TrickyBuddha Studios

I think I’ve noticed that people are discussing religion. Maybe more than usual. And with less concern as to who hears them. But they’re not discussing their faith - or their lack (or uncertainty) of faith. They’re poking fun at religion, and those who would follow one.

Amongst the heathens, for every respectful comment by a Lance Armstrong or playful reference on Scrubs (they “debated” abortion and contraception from the point of view of what best serves our personal interests), there’s a sarcastic quip from a Scott Adams or an ironic tip-of-the-hat to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Whereas in the past I held a great deal of interest and curiosity toward all things religious and sought out a faith that fit and therefore felt more uncomfortable at such “attacks”, these days I’m finding myself more in agreement that religion is silly and unnecessary. Or groan-inducing. Or, some might say, dangerous.

It hasn’t been a conscious decision, and the idea of a brash mocking of religion still tweaks me on some level (that is, the level of offending someone I care about) in a way that I cannot reconcile - even the title of this post somehow feels wrong - but I’d be lying if I said that a serious conversation about religion and faith, in a way that suggested I needed either, left me more enlightened than amused.

Does this have any real-world implications for me? Not many. I wasn’t a very god-fearing person in the first place; the pope, his repressing decrees and hording of wealth still upset me. The other religions of the world may be more or less affluent, but otherwise no different.

I’ve lost interest in reading about religions. I’m less inclined to visit a new “place of worship” out of curiosity. I’m uncomfortable with the idea of religious-based ceremonies, such as weddings. I’m less interested in carrying on a pretense of a “personal faith”. And I’m less interested in biting my tongue about it, despite knowing that I am in the minority.

And accepting these feelings within me creates room for new, sincere curiosities: what happens to our society without religion? How does it impact the evolution of society? Would life itself become more or less difficult? What would happen if governments outlawed religion entirely? What would happen if governments didn’t need to because people world-wide abandoned their faith?

Is this the next global realization?

This all feels so new to me. And saying it a little freeing - even if it has been a process that started in high school. But I found the observation of ridicule (particularly the afore-linked Spaghetti Monster article and Sam Harris speech) wandering my mind as a scrambled mess and I thought posting it here might create something approaching a temporary state of clarity on the topic.

Feel free to comment or not, as you will. I promise that new comments won’t disappoint me, regardless of their nature.

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What I am about to post will likely be viewed as quite ironic in light of what I just posted, but…

My coffee cup has returned to me!

Some weeks ago (two, perhaps?) I went to the sink near my office desk with my coffee cup. I scrubbed it clean and put it down on the counter, then wandered off to visit the bathroom. When I returned, mere moments later, my cup was missing - replaced with an impostor mug. It was like an episode of Wife Swap.

The new mug wasn’t bad to look at. The BioWare logo wasn’t scratched off in places as it is with my mug, nor was any bit of the plastic handle affected by prior attempts at using the mug in the microwave. I should have counted it as a victory, but I missed my cup.

Still, fate being what it is, I washed the new mug and brought it back to my desk and used it lovingly - until this afternoon, when I brought it to the sink to wash it and discovered my old mug, sitting lonely on the counter. I quickly swapped out the mugs and raced back to my desk with the prodigal mug, awaiting tales of its adventures from the past weeks. I think the first question I’d like answered is, “Whose lips have been all over my mug?”

I can only wonder.

***
Celest and I broke up. It seems so blunt to just say it, but how do you lead in to an item like that? It happened some time back (mid-December?). I don’t really want to say anything more on it than that, but I will add that it was an amicable dissolution of our relationship - so no one needs to feel as if they should act any differently. OK?

Let me start this post with a couple of fun links… don’t worry, I’ll write something more “substantial” afterward!

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What is it about David Hasselhoff that makes him so compelling - and yet, disturbing? I saw it came from here) and I could only stare despite that all-too-familiar (when it comes to Hasselhoff) burning sensation telling me to look away.

Of course, if you think that’s a little too damaging for your retinas, you’re probably not going to want to click on this link - another favorite of mine, but nowhere near as damaging as this classic, the King of All Retina-Destruction.

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I love this: a Bollywood version of Fight Club!

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One more item from the non-substantial list, but I have to say it: I’ve been bleeding money! Out the wazoo!

Seriously.

It all started when I bought a new monitor from Dell - a 20-inch widescreen monitor! True HD! And then it continued when I bought McAfee Anti-Virus and McAfee Firewall. And then I bought a Logitech G15 keyboard. And then I bought a new computer - consisting of an Athlon 64 Dual Core 4400+, 2 gigs of dual-channel RAM, a 200-gig hard drive, a 256-MB Nvidia 7800 video card, and the cutest case you could ever hope to have, one that is small, quiet, clear on the sides, blue on the front, and sports a handle. I clotted the gaping wound in my wallet last night by purchasing the Logitech Z2300 2.1 speaker set.

