Thoughts On The Fork In The Road

Follow your dreams! (but have a back-up plan) 
Shoot for the stars! (but in a practical way) 
You can do anything! (but be sensible) 
Blah blah blah...

Do these phrases sound familiar, NiftyReaders? No? Call up one of your friends or a trusted family member and tell them you are at a crossroads in life. You should start hearing some version of them in 3..2..1...

We have all heard these earnestly well-intended words of encouragement wrapped up in thin - yet unintentionally soul-crushing - wet blankets of "buts". Admit it. Most of us have thrown them over loved ones, too. I've been thinking about this a lot lately as I have struggled to offer encouragement and useful advice to the nifty offspring.

Crossroads? Forget crossroads. It can be a nightmare 
of equally unappealing "paths" out there!
If this is what your "choices" look like, 
maybe the path you want and need is not there. 
Blaze your own trail!

It seems there are two main schools of thought on giving advice about making life choices. The conservative way - the way parents, in particular, have guided their offspring for thousands of years - is to lay out the life map for other people and basically tell them there are no choices; this is your path. The liberal way - the way more parents have embraced as greater respect and understanding of the psychological component of individual rights grew in society - is to encourage people to follow their bliss and pursue their dreams with little or no outside direction at all: only you can figure out your path.

There is a middle ground, but unfortunately it may be worse than both extremes. It is the mixed message contained in the phrases posted above. At least with the conservative approach, kids have a plan. At least with the liberal approach, kids are utterly free to make (or fail to make) their own plans. The middle approach gives a not-quite-convincing thumbs up to "follow your bliss" with an undercurrent of "but this is what your path should be".

I don't know how young adults stand it. They hear these conflicting messages ad nauseum as they make their way through school and the confusion chorus only intensifies when they arrive at the intersection of high school graduation and the rest of my life™. It rises to a crescendo as they enter their twenties still not quite sure what they are doing - or what they want to do - with their lives. We urge kids to dream big. We tell them they can be anything, do anything with their lives. Then, when they approach adulthood, we begin to temper the soaring reach for the top rhetoric with an endless refrain of cautions which grows louder every year. 

"Sure," we tell Jordan who dreams of becoming a cordon bleu chef, "you can do that. But make sure you have a fallback plan because restaurants fail all the time! Why don't you earn a diploma in business, first? That way you'll be able to run that restaurant successfully"

"That's an awesome dream!" we enthuse to Mary, the aspiring J K Rowling, "you can definitely make it as a writer - some day - but publishing is a tough business. How about getting a teaching degree as a back-up?"

"But you are smart enough to be a lawyer!" we exclaim to Peter, who loves history and wants to be a teacher, "why don't you go to law school and if that doesn't work out, then you can always teach!"

There is somehow a needling sliver of doubt in these encouragements. The suggestion of a back-up plan implies that the advisor lacks faith in the advisee's ability and talent for the dream plan. Sometimes the kid lacks faith in herself, thus never articulating a dream plan, so eager parents swoop in to suggest possible life paths that seem like a great idea to them.

And so, the young people study hard and earn qualifications in these sensible fields. And then, after having invested so much time and effort into those studies, naturally the kids find work in those fields (waste that expensive education? I think not! There may be loans to pay off, too) and before they know it, twenty years have flown by. Instead of becoming a chef, Jordan spends his working years bean-counting for someone else's restaurant business. Instead of writing her latest novel, Mary burns the midnight oil reading painfully bad 8th grade essays and wondering where all of her creative ideas went. Instead of settling happily into academic life, Peter miserably works filing briefs in the legal department for an insurance company. They all have great jobs. They have all succeeded. They are all miserable.

There are more than two possible
outcomes!

