Belief

The Intelligence² Debate - Stephen Fry (Unedited)
Uploaded by Xrunner17. - Check out other Film & TV videos.

Really good video on the nature of (and misperceptions about) openmindedness.

I’m not an atheist. In fact, I believe that there is an ultimate reality and that I am subservient to/a part of this reality. You can call it what you will. I call it God…but realistically, I don’t know what it is. So, I guess I’m agnostic.

Either way, I am openminded. Even after watching this video.

If so, then why are self-reported religious people disproportionately using life-supporting technologies when they have no chance of recovery?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/03/18/cancer.God.religion/index.html

Sounds like nothing but plain old fear to me. Guess these people aren’t as sure as they claim to be.

I’ve always considered myself to be a pretty well-adjusted guy.  All of my life, things have sort of worked out for me.  I’ve been very fortunate in this respect.  Ultimately, I believe that everything happens as it is supposed to happen and that the only thing that we really control is our own perception.

This outlook has served me pretty well for the overwhelming majority of my 35 years on this earth.

Recently, however, the impending economic doom and the global sense of unrest have really started to get to me.  It sort of seems like we’re all fucked and that it’s just a matter of time before the whole fucking thing just breaks down.  Frightening.  And paralyzing.  Which is part of the problem.

Either way, I was thinking about it last night..trying to understand the root of my personal fear.  Since I’ve always felt that I’ve been blessed and, no matter what, things seem to always work out for me…then why is this time different than any other.

What I realized was that this impending doom has me frightened about losing what I already have…when, at any other time in my life, I really didn’t have anything to lose.  Before, I was on the bottom looking up.  From my current vantage point, I can look down…and that is the root of my fear.

But then I thought more deeply about it.  What do you have to lose?  Your house?  You can always get another one.  Your business?  I did actually work before I had my company?  Your kids?  They’re not going anywhere.  Your wife?  She was there before you had anything, so why would it matter if we had nothing again.  She’s with you.  No worries there.

So it really comes down to vanity.  It has to be.  And, realistically, that’s fucking stupid.

I am never sharper or more efficient then when on a deadline…and never more fierce when my back is against a wall.  If this is the case, then what is there to fear?  Nothing.  It’s actually an opportunity to evolve…to be better…to restore harmony and balance to a wildly unbalanced world.

It seems to me, that moving forward, the key is truly understanding our problems.  If we are concentrating on the right things, then we can solve them.  If we understand how the world is changing, then we can adapt to it.  I sincerely believe that.  And its also why I am happy that a younger,  smarter, more “connected” guy is in the White House.  I’m not saying that he’s the messiah by any means…but at least it feels like he is a clear and lucid thinker…and he has the charisma to influence and inspire others to action.  And isn’t that what we need…an understanding of how our environment is changing, a clear plan for adaptation to this changing world, and the motivation of execute on this plan?

It kinda comes back to good ole’ Charles Darwin, who recently celebrated his 200th birthday.  What we are experiencing right now is a fundamental environmental shift.  It is clear that status quo is under attack.  We’ve been abusing everything…credit, other people, the planet, our own bodies.

The environment (figuratively and literally) has responded in kind.  The equilibrium has shifted…because we have shifted it.  We’re just a bunch of self-aware monkeys.  And the universe has reasserted its dominance over us.

We can stand paralyzed by fear of these changes or we can adapt to these changes.  What we are experiencing right now IS evolutionary selective pressure.

As these concepts began to really sink in, I started to realize that the reason that things always seemed to work out for me is that I actually have really good adaptive skills.  I’m the proverbial “jack of all trades / master of none” type.  In my life, I’ve been a biochemist and an advertising creative director.  I’ve been an athlete and a scholar…a dork and a cool guy.  I’m wildly interested in spirituality and science.  I think broadly and deeply.  And I am not afraid of hard work (although I try to avoid it whenever possible).

It seems that no matter the situation, I’ve found a way to adapt.

So, although I am a little uneasy…I am no longer afraid.  Because realistically, what am I afraid of?  I’ve come to a place in my own head where I’m actually contemplating being proactive about change.  I want to start working on bigger problems than selling organic soup or brown sugar water.  I want to be part of the solution.  I’m not sure yet what that entails…but the time for comfort in the current situation has passed.  We’re at a point of transition…a point of profound inflection.

Sure, its a little scary.  But when is the unknown warm and fuzzy?  But I’m really starting to see this as an opportunity…the selective pressure required to elevate to the next level.  Maybe I’m not supposed to be what I am right now.  Maybe I’m not supposed to be doing what I am doing.  Maybe I’m not supposed to be living in this house…typing on this computer.

