[50] The Problem With Atheism by Sam Harris

(This is an edited transcript of a talk given at the Atheist Alliance conference in Washington D.C. on September 28th, 2007)

To begin, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge just how strange it is that a meeting like this is even necessary. The year is 2007, and we have all taken time out of our busy lives, and many of us have traveled considerable distance, so that we can strategize about how best to live in a world in which most people believe in an imaginary God. America is now a nation of 300 million people, wielding more influence than any people in human history, and yet this influence is being steadily corrupted, and is surely waning, because 240 million of these people apparently believe that Jesus will return someday and orchestrate the end of the world with his magic powers.

Of course, we may well wonder whether as many people believe these things as say they do. I know that Christopher [Hitchens] and Richard [Dawkins] are rather optimistic that our opinion polls are out of register with what people actually believe in the privacy of their own minds. But there is no question that most of our neighbors reliably profess that they believe these things, and such professions themselves have had a disastrous affect on our political discourse, on our public policy, on the teaching of science, and on our reputation in the world. And even if only a third or a quarter of our neighbors believe what most profess, it seems to me that we still have a problem worth worrying about.

Now, it is not often that I find myself in a room full of people who are more or less guaranteed to agree with me on the subject of religion. In thinking about what I could say to you all tonight, it seemed to me that I have a choice between throwing red meat to the lions of atheism or moving the conversation into areas where we actually might not agree. I've decided, at some risk to your mood, to take the second approach and to say a few things that might prove controversial in this context.

Given the absence of evidence for God, and the stupidity and suffering that still thrives under the mantle of religion, declaring oneself an "atheist" would seem the only appropriate response. And it is the stance that many of us have proudly and publicly adopted. Tonight, I'd like to try to make the case, that our use of this label is a mistake—and a mistake of some consequence.

My concern with the use of the term "atheism" is both philosophical and strategic. I'm speaking from a somewhat unusual and perhaps paradoxical position because, while I am now one of the public voices of atheism, I never thought of myself as an atheist before being inducted to speak as one. I didn't even use the term in The End of Faith, which remains my most substantial criticism of religion. And, as I argued briefly in Letter to a Christian Nation, I think that "atheist" is a term that we do not need, in the same way that we don't need a word for someone who rejects astrology. We simply do not call people "non-astrologers." All we need are words like "reason" and "evidence" and "common sense" and "bullshit" to put astrologers in their place, and so it could be with religion.

If the comparison with astrology seems too facile, consider the problem of racism. Racism was about as intractable a social problem as we have ever had in this country. We are talking about deeply held convictions. I'm sure you have all seen the photos of lynchings in the first half of the 20th century—where seemingly whole towns in the South, thousands of men, women and children—bankers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, church elders, newspaper editors, policemen, even the occasional Senator and Congressman—turned out as though for a carnival to watch some young man or woman be tortured to death and then strung up on a tree or lamppost for all to see.

Seeing the pictures of these people in their Sunday best, having arranged themselves for a postcard photo under a dangling, and lacerated, and often partially cremated person, is one thing, but realize that these genteel people, who were otherwise quite normal, we must presume—though unfailing religious—often took souvenirs of the body home to show their friends—teeth, ears, fingers, knee caps, internal organs—and sometimes displayed them at their places of business.

Of course, I'm not saying that racism is no longer a problem in this country, but anyone who thinks that the problem is as bad as it ever was has simply forgotten, or has never learned, how bad, in fact, it was.

So, we can now ask, how have people of good will and common sense gone about combating racism? There was a civil rights movement, of course. The KKK was gradually battered to the fringes of society. There have been important and, I think, irrevocable changes in the way we talk about race—our major newspapers no longer publish flagrantly racist articles and editorials as they did less than a century ago—but, ask yourself, how many people have had to identify themselves as "non-racists" to participate in this process? Is there a "non-racist alliance" somewhere for me to join?

Attaching a label to something carries real liabilities, especially if the thing you are naming isn't really a thing at all. And atheism, I would argue, is not a thing. It is not a philosophy, just as "non-racism" is not one. Atheism is not a worldview—and yet most people imagine it to be one and attack it as such. We who do not believe in God are collaborating in this misunderstanding by consenting to be named and by even naming ourselves.

Another problem is that in accepting a label, particularly the label of "atheist," it seems to me that we are consenting to be viewed as a cranky sub-culture. We are consenting to be viewed as a marginal interest group that meets in hotel ballrooms. I'm not saying that meetings like this aren't important. I wouldn't be here if I didn't think it was important. But I am saying that as a matter of philosophy we are guilty of confusion, and as a matter of strategy, we have walked into a trap. It is a trap that has been, in many cases, deliberately set for us. And we have jumped into it with both feet.

While it is an honor to find myself continually assailed with Dan [Dennett], Richard [Dawkins], and Christopher [Hitchens] as though we were a single person with four heads, this whole notion of the "new atheists" or "militant atheists" has been used to keep our criticism of religion at arm's length, and has allowed people to dismiss our arguments without meeting the burden of actually answering them. And while our books have gotten a fair amount of notice, I think this whole conversation about the conflict between faith and reason, and religion and science, has been, and will continue to be, successfully marginalized under the banner of atheism.

So, let me make my somewhat seditious proposal explicit: We should not call ourselves "atheists." We should not call ourselves "secularists." We should not call ourselves "humanists," or "secular humanists," or "naturalists," or "skeptics," or "anti-theists," or "rationalists," or "freethinkers," or "brights." We should not call ourselves anything. We should go under the radar—for the rest of our lives. And while there, we should be decent, responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them.

Now, it just so happens that religion has more than its fair share of bad ideas. And it remains the only system of thought, where the process of maintaining bad ideas in perpetual immunity from criticism is considered a sacred act. This is the act of faith. And I remain convinced that religious faith is one of the most perverse misuses of intelligence we have ever devised. So we will, inevitably, continue to criticize religious thinking. But we should not define ourselves and name ourselves in opposition to such thinking.