When did we develop the insane idea that we are encouraging our kids by advising them to shelve their most precious talents and do something else? I am not saying we don't encourage the dreams and aspirations of our loved ones - we do! - but too often that encouragement is the spoonful of honey with which we deliver the bitter little pill of our perceived reality: that life is unfair and it rarely turns out exactly as we had hoped so it is wiser to go for what conventional wisdom tells us is a safer bet. Already worrying (as everyone does) that they may be ridiculously overestimating their natural talents and fearing the humiliating possibility that they might fail if they pursue the thing that makes everyone around them suggest a back-up plan "just in case", most kids convince themselves that the back-up plan makes more sense anyway. Meanwhile, everyone ridiculously underestimates the talent and effort required to succeed at the back-up plan, too. Because our own self-worth is not hitched to the back-up plan, we think that plan will be easier and success guaranteed. 

I've got news for everybody: your plan b is someone else's plan a. 

And, here's the thing: We can go down what seems like the safer path (the so-called "back-up" plan, later known as "my one and only life") or we can go all-in on the riskier one (the one that requires us to take a chance on our talents and dreams). No matter which way we go, both good and bad stuff will still happen! Yes, life is unfair and yes, unexpected things always happen. Plans nearly always have to be modified to accommodate life events. Detours have to be taken. Sometimes we just come to a total dead end. This is true of life whether we take the "safe" route or the "risky" one. What we fail to see is that our lives will most definitely never turn out even close to what we had hoped they would when we were enthusiastic youngsters if we spend most of our productive years working on the back-up plan instead of working toward an actual dream!

"There's no reason to have a plan b

 because it distracts from plan a."

The separation of talent and skill is one of the greatest misunderstood concepts for people who are trying to excel, who have dreams, who are trying to do things. Talent you have naturally; skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft. 

I've never really viewed myself as particularly talented. Where I excel is ridiculous, sickening work ethic. You know, while the other guy is sleeping - I'm working. While the other guy is eating - I'm working. There's no easy way around it; no matter how talented you are, your talent is going to fail you if you're not skilled.

What is the classic "mid-life crisis" if not the belated realisation that we have spent more than half of our lives honing our skill at something we thought was the practical, sensible, sure thing while we waited for the perfect time to present itself for us to pursue the activities that actually make us feel alive? The truth is that there is no perfect time, and if we keep waiting for that, we will die still waiting.

That perfect day never comes. We have to work with what we have to work with.

Ironically, the time is never perfect for the "safety" career either, but we don't let that stop us. We are ambivalent and unenthusiastic and yet somehow we believe it is the wiser choice so we work hard to make ourselves do it and do it well. Because we are not emotionally invested in the back-up plan as we are with the things that we actually care about, we simply forge ahead with grim determination to succeed, dammit, so we can earn a living and vacation time in which to squeeze our true passions.

Why can't we skip the safety career and just put all that persistent effort into the things we really want to do?

When we attempt to cover our bases with a "backup plan", what we wind up doing is choosing that back up plan by default, instead of choosing our real dreams. Except for the fear of finding out we stink at the thing we so dearly want to be great at, the risks of pursuing a dream are no greater than the risks of pursuing a "safer" course. The real risk is that if you choose something you don't care about, you will get exactly that - a lifetime of work at something you don't care about. 

American pastor Robert Schuller famously posed this question: What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail? I think the question should be even more urgently phrased: What would you attempt if you knew you only had one chance to try? Do that thing now. Give it all of your energy and all of your effort. Because in a very real sense, you may only get one chance to really try. One thing leads to another and life gets complicated.

Yes! Put all of your eggs in that basket. Your life probably will not turn out as you imagine it today - life just doesn't follow a script like that - but it may turn out better than you dreamed! No matter how things turn out, you will come nearer to realizing your dreams than you ever could by pouring your energy into a back-up life.

The Netherlands or Holland? Now You Know!

via CGPGrey

For your Saturday inspiration and edification: 

the difference between Holland and the Netherlands.

Four fun-filled minutes packed with information and history. 

Learn something new today and amaze all your friends!

"Welcome to the great nation of Holland, where the tulips grow, the windmills turn, the breakfasts are chocolatey, the people industrious and the sea tries to drown it all...except this country isn't Holland." (watch the video and learn more! It's cool!)

Saturday Inspiration - Thank You, Christopher Hitchens

For your Saturday Inspiration, a tribute to Christopher Hitchens on the anniversary of his death from Theramin Trees.