I think it’s about time I stopped spending money, but I’m totally loving my geeky indulgence. I may be poor now, but the widescreen monitor totally makes my day. It’s sort of like when Superman tells Jerry Seinfeld [click the episode: "A Uniform Used to Mean Something..."] “surround sound… it’s like you’re there”. But with a screen.

I’ll take some pictures this weekend maybe, and post them up - to make y’all jealous, of course!

***
And now, an attempt at something substantial. Don’t laugh. Please?

I was reading about agnosticism at Wikipedia last night, and before I say anything about it, I have to ask why everyone is so disappointed with Wikipedia any more.

All I’m hearing is that the information on the site is inaccurate and anyone can edit it and that leads to dramatic changes and self-serving information and so on. If Wikipedia was a boat, half of the passengers would be drifting in the wake having already abandoned ship.

Well, guess what? You’re right: sometimes the information is inaccurate because anyone can edit it. But it also happens to be the focal point for information gathering on the web. And that is most definitely worth a lot. Plus, people care about it. They do their best to correct the information, and generally do it very quickly.

I can go to Wikipedia and basically find a summary of the internet’s knowledge on a topic in one location. That alone is worth all the tea in China.

Here’s my advice: read the summary; check out the external links; click on the discussion tab for the page; and then take what you learn with a grain of salt. If you’re that curious about a topic, go the next step and read some books or talk to some people or whatever tickles your fancy. Wikipedia is not the be-all and end-all for knowledge. But it is the first place I go to research any topic for which I would hope to find internet-based information.

But back to my point.

Celest is reading a book called the Life of Pi (I bought it for her, for Christmas), and the author made the point, from my understanding of the paragraph Celest showed me, that agnostics are sort of like people between decisions. It seemed to me that he was saying that agnostics need to “shit or get off the pot”; you cannot spend your whole life afraid of making a decision.

Yes, I know nothing about the book. I haven’t read it. And I’m not judging the book. But my first thought after reading that passage was about a comment I heard. The comment was something like, “If you control the givens, you control the debate.” In other words, by defining agnostics in his way, he can easily affect people’s understanding of agnostics and make comments such as the one he made - and have those comments come off as believable. He defined agnostics in a simple way, and from that launching pad was able to make his argument.

I’ve read a bunch of philosophy books - enough to know that writers use this tactic a lot to help encourage people over toward their beliefs. The problem is that they write so well, and so persuasively, and it’s sometimes hard to pick up on these tricks. Reading books like this, I sometimes feel like I’m trapped in a room with an eloquent speaker who is just barraging me with his efforts to convert me. Eventually, your defenses will slip. It’s just too difficult to disagree with their arguments when they’re so effectively controlling the givens.

So of course I felt a little defensive after hearing the passage and decided to look up a more proper definition of agnosticism to get my bearings (and I started my information gathering at Wikipedia).

There was a nifty breakdown of agnostic types at the site, accompanied by one or two-sentence light summaries of the type - and I felt myself distracted from my prior discussion point by shiny new bits of knowledge. But I’ll hold on to the point for a moment longer, here, before slipping to the next topic.

I think my view, after reading just the entry at Wikipedia, is that agnostics aren’t literally frozen in inaction because of the conflicting nature of their beliefs - as the Life of Pi writers somewhat hurtfully claims. It’s more that Agnostics refuse to blindly accept any religious claim. We’re taught not to blindly accept anything as truth - except with religion. The agnostic simply wonders, “why is religion an exception? If it’s impossible to have proof that God exists, isn’t it more likely to believe that He doesn’t exist?” Just like theists and atheists are able to move on with their spiritual growth because they have specific beliefs, agnostics, too, move on and grow in spirituality, in their own ways.

So when the writer says that agnostics need to make up their mind, I think my response to him would be, “Why?” And I also wonder if he’d be happier if I changed my mind toward atheism. Would he be like, “Whew! Your uncertainty was really bothering me. I’m happy that you’ve finally made a decision, regardless of what that decision is!” Not to exaggerate, but it’s like pinning someone to the ground and telling them that they have to suddenly make an uniformed-but-life-altering-decision as to whether or not aliens are giving anal-probes to rednecks. Why can’t I simply ponder the questions as to whether or not aliens exist and, if they exist, what their preferred methods of research are?

Moving on slightly, I mentioned that I found sub-categories of agnosticism, and that I had found one that sounded pretty reflective of where I see myself, in so far as the category is defined. That category is “agnostic spiritualist.”

Wikipedia defines an “agnostic spiritualist” as someone who holds “the view that there may or may not be a god (or gods,) while maintaining a general personal belief in a spiritual aspect of reality, particularly without distinct religious basis, or adherence to any established doctrine or dogma.”