So what does this all mean in practical terms, apart from Margaret Downey having to change her letterhead? Well, rather than declare ourselves "atheists" in opposition to all religion, I think we should do nothing more than advocate reason and intellectual honesty—and where this advocacy causes us to collide with religion, as it inevitably will, we should observe that the points of impact are always with specific religious beliefs—not with religion in general. There is no religion in general.

The problem is that the concept of atheism imposes upon us a false burden of remaining fixated on people's beliefs about God and remaining even-handed in our treatment of religion. But we shouldn't be fixated, and we shouldn't be even-handed. In fact, we should be quick to point out the differences among religions, for two reasons:

First, these differences make all religions look contingent, and therefore silly. Consider the unique features of Mormonism, which may have some relevance in the next Presidential election. Mormonism, it seems to me, is—objectively—just a little more idiotic than Christianity is. It has to be: because it is Christianity plus some very stupid ideas. For instance, the Mormons think Jesus is going to return to earth and administer his Thousand years of Peace, at least part of the time, from the state of Missouri. Why does this make Mormonism less likely to be true than Christianity? Because whatever probability you assign to Jesus' coming back, you have to assign a lesser probability to his coming back and keeping a summer home in Jackson County, Missouri. If Mitt Romney wants to be the next President of the United States, he should be made to feel the burden of our incredulity. We can make common cause with our Christian brothers and sisters on this point. Just what does the man believe? The world should know. And it is almost guaranteed to be embarrassing even to most people who believe in the biblical God.

The second reason to be attentive to the differences among the world's religions is that these differences are actually a matter of life and death. There are very few of us who lie awake at night worrying about the Amish. This is not an accident. While I have no doubt that the Amish are mistreating their children, by not educating them adequately, they are not likely to hijack aircraft and fly them into buildings. But consider how we, as atheists, tend to talk about Islam. Christians often complain that atheists, and the secular world generally, balance every criticism of Muslim extremism with a mention of Christian extremism. The usual approach is to say that they have their jihadists, and we have people who kill abortion doctors. Our Christian neighbors, even the craziest of them, are right to be outraged by this pretense of even-handedness, because the truth is that Islam is quite a bit scarier and more culpable for needless human misery, than Christianity has been for a very, very long time. And the world must wake up to this fact. Muslims themselves must wake up to this fact. And they can.

You might remember that Thomas Friedman recently wrote an op-ed from Iraq, reporting that some Sunni militias are now fighting jihadists alongside American troops. When Friedman asked one Sunni militant why he was doing this, he said that he had recently watched a member of al-Qaeda decapitate an 8-year-old girl. This persuaded him that the American Crusader forces were the lesser of two evils.

Okay, so even some Sunni militants can discern the boundary between ordinary crazy Islam, and the utterly crazy, once it is drawn in the spilled blood of little girls. This is a basis for hope, of sorts. But we have to be honest—unremittingly honest—about what is on the other side of that line. This is what we and the rest of the civilized, and the semi-civilized world, are up against: utter religious lunacy and barbarism in the name of Islam—with, I'm unhappy to say, some mainstream theology to back it up.

To be even-handed when talking about the problem of Islam is to misconstrue the problem. The refrain, "all religions have their extremists," is bullshit—and it is putting the West to sleep. All religions don't have these extremists. Some religions have never had these extremists. And in the Muslim world, support for extremism is not extreme in the sense of being rare. A recent poll showed that about a third of young British Muslims want to live under sharia law and believe that apostates should be killed for leaving the faith. These are British Muslims. Sixty-eight percent of British Muslims feel that their neighbors who insult Islam should be arrested and prosecuted, and seventy-eight percent think that the Danish cartoonists should be brought to justice. These people don't have a clue about what constitutes a civil society. Reports of this kind coming out of the Muslim communities living in the West should worry us, before anything else about religion worries us.

Atheism is too blunt an instrument to use at moments like this. It's as though we have a landscape of human ignorance and bewilderment—with peaks and valleys and local attractors—and the concept of atheism causes us to fixate one part of this landscape, the part related to theistic religion, and then just flattens it. Because to be consistent as atheists we must oppose, or seem to oppose, all faith claims equally. This is a waste of precious time and energy, and it squanders the trust of people who would otherwise agree with us on specific issues.

I'm not at all suggesting that we leave people's core religious beliefs, or faith itself, unscathed—I'm still the kind of person who writes articles with rather sweeping titles like "Science must destroy religion"—but it seems to me that we should never lose sight of useful and important distinctions.

Another problem with calling ourselves "atheists" is that every religious person thinks he has a knockdown argument against atheism. We've all heard these arguments, and we are going to keep hearing them as long as we insist upon calling ourselves "atheists. Arguments like: atheists can't prove that God doesn't exist; atheists are claiming to know there is no God, and this is the most arrogant claim of all. As Rick Warren put it, when he and I debated for Newsweek—a reasonable man like himself "doesn't have enough faith to be an atheist." The idea that the universe could arise without a creator is, on his account, the most extravagant faith claim of all.

Of course, as an argument for the truth of any specific religious doctrine, this is a travesty. And we all know what to do in this situation: We have Russell's teapot, and thousands of dead gods, and now a flying spaghetti monster, the nonexistence of which also cannot be proven, and yet belief in these things is acknowledged to be ridiculous by everyone. The problem is, we have to keep having this same argument, over and over again, and the argument is being generated to a significant degree, if not entirely, over our use of the term "atheism."

So too with the "greatest crimes of the 20th century" argument. How many times are we going to have to counter the charge that Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot represent the endgame of atheism? I've got news for you, this meme is not going away. I argued against it in The End of Faith, and it was immediately thrown back at me in reviews of the book as though I had never mentioned it. So I tackled it again in the afterword to the paperback edition of The End of Faith; but this had no effect whatsoever; so at the risk of boring everyone, I brought it up again in Letter to a Christian Nation; and Richard did the same in The God Delusion; and Christopher took a mighty swing at it in God is Not Great. I can assure you that this bogus argument will be with us for as long as people label themselves "atheists." And it really convinces religious people. It convinces moderates and liberals. It even convinces the occasional atheist.