Thank you, Christopher

I became aware of Christopher Hitchens through an unfortunate route — namely his conservative christian brother, Peter. I found — and still find — Peter Hitchens's views obnoxious. One of many repugnant strands has been his consistent championing of special privileges for some christians to act out their prejudices in professional and official forums, on the grounds of religious freedom. He likes to dismiss his opponents in these matters as Thought Police — gingerly sidestepping moral discussions he hasn't a hope of winning, and instead favouring the dirty path of appeals to paranoia.

Suffice it to say Peter provided a dubious introduction to Christopher. But, families often contain huge differences — that's certainly the case in my own family. And my approach to Christopher, as with any new individual, was to view him on his own terms.

It soon became clear that here was a Hitchens with a much deeper vision of life. An empathic grasp of the experience of the disenfranchised. A disdain for false respectability and social artifice, which allowed him to comment on public figures, sacred cows and indeed himself with a candour the likes of which I've rarely seen. Anyone can be irreverent. Anyone can get up on a stage and shoot their mouth off. What set Hitchens apart is that he'd actually bothered to do the research first. He didn't wing it on guesswork, and he didn't insult his audience with rhetoric, or what he thought he could get away with. He'd got his facts together. And in a lot of cases, not being one to rely on the common press, that was through his own firsthand experience. He also possessed a muscular sense of irony — something notably lacking in the majority of his opponents, who were often left standing there prissy as dusty old schoolmasters, while Christopher graced the stage with an easy, natural humanity.

The term humanitarian suffers from an image problem. Some folks seem to expect humanitarians to be all touchy-feely. To console and comfort. For my money, the best humanitarians don't coddle us. They challenge us — sometimes aggressively. To be our best selves. They confront us with our stupidities, our pretences, our self-delusions and deceptions. Not with the agenda of diminishing us, bringing us into line, herding us into some grubby little flock. But in fact the opposite — shaking us out of our complacency, our groupthink, our self-indulgence and pig-ignorance. Though his use of the term 'comrades' invited his audience to join him in a sense of fellowship, there was never any obligation to agree with him, or toe any kind of party line. His concern for the masses came from a position of fierce independence from all things partisan.


I became aware of Christopher Hitchens very late in the day. It seems like it was only a matter of months before he announced the cancer that would eventually kill him. I'm grateful that so much of him and his work is preserved in print and on film. Though it could never compensate for the tremendous loss of this beautiful mind, there's a bittersweet solace in knowing that I have so much Hitchens still to experience. And through that sprawling legacy of writing and video clips, Christopher Hitchens will continue to give confidence to individuals to step outside the intellectual prisons they were born into.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: people who don't want you to think are never your friend. Whether you know it or not — and I know vast numbers of us do know it — folks like Christopher Hitchens are our very best friends.

Thank you, Christopher. (TheraminTrees December 23, 2011).

Saturday Evening Post - Election Day Nears

On Tuesday, let's remember what makes this country a powerful beacon of hope in the world: 

free elections and peaceful government transitions. 

Vote on November 6! 

ELECTION DAY, NOVEMBER, 1884 - Walt Whitman

If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara-nor you, ye limitless prairies-nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite-nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyserloops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones-nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes-nor Mississippi's stream:
-This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name-the still small voice vibrating-America's choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen-the act itself the main, the quadrennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous'd-sea-board and inland-Texas to Maine-the Prairie States-Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West-the paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling-(a swordless conflict,
Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's:) the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity-welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
-Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify-while the heart pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.

Saturday Inspiration - Same Love

On Thursday, a federal appeals court in New York struck down DOMA on Constitutional grounds:

The 2-to-1 ruling, by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York, came as the panel struck down the federal law prohibiting federal recognition of same-sex marriage. It is the first time that a federal appeals court has applied this level of constitutional protection — known as heightened scrutiny — to those unions. The case is now considered by some legal scholars to be the leading candidate for a Supreme Court review of the same-sex marriage issue. John Schwartz, New York Times, October 18, 2012.

