Facing the reality of a new framework of belief; reasonism

On March 30, 2010, In Life Rant, Uncategorized, By Andy

Recently I’ve become quite obsessed with the ideology of one particular speaker and thought leader by the name of Sam Harris. As an individual he’s a trained scientist working in the space of neuroscience and philosophy, particularly in the area of human society, morality and, promoting atheism. I was first introduced to Sam Harris through a friend of mine who sent me a Google buzz link to his brilliant TED speech he made just recently. The title of his presentation was called, Science can answer moral questions. Before you read the rest of this post, I would _strongly_ suggest you watch this presentation in full. It’s only 23 minutes long and could quite possibly change your whole way of thinking.

[[I'm going to assume at this point that you did watch the presentation, and have an understanding of what I'm talking about in the next paragraphs]]

What really struck a chord with me in Harris’s presentation was his statement that most people are willing to suspend the reason that they use in their every day life for purposes of believing in a religious framework. Let me give you an example if this isn’t clear. If I was to start a new website called ‘The Truth of the New Lord’, and in the first post explain that a voice from the ether called to me and bade me stand on top of some hilltop where upon a burning bush spoke to me and gave me instructions on how to live a moral life, how many people would believe it? Well I’d say none. There is a well known truism that states extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, yet this is just not the case when it comes to religion, particularly Christianity, which was the religion assigned to me by my parents at birth.

I feel a particular anger towards Christianity because I feel it is one of the faiths that lies almost completely to it’s followers, who in turn really must lower their mentality to that of a fucking moron to accept the doctrine that it lays down. It’s a vicious and dogmatic faith that rules by fear, and presents nothing in the way of universal truth that will make sense to a individual possessed of intelligence and critical thinking.

Yet Christianity is really just a derivative of Catholicism, both of whom believe literally what is written in The Bible. If these “stories” were in any other place besides The Bible we would simply discard them as rubbish if it wasn’t purported to be fictional literature. But because it is The Bible people forgo reason for madness; they accept the writings as gospel and use it as the foundation for a moral life!

Back to Sam Harris.

His paradigm faces a new direction, he is one of a handful of thought leaders that are using science in a new way, a way that provides answers to the questions of morality and human well being. He states clearly the reasons why science can answer these questions, and explains that in order for society to flourish organised religion must be put out of practice for society to move forward. In a conversation on this with my friend, I believe that there can’t be more than a small percentile of any societies population that could truly accept this paradigm and move forward with it.

It’s not an easy thing for an individual to radically change their viewpoint on something so core to our own psychology as religious or spiritual views. However this doesn’t mean that just because it’s a sensitive topic that we should shy away from heavy discussion on the basis of respect. If we fail to engage in debate with others simply because it’s considered polite to let them have their views, then we simply encourage ignorance. Reasoning individuals shouldn’t stand next to a person proclaiming the world is flat, and respectfully agree with them out of a sense of tolerance. Clearly there is right and wrong in moral standpoints, as measured by the well being of any and all citizens of a society. Which means we should not have to accept that all religions have something to offer a society just because they say so.

I face now towards a new direction, and no longer consider myself religious, but instead a reasonist. Atheist is a term that doesn’t fit with me in its current vernacular. I believe that there is still value in my beliefs as a Buddhist, but this is because Buddhism is in itself critical of its doctrine. The Dalai Lama has said that where the Buddhist Dharma is in conflict with science, the Dharma shall be resolved. This is a sweeping statement; the doctrine of faith that all Buddhists follow will be updated as science broadens our knowledge and disproves fundamental doctrine text. As far as I’m aware, no other religion has taken the equivalent position. Dare I be so bold as to state, only Buddhism stands as a truly enlightened religious framework, and perhaps the only one worth considering in the new frontier of the paradigm of scientific morality.

While it’s difficult to understand at first the far reaching consequences of accepting a new paradigm of belief and letting go of an old one, it creates its own sense of comfort knowing that the path ahead leads away from useless archaic traditions and in the direction of a truly utopian society.

The more people who make the same journey bring that dream ever closer to reality.

Andy.

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You only make excuses because you can

On March 20, 2010, In Life Rant, By Andy

Yesterday when I went to my gym to exercise I was feeling pretty low; some things in life weren’t working out as I had planned and I was feeling my resolve starting to spin down. I was worried my motivation would quickly follow. Excuses began flooding my head about why things shouldn’t be this way. It should all be the way I want it, and if it’s not, then life had been unfair; or that’s how it was when I walked out of the change room onto the exercise floor.

