“Do you think it’s true that any good man and any good woman can make a relationship work?” a friend asked me today.
“No,” was my immediate response. I’m a good man, and my relationship with a good woman didn’t work. I guess it depends on what you call ‘good’. But if you go there, the whole proposition gets untestably vague. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh,” she said, “I was in a relationship with a Jehovah’s Witness guy once, and that’s what he said.”
“Really?” I said. “That’s odd. They used to say the very same thing in the Mormon Church. Exact same wording and everything.”
Unless he was actually a Mormon guy, and she got mixed up. But she should know, wouldn’t you think?
Like I say, I don’t believe it. Maybe two good people can tough it out, but will they be happy? I think the extra effort is going to cost them in other ways.
But let’s not go too far the other way, and say there’s a “one” out there for you. I’m with Dan Savage: there is no “one”. But there are lots of .8s and .7s. Then you round up to 1.
And I think it helps if you can start as close to 1 as you can. My wife and I are about a .995 for each other. And that makes it so much easier and nicer.
But it got me thinking: Why would it benefit a religion to have this “any good man and any good woman” belief? I have one possible answer.
Religions operate well in a ‘bubble’ — an environment where only positive information gets in, and disconfirmatory information bounces off. People inside the Bubble continually reaffirm to each other that life inside the Bubble is good, and life outside the Bubble is dangerous and scary. It’s very nice.
For the concept of a ‘bubble’, this video is worth watching again.
There can be lots of bubbles. Utah is a bubble for Mormons, as are parts of Idaho. But when your religion doesn’t have a geographical majority, the most effective bubble is a family. Marrying outside your faith is a killer for religious bubbles. It helps you see someone else’s point of view too well. That’s why religions explicitly forbid it.
Now imagine that you’re a member of a minority religion, and you’re only supposed to marry within your faith. The dating pool is going to suck. (Mormon YSAs: amirite?) So the “any good man and any good woman” idea is a way to convince people to settle for someone of the same religion who’s not right for them. It’s amazingly effective at building bubbles — as well as miserable but occasionally functional relationships.
A large female Javan rhino, estimated to be between 15 and 25 years old, was shot and killed in late April 2010, and had its horn removed by a poacher. Turns out it was the country’s last, as reported by Rachel Nuwer at Take Part, a digital media and advocacy company.
What did the poacher want it for?
Throughout Southeast Asia, animals are vanishing from forests largely due to a renewed demand for their parts in traditional medicine, Nuwer reports. In the rhino’s case, its horn likely ended up in a tonic to cure cancer, treat hangovers or tame fevers, according to Nuwer, who has studied wildlife poaching in Vietnam. But studies have shown that the rhino horn has no medicinal value, and consists mostly of keratin, a major component in human fingernails and hair.
Traditional medicine has its adherents in Western countries, too, but the practitioners don’t seem very concerned about the global effects of the junk they’re selling. I searched in vain for anything on the Australian Traditional Medicine Society website (link to Google) about not using rhino horn, tiger penis, or anything else that would hasten the extinction treadmill.
This is just another reason why people shouldn’t use traditional/Chinese medicine. It doesn’t work, and it’s responsible for wiping out entire species. Let’s get the word out, humans.
Well, I thought I’d heard all the excuses for why an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god allows horrible things to happen to children. But here’s another: The victims must have done something to deserve it.
It happened in this clip from ‘The Atheist Experience’. The hosts, Matt and Tracie, are discussing god’s continuing non-intervention in child sexual abuse, with caller ‘Shane’.
Tracie starts off with a bracing observation, which has already been made into a meme:
Shane begins his response by saying, “First of all, you portray that little girl as someone who’s innocent, she’s just as evil as you.” Dillahunty then cuts off the call and spits, “Good-bye, you piece of s**t.”
Here’s the clip.
That’s right; according to this caller, if a child gets raped, we shouldn’t automatically assume that she didn’t deserve it.
But really, isn’t this just the standard answer for Old Testament genocide? The Israelites (allegedly) wiped out entire tribes, and when I’ve pointed this out, Christians have told me something like, well, we don’t know that the Canaanites didn’t deserve it. Richard Dawkins has refused to debate William Lane Craig for this very reason.
It’s a new rhetorical low for the religious: blaming innocent victims for the awful things that people do to them, instead of blaming an (allegedly) all-good and all-powerful god for his tendency to watch and do nothing. Once someone decides that’s acceptable, there’s nowhere else you can go. They’re morally gone.