As the paragraph above indicates, the fight may now go to the Supreme Court. People who are fighting for marriage equality know this battle is not over yet, but the enlightened northeast is leading the charge on social justice again. I think this calls for a musical celebration!

I believe I am the last person on the planet to have caught this video but what the hell...

Same Love, by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis via Ryan Lewis

Music and Message gets the Nifty Seal of Approval!

Does Mitt Romney Believe In The Book Of Mormon?

 You people need to understand this: if you aren't already in Mitt's inner circle, you are going to be out of luck in
a Romney/Ryan world. What is more, that's just what Mitt believes you deserve!

Mitt Romney is a devout Mormon.  Pay attention to the stories of his charity work and the personal ways he has helped other people - virtually everything he has ever done for other human beings outside of his family have been done for fellow Mormons. His charity is reserved for his religious tribe only.

More important, a devout Mormon believes that it is not the Constitution, nor the President of the United States, nor the Supreme Court of the United States, nor Congress, and certainly not the rabble of common people who elect Congress and the President who are or ought to be the final authority on civic life in the United States of America - or indeed the world.  The ultimate authority to whom Mitt Romney is bound by his devout Mormon faith to obey is God, whose word is interpreted by the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Private religious belief is a protected right in the United States, but what happens when it is one's private religious belief that there is no higher authority than "God" and that one's own church leaders are His inerrant spokesmen? What happens to a Republic when those elected to high office defer to the religious leaders of one religious sect because it is a tenet of their personal religious convictions that this is the only righteous and moral thing to do? That it is not only sinful but dangerous to put human authority above the ultimate authority of God. The problem is that the hundreds of Christian sects cannot even agree amongst themselves on what the desires of God may be, since none have ever actually seen or spoken to Him, and all claim to have the "correct" interpretation of the scriptures attributed to the deity.

We don't need no stinkin'
First Amendment!

Christianity is a system of law with Christ as the law giver...
Christianity is a system of government with Christ as the king...
What is authority?

The new standard dictionary defines authority as: The right to command and to enforce obedience; the right to act by virtue of office, station, or relation; as the authority of the parent over the child.

Authority is of two kinds. Primary and Delegated.

1. Primary authority. This grows out of the relation of those who have the right to command and those whose duty it is to obey.

2. Delegated authority. That is, the right to command and to enforce obedience which can be given to another by the one holding primary authority...

Conclusion: If the things in this lesson are true, and they are, then Christianity is divine. Human authority has no place in the plan. No one has a right to preach anything different from what the Christ and the apostles taught men to do.
(The Source of Authority in Christianity, simple bible studies. com.)

What happens when leaders elected to high office believe that it is their god-given duty to subjugate all of the citizens of the United States to the tenets of their own religion?  That it is, in fact, a good thing to bring people to the faith through whatever means necessary, with or without the consent of the people (who are seen as either believers or "lost" and in need of "saving") and who therefore believe that their unconstitutional behaviour is moral and righteous? And what happens if the elected leaders cannot agree on whose religious belief system is the correct one? Whose religious doctrine is the one to make the law of the land?

The Republicans have insisted on injecting religion into politics in a way which has guaranteed that Article 6 of the Constitution has been all but abandoned. They have made it clear that it is their intention to bring America "back" to a conservative, Christian Bible-based legal framework. Since the first four "commandments" of the Decalogue demand that there be no worship of any other god but the Biblical god (under pain of death), they have essentially given notice that they intend to wipe out the religious freedom currently guaranteed by the first Amendment, too.

If Republicans succeed in forcing the legal enshrinement of the notion that America is a Biblical, Christian (or even the wickedly, deceptively, politically coined "Judeo-Christian") nation, then the only religion which will be "American" will be Christianity (exactly what version of Christianity remains to be seen), and all others will lose religious freedom. Jews may temporarily escape discrimination under the new Christian American order, due to sharing a Bible with Christians - and the Ten Commandments upon which conservative Christians believe American law is or should be based is found in the shared Christian/Jewish books of the Bible. But the key to remember is that the Jewish reprieve will be temporary. All other religions would of course have to be outlawed in accordance with "God's" commandment.