Then I saw a young woman who wouldn’t have been much more than early 20’s. She was walking a bit funny as she approached a bench press machine and loaded it up with pretty respectable weights for someone her size. It took a moment to notice because of the very true-to-life manufacturing, that she was wearing a prosthetic leg. It was attached on her right side about mid thigh. This woman then got on the bench press machine and hammered out 4 sets with serious intensity. I watched her on and off for about three quarters of an hour as she went from machine to machine working out in a way that made everyone else look like lazy bastards.

You know, if anyone deserved to be making excuses about why life was shit, it was her. But then she wasn’t making excuses, she was in there giving it 100% and looking good doing it. The realisation hit me that we make excuses because we can. And we allow those excuses room to affect our resolve and motivation because we simply do.

That young girl taught me that you can make excuses if you want, but you can also get in there and make the best of it!

Life aint over until it’s over!

Andy.

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The H1N1 flu media scare mongering

On February 21, 2010, In Life Rant, By Andy

This week I came down pretty hard with man flu, which is regular flu caught by a man that leads to constant and nonstop complaining about how he is likely to die at any moment because he feels so bad. Women seem largely immune to man flu as they (mostly) suffer with dignity and just get on with it. However I’ve become aware of many more flu strains the last few days thanks largely to the scare mongering Australian press with their American style over-hype reportage.

The newspapers from my home are particularly skilled at weaving nasty sounding medical acronyms like H5N1 (avian flu) into doomsday scenario headlines containing words like pandemic. Now drop that on a mainstream population that doesn’t really know how to critically evaluate new sources and challenge the information for validity, and what you end up with is a slightly panicked and scared population. The point gets even more rammed home when I talked this morning to my mother on Skype and hear them talking about cow flu of all things, a purportedly more insidious strain of flu that *really* makes you sick.

Seriously I wonder where this crap will end? Worse for me, I really don’t know who to blame; is it the media journalists for writing all this biased sensationalist rubbish in the first place, or is it the irresponsible news consumers for not making even a modicum of effort to critically review what they are reading and taking at face value? All this wouldn’t be so bad except that where there is general population fear, there is somebody selling a cure and making a profit. Michael Moore in his documentary Fahrenheit 911 deftly illustrated the point when he showed how the sale of ridiculous personal safety equipment skyrocketed with each and every media campaign that declared the state of the nations terror level. In the case of Australia there of course is the marketing of flu vaccines to help save people from the evils of bird/swine/cow flu. Which if you look into with even a small amount of research will show a large body of evidence that suggests these vaccines simply don’t work because of the mutation that each flu virus undergoes when passed from host to host, until you get to a point where the virus is a different strain from what you have been inoculated against. However if you follow the trail of money eventually it will end up somewhere in a big pile, and someone or some corporation more than likely is sitting on top of it.

So at this point you could suggest a conspiracy of some sort that this is all manufactured at some top level, but I think that would be by and large, over the top. Human nature being what it is, there is simply no way to effectively organise even a moderately large group of people to serve one general purpose unless you are an outright communist country with a singular leader. No, I think it’s more likely that there are just clever individuals who know how to exploit a particular situation for their own personal or corporate gain by using (and manipulating) the social conditions that already exist.

For example, Australian journalists will always write sensationalist news because most news readers are so used to being shocked that if they aren’t they tend to lose interest quickly in such reportage. This particular style of reportage then creates a situation of fear in the readers, which creates a desire for protection from the scenario that is threatening them. Somebody identifies this desire for protection and translates it into a product that can be commercially produced and sold. This product is then made available and of course the masses follow suit and purchase the product, which in terms buys them peace of mind. There is a low level of social engineering involved, but in this example I would hardly call it organised. There are examples that can be made that show how organisations make very effective use of social marketing as one facet of social engineering to control a population, but that’s for another day. The point here is that the mainstream create this situation for themselves by simply going with the flow, rather than asking some questions that would prove all the fear wrong.

So after 5 days my man flu is tailing out, I’ve been nursing myself with Vick’s Vaporub, dis-solvable paracetamol and vitamin C, and old fashioned bed rest. I’ve complained and whinged, but I knew that I’d recover and that it wasn’t life threatening and didn’t require any cocktail of expensive vaccines to protect myself from. If I’d have listened to the Australian news I probably would have been in fear for my life, but fortunately I don’t do that. I really don’t know why anyone does? Mainstream news is swill and should be treated as such.

Perhaps all this anger is in part because I’ve sick for the last 5 days and I just want to be done with it; the recovery always taking longer than I want. But also because of the stupidity of a system that uses an ordinary sickness to create fear and profit in people that simply let it happen. Each of us can influence this directly by very simply not buying into the fear, and not supporting the fear mongers.

