. (He doesn’t have a banana. Just as well; they have tentacles, not hands.) The aliens’ translation technology struggles to put Ray’s babbling into terms they can comprehend. His name comes out something like “Starlight Pleasure.” With the exception of nouns and a few verbs, most of our words are still incomprehensible to them. When the translation gets to the part about burning in hell the aliens respond to the concept with horror beyond their experience and take it as an immediate threat. Their liquid atmospheres swirl into darker colors. All three turn toward Ray. Black metallic appendages with flat cones come out of the machines and point toward him. The rest of the crowd begins to quietly back away from Ray. The peaceful and wise feeling is gone. Suddenly a staccato blast of extremely loud, extremely low frequency sound pulses turns Ray’s internal organs into mush. He crumples to the ground. The aliens back away from his scrambled body, board their ship and lift off into space. On their way out they mine the solar system with devices that will destroy any of our attempts to go into space beyond orbiting our own planet. They leave this part of the galaxy forever.
Let’s hope any E.T.’s who ever come here are atheists. Imagine them trying to forcibly convert the savages of Earth to their True Faith.
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04.25.08
Posted in Richard Wade, Friendly Atheist at 8:28 pm by Richard Wade
I haven’t contributed an article to Hemant’s blog for a long time because I’ve been kind of busy. Since I think I’m pretty much like most other atheists, I offer this account so people can understand how a non-believer handles the thoughts and feelings that come during a challenging time. I make no apologies nor any boast about my feelings. They are what they are.
Richard Wade
The hospital chaplain walked in while Mom and I were laughing at a re-run of “I Love Lucy.” With the bedside button Mom turned the TV volume down and the chaplain introduced herself. She was a plump, middle-aged woman in a flowered dress and with a pleasant manner. She carried a clip board gripping many papers, seemingly standard issue for all hospital staff. She asked Mom how she was and if she could offer any prayer on her behalf. Now, Mom had dismissed her own mother’s religiosity most of her 88-year lifetime ago, retaining only vague deist notions with no interest in church, bible or prayer. But being the ever kindly and polite person she is, she accepted the chaplain’s offer and so while I surreptitiously watched Lucy’s silenced antics with Ricky the prayer began. The chaplain invoked the Heavenly Father who she said is always there for Mom, always seeing to her needs, her comfort, helping her in every way. Glancing at my haggard, exhausted face, she added as an afterthought something about God’s helping Richard to stay strong and then she signed off with “in the name of Jesus” or something like that. The whole thing lasted about three minutes.
While she prayed my mind wandered and I began to have a rapid series of mixed feelings:
The first one was resentment. Hearing God get praise for all sorts of good things he was doing for Mom I was standing there wondering what am I, chopped liver? I’m the one who has been there, been there, been there for Mom, helping her, comforting her, trying futilely to keep the pain away any way I can, even when the pills and the morphine injections aren’t enough and all I can do is to hold her while she screams and screams as if she’s on fire. I’m the one who has slept in a chair next to her bed for the last month, half of that in this damn hospital, trying to keep up a positive face, resting only when she rests, waking at the slightest moan, taking care of things that the overworked nurses take too long get around to, never putting more than four hours of sleep together at a time, the custodian of the ruin of what was once a remarkable and admirable person, her in-tact mind trapped in an agonized body that now looks like a medical science experiment. She hasn’t had any help from an all-powerful heavenly father, just a nearly powerless earthly son. Spare me the lame crap about how God put me here as his agent, his nursing staff member. If he could do that he could have saved her a lot of suffering by preventing her from getting shingles on top of rheumatoid arthritis in the first place. Even the doctors seem taken aback by her level of suffering. The dead Lucille Ball is doing far more for Mom’s comfort than God is.
As the prayer continued other feelings replaced the resentment. Sadness, forgiveness and pity came with the thought about so many other moms right there in that hospital and all around the world who don’t have a son who can be there, be there, be there for them. They face their pain and the thousand indignities of age and infirmity alone or at the hands of strangers. All they have is their not too helpful “Heavenly Father” and their tattered hope for a merciful end to their hell on Earth.
Other feelings quickly washed over my awareness as the prayer began to close. I felt gratitude to my wife who makes it possible and approves of me spending so much time helping Mom. I felt a sad kind of caring for the chaplain who does this all day, day after day having so little to offer those who need so much, but still trying to help somehow. I felt a strong admiration for Mom, who has transformed so abruptly from strong and independent to frail and helpless yet insists on doing the little things she can still do for herself, who is in unrelenting pain yet was willing to indulge the chaplain’s offer of prayer purely out of good manners and not wanting to hurt her feelings.
And yes, I’ll acknowledge it, I felt sadness for myself. Sad that I’m so tired, so helpless, so frustrated, sad and scared that I’m only thirty years away from Mom’s age if I live that long, and all the mixed feelings that the prospect of going through similar agonies brings up.
In the two months since she left the hospital, Mom has ever so slowly improved, gaining through her daily efforts little bits of relief and strength. Her mind is as razor sharp as ever, still loving to discuss politics and scientific things that she reads about in the paper or in National Geographic. So the latest of my mixed feelings is one of encouragement. Not just for her prospects for a few more years of life worth living but also en-courage-ment for my own prospects. I’ll take the best lessons from her and try to face my life with at least some of the courage that she has shown.