These are not hidden intentions and they go far beyond the questions that were raised back in the Kennedy era. John F. Kennedy disavowed pushing personal religious beliefs into public policy and he affirmed the principle of the separation of church and state. Republicans have disavowed the principle of separation of church and state and have insisted on not only mixing religion with politics but in pushing an overtly, extremely religious, exclusionary agenda to the forefront of public policy.

Americans need to think about these questions. Seriously.

Brian Dalton, (aka Mr. Deity) has an important Public Service Announcement. A recovering Latter Day Saint, Dalton is intimately acquainted with the Mormon religion and what the beliefs - and requirements - of its adherents are. In the video linked above, he discusses just one of the core foundational ideas of Mormonism - its profound racism.

Saturday Inspiration - Colourful St. John's

Happy Saturday to all!

The Edge of the Earth

via Newfoundland Labrador

"The people of the Flat Earth Society believe that this place is one of the four corners of the world...

... the very edge of the earth.

Ah now, that's just foolishness.

Isn't it?"

This beautiful brief video is balm to the weary spirit on the first day of autumn.  I wonder if, when the late-20th century murmurings of revisionist history and anti-science began, did people similarly think it was not something to be taken seriously?

The lure of myth, legend and what the heart wants to believe when overwhelmed - with beauty or with fear or with awe - is a very powerful thing. What is true often hasn't a chance when it is held up against what people prefer to believe.

Saturday Inspiration - Saturday In The Park!

Happy Saturday!

These lyrics speak to the hopes and dreams of the movement for peaceful coexistence that many of us remember from our younger days. I think that the rock band Chicago's summer anthem linked that joyful mingling with the Fourth of July, because the essence of what makes this country great is the coming together of people from all over the world, working together with friendly respect and appreciation of differences. Lately, the conservative right wing has almost succeeded in burying that dream with their angry attempts to redefine America as a white, Christian nation, but it is still burning quietly inside millions of people.

Let's revive that spirit. Be inspired!

Saturday In The Park  - Robert Lamm (Chicago)


Saturday in the park
I think, it was the fourth of July
Saturday in the park
I think, it was the fourth of July

People dancing, people laughing
A man selling ice cream
Singing Italian songs
Can you dig it? Yes, I can
And I've been waiting such a long time
For Saturday

Another day in the park
I think, it was the fourth of July
Another day in the park
I think, it was the fourth of July

People talking, really smiling
A man playing Guitar
And singing for us all
Will you help him change the world
Can you dig it? Yes, I can
And I've been waiting such a long time
For today

Slow motion riders, fly the colors of the day
A bronze man, still can tell stories his own way
Listen children all is not lost
All is not lost, oh no, no

Funny days in the park
And every day is the fourth of July
Funny days in the park
And every day is the fourth of July

People reaching, people touching
A real celebration
Waiting for us all
If we want it, really want it
Can you dig it? Yes, I can
And I've been waiting such a long time
For the day

Saturday Inspiration - The Unbroken Thread

Thanks to Symphony of Science for these wonderful videos.

Lyrics:

(Carl Sagan's lyrics written by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan and Steven Soter)


[David Attenborough]
All life is related
And it enables us to construct with confidence
The complex tree that represents the history of life

Our planet, the Earth, is as far as we know
Unique in the universe; it contains life
Here plants and animals proliferate in such numbers
That we still have not even named all the different species

Darwin's great insight revolutionized the way in which we see the world
We now understand why there are so many different species

[Carl Sagan]
Every cell is a triumph of natural selection
And we're made of trillions of cells (Within us is a little universe)
Those are some of the things that molecules do
Given four billions years of evolution (We are, each of us, a multitude)

Now how did the molecules of life arise?

[Attenborough]
It began in the sea
Some 3 thousand million years ago
Complex chemical molecules began to clump together

These were the "seeds"
From which the tree of life developed
They were able to split, replicating themselves
As bacteria do

[Sagan]
The secrets of evolution
Are time and death
There's an unbroken thread that stretches
From those first cells to us

(refrain)

[Jane Goodall]
There isn't a sharp line dividing humans
from the rest of the animal kingdom
It's a very wuzzie line

It's a very wuzzie line,
and it's getting wuzzier
All the time

We find animals doing things that we,
In our arrogance,
Used to think was "just human"

(refrain)

[Attenborough]
Its continued survival now rests in our hands

Sea Fever

photo credit: YachtPals

Sea Fever -  by John Masefield

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Come On In, The Water's Fine!