Growing up, I always wanted what I have now.  OK.  Great.  So does that mean that I’m done?  Great job dood.  No more challenges required.  You can die now.

Fuck that!  I’m starting to believe that this kick-in-the-nuts is exactly what I need.  I’ve always risen to the occasion.  Why would this be any different?  Because I have more to lose?  Like I said in the beginning of this rant, everything that really matters is going nowhere.

Bring it on.  All of sudden, I feel like Lt. Dan in the middle of a hurricane.  Maybe what I am truly afraid of is that I’ve never aimed high enough.  Perhaps this is the time that I find out.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/30/dole.ad/index.html

CNN reports on a really shitty ad put out by Elizabeth Dole, whose North Carolina Senate seat is being threatened by Kay Hagan, in which she calls Hagan “godless”.  Kinda reminds me of McCarthy’s witch hunt in the 50s.  We were afraid of the communists so everyone he didn’t like was a communist.  Now we’re afraid of Muslims (and the end of days), so everyone we don’t like is now godless or (perhaps worse) Muslim.

In the 30-second ad, a narrator says that a leader of the Godless Americans Political Action Committee recently held a “secret fundraiser” for Hagan.

The ad then shows members of the group, which promotes rights for atheists and the separation of church and state, declaring that neither God nor Jesus exists.

“Godless Americans and Kay Hagan,” the ad continues. “She hid from cameras. Took ‘Godless’ money. What did Kay Hagan promise in return?”

The ad ends with a picture of Hagan and a voice that sounds like hers declaring, “There is no God.”

Kinda reminds me of the time when I was told by a bunch of blue haired old ladies that I was unfit to be my nephew’s Godfather because I currently didn’t attend church.  Although they were fine with the drug addicts and welfare recipients who were around the table with me…because they lied and said that they went to church every week.

So it’s ok to fuck up your life and the lives of others every day, but as long as you go to church on Sunday (or at least pretend like you do), then you are a better person than someone who leads a good life but wants to explore the meaning of life and a relationship with God on their own.

It’s funny.  It feels as if, somehow, we’re slipping into the dark ages.

The problem, to me, isn’t that people are religious.  God bless em.  Seriously.  But its so arbitrary.  I mean, Christian God is different that Allah which is different (maybe) from YHWY.  I mean, why can’t we all be right?  Why can’t we all be expressing the same longing for order and meaning?  Aren’t we all looking for the ultimate truth.

If people disagree, then how in the hell can it be “ultimate”?  Truth is truth.

I really, really hope that we move away from this era of me against you into an era of us.

I just read an interesting but, to me, profoundly flawed article in Scientific American (wow, did I actually say that). The article Never Say Die: Why We Can’t Imagine Death, by Jesse Bering talks about how it is impossible to rationalize inexistance because we can never actually experience inexistance while existant. In other words, when we die, there is nothing. And since we can never experience nothing while we are conscious then we’ve evolved these myths of an afterlife of some sort.

The problems, however, start in the first paragraph where Bering assumes

After all, the brain is like any other organ: a part of our physical body. And the mind is what the brain does—it’s more a verb than it is a noun. Why do we wonder where our mind goes when the body is dead? Shouldn’t it be obvious that the mind is dead, too?

The assertion that the mind is what the brain does is wildly assumptive. I’m not trying to break all flaky, but isn’t it possible that the brain is how the mind does rather that what the mind does? Rick Strassman’s work on DMT, Ervin Laszlo (and others) thinking around the Akashic Field, and others put forth interesting thinking around this.

The bottom line though is that it is borderline irresponsible, in my view, to put forth such an overarching assumption - and that is what it is - in a supposed scientific forum.

Realistically, there is not data to support this…so on either side of the coin, we’re taking about faith.

One might think that based on my blog, that I’m a Godless Secular Humanist. I’m actually not. I just have a broader vision of what God is and my relationship to it. I tend to believe in, based on a hell of alot of observable patterns in nature, that cycles and patterns are one of the most, if not the most, fundamental aspect of the universe. Also, I tend to believe that universe is a closed system…in that ultimately we’re talking about infinity…and doesn’t infinity include everything. Everything to me is a closed system. How can you be outside of infinity? (If someone can educate me, I seriously would like to know. Frreal.)

Thus, if we live in a closed system and the first law of thermodynamics (the law of conservation of energy) is valid…

the law of conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another or transferred from one body to another, but the total amount of energy remains constant (the same)

…then one must conclude that death is not an end per se…but a transition. Where this transition leads is clearly a matter of faith. Hopefully, one day science will allow us to understand this.