I’m not sure that everyone has spiritual needs, but I think most people do. I think I do. I’m not saying “spiritual” as in “religious”; I’m saying that your body craves nourishment, your mind craves stimulation, and your soul (I know, I know) craves something, too.

Why do I exist? How long will I exist? What happens when I die? What are the odds that a random fluke has led to this miracle of existence that will all-too-rapidly be snuffed out? Does anything I do, or not do (such as writing on this web space for future generations to laugh at), matter? The brain is self-aware and this results in questions. And I think spirituality is an effort to answer or address those questions in some way.

Personally, I’ve often felt that embracing the world around me (the evil, illusionary world, obviously) gives me a special sense of connection and satisfaction with life. Is that spirituality? I think so, because that expression seems to be the same thing that religious folk refer to as the result of prayer, attending church, or otherwise immersing themselves in their faith.

I’ve heard this “embrace” expressed as Zen or Spiritual, but those often weren’t clear enough. Actually, if you follow those links it should be obvious that they aren’t clear enough. But more importantly to the simplistic focus of this post, it doesn’t address the question of belief in God.

Expressing myself as an agnostic spiritualist feels a little more specific than saying I am “spritual”. Maybe it’s not as specific as “hedonistic-but-guilt-ridden agnostic spiritualist,” but… I don’t want to go that far with this right now.

Yes, the “spiritual” reference is still riddled with holes, but defining a dynamic “faith” can’t be that simple. I’ll tackle it in another post. Or maybe I’ll post the link to the last pseudo-effort I made. Or this one.

To conclude, the point of my interpretation of agnostic spiritualist is that I won’t profess to believe that God exists - or does not exist. I don’t know that. And I can’t bring myself to accept or deny His (note by the capitalization how respectful I can be, sometimes!) existence without anything to substantiate that decision. But really, although I’d love to know the answer to that eternal question, the lack of an answer doesn’t affect the way I lead my life - at least for now - or rather, the lack of that knowledge drives who I am and how I evolve and think. I feel challenged by that uncertainty, I feel growth because of my desire to learn, and that leaves me feeling nourished - and that’s all that’s important. Right?

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[ Bonus Content #1 ] Mouth-breathers! I went to Superstore for some grub and got into a check-out line with only one person in front of me. Sweet! The guy has three boxes of cereal and a gallon of milk. The cashier quickly scans them. It’s just about my turn to check-out and race back and eat some food!

And then the guy hands the girl his coupon. Everything crashes to a halt. I think she read the coupon three or four times. I had glanced at it in the interim and noted it said “Buy Three Boxes of Cereal, Get One Gallon of Milk - Free!” or something like that. I couldn’t figure out what she was doing. I started to fall forward, like I had fallen asleep in the wait - but caught myself; I didn’t want to be rude, or give her a second task to think about.

She finally seems to figure it out - or, at least, start moving/breathing again. She grabs the milk and stares at it for a moment. Then she moves with more confidence, doing a price-check on the milk with her register. She sees it’s $3.25. What will she do next, I wonder!

She spins about and types in coupon and hits $3.25. I think, OK, she got it. Let’s move on. But then, after taking the guy’s credit card, she puts the card down, pulls the coupon out, and starts to read it over again! What was she doing? Regardless, she eventually put it down and completed the transaction.

It was my turn at least. And as I had no coupons, and I paid cash, we zipped right through my order without incident.

But!

As I was set to leave, I turned back and noticed the customer behind me was blocking the aisle leading in to the cashier, reading a magazine, and had none of her stuff on the belt. She had probably fallen asleep from the wait!

The cashier waited patiently while the woman continued reading the magazine. To jar her to movement, the customer behind her gave a mighty *ahem* and said something. Lane-blocker looked up and seemed indifferent. She casually put the magazine down and put her items up, one at a time, from the very back end of the register belt. I think she was so far back she had to lean forward and reach for the conveyor belt.

I always wondered about that one: the far reaches of the conveyor belt. It’s like… people are afraid of getting too close to the cashier or something. There has to be some reason as to why most people seem to do this. Is it the way registers are built? Did evil scientists research ways to keep customers away from cashiers, and determined a way to build register belts to influence this behavior? Am I asking questions that are going to have the government cause me to disappear?

When I worked at Shop n’ Bag, sometimes I’d say stuff like “I’m wearing deoderant”; the non-mouth-breathers always got it, and moved closer with a laugh at themselves. Everyone else seemed even more afraid to venture close. Weird.

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[ Bonus Content #2 ] I love thinking about the etymology of words, and researching the etymology of words. But then, sometimes, I just like to be stupid.