"It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment, or the courage, to pay the price ... One has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to embrace the world like a lover, and yet demand no easy return of love. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying." Morris West, The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1963.














Millions of people the world over are atheist but only a tiny fraction of these people publicly identify as such for a variety of reasons. The most common reasons are that either they do not realise that they are atheist or they are afraid to acknowledge that they are atheist. Because of the harm that they see being caused by the power that religious dogma is given in society, some atheists become frustrated and discouraged about the number of closeted atheists in our midst, and sometimes their frustration spills out in accusations of hypocrisy - which sometimes pushes the closeted atheists more deeply into the closet.

Get out of hot water FREE!

I am an atheist who sometimes reaches that boiling point of mingled frustration, irritation and discouragement. Like most atheists, I used to be religious and like most atheists, I know only too well how hard it can be to let go of the security of a belief system inculcated from childhood - and which for many of us is intimately entwined with our identities, our families and our entire community support networks. If religion was a benign force in the world, as many closeted atheists clearly must still believe it to be, there would never be any reason to come out as an atheist.

But, religion is not a benign force in the world. Religion wreaks havoc on efforts to promote world peace. Religion mandates that women be treated as less than fully human, enshrining in its "holy books" the misogyny that permeates human culture and providing a "divine" justification for the oppression of half of humankind. Religion fosters - even insists upon - religious and racial bigotry. Religion suppresses and tries to destroy sources of human knowledge which threaten its power. It is accorded a level of obsequious acceptance and awarded a degree of power and influence that would be unthinkable for any other unelected, nontransparent entity in a modern, democratic society.

The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church. Ferdinand Magellan.

The deference that is paid to religion has real consequences for humanity. In addition to the sectarian violence that rages all over the world, religious groups seek to stop scientific research which could yield outstanding new medical treatments that would greatly alleviate human suffering. Religion demands the "right" to decide for all of society what is moral and what ought to be legal, even when there is no consensus even among religionists on what is actually moral and what actually ought to be legal. It is inimical to individual freedom. Religion schemes and strategizes to persuade - through fear, bigotry and misinformation - just enough people to vote in favor of their agenda, thus turning a democratic Republic into a putative theocracy where a simple majority of religiously-influenced voters can take away human rights from women and minorities by anonymously pulling a lever in a ballot box.

Faith is essentially intolerant ... essentially because necessarily bound up with faith is the illusion that one's cause is also God`s cause. Ludwig von Feuerbach.

Are you a closeted atheist?  Incredible though it may sound, it is possible not to realize that one is actually atheist. There is no shame or hypocrisy in it. While it is true that religion's greatest source of energy comes via true believers, religious leaders know that the number of zealous true believers is too small to secure real power in a culture, so they rely on the large moderate majority to protect and enable them to achieve their goals.  To that end, the strategic tool of childhood indoctrination and enormous social pressure to conform to "tradition", coupled with the more liberal mainline Christian ethics of the post WW2 western world, ensures that millions of people feel more comfortable continuing to identify as "believers" - even though they know on at least some level that they do not, really, believe everything that their religion tells them is ultimate truth. 

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means. George Bernard Shaw

Cultural believers are trying to have it both ways. Those who believe that there are many pathways to God, and who sincerely believe that their religion is one of love or peace, tend to reject the actual religion found in holy scripture and embodied by the fundamentalists of their faith. They wish both to believe and disbelieve. They wish to align themselves with the best of the modern, liberal religious sensibility - which is secular humanism by a more acceptable name - while denying the reality of the message in the dominant faith traditions.  They tell themselves that people who are intolerant of spiritual differences or who fight to deny others the freedom to develop and live by their own religious and moral values are not "true" Christians. They are uncomfortable with the way the religious right oppresses minority groups, but they stop short of taking effective action to push back against it. In the end, they support their extreme co-religionists because of their shared religious heritage - sometimes actively but more often just passively through doing nothing, keeping their heads down and continuing to enjoy whatever it is that their own church community gives them.  These people unintentionally form the cultural bulwark of reasonable, moderate, kind and compassionate religion which provides cover for fundamentalists with their unreasonable, extreme, cruel and oppressive agendas. 