The bottom line though is that I have a problem with basic idea of an “end”. By the way, new thinking in quantum gravity asserts that the unierse did not come from stasis (i.e. the big bang)…that it seems more like an oscillation (i.e. the big bounce). That sounds like the cycling of a closed system to me.

There aren’t many things that I am sure of in life…I just don’t think that any person of reasonable intellect can be…but I feel pretty good about this idea of transition and connection in an afterlife. How?

It all goes back to the absolutely most profound experience of my life. It wasn’t at church. It wasn’t on top of a mountain. It wasn’t in a sweat lodge. It was in my bed about 5 years ago.

I was sleeping peacefully when I started dreaming. This dream was unlike anything that I’ve ever experienced. It’s funny, because I don’t remember the details…but I do remember the jist of it…and I do remember my deeply and profoundly visceral reaction to it.

Somehow, I was looking into this house where a woman seemed to be abducted and abused. She looked pretty bleak. It was her birthday. Not sure how, but I saw a cake on the table near her that had “Happy Birthday — Pet Name”. I don’t remember the pet name. And I don’t know how a captive could get a cake. But I do remember that it was what I had called this woman either before my death or in another life. I saw her look at the cake and begin to smile and cry at the same time. Somehow, at the very moment, I KNEW deeply and thoroughly that I was connected to this person. Uh, what?

Again, this isn’t logical…but I’ll be damned if it didn’t feel real.  As real as anything that I’ve ever experienced.  I’m serious.

Anyway, the point is that in that moment, for the first time ever, I felt that I had been “told something”. I had been given some sort of insight that truly leads me to believe that consciousness or life or whatever goes on. That we can be outside of or transcend time.

During this, I think that I was in sleep paralysis yet I was crazy lucid. As lucid as I had ever been. And when I was finally able to open my eyes, I was crying. Not sad crying. But crying. Frickin’ wierd. And all that I could do was reach over, kiss my wife, and hold her hand as she slept. Somehow, I knew that we were connected. More than now. That we’re all connected.

This experience is what drives my leaps of faith.

And its why I became open to ideas of consciousness and spirituality that are outside of the mainstream.

That shit was real son.

CNN reports that

only about 5 percent of the nation’s churches are racially integrated, and half of them are in the process of becoming all-black or all-white.

Kind of funny.  Isn’t religion supposed to be about being the same in the eyes of God?  These are the kinds of anecdotes that remind me why I have turned my back to “organized religion”.  The hypocracy is absolutely mindblowing.

Found this little quote on religion in a 1964 interview with Playboy Magazine. She was asked if religion had ever offered anything of constructive value to human life.

..in the sense of blind belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man’s life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper principles to inculcate, but in a very contradictory context and, on a very — how should I say it? — dangerous or malevolent base: on the ground of faith.

This is kinda how I see religion. It holds true to antiquated models of reality.  Since it is supposed to provide insight into the metaphysical, then shouldn’t it be updated as our knowledge base turns more of that metaphysical stuff into actual physical stuff…so to speak?  What I mean is that if religion tells me that the world is 4,000 years old…but I have reams upon reams of verifiable data which not only supports a different model but actually refutes the religious claim, then shouldn’t the religious model be updated to reflect this?

It seems sort of irresponsible to me, as a thinking, rational human being, not to explore all models of reality in search of the ultimate truth.  This is why I tend to gravitate toward models of reality which seem to align most gracefully with current scientific models of reality.

I’d prefer to take my leap of faith after I’ve exhausted what science can tell me.  There is still faith.  But its the leap that has been reduced.

Does that make any sense at all?

It’s funny.  I was reading an article about a really elegant model of spacetime in Scientific American on the crapper last night…I tend to do all of my reading in there…sort of my version of “a study”.  Anyway, the geometry described in the piece reminded me of “the reality” that users of DMT often see.

I find this very interesting because, as you probably know, I am very interested in the unexplored space between science and spirituality.  I believe that there is a set of fundamental ideas that unify these ways of exploring reality.  And to that end, I believe, as do many others, that altering your state of consciousness whether through meditation, entheogens, or otherwise can provide powerful insight into the true nature of reality.  It’s a simple matter of changing your perspective.  Is THAT perspective any more or less real than the basal state?

Maybe Joe Rogan isn’t as crazy as everyone makes him out to be.

This Umberto Eco quote was on my iGoogle today. It’s really a pretty profound insight…especially given the current state of affairs in our world.

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.