Why should we fall into this trap? Why should we stand obediently in the space provided, in the space carved out by the conceptual scheme of theistic religion? It's as though, before the debate even begins, our opponents draw the chalk-outline of a dead man on the sidewalk, and we just walk up and lie down in it.

Instead of doing this, consider what would happen if we simply used words like "reason" and "evidence." What is the argument against reason? It's true that a few people will bite the bullet here and argue that reason is itself a problem, that the Enlightenment was a failed project, etc. But the truth is that there are very few people, even among religious fundamentalists, who will happily admit to being enemies of reason. In fact, fundamentalists tend to think they are champions of reason and that they have very good reasons for believing in God. Nobody wants to believe things on bad evidence. The desire to know what is actually going on in world is very difficult to argue with. In so far as we represent that desire, we become difficult to argue with. And this desire is not reducible to an interest group. It's not a club or an affiliation, and I think trying to make it one diminishes its power.

The last problem with atheism I'd like to talk about relates to the some of the experiences that lie at the core of many religious traditions, though perhaps not all, and which are testified to, with greater or lesser clarity in the world's "spiritual" and "mystical" literature.
Those of you who have read The End of Faith, know that I don't entirely line up with Dan, Richard, and Christopher in my treatment of these things. So I think I should take a little time to discuss this. While I always use terms like "spiritual" and "mystical" in scare quotes, and take some pains to denude them of metaphysics, the email I receive from my brothers and sisters in arms suggests that many of you find my interest in these topics problematic.

First, let me describe the general phenomenon I'm referring to. Here's what happens, in the generic case: a person, in whatever culture he finds himself, begins to notice that life is difficult. He observes that even in the best of times—no one close to him has died, he's healthy, there are no hostile armies massing in the distance, the fridge is stocked with beer, the weather is just so—even when things are as good as they can be, he notices that at the level of his moment to moment experience, at the level of his attention, he is perpetually on the move, seeking happiness and finding only temporary relief from his search.

We've all noticed this. We seek pleasant sights, and sounds, and tastes, and sensations, and attitudes. We satisfy our intellectual curiosities, and our desire for friendship and romance. We become connoisseurs of art and music and film—but our pleasures are, by their very nature, fleeting. And we can do nothing more than merely reiterate them as often as we are able.

If we enjoy some great professional success, our feelings of accomplishment remain vivid and intoxicating for about an hour, or maybe a day, but then people will begin to ask us "So, what are you going to do next? Don't you have anything else in the pipeline?" Steve Jobs releases the IPhone, and I'm sure it wasn't twenty minutes before someone asked, "when are you going to make this thing smaller?" Notice that very few people at this juncture, no matter what they've accomplished, say, "I'm done. I've met all my goals. Now I'm just going to stay here eat ice cream until I die in front of you."

Even when everything has gone as well as it can go, the search for happiness continues, the effort required to keep doubt and dissatisfaction and boredom at bay continues, moment to moment. If nothing else, the reality of death and the experience of losing loved ones punctures even the most gratifying and well-ordered life.

In this context, certain people have traditionally wondered whether a deeper form of well-being exists. Is there, in other words, a form of happiness that is not contingent upon our merely reiterating our pleasures and successes and avoiding our pains. Is there a form of happiness that is not dependent upon having one's favorite food always available to be placed on one's tongue or having all one's friends and loved ones within arm's reach, or having good books to read, or having something to look forward to on the weekend? Is it possible to be utterly happy before anything happens, before one's desires get gratified, in spite of life's inevitable difficulties, in the very midst of physical pain, old age, disease, and death?

This question, I think, lies at the periphery of everyone's consciousness. We are all, in some sense, living our answer to it—and many of us are living as though the answer is "no." No, there is nothing more profound that repeating one's pleasures and avoiding one's pains; there is nothing more profound that seeking satisfaction, both sensory and intellectual. Many of us seem think that all we can do is just keep our foot on the gas until we run out of road.

But certain people, for whatever reason, are led to suspect that there is more to human experience than this. In fact, many of them are led to suspect this by religion—by the claims of people like the Buddha or Jesus or some other celebrated religious figures. And such a person may begin to practice various disciplines of attention—often called "meditation" or "contemplation"—as a means of examining his moment to moment experience closely enough to see if a deeper basis of well-being is there to be found.

Such a person might even hole himself up in a cave, or in a monastery, for months or years at a time to facilitate this process. Why would somebody do this? Well, it amounts to a very simple experiment. Here's the logic of it: if there is a form of psychological well-being that isn't contingent upon merely repeating one's pleasures, then this happiness should be available even when all the obvious sources of pleasure and satisfaction have been removed. If it exists at all, this happiness should be available to a person who has renounced all her material possessions, and declined to marry her high school sweetheart, and gone off to a cave or to some other spot that would seem profoundly uncongenial to the satisfaction of ordinary desires and aspirations.

One clue as to how daunting most people would find such a project is the fact that solitary confinement—which is essentially what we are talking about—is considered a punishment even inside a prison. Even when cooped up with homicidal maniacs and rapists, most people still prefer the company of others to spending any significant amount of time alone in a box.

And yet, for thousands of years, contemplatives have claimed to find extraordinary depths of psychological well-being while spending vast stretches of time in total isolation. It seems to me that, as rational people, whether we call ourselves "atheists" or not, we have a choice to make in how we view this whole enterprise. Either the contemplative literature is a mere catalogue of religious delusion, deliberate fraud, and psychopathology, or people have been having interesting and even normative experiences under the name of "spirituality" and "mysticism" for millennia.

Now let me just assert, on the basis of my own study and experience, that there is no question in my mind that people have improved their emotional lives, and their self-understanding, and their ethical intuitions, and have even had important insights about the nature of subjectivity itself through a variety of traditional practices like meditation.

Leaving aside all the metaphysics and mythology and mumbo jumbo, what contemplatives and mystics over the millennia claim to have discovered is that there is an alternative to merely living at the mercy of the next neurotic thought that comes careening into consciousness. There is an alternative to being continuously spellbound by the conversation we are having with ourselves.