If I ask you what it means to “light,” you might say it means to ignite, to brighten, to illuminate, etc. If I ask you what it means to “de-light,” you might say to darken or remove light. So… a de-light-ful lunch would be a meal… filled with removed lighting. Hm!

A while back I saw that movie “The Passion of the Christ” and it inspired me to rant. Having no internet at home, I’ve kind of been unable to keep up with these rants as much as I have wanted to. But anyway, here’s my rant on that movie and how it inspired me.

There’s a lot of movies you can watch and the whole while you’re thinking about what you need to pick up from the grocery store or whether or not you need to do laundry that night, and then there’s movies where you forget to breathe, don’t realize your crying, don’t realize that you’re in a room packed full of people who are likely doing much the same as you. The Passion was intense and brutal and fully lives up to what you would really expect at a crucifixion.

Still, when the ending credits rolled and the music swelled, I felt angry. I wasn’t even quite sure why, but I knew it wasn’t because of what the movie portrayed - that is to say, I wasn’t angry that Jesus had been crucified. In fact, I think I was angry because of what was being portrayed; *this*, I wondered, is the legacy of Jesus’ work? Christianity, at its root (i.e. the stories), like most religions, is beautiful.

The idea of the noble, peaceful hero, Jesus, wandering the desert, performing miracles, attracting followers, preaching people to do good things and to turn the other cheek and so forth, is wonderful. And it’s so counter to the Old Testament that I wonder why there is even any connection as a singular “Biblical” unit. And maybe that’s the problem. Maybe the inclusion of the Old Testament in the Bible leads to the inclusion of old world philosophies in our understanding of Christianity - as opposed to the more progressive, granola-munching philosophies of the New Testament.

So let’s take one of the focal displays of Christianity: sacrifice; he died for our sins. Walk into any church and right up there on the wall behind the priest is a cross with a replica Jesus having just died, or perhaps almost there. And there, up on the movie screen, he’s doing it all over again. Dying.

That he was a good guy and who did all of those miracles is nice and all, it seems that people are saying, but that he died for our sins and made that ultimate sacrifice, that’s where he becomes worth remembering. Up until that point, perhaps he’s just some hippy worthy of forgetting.

OK, maybe I’m being overly dramatic. I mean, to be honest, I’m sure he would have been remembered either way, and yeah, letting yourself be killed to save the horde of people that populate this world is a noble sacrifice that, well, who knows if I would make it. Probably not. So that is something worthy of remembrance.

Still, I guess it bothers me that this moment, as reiterated by the film’s story, is being put forth, but without any context. I mean, ask any non-Christian about this movie and they may not even really get why this is such a big deal. “So,” they might hypothesize, “some guy out in the woods gets captured and killed for preaching religion? Bummer. Times were rough back then. Tell me again why I care?” Or, as one friend put it to me, (paraphrasing), “God comes down from Heaven and gets killed? Where’s the sacrifice? He’s just going back to Heaven. He knows what’s up.”

If you haven’t seen the Last Temptation of Christ, I think I would like to recommend it. Perhaps it has its flaws like any other movie, but in my opinion it more thoroughly captures the spirit of Christianity and makes you really understand the sacrifice. There, the sacrifice is more a pay-off. Jesus is more a real person that we can relate to.

Well, that’s the brunt of my rant. But to be fair to the movie, I decided I should give it a defense.

I went to Roger Ebert’s side (my favorite critic) and noticed he gave it four stars.

“It is a film about an idea. An idea that it is necessary to fully comprehend the Passion if Christianity is to make any sense. Gibson has communicated his idea with a singleminded urgency. Many will disagree. Some will agree, but be horrified by the graphic treatment.”

It strikes me, then, that what Mel Gibson was trying to accomplish was, more or less, akin to poetry. In poetry, to me, you’re trying to re-capture the emotion of a moment. Perhaps the poet is trying to reconcile things for himself. Perhaps he understands it but cannot stop that moment from burning in his mind. No matter, you explore that moment because you have to. And maybe that’s what Gibson has done here. The power of that moment, of Christ being captured, tortured, and then crucified - all in the idea that his death would open up the Heavens to everyone else, and lead to a new world. What better sacrifice than that? (Of course, for it to have been a good poem, it still would have needed some context! Unless it’s really just a film for Christians.) So where does that leave us? What does making us watch this film do for us? Hopefully, if we understand Christianity, we try to do our part to make our own type of sacrifice. But do we?

People are still horrific. The people who tortured and killed Christ are still around today. Our society would still ridicule someone of that nature. Maybe that beggar down the corner whom you usually ignore, or sometimes toss a dollar to - maybe he’s the Jesus of our day, and he’s simply waiting for someone to invite him in, clean him up, give him some food, and help him get on his way.