Now wouldn’t that be a world worth living in!

Andy.

 
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The hope of illusion

On February 14, 2010, In Life Rant, By Andy

One of the greatest moments in the history of 80’s cinema was the crane kick finale scene of The Karate Kid. It’s quite simply the most amazingly foolhardy move ever attempted in a desperate gambit against all the odds. The thing is, if this had’ve been a real life moment, Daniel Caruso (played by Ralph Machio) would have ended up getting beaten senseless then kicked into next Tuesday.

I personally have a kinship with Daniel in this movie because when I was his age, I was going to full contact karate 3 days a week, and I was about his size as well. One grading I had to fight a bigger, tougher, more experienced fighter and, pumped up on the belief that anything was possible after seeing Daniel dispatch the bad guy, I  BELIEVED I could win. Well the referee said fight, and the next thing I was on the ground with my ears ringing and blurred vision. Some people rushed over and one guy said, “holy shit kid, I bet that hurt, you didn’t even see that kick comin, huh?!

Not really, no.

Modern storytelling mediums of film and TV have refined an art form as old humanity itself and created a powerful force of illusion that captivates the individual. In some sense I think this heightened sense of illusion has created an even greater sense of hope for those of us who watched a story and believed in it. The most blatant example of this that I’ve seen just recently was when I watched Avatar (IMAX 3D) and fell so hard for the Na’vi that I wanted them to win with a ferocity of heart that would have equaled any warrior on the back of an ikran. Of course it was really a foregone conclusion that the good blue guys were going to win, if they hadn’t I’m pretty sure people would have torn out their seats and threw them through the screen in defiant frustration. However even knowing that up front, when they did win everybody was filled with a profound sense of justice that they carried with them long after the end credits rolled up.

Within all of us we have instilled a strong sense of hope given to us from our birthright of storytelling heritage. Hope is as necessary to life as oxygen, without it a person will wither and die. But hope is something that we learn as much as a belief in our heart; the more powerful the illusion, the more powerful the hope it generates.

This is why movies like The Karate Kid (the 1984 original that is) have a magic about them that drives deep into our psyche; we wanted Daniel to win, even though we knew he absolutely shouldn’t. So when the dramatic music rose and he went into the crane stance our hearts rose in hope, and the final kick delivered us righteousness.

The illusion was complete, and we were better people for it.

Andy.

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The complexity of culture; a discussion on cultural osmosis. Part 2

On January 27, 2010, In Life Rant, Uncategorized, By Andy

In the years that have passed living here in Europe there was an inexorable motion that I’ve only recently become aware of, you start off as a foreigner and then end up something else, something in between. It’s something every foreigner is aware of, no matter how long they live in an adopted country, you will never be from that country or that culture, you are part of a class that always sits on the fringes of integration. For some expats the separation is more pronounced, the colour of your skin for instance, for many it’s the heavily accented way they will always speak the language. Some are lucky and can overcome these physical traits and move closer to the heart of a culture, but in most cases the best you can achieve is three steps on the inside ring.

There is a time of change though for those expats that stay somewhere beyond the first couple of years, and really start to grows roots into the place they’ve chosen as home. You start to blend in, and feel yourself becoming part of the place, a blanket of comfort covers your day to day existence, and you feel easy. But, you never are allowed to forget that you don’t come from this place. It is not your culture and it never will be.

I read a book many years written by a man called John Fowles called, The Magus. It’s about the dramatic life experience of a young English man who takes a teaching position on one of the Greek islands. The story is quite involved so I won’t relate it here, suffice to say that for anyone that has spent any time of their life as an expatriate, they should read it for empathy that is inside. Fowles said through his protagonist that once a person takes themselves out of their own environment and moves away, they will recreate that environment where ever they are. And so home becomes a space between a set of walls that imitates their cultural identity, independent of the country they are in.

It’s an interesting concept when you really start to think about it.

Andy.

 
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The complexity of culture; a discussion on cultural osmosis. Part 1

On January 26, 2010, In Life Rant, Uncategorized, By Andy

I’ve been away home now around 13 years. It almost seems like another life time when I try to remember what it was like. Home for me was Brisbane, that nice big country town about two thirds of the way down the east coast of Australia. Lovely place really, but at the time it seemed very small, and I couldn’t wait to get out.

The first move I made was London, where I spent just under two years living and using as a base before moving to Amsterdam, where I’ve been ever since. I remember those first two years as a very big time of discovery, both personally and geographically. I roamed England and other parts of the world out of an obsession and love for travelling.