Most us think that if a person is walking down the street talking to himself—that is, not able to censor himself in front of other people—he's probably mentally ill. But if we talk to ourselves all day long silently—thinking, thinking, thinking, rehearsing prior conversations, thinking about what we said, what we didn't say, what we should have said, jabbering on to ourselves about what we hope is going to happen, what just happened, what almost happened, what should have happened, what may yet happen—but we just know enough to just keep this conversation private, this is perfectly normal. This is perfectly compatible with sanity. Well, this is not what the experience of millions of contemplatives suggests.

Of course, I am by no means denying the importance of thinking. There is no question that linguistic thought is indispensable for us. It is, in large part, what makes us human. It is the fabric of almost all culture and every social relationship. Needless to say, it is the basis of all science. And it is surely responsible for much rudimentary cognition—for integrating beliefs, planning, explicit learning, moral reasoning, and many other mental capacities. Even talking to oneself out loud may occasionally serve a useful function.

From the point of view of our contemplative traditions, however—to boil them all down to a cartoon version, that ignores the rather esoteric disputes among them—our habitual identification with discursive thought, our failure moment to moment to recognize thoughts as thoughts, is a primary source of human suffering. And when a person breaks this spell, an extraordinary kind of relief is available.

But the problem with a contemplative claim of this sort is that you can't borrow someone else's contemplative tools to test it. The problem is that to test such a claim—indeed, to even appreciate how distracted we tend to be in the first place, we have to build our own contemplative tools. Imagine where astronomy would be if everyone had to build his own telescope before he could even begin to see if astronomy was a legitimate enterprise. It wouldn't make the sky any less worthy of investigation, but it would make it immensely more difficult for us to establish astronomy as a science.

To judge the empirical claims of contemplatives, you have to build your own telescope. Judging their metaphysical claims is another matter: many of these can be dismissed as bad science or bad philosophy by merely thinking about them. But to judge whether certain experiences are possible—and if possible, desirable—we have to be able to use our attention in the requisite ways. We have to be able to break our identification with discursive thought, if only for a few moments. This can take a tremendous amount of work. And it is not work that our culture knows much about.

One problem with atheism as a category of thought, is that it seems more or less synonymous with not being interested in what someone like the Buddha or Jesus may have actually experienced. In fact, many atheists reject such experiences out of hand, as either impossible, or if possible, not worth wanting. Another common mistake is to imagine that such experiences are necessarily equivalent to states of mind with which many of us are already familiar—the feeling of scientific awe, or ordinary states of aesthetic appreciation, artistic inspiration, etc.

As someone who has made his own modest efforts in this area, let me assure you, that when a person goes into solitude and trains himself in meditation for 15 or 18 hours a day, for months or years at a time, in silence, doing nothing else—not talking, not reading, not writing—just making a sustained moment to moment effort to merely observe the contents of consciousness and to not get lost in thought, he experiences things that most scientists and artists are not likely to have experienced, unless they have made precisely the same efforts at introspection. And these experiences have a lot to say about the plasticity of the human mind and about the possibilities of human happiness.

So, apart from just commending these phenomena to your attention, I'd like to point out that, as atheists, our neglect of this area of human experience puts us at a rhetorical disadvantage. Because millions of people have had these experiences, and many millions more have had glimmers of them, and we, as atheists, ignore such phenomena, almost in principle, because of their religious associations—and yet these experiences often constitute the most important and transformative moments in a person's life. Not recognizing that such experiences are possible or important can make us appear less wise even than our craziest religious opponents.

My concern is that atheism can easily become the position of not being interested in certain possibilities in principle. I don't know if our universe is, as JBS Haldane said, "not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we can suppose." But I am sure that it is stranger than we, as "atheists," tend to represent while advocating atheism. As "atheists" we give others, and even ourselves, the sense that we are well on our way toward purging the universe of mystery. As advocates of reason, we know that mystery is going to be with us for a very long time. Indeed, there are good reasons to believe that mystery is ineradicable from our circumstance, because however much we know, it seems like there will always be brute facts that we cannot account for but which we must rely upon to explain everything else. This may be a problem for epistemology but it is not a problem for human life and for human solidarity. It does not rob our lives of meaning. And it is not a barrier to human happiness.

We are faced, however, with the challenge of communicating this view to others. We are faced with the monumental task of persuading a myth-infatuated world that love and curiosity are sufficient, and that we need not console or frighten ourselves or our children with Iron Age fairy tales. I don't think there is a more important intellectual struggle to win; it has to be fought from a hundred sides, all at once, and continuously; but it seems to me that there is no reason for us to fight in well-ordered ranks, like the red coats of Atheism.

Finally, I think it's useful to envision what victory will look like. Again, the analogy with racism seems instructive to me. What will victory against racism look like, should that happy day ever dawn? It certainly won't be a world in which a majority of people profess that they are "nonracist." Most likely, it will be a world in which the very concept of separate races has lost its meaning.

We will have won this war of ideas against religion when atheism is scarcely intelligible as a concept. We will simply find ourselves in a world in which people cease to praise one another for pretending to know things they do not know. This is certainly a future worth fighting for. It may be the only future compatible with our long-term survival as a species. But the only path between now and then, that I can see, is for us to be rigorously honest in the present. It seems to me that intellectual honesty is now, and will always be, deeper and more durable, and more easily spread, than "atheism."

[49] Who The Hell Knows Where This Was Going

Place: Ted.com

Discussion: The End of The World
You should be: Concerned

I recently learned, thanks to heretical science, that about 20% of people are clinically depressed. This was a just a fun fact on a discussion about the end of the world and the different things that threaten to end human existence. The universe is a scary place. No one is really thinking about being hit by an asteroid, or a solar flare burning our atmosphere, but as Philip K. Dick so elegantly put it "Reality is that which, even when you stop believing still exists." According to Stephen Petranek here there are a multitude of ways we are not-so-slowly killing ourselves.