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. George Bernard Shaw.

Did you just say you
 don't believe in God?

Easier to understand are the millions of people who do know they are atheist but who are too afraid to come out of the closet. One does not have to look far or for very long to find evidence of the social, political and personal cost that open atheism can bring to an individual. The fear that many closeted atheists feel is genuine and completely rational. In many parts of the world, open atheism can get you persecuted, arrested and even executed. In the western world, atheists are openly vilified, compared to rapists, pedophiles and psychopaths and are discriminated against socially, politically and economically. Being openly atheist can cost you your friends, family and community. It will mean you will probably never be able to hold public office. It could cost you your job. It could cost you your safety and peace of mind.

And yet, by remaining silent, are we in the western world really safeguarding ourselves and our children? 

Just fifty years ago, before the global resurgence of religious fundamentalism, most of the developed world and much of the developing world was moving slowly but surely toward modernity. Most of the world had explicit goals for educational and social progress, including countries which today are rued by fundamentalist religious regimes. Universities, modern medicine and infrastructure and international trade were on the rise, and societies were proudly producing post-war generations eager to participate in the explosion of scientific and technological discovery that marked the second half of the twentieth century. But scientific achievement and progressive social and educational reform threatens religious elites and the rise of fundamentalism soon followed the brief, shining period of progress.  

The moderates in these countries did not imagine that the hard-won gains that had been so recently made could be rolled back. They did not think that the extremists among them could seize control of their countries and push them all back into a new dark age. But it happened. It happened with the unwitting help of the moderates who did not anticipate that while their more extreme co-religionists might only target vulnerable minorities at first, they would inevitably turn their attention to the insufficiently devout within the majority - the moderates themselves. By the time the moderates woke up to what was happening to their countries, it was too late. 

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. Nelson Mandela

It is recognition of the ultimate consequences of society's continued acceptance of religious hegemony which prompts atheists to urgently challenge closeted atheists to take a stand for humanity. Insistence on the benignity of belief systems which wreak havoc on world peace, which mandate the oppression of women and which demean and discredit the highest achievements of humankind is irrational and destructive, even if the motive for doing so makes perfect sense to the moderate majority which is scrambling to protect its own cherished privileges and traditions.

The benefits that closeted atheists receive from their church communities are outweighed by the harm that religion is doing to those same communities and to the societies which they influence, to the earth via support for climate change denial through anti-science anti-intellectualism and to the whole of humanity through hatred, bigotry and the implacable religious drive for theological supremacy. Our fear of ostracism today ought to be outweighed by our concern about the kind of world we are leaving for our children and grandchildren. By coming out of the closet, atheists, agnostics and secular humanists will encourage each other to see that we already have the numbers to support thriving human communities, based upon better ideas than fear and misogyny.


In a world that is as oppressively and even violently dominated by religion as ever in human history, it may take more courage - even in societies which claim to protect religious freedom (for now) - than the average person can muster to come out as an atheist. 


And yet, I am asking you to do it.


We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Some recommended reading:

The cost of staying in the closet. MarieAlena Castle, Atheists For Human Rights, 

Coming out of the closet,  Eric Jeffries, exchristian.net

Religious Moderation Enables Religious Fundamentalism, Reason-Being.com

The Clergy Project, a confidential online community for active and former clergy who do not hold supernatural beliefs. The Clergy Project launched on March 21st, 2011.

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, Sam Harris, 2004.

The God Delusion,  Richard Dawkins, 2006.

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Christopher Hitchens, 2007.

Even Stevphen - Islam vs. Christianity

Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert (with Jon Stewart, briefly) demonstrate 

the inherent similarities and shared stupidities of theism..