Millions of children in Indonesian elementary schools may no longer have separate science classes starting in June, the beginning of their next school year, if the government approves a curriculum overhaul that would merge science and social studies with other classes so more time can be devoted to religious education.
Why? What benefit could this provide?
Officials who back the changes say that more religious instruction is needed because a lack of moral development has led to an increase in violence and vandalism among youths, and that could fuel social unrest and corruption in the future.
“Right now many students don’t have character, tolerance for others, empathy for others,” Musliar Kasim, the deputy minister of education, said in an interview in November. He proposed the changes in September.
If the youth lack morality or tolerance, they won’t learn it from any holy books, be they Bibles or Korans. To build character, the kids should be learning from the very classes they’re cutting. Science encourages openness to real-world evidence, critical thinking, and honesty. Social studies gets kids to think about what it takes to live in a society with others. Religion just encourages dependence on imaginary beings.
If Indonesia wants to raise a generation of dummies, they’ve found the way to do it. Religion poisons everything.
There’s no point in bringing up the gun massacre at Sandy Hook again, since any meaningful action on gun control was forgotten just in time for Christmas.
Mentions of “gun control” on Twitter. Click the graphic for source.
But it wouldn’t be a tragedy without theists trying to explain where their god was during the tragedy. Don’t know why they bother; the Christian god was responsible for plenty of tragedy on his own. But anyway, here’s John Hawkins from ClownHall.com to explain the mysterious ways of the Lord to us.
1) He gives us free will: God didn’t make robots who were designed to execute His will. Instead He gave us the freedom to make our own decisions.
Okay, so the shooter had free will. But what about the free will of those kids not to be killed? Doesn’t their free will count? Why is the shooter the only one whose free will is respected?
2) It’s a necessity for faith: If God wanted to remove all doubt about his existence, He could do so — but, He doesn’t because the cornerstone of Christianity is faith.
Translation: God could provide good evidence for his existence, but won’t. Instead, he expects us to believe in him based on bad evidence… and will judge the ones who sensibly refuse. Doesn’t sound quite just, does it?
And why is faith the one thing that this god wants? That’s simple. God requires everyone’s belief because without belief, gods die.
The next one isn’t very coherent, so I’ll just paste it all.
3) He has a different perspective: Our God gave “His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Imagine being in his place as Jesus was jeered, whipped and had to suffer and die in agony on the cross. What would run through your mind as your Son was crucified and uttered the words, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” when you had the power to free Him, heal His wounds and strike down His tormentors at will. Our God made that sacrifice for each and every one of us so that we could be saved.
So… human suffering doesn’t matter because Jesus had to suffer for a weekend, which made everything all right in the long run. Clear?
4) We often turn to God in times of tragedy: One of the sad truths of human nature is that when we’re happy, healthy, loved, secure and our pockets are full, most of us think we already have all the answers and don’t turn to God.
Translation: God just wants us to love him and turn to him. And if he doesn’t get the love, then things might start going wrong, see?
5) Ultimately it’s about Heaven, not earth
Right now, those murdered kids are having ice cream in heaven. (Unless they’re not.) It just puts the multiple bullet wounds and final fearful moments into perspective, doesn’t it?
This list is not so much an explanation of why God lets evil happen. It’s more like a list of unbelievably callous justifications for an omnipotent god’s seeming indifference to human suffering. It would be much kinder to this god to allow that he can’t act to prevent suffering because he doesn’t exist.
I confess: I have fallen in love with the Paper Kites. This unassuming but talented band from Melbourne has discovered the heart of folk in a way I haven’t heard since the Lilac Time (who Sam, the lead singer, had never heard of). But the comparisons are obvious. Same gentle bucolic folk, right? Same iconography, right? It’s not just me, is it?
I was in for a surprise in concert though. Much as I was expecting a Lilac vibe, I began to get a strong Fleetwood Mac vibe. Which is funny, because halfway through their set, they busted out ‘Dreams’.
Here’s the video for ‘A Maker of My Time’. Listen for the quiet bit near the chorus. There are three chords, and they keep that F# ringing throughout. That makes it. It’s perfection. I haven’t felt anything like that since the Icicle Works.
They’re working on their first full album. I’m already calling it the best album of 2013.