I was hung up on the depression fact though. Its my "mystic" or "spiritual" belief that one way or another we are all connected be it because we're from the earth or because the entire universe is the same particles we are. When I was reading stuff from Deepak Chopra he talked a lot about the unconscious energy field, or that space in your mind that "knows" things w/o you truly thinking about them. Well this mental epidemic made me think about animals and how they "know" when shits about to hit the fan before natural disasters. Ya, I'm bout to get all head trippy, just ride it out. At the same time of me having such disdain for humanity as a whole I still can't forsake the urge compelling me to give people the benefit of the doubt. While intelligence appears to be fleeting from conscious people I like to believe that the back of the mind part can't be tampered with. If I'm right then I would supposed that people are becoming more and more depressed because the "collective unconscious intelligence" is really letting the facts of our plight filled universal situation sink in. Picture it as a massive brain where dreams come from and when you can get into a lucid state the entire world is literally at your grasp.

I've talked a lot about fear and laziness in the past, thank you Waking Life. I think the issue gets more complicated that just being afraid. People don't even know what it there is to be afraid of anymore. Even more likely they've realized there are too many things to be afraid of. Evolution has taught them to be afraid, they survived from dodging bullets and suppressing the urges to investigate, at least the ones who've made it thus far. Now when people care more about drunk drivers or getting mugged who the hell honestly believes there is a better chance of dying from an asteroid than in a tornado? I think I've found good reasons why people are lazy when they aren't justifying it because they are afraid. Personally I feel like sitting and thinking or sleeping does more for my mental state than 90% of the bullshit I try to force into my head in class. I think being relaxed and contemplative can lead to amazing insight and clarity even if it need be only for yourself. I think there is a ping-pong effect in our brains. It bounces back and forth between new and exciting to dull and old to scary and threatening to imaginative and wonderful and no one feels like they have any control over the paddles.

I try to face my death everyday. At least once before I fall asleep I'll think about what if some random ass thing happens and takes me out. Someone may be saying "but nick, you say there aren't any "what-ifs" no future or past just now" and yes this is true but this what if dosen't paralyze me with fear like the ones I hear from my friends. It's one of the only ways I can really direct my thoughts and my actions into the best ways of making me happy. Whenever I buy some expensive thing or act "crazy" its because there may never be a moment to show you who I really am again after one car accident, asteroid, or disappearing rain forest. You think that just because you believe something different than me is making me insecure and defensive? In reality I am just frustrated how people can go so frivolously about their lives w/o ever for a second thinking "am i happy? what makes me happy? is this the truth?" I don't like science because it's like anti-god or offers all the best solutions. I like it because its humanitarian, it focuses on things that enrich life, it tries to protect you from yourselves despite scorn and ridicule from misunderstanding. Ladies and gentlemen we are dead and dying, live it up.

Every time I think about getting a nice house or cool thing to play with there's always the people I care about right along with me in the mental picture playground. Half the crap I do with my life is because I'm thinking that somewhere down the line I might be able to add to a fun time around a fire playing my guitar, or I might be able to throw a kickass movie party around a pimp ass tv. I want to make people I like happy, and I like people I know will be able to appreciate the underlying fabric of the moment. You can't teach or preach "the imminent moment." Its something you have to learn and embrace and practice. It's the one thing that can be totally you no matter what faces you've tried on throughout your life. Everyone is telling you, let me repeat, everyone is telling you the rights and wrongs of life.

When do you get your say?

[48] Quick Epiphany

So I picked up a hat today and chased down the guy that forgot it. Then, as my mind always does, my mind got into religious mode. I felt so weird just doing good for the sake of good. Like I didn't even think about stealing it or what the girls around him would think when I gave it to him. My goal was, he lost it, I need to get it back to him. Its just this eerie sense of fulfillment from a freakin hat. Right for the sake of right. I'm thinking god, with his infinite bag of tricks. Everyone is out killing and raping etcetera and the only way he can relate to them and convince them they need to be good is with more killing? Granted my hat story isn't going to sell as well as the bible, but I'm writing about the feeling I got. Not to get props or sound self righteous, but seriously because I'm amazed. I know how terrible of a person I am sometimes, well, a lot of times. "God" doesn't need to remind me. But why couldn't he just tell people that nice for the sake of nice is more fulfilling and awe inspiring than constantly thinking your trash that's only worthy of repenting and praising? I have a theory on that one…..but anyways I just feel this horrifying sense towards what that message meant for humanity. God pities? So much in fact he needs to kill, quite theatrically, in the name of love. Ridiculous.

[47] To Be Title Later (Maybe Not)

Preface

If there is only one thing you should know about me its that I think, a lot. I reached a boiling point in my head and one rant blog is no longer sufficient in the effort to keep me sane. I've read about all arguments that attempt to argue for proof of God. I hear about the different weird and negative relationships people are in. Lately I've been trying to talk to as many people as I can to gain more perspective as I keep finding out you can never know too much about a subject. When I talk on these subjects, and too the people, I'm almost terribly blunt and feel as though they think I'm missing some dire point they're trying to make by my short and sweet answers. I assure you that is not the case and in writing this all out, hopefully I will be able to draw the proper analogies and tie in all the ramblings of my mind into a better foundation of understanding. I will try to provide as many links (which probably won't yet exist at the time your reading this) to the different books or videos I reference because they will always be a lot more descriptive and provide the exact source of what made me think or say something the way I did. I'm working on getting mp3's of any book I mention and am soon going to buy everything I've read if you are interested in borrowing. The library works too. The parts of this, I'll call it an essay, I imagine can be read separately. The parts on religion are designed to show why I think and say the things I do. They are not an attack at belief, in a sense, but an attempt to simply raise consciousness about issues you've maybe never thought about. The relationship part is more than likely going to be a reiteration of blogs I wrote years ago, but more encompassing and detailed. I want to discuss and revise my thinking constantly. This will forever be a work in progress and if you find anything you want to add or argue I will gladly indulge you. I only ask that you read with an open and focused mind so this becomes something positive and helpful and not demonized to fight about.

Definitions

One of the major reasons for discourse amongst the people I talk to and I are the varying definitions of certain key words. I want to clear this up in the beginning as we can go nowhere if we're not even speaking the same language.

Interpret: an explanation of something that is not immediately obvious.