My move to Amsterdam though became something more than just a travel trip, it was a move to a place that I would settle and call home. I grew to love the city and it’s people and the lifestyle that I had here. Each year I would say to myself I would only stay here a year, and then at the end of the year I wouldn’t want to go anywhere else. And now after a decade I feel more Amsterdams than I do Australian.

It’s funny though, I haven’t lost the accent from Australia at all. None of us really do I think, once you have it, it stays with you for life, like a criminal record that never goes away, not even after 200 years of colonial rule. But after that there isn’t much inside of me that’s still dinky-di true blue Oz. Most of my core attitudes have changed, and the association I had with the community of people from there is feeling very thin.

After a time you start to ask yourself, who am I?

Ten years ago if someone had of asked me, would there ever come a time when I wouldn’t feel like an Australian, I would have said they were fucking crazy. After all, I was an Australian’s Australian; I loved my Friday night (Rugby League) footy on TV, and honest Aussie rock. I loved driving down the South Coast road to Brunswick Heads to the Stone Ground Pie Factory and chowing down on a meat pie with peas or three. But now, ever so slowly, everything seems to have changed, and after so long away, I no longer feel like the Australian I was before.

Andy.

 
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My father; with age comes understanding

On September 30, 2009, In Life Rant, By Andy

I’ve never gotten along with my father; we’ve never understood each other and we’ve always been very different people. When I was 13 he left, and thus ended the time when we would be in each others lives on a day to day basis. He tried his best to maintain some semblance of parental control by enforcing a set of rules on my sister and I from outside our house, but as the first couple years passed and we got used to him not being there, his authoritarian grip quickly loosened, and eventually was removed.  From then on my father became someone that I was related to, but not someone I would know anymore than an acquaintance.

However the older I get in this age of my life, the more I come to realise the things that he had to face and better understand what kind of choices he had in front of him. I still find that I don’t agree with the things that he did, but at least I feel I can appreciate what his circumstances were and how he could have taken the forks in the road that he did. I also feel I understand why he had such problems relating to his own father, and why they spent nearly a decade not talking to each other.

Funny how history repeats itself.

Andy.

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When I grow up I want to be a fearless lesbian vampire killer… writer!

On September 30, 2009, In Life Rant, By Andy

Tonight I was watching that movie Lesbian Vampire Killers, which just happens to be at the top of my favourite comedy films of the month list. If you haven’t seen it I would recommend getting a hold of the DVD and rounding up some friends and beers, and get ready to laugh your collective arses off for 2 hours. Personally if I was you, I’d ignore the fact that it got 5 odd out of 10 on IMDB, that’s just totally shit for what it is. That’s one of those bizarre anomalies of statistics that you can’t explain but they just happen sometimes, like the English cricket team winning The Ashes once every 20 years.

Watching this film totally reminded me what it is that I really want to do with my life, and that’s write! Everything else seems to be so much a life support for my life, but what I really live for is writing. The irony is I always put my writing behind everything else because it just doesn’t seem as important as all the stuff that pays me money and keeps me in a lifestyle that I’ve become accustomed to.

I’ve heard that writers have to suffer for their art, so maybe I need to do some decent starving and living on the borderline of poverty to have that right proper grungy lifestyle that gets you taken seriously.

Maybe!

I just don’t think I could go there now. My Bukowski days while not over, are really getting more spaced out, with lots of recovery time in between binges.

I guess I’ll put this one in the “long term goal” bucket, and throw it five years into the future to pick up then.

Andy.

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Insomniac reflections

On September 14, 2009, In Life Rant, By Andy

Feeling tired today, didn’t sleep at all last night. I hate it when insomnia takes you the moment you crawl into bed. Going to be a long day today.

The whole working for my own startup is starting to kick in, this morning being Monday I didn’t even think once about how shit it is that a new week has started. This is much better than that forced servitude feeling that seems to be the norm for a standard nine-to-five job. If we don’t succeed in anything else, it will have been worth it for the enjoyment alone.

Lunch soon. Then I think I’m going to sleep on the office couch for a bit.

Andy.

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Selling a dream!

On September 9, 2009, In Life Rant, By Andy

Watching this schmaltzy stupid romantic comedy on TV, while I burn time before heading out of the flat. It’s got Heather Graham in it, so it’s watchable just for her… just! But everytime I see something like this on TV I am reminded how much we sell this dream to kids who grow up to be adults who believe in this dream so much they make it their mission in life to make it their reality.

At least that’s what I think. Maybe it’s got something to do with me still being single, and if I don’t believe this then I’ve failed in some essential goal in life. Well given how many people I know who have been married and then divorced, I feel that I’ve made the right choice.

Today being the 9th day of the 9th month of 2009, I feel stars aligning. Maybe I’ll change my mind about something.

Andy.

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