Best Electronic Album Smalhans by Lindstrøm
Lindstrøm has never been shy about going for the 80s synth cheese, but there’s something more going on here. More mathematical. I don’t want to invoke Bach because Bach is totally different, but as an example, check out this track “Fāār-i-kāāl”. Beyond the incredible joyousness of it all, there’s a method to it. The bass line just keeps climbing up and ever up in an unusual seven-part pattern, like a spiral staircase. Even so, watch out for that choir coming down. It’s upbeat, yet meticulous and precise. Never boring — he knows how to mix things up.
Second place: Pink by Four Tet
I really enjoyed the new Four Tet. Where “There is Love in You” was hiccupy, this is smooth and enjoyable.
Best Album by a Band With “Bear” in Their Name Shields by Grizzly Bear
This album beat out all other bear bands, including Boy and Bear, Minus the Bear, and Bear in Heaven.
Most Interesting Story Behind an Album SSSS by VCMG
VC is Vince Clarke, and MG is Martin Gore. Yes, that Vince and that Martin.
Vince Clarke left Depeche Mode after the first album and subsequently didn’t have much contact with the rest of the band. But about a year ago he emailed Martin Gore out of the blue and just asked if he fancied making a techno record. And that was it.
This is the album that my teenaged self would have squealed over, but he probably would have been disappointed because it doesn’t sound like Depeche Mode or Erasure. My older self thinks that’s just fine.
But how does it sound? Like this.
Best Jazz Album Further Explorations by Chick Corea
The title is a play on Explorations, an album by legendary jazz pianist Bill Evans. The set features bassist Eddie Gomez and the late drummer Paul Motian, who both played with Evans back in the day, so this is an extra-special treat.
Best Song
“Offspring Are Blank” by The Dirty Projectors
from Swing Lo Magellan
I can’t stop listening to this amazing track. The opening throat-clearing serves as punctuation, setting you up for what’s to come: soaring vocal harmonies and jagged rock. Just when you expect a blast of electric guitar, you get acoustic. Then it all comes crashing down in the best possible way.
Best Ambient LUX by Brian Eno
At last! Another ambient album from Eno. Suitable for play in your favourite airport, library, or cathedral. Soak it up.
Better still, open this in two windows, and play sections from both at the same time.
Best Artist I Missed Last Year
Helios
Since I’m such a fan of electronic ambient music, it’s surprising I hadn’t discovered Helios. I can’t pick out any particular album; one, because they’re so similar in texture, and two, because they’re all great.
Here. I picked this song at random.
Hold the phone: Keith Kenniff from Helios has made his new album ‘Moeity’ available for free on the Unseen Music website. There are also some beautiful interpretations of Boards of Canada songs. Go get them all, and make a donation.
Best Album Bloom by Beach House Lonerism by Tama Impala
Both my picks for best album have a lot in common. They’re both transportive in their own way. They’re both easy to listen to. And they both follow on from a previous album that was remarkably similar in tone and in some respects slightly better.
Tame Impala’s Lonerism has earned a lot of love on top 10 lists this year, and deservedly so. The best albums (and movies and books) are like a place you want to visit again and again, and that’s true for Lonerism. You find yourself wondering why someone didn’t write this before, or have they?
But I can’t give Lonerism the nod for Best Album for a couple of reasons: first, Innerspeaker was better (which isn’t a very good reason). And second, the songs on Lonerism seem more like half-thought-out ideas, dressed in Tame Impala’s wonderful signature sound. (Which is a pretty good reason.) Whereas every track on Innerspeaker was a revelatory composition, the tracks on Lonerism are just really great tunes. Still great summer listening.
The new Beach House album doesn’t differ markedly from 2010’s Teen Dream, and that’s a good thing. They don’t have to make the same album over and over, but I hope they don’t ever change. It’s just a beautiful ride.
What did I miss? What should I be listening to? Put your picks in comments.
Two articles crossed my screen today, and they’re a great example of the divide between rational thought and superstition.
They’re both about the gun tragedy at Sandy Hook, and the first one is written by a Catholic priest.
Now, believers in the Christian god have a bit of explaining to do when horrible things happen. That’s because they claim there’s a god who’s good, loving, and all-powerful, but who somehow fails to prevent evil things from happening. So after a tragedy, a reasonable question is: where was he? Is he really all that good if he has the power to prevent grade-school massacres, yet chooses not to? Here’s the theologian’s answer:
The truest answer is: I don’t know. I have theological training to help me to offer some way to account for the unexplainable. But the questions linger.