Over and over I hear about how people are supposed to interpret the bible and I can't help getting overly frustrated. When you interpret something its automatically changed. The second you take in any piece of information your mind twists it into whatever best fits what you've encountered in the past. Ten million people interpreting one book and not getting the same answers is such staggering proof of this fact I don't know how people ignore the inconsistencies of people calling themselves part of the same religion.

Faith: complete confidence in a person or plan

This is something that is not up for question. If you ever go "o but wait" in your mind in regards to any subject you automatically do not have perfect faith in that subject. This can be a dangerous thing if taken too far, for example, does anyone remember September 11^th? When I talk of faith, I talk of something that is inherent and too often irrational that we devised to better soften the blows of things we fear or don't understand. Whether you have faith in your relationship or faith in God there is part of you that is relying on nothing but a strong inner conviction that does not require empirical proof nor is up for discussion.

Fact: An indisputable truth. (Update 7/8/2018): A better definition is "anything that can be proven or disproven."

This means that simply calling something a fact does not give it the characteristics as such. When I give a fact its from a well documented subject or respected person of the field. The idea corroborates with others in the field and cannot be refuted simply because you don't think its true.

Belief:  This means that an individual is convinced of the truth of a statement or allegation.

I'm always reminded of this idea, "Just because you are convinced that something is true does not make its so, it is merely convincing." I am on constant guard when it comes to what I actually believe because it matters to me what I tell people truthfully. As a subscribing member to the human race I find that it is easy to be wrong about a multitude of things when you go in looking for information on the preconception that your already in the know. This is why I hate it when people tell me "Well you believe what you believe and I'll believe what I believe, and we'll leave it at that." If you can't even begin to convey to me what you believe how can I go away secure in thought that you even know what you believe?

Hope: A desire for something to happen, while expecting or being confident that it will come true.

It is important to note the difference between hope and faith here. Hope is the stage we are constantly in. Faith is entirely mind encompassing. You hope your relationship gets better. You hope for good health and a good life. It allows you to take in the evidence and persevere down a given path, while faith can completely cloud and lock in an ideal.

Freedom: The power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints.

I made this one last because I want to make a special point about it. One thing I consistently hear is that God gave man free will. I so 100% completely disagree with that statement and I will tell you explicitly why. Reread the definition of freedom. In the religious realm you are not free to disbelieve. If you disbelieve, the externally imposed restraint that sends you to burn in hell kicks in. According to their view, even if your not playing within their rules your subject to be punished by their God. There is absolutely nothing free about this. There is no real choice that exists with such a view. You can be a motor-cross athlete and attempt a double back flip or not ever try. Yes, you may be judged  as a pussy, bad ass, cool, reckless, etc…with either choice, but those judgments can be accepted just as freely as they can be rejected. The "freedom of choice" in religion is a not so elaborate mask put on in the face of analysis that never dug deep enough.

Logical Fallacies

If your going to discuss/argue I believe you should at least learn about the different fallacies you may or may not have been imposing to justify your position. Another reason I get discouraged from talking to people is that they start with a glaring gap in logic and then digress their position from that point. If I can find a the video again there is a quick run through of 22 fallacies that are the main proponents to such arguments. There is also a list in "Why People Believe Weird Things" by Michael Shermer that you can get from the library. The different ways people try to convince me of their thinking generally circle around these ideas:

Anecdotes: You tell a story that seems to support your view. 1 story or 10 stories don't matter if they can't be tested and confirmed by anyone but you.

Burden of Proof: If you can't disprove God then he must exist. Unfortunately the job lies with the person making the claim. I don't personally say God doesn't exist because I believe it's a retarded concept to argue about. If you affirm that he does, its your job to prove it. In the same respect if I say something I will gladly offer the proof and source of my assertion.

After the Fact Reasoning: In short, superstition. Because one thing happened then something else must have been the reason. "Correlation does not mean causation." When you want something to be the reason so badly, then to you, that something will become the reason. Your mind is set to make you happy, if only eventually. If you can't guard against yourself you fall prey to yourself.

Representativeness: As Aristotle said, "the sum of the coincidences equals certainty" again taken from Shermer's book it's the idea that we forget the shortcomings and remember the meaningful times. It's the automatic rationalization you adhere to when your truly uncertain but don't want to give up hope.

Unexplained is Not Inexplicable: "I have some event in my life that I can't think about in any other way so it must be God." This one bothers me the most. I don't care to argue people's personal lives. I can't change you, and would die trying. Your life, as depressingly compelling as it may seem, could always be worse and probably has many unrealized reasons for your behavior in certain situations. This doesn't even need to apply, though it has been tried, when you speak of what God didn't allow in your life. If you want a competition to see who can write about all the times God didn't allow you to die you'd have to factor in all the meteors that don't crash on your house, cars you didn't hit on the way home, and shanks you missed out on walking a city street.

How to Think About Evolution and Natural Selection

Your teachers taught it. You hear about it on the news when a discrepancy with a creationist arises. You can either accept or deny it. I was once told by one of my Christian friends that she believed in "parts" of evolution and when I inquired as to which ones she said "well I don't believe we came from monkeys." This tells me that adequate truths about the theory are not being sufficiently circulated to the mass populous. The b/s arguments that there are massive gaps in the fossil record and no proof that humans came from something lower are disproved in 15 seconds with a  google search. I have the sites saved in my favorites if you don't care to investigate on your own. I also have the names of books that are even better documented and referenced. There was no "chance" in any part of evolution other than random mutations. And when I say mutations I don't mean some grotesque monster that you'd see in some science fiction novel. Only different changes in cells that account for slight variations. The mountains of evidence in favor of the theory will not be summed up here. I only offer an invitation to get informed before you position an argument on something you only think you know about.