Carl Sagan: The Reassuring Fable

(via LibertarianSara)

The humble, inspiring and timelessly apropros words of Carl Sagan narrate this brief (3:45minutes) video incorporating recent historical images.

"The significance of our lives - and our fragile planet - is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance; better by far to embrace the truth, than a reassuring fable. 

Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Our common-sense intuitions can be mistaken. Our preferences don't count. We do not live in a privileged reference frame. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal."  Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot.

We Are Stardust

3 minutes of musical inspiration for a beautiful Saturday morning. We are stardust, in the highest exalted way. Stand in the middle and enjoy everything both ways; the tininess of us; the enormity of the universe.


Lyrics:

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]
We are part of this universe
We are in this universe
The universe is in us
Yes, the universe is in us

[Lawrence Krauss]
Every atom in your body
Came from a star that exploded
You are all star dust
From a star that exploded

[Tyson]
Look up at the night sky
We are part of that
The universe itself
Exists within us

We are star dust
In the highest exalted way
Called by the universe
Reaching out to the universe

We are star dust
In the highest exalted way
Reaching out to the universe
With these methods and tools of science

[Richard Feynman]
Stand in the middle and enjoy everything both ways
The tininess of us;
The enormity of the universe

[Tyson]
The atoms that make up the human body
Are traceable to the crucibles
That cooked light elements
Into heavy elements

These stars went unstable in their later years
And then exploded
Scattering their enriched guts
Across the galaxy

[Refrain]

[Tyson]
We are part of this universe
We are in this universe
The universe is in us
Yes, the universe is in us

Our Place in the Cosmos

Like Dawkins, I find the reality of our existence thrilling.

A little inspiration for a Saturday morning.

Lyrics:

[Narrator]
With every century
Our eyes on the universe have been opened anew
We are witness
To the very brink of time and space

[Robert Jastrow]
We must ask ourselves
We who are so proud of our accomplishments
What is our place in the cosmic perspective of life?

[Carl Sagan]
The exploration of the cosmos
Is a voyage of self discovery
As long as there have been humans
We have searched for our place in the cosmos

[Richard Dawkins]
Are there things about the universe
That will be forever beyond our grasp?
Are there things about the universe that are
Ungraspable?

[Sagan]
One of the great revelations of space exploration
Is the image of the earth, finite and lonely
Bearing the entire human species
Through the oceans of space and time

[Dawkins]
Matter flows from place to place
And momentarily comes together to be you
Some people find that thought disturbing
I find the reality thrilling

[Sagan]
As the ancient mythmakers knew
We're children equally of the earth and the sky
In our tenure on this planet, we've accumulated
Dangerous evolutionary baggage

We've also acquired compassion for others,
Love for our children,
And a great soaring passionate intelligence
The clear tools for our continued survival

[Michio Kaku]
We could be in the middle
Of an inter-galactic conversation
And we wouldn't even know

[Sagan]
We've begun at last
To wonder about our origins
Star stuff contemplating the stars
Tracing that long path

Our obligation to survive and flourish
Is owed not just to ourselves
But also to that cosmos
Ancient and vast, from which we spring

Class of 2012

In honor of my daughter, graduating today with her degree in physics and philosophy. 

You challenged yourself. 

You took the road less traveled.

You learned how very capable and talented and awesome you are.

Congratulations, Niftydottir,  I am so proud of you.

Saturday Inspiration - 4 Questions

For your Saturday Inspiration, please take a few minutes to listen to this intelligent young woman answering questions from a theist friend.  It will help bolster your conviction that some young people are managing to become free thinkers in spite of the cultural indoctrination and enormous privilege that religion enjoys all over the world.

Notable and quotable:  (on the value of prayer in difficult situations) "I have to say, that I have never been in a situation that I could do...literally...nothing about. There is always something more useful that you can do than pray. Always." (7:02)

This week, and probably for the next few weeks,  my posts are going to be focusing on issues that are important to children, teens and young adults in our demon-haunted world.  Young people like FactVsReligion will be featured. I welcome suggestions for other great videos!