Well, that’s a bit pathetic. He doesn’t know? All that theological training, and he can’t answer a question that belongs in his discipline?
Seriously, read it; it doesn’t give any more than a shrug. And it’s not just this writer. This is literally the best they’ve got. (Oh, there are other religion guys out there who do claim to know, but their answers are so morally callous as to be not worth repeating.)
I will never satisfactorily answer the question “Why?” because no matter what response I give, it will always fall short. What I do know is that an unconditionally loving presence soothes broken hearts, binds up wounds, and renews us in life. This is a gift that we can all give, particularly to the suffering. When this gift is given, God’s love is present and Christmas happens daily.
Great, so if you help others, it’s actually god’s love; not yours. (Hat tip to Stephanie for this thought.) And why would ‘soothing’ be a consolation? I’d exchange buckets of after-the-fact soothing in order to not have had that tragedy happen. Who wouldn’t? What’s wrong with this guy? But all we’re left with is: I don’t know.
It’s good to admit when you don’t know something, but if you have no way of finding out, and no way of telling whether your answers are good ones, you have a bit of a fucking methodological problem. And this is a sad sign of the inadequacy of supernatural thinking. See, I do science because science is good at scientific questions. People may say that science isn’t good at moral questions or spiritual questions, and we can argue that. (My answer is that it does just as well as anything else.) But by gum, science is good for doing science.
Spiritual reasoning, on the other hand, isn’t good at answering scientific questions, but it’s also terrible at answering spiritual questions. It’s incompetent within its own domain. It is a shitty way of reasoning. Pardon my language, but spirituality/religion/supernaturalism has one job, and it sucks at it, and this incompetence makes me angry, especially when we have people telling us that it has the answers to life’s great questions, and then when it comes down to it, all that its professionals can tell us is “We don’t know.”
On the other hand, here’s the same issue handled by someone who’s intellectually honest: the scientist, Laurence Krauss. He doesn’t have the same problem as the priest because he doesn’t have to tap-dance around demonstrably untrue theological claims. That means he can deal with things more directly, including the superfluity of gods in times of tragedy.
Why must it be a natural expectation that any such national tragedy will be accompanied by prayers, including from the president, to at least one version of the very God, who apparently in his infinite wisdom, decided to call 20 children between the age of 6 and 7 home by having them slaughtered by a deranged gunman in a school that one hopes should have been a place or nourishment, warmth and growth?
We are told the Lord works in mysterious ways but, for many people, to suggest there might be an intelligent deity who could rationally act in such a fashion and that that deity is worth praying to and thanking for “calling them home” seems beyond the pale.
…
We don’t need faith to empathize with the grieving in Newtown. We can feel real connections, whether we are parents, or neighbors of families, or simply caring men and women. And we can want to help simply because of our common humanity.
Note that he identifies ‘common humanity’ at its origin: with humans. The difference in approach is striking. So is the relative capability of the authors. It helps if you’re not burdened by outmoded dogma and superstition.
I just watched ‘Miracle on 34th Street’. It was an eye-opening experience for me because I’d never seen it before, and it’s such a well-loved and admired film and… it sucked. Zeus, it sucked. It was really a terrible movie, and not just because of its leaden plot.
There’s this woman. She’s successful at her job, she has a daughter, and she divorced, which must have been pretty groundbreaking for the time. But even better, she’s really rational and skeptical. She’s committed to raising her daughter without lying to her about Santa Claus. Okay, she takes it a little far by also not reading fairy tales to her child, but even the rational among us sometimes wonder about the effects of fiction on kids.
Anyway, she’s doing great, and then over the course of the film, her rational worldview is undermined by Frank, a nice but woolly-headed lawyer, and Kris, a delusional geriatric. Frank tells her “Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to.” And by the end of the film (during which time the action has shifted completely over to the men and off of her), when Frank proves that Kris is really Santa Claus, she says, “I never really doubted you. It was just my silly common sense.”
I am pleased to announce that Miss Perfect and I are married!
The wedding was on a lovely Saturday afternoon, just a couple of weekends ago. The bride was radiant in her dress, the groom dashingly handsome in tails. After photographs and dinner, we danced all night. It was a beautiful day with family and friends.
I used to have a hypothesis about weddings, and it was that they’re intended as a stress test for the relationship. If your relationship could survive the planning, the organisation, and the negotiation of a thousand details, then you passed the qualifying round. But this wedding wasn’t like that at all, mostly because Miss Perfect did such a great job of organising things, and we fully agreed with each other on colours, typefaces, flowers, cakes, and music. We worked together to make invitations and menus. There were only a couple of times throughout the process when we asked each other: Why are we doing this again?