Observable "Human" Nature

We think we are the most important. We don't bother to worry about the billions of galaxies in a multi-verse where billions of other life bearing planets may exist. We are trained to think that the things people do are so beyond different and special than what animals do its just "obvious" that someone created us. I find it very interesting then to learn about the behaviors of apes and especially a species of bird. You might already expect to hear that certain primates care for their young, cooperate to achieve goals, compete for status, and so on so forth. I read about a type of bird, I believe in "The God Delusion," that goes so far as to do good deeds like feed others young and take the dangerous lookout positions at night to make a name for themselves. Birds. Our time honored values of being brave and honorable, trusting and loving, are exhibited in birds with egos. You need to get over yourself. Its not defeatist or nihilistic to see and say things for what they really are. We are products of a process who's only goal is survival. The very fact that we are here means that we are the best suited so far for the current situation. Your kids will be a little better off, their kids too, and so on. (Un)fortunately we have become so advanced that we can avoid or negate the regular natural occurrences that would usually weed out the weaklings. It is your selfish genes that want to stay alive that cause over population and starvation. You can stop wondering why God isn't answering their prayers to be fed.

Religious Moderation

 If you don't kill the heretic for talking bad about your God then you are practicing religious moderation. I wanted to get the definition of interpretation out of the way to help explain the problem religious moderation has on the world. In a discussion with a religious friend I asked who's job it was to tell the guy that shot the abortion doctor that his interpretation was wrong. Which religious group is going to confront the people who hold up the signs saying "God hates fags?" The fact, simple and observable fact, of the matter is that people pick and choose which verses are most perfect in forwarding their personal ideas. The next guy that shoots a homo and holds up Leviticus 20:13 can't really be told he misinterpreted can he? Its right there, word for word, the perfect inspired Word of God. "If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." If your reading this you've probably never killed a homo. No "sane" person of faith ever has. The problem arises when an atheist or agnostic tries to point out that this guys mind was warped by faithful conviction and the religious moderates say back off, let him believe what he wants to believe. If the religious person tries to confront those people their arguing the God of the bible against the God of the bible. Try and work out the conflicting rationalizations then. When you choose the parts to praise and parts to ignore your obviously working on some other authority than God's. If you "just don't agree" or "think I'm just not getting it" try owning a slave and using the bible to back you up.

Empathy

Say you just got out of a bad relationship. Your heartbroken, can't see straight, and the world just doesn't seem to make sense. Millions of questions are darting around your head and before you even utter a word your friend comes along and says " I know how you feel." More often then not, you don't believe them, or you can't trust that they do because their not the same sex, or haven't been in the same type of relationship. Now there are good and bad things involved with taking this viewpoint. Well from what I can tell, mostly bad, the only real good point you can be sure of is that they haven't lived your life or dated that guy. Other than that, the depression, anger, hopefulness, lust, fear, confusion, or love that you may think you've felt they can empathize. When I talk to someone I hate to think that just because I haven't been in long term relationships they believe I have no idea what I'm talking about.

            Feelings are compelling. You'll get over them. When you think that life would not be the same, or that your still going to be emotionally attached your only worrying yourself about something your not experiencing. Yes, there will probably be residual feelings. Yes, people deserve chances and problems should be talked or worked out. The facts will always stare coldly in the face of overwhelming and conflicting feelings. You can make every excuse and I'm going to show them on this nice diagram . You go up and down while reading across. Whether this is the exact format of what happened in your relationship or not it's what can happen when you can't handle the little problems early. It doesn't matter how nice you are or how great you think him to be. The problems are problems. Complaining and hoping will never make them better. You either suffer in a relationship where you constantly rationalize everything he does and justify your feelings towards it or you break it off. Go back to being friends, see what it feels like to talk and exist with out "relationship tension" clouding your heart. You can either be a victim of the line, waver in and out of it, or avoid it all together, but it takes action not excuses. 

   Love: The Games We Play / The Abuse of the Word

O how to begin? Love bothers me. It's the strongest drug with no law against it. You get taken in by its soothing aroma one minute and find yourself cutting in spite of it the next. People live and die by it, yet they are also brash enough to play with it.

If I think about times I would consider myself "in love" once would be with my stuffed animals as a little kid, and the second would be with a girl who didn't love back ;). There's, I dunno, 20 or so depressed and confused blogs about the ordeal. I don't talk much about myself if this is the first time you hear any of this. I call these times love because of the thoughts and feelings I have/had when I reflect on them. With the stuffed animals, when I really put myself back into my kid mind, as my mom cut open and pulled the stuffing from one of my bears in retribution for breaking a glass or something of hers I never felt anything more painful. Anyone who says you don't get emotionally attached to your toys is full of shit. Mind you, I'm a smart, mean, and inventive kid. Imagine the types of terrible thoughts I was concocting in a moment of such anguish.  No I'm not looking for a pity party or for you to tell me my mom was a little confused on how to handle children, I'm well aware. The point is that no matter how young or old you are, "experienced" in the ways of pain and confusion, there's someone out there that knows how terribly hopeless you can feel.

            That's probably not good enough for you so I'll go on about the later situation. Now I'm overly critical when it comes to girls. I can find any flaw and blow it up and automatically turn a girl from cute and agreeable to merely "doable." So imagine my surprise when someone comes along that I can't find anything wrong with. Not only that she's more than I ever thought I could imagine. All of a sudden my usual selfish thoughts are replaced by nothing but hopes, dreams, and aspirations that concern her. I'm not gonna lie, I got borderline nuts and sincerely tried to make it all go away in the name of calm, cool, and rational Nick, and it just wasn't happening. All the questions, all the rationalizations, all the hopes and dream, frustration and bullshit that unfolded is in those blogs. I know how confused you can get, I know how hard it is to listen to the real world, I know what it feels like to be the only one that "knows" while everyone else is just missing it. You don't have to be in that persons relationship to empathize and understand their situation. The facts remained. I got over it and myself. I learned to keep my faith in understanding and the statute of love separate from my hopes that it would be with any specified person. It was a hard ass lesson to learn and fuck me if I can't convey how shitty it can get when you become good at making excuses.

 (line not able to be shown on myspace) like you've read this far newayz

Religion of Love

It's what the 9/11 bombers joined. It what I, to a lesser extent, joined. Its what we all hope to be apart of and not manipulated and hurt by. The perverted con artist with his stunning good looks and stylish ways thinks he invented it. The teenager thinks they can handle it. The confessed believer thinks they understand it. I find it the ultimate oxymoron that people join a religion for love, always looking from the outside in, instead of taking a bit of advice from the Buddhists who believe change comes from within. Its in this area, all the talk about how much, in fact the infinite, amount of love Jesus has for you that I think religion commits its greatest sin.