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01.24.08
Posted in Richard Wade, Friendly Atheist at 1:47 am by Richard Wade
Many Christians visit this atheist blog. Some come regularly to read and comment, some for a brief time to learn about atheists or to challenge or clarify their own beliefs, a few to preach, and a very few to snipe or condemn. In the last 15 months I can remember Muslims commenting here three times. Forgive me if I’ve missed them but I can’t remember any practicing or observant Jewish people commenting here at all. They are a small minority in English speaking countries and they are not inclined to evangelize but still their complete absence from our discussions here is puzzling to me.
Living in Los Angeles all my life I have had many Jewish friends but only one with a sufficient closeness to discuss such personal things as religious beliefs and he turned out to be an atheist. So other than attending a few weddings, a Bar Mitzvah and a Passover Seder I know very little about their faith, only that there are five basic forms in the U.S: Orthodox, Conservative and Reform being the largest groups, and Reconstructionist and Humanistic being newer, smaller groups.
More to the point, I know nothing about how they feel about atheists and atheism.
So it would be interesting to learn from those of you who have firsthand knowledge about the following questions. I expect that the answers may vary depending on the form of Judaism.
• How do Jews feel about, react, respond, deal with atheists in their families, in their community or at work?
• Do Jews have a different feeling or attitude toward atheism in general than Christians or Muslims have?
• Do you have any ideas why we don’t hear from them on this site?
Richard
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12.26.07
Posted in Richard Wade, Friendly Atheist at 4:11 am by Richard Wade
It’s over. The relatives have gone home, happy, well fed and well loved. Just one more set of weird rituals to go, the official end to the Holiday Season: Alcohol Consumption, Get Maudlin About Time Passing and Drunk Driving Night followed by Hangover and Resolution Breaking Day.
If I can just get through those without being turned into highway hamburger I can breathe my annual January 1 sigh of relief for a month and a half until Early Christian Martyrs Memorial Co-opted to Chaucerian Poetic England-Bohemia Treaty Celebration Co-opted to Greeting Card, Chocolate Candy and Erotic Underwear Consumption Day on February 14. Then there’s a whole month before Catholic Irish Feast Co-opted to Neo-Bacchanal Alcohol Consumption Day on March 17, followed soon after by Pagan Vernal Equinox Fertility Rite Co-opted to Catholic/Protestant Resurrection Celebration Co-opted to Chocolate Leporid and Ovum Icons Consumption Day on March 23.
Then there are several months of quietude when no co-opted religious holidays affect me much until Celtic Harvest, Livestock Slaughter and Passing of the Dead Festival Co-opted to Roman Pagan Harvest, Livestock Slaughter and Passing of he Dead Festival Co-opted to Roman Catholic All Saints Vigil/Feast Co-opted to Subconscious Psycho-Sexual Sado-Masochistic Eros-Thanatos Paravestite Fetish Fantasy Catharsis and Candy Consumption Day on October 31, when the madness begins to build and build toward Every Culture On the Northern Hemisphere Winter Solstice Sure Hope we Don’t Freeze Or Starve Before Spring Ritual Co-opted to Christian Birth of Founder Celebration Co-opted to Consume As Much Electricity, Food and Manufactured Goods as Humanly Possible Day on December 25.
Notice how they’ve all been co-opted to some kind of consumption day. Hooray America.
But seriously folks,
The approach of the New Year is a time when many people take stock of themselves and sometimes follow the tradition of making New Year’s resolutions. It’s a good idea in principle I guess, although those resolutions are usually more perishable than egg salad on a hot day. But take stock I will and resolving I shall.
I’m sitting here right now, really late at night wiggling my fingers over a keyboard making words to publish on an atheist website, and it strikes me how utterly absurd that seems. What a goofy activity to be doing. How can I possibly take this seriously? In any activity the times when I am angry or frustrated or being hurtful or doing something that will later be embarrassing to me are all times when I am taking myself too seriously. I cause the most trouble when I take myself too seriously. Saying something like “Oh yeah?! How dare you!” is a big clue.
Think about the people you have encountered here who in your opinion were the biggest fools. Weren’t they the ones who were taking themselves way too seriously? Their pomposity or their indignation or their justification for being unkind are all from that silly, foolish self-importance. Think also that somebody out there may consider you to be the self-important fool.
So I renew my resolution to not do that.
Consider coming along with me on this, both believers and non-believers. Care about your opinions and values, argue well for them, passionately defend what you see is valuable, work diligently for justice, but don’t take yourself too seriously. I’m not saying to be flip or cavalier or to not give a damn. The issues discussed here are usually important and significant. But when your stomach is etching an ulcer, your teeth are grinding each other flat, your brain is practicing for a stroke, your heart is rehearsing an infarction and you’re wishing all that will happen to somebody else then maybe you need to lighten up!
I don’t see enlightenment as “to see the light” so much as “to lighten up.” I think there’s a way to lighten up and to still take a stand, to transform our too-serious foolishness into a healthy kind, a Beatles’ “Fool on the Hill” kind.
May your new year be not too serious.
Richard
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