Why were we getting married? Secular atheists don’t need marriage. We’d been living together, sleeping together, building our home together for the last five years. We were already both committed to each other for the rest of our lives. We won’t change, we told each other. We won’t start acting ‘married’ — wait, is that a bad thing?
Okay, so if nothing is going to change, then why go through an elaborate wedding and become married people?
And the answer was simple: It was a chance to throw a really great party. No, really; great clothes, a choir, music, pomp. Especially the pomp. What a great opportunity to gather a whole bunch of people together (even family and friends from America) and have a whole day to celebrate love and relationships.
But the thing about that — after the wedding, for a couple of days, we were on a huge high from the outpouring of love from everyone and from each other. It was like being on a serotonin water-slide, riding on waves of affirmation from everyone.
We noticed another thing after the wedding. We felt like more of a couple. Of course, we walked around the house saying, “Hello Mr” and “Hello Mrs”, enjoying that unfamiliar strangeness. But we also felt more solid somehow. More established and grown-up. Our relationship was official. Society approved. Which is silly, but that’s how it feels. It feels like being real.
Marriage equality has been on my mind. Washington’s gay-marriage initiative passed last month (and I was pleased to have voted for it). However, in Australia, it’s still not legal. The marriage celebrant even had to include this little gem in her bit:
Marriage, according to law in Australia, is the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life …
which discriminates against not only my gay friends, but also my polyamorous friends. Seriously — isn’t that the kind of thing adults can decide for themselves? We have a long way to go, it seems.
So amid the wedding buzz and all the friends and the food and the love, and above all, my beautiful bride and I entering into a new stage of our relationship with a shiny new official status, I thought: Screw anyone who would try and prevent someone – anyone, I don’t care who – from having this, from feeling this way. It’s too wonderful to stop. Seriously — find me someone who thinks this. I’ll slap them upside the head and ask what’s wrong with them. Consenting adults in a loving relationship shouldn’t be allowed to have this amazing experience? Just because you don’t like their kind of relationship? Get out of town. This attitude isn’t just bigoted; it seems to originate from a kind of viciousness that’s worse than mere bigotry.
There are many arguments for marriage equality. Some involve hospital visits and wills, and some involve basic fairness. I’d like to add one to the list. Having a wedding is wonderful. So is the way you feel about your partner and your relationship afterward. That should be for everyone.
Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support. Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family. Because it fulfills yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life’s momentous acts of self-definition.
It is undoubtedly for these concrete reasons, as well as for its intimately personal significance, that civil marriage has long been termed a ‘civil right.’ Without the right to choose to marry, one is excluded from the full range of human experience.
We are in the latter days, people. The LDS Church is under attack. I’m referring, of course, to this:
Mormon women plan ‘Wear Pants to Church Day’
A group of Mormon feminists has declared Sunday, Dec. 16, as “Wear Pants to Church Day” and is calling on sister Saints across the globe to join the effort.
Female Mormon missionaries are not allowed to wear pants, except on their days off. Some LDS women do wear dressy pants to church, but social convention dictates that most Mormon women don dresses or skirts to their weekly services.
You realise that this is open rebellion against the unwritten order of things. If women wear pants to church, where will it end? Men not wearing ties? Bishopric members wearing blue oxford shirts instead of white? The mind reels.
Actually, I do have a story. Back in the Utah days, Erstwhile Wife and I were walking to church. On this particular Sunday, she had decided to wear pants. And who should we run into but Cecilia Konchar Farr. She was a BYU faculty member who had been in the crosshairs (and was ultimately fired) for her feminist and pro-choice views. Think of it — she’d taken on the system in a battle she couldn’t win. Tough person.
When she saw us, she remarked, “Wow, I’m not brave enough to try that.”
She might have been joking, but lest you think that this is a timid sort of protest, it’s worth pointing out that these customs of dress and behaviour are deeply ingrained, not consciously taught, and subtly but strongly reinforced. Women wearing pants to church would be viewed on a par with men wearing skirts. Still, I like to think that, even in my believing days, I would have been that guy.
EDIT: It didn’t seem like pushing the envelope to me, but some people’s envelopes are more fragile than others. A public Facebook discussion has some sensible people, and some people freaking out.
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