            What could be more worthwhile and compelling than the love of an infinite God? How can one be so vain as to worry about a petty life issue when all their time and attention needs to be focused on a confessed jealous God? The idea that this ultimate love from God is more important than life itself is what helped drive me insane when I tried to become Christian in pursuit of it. Granted, you would probably say I was doing it for the girl or for any number of wrong reasons, but I can only tell you that while it may have started out as such, I worked at making that not so, and not surprisingly still to no avail. When I think about the different stories I've heard in some "Christian" relationships I'm amazed that I ever thought it was something to aspire to.

            I'd never have expected things like, slapping, talking down to, mentally abusing, threats, and orders to come out of a "Christian" towards his so-called loved one. What I find more disturbing than that is the reasoning the girls use to stay in the relationship. If that buffer line touched on anything you've ever said or felt in a relationship, elevate and tie in all the good things with God and the demonize bad things with the Devil. The battle is no longer felt like its in your control. You have this never ending thirst for this everlasting love that, excuse me, exists only in your mind, and you pray and cry for answers that just never seem to appear because its all part of a plan that your not supposed to, nor can begin to, understand. You no longer believe in yourself. You believe in the belief. Without it your more than lost, your nothing. Your hope springs eternal for a new life of soldier with slave duties. But of course, you can throw it all away right? You have a choice to think about other "non-Christian" girls and be adulterous. You can get your groove on as many times as you want for as long as you live, and you'll only have to go to hell as payback. And God said unto man "Love Me or else, make your choice."

How to Think

No one teaches you how. They try to tell you how but ultimately we assume that because we are, hopefully, we are doing it correctly. Moreover, we couldn't function as our selves if we didn't assume we were thinking correctly. Unfortunately, your brain has side streets and trap doors where your thoughts can fall which effectively change your perception without you ever needing to be aware they exist. Preconceived notions are some of the biggest things affecting how you rationally think. When you adopt or credo or set of beliefs they act as a speed bump for everything you ever see, hear, or do. Take on that bump long enough and you think its simply "you." If I was religious I would probably also take offense to a book entitled "god is not Great" how religion poisons everything. At the same time my offense doesn't change any of the words that could have a significant impact on my thoughts. I wouldn't even touch the book because I "know" it has nothing to do with anything I care about because I only care about God. While its obvious the book is going to have different opinions it also address many if all of the questions your faithful leaders are discussing behind closed doors. Not to take any light off of the history behind the different religions it describes.

 Do I know for sure that I know exactly the perfect way to think all the time? No. Do I think the way I think is credible and can be explained in hopes of other people adopting certain ideas to help themselves? Yes. When you think too much your bound to find a way that is able to put all your thoughts and life experiences, past and present, and keep them in context with respect to a range of perceptions. In other words you can become passionate and not irrational. Your maybe the old guy that the kids come buy and ask for insight and advice from.

            When you think, you have to consider what type of information your getting from what source. Can it trusted and tested? You have to think about what instances in your own life may influence your first reaction or thought to the idea well before you verbally announce them. Anyone who's stopped themselves from saying "A black guy robbed them? Of course" knows how to avoid their "brought up in a racist home" bump. You have to re-evaluate what you call "you." If you can't establish your views, opinions, and even confusions, your playing a whole new dogmatic game.

I Don't Know

For whatever reason these seem to be the hardest words to fully embrace by anyone. There's nothing wrong with them. They are inevitable with the endless questions we humans are capable of asking. By understanding that you don't know, you can begin to question the reasons you don't know. It is unfortunate that while every religion knows everything they still don't know how to admit when they're wrong. I don't trust people with all the answers because they're people with all the answers. Do I know the be all end all of your relationships with God or some significant other? Of course not. Do I know what I can see, hear, and learn about? More than anything else I could claim to know. I don't want you to think, and you don't, that I know it all. But I know a lot, and so do you. The world is a sea of information that grows exponentially every second magnifying and converging on a point that may never have an end. You're the only one who can break the wall of excuses and fear in you mind.

[63] This Is A Title

I definitely just saw I Am Legend, badass movie check it out. It had a little talk in it about god so don't blame me for sounding redundant. "God didn't do this, we did." Personal responsibility. This is the only thing I rally for in my crusade, catch the irony, against people of "too perfect" faith. While the movie didn't have specifically religious undertones to it, it did have spiritual ones. It's one thing to denounce or disagree with one or another aspect of someone's religious world view, but I think it's another to completely disregard any harpings of your spiritual self. Is there something else to our existence? Who knows. Does it feel like there is? Apparently so.

I think there are more problems with connotation than there are with actual words' definitions. I've said in previous blogs how vague people's definitions are of things, but generally everyone can keep a semi-civil conversation and remain in context. Think of the word atheist though. To me it doesn't carry that punch that I guess it does to those religiously minded. I was watching Fox have an, ewey, atheist on to talk about their tree of knowledge next to the nativity scene. She was pitted against the regular pastor they have on Fox. What did we see? One person explaining why they believe knowledge and celebration are important, the other making accusations about motivations and "coincidences" in the display. The ever present little pious look and fevering restlessness took hold of the pastor who could barely contain his passive ad-homonyms. Every time the atheist woman was referred to it was like that, "the atheist." She was almost dehumanized as even one of the hosts seemingly pretended to forget her name while talking with the pastor. This is exactly to the T what I hate about the overly religious mindset. You can't get that arrogant and ignorant of your actions unless you've practiced fully justifying such behavior for too damn long.

Sam had it right that "atheism" is too blunt an instrument for what really needs to be done. A change in people's thoughts, mannerisms, and awareness needs to happen in a battle with endless fronts. Bad ideas need to be denounced for just how bad they are and people need to be made to understand why they can't hold them and still have status in our society. Undeniable good reasons need to be tirelessly reiterated until they become more common than the word is.

What really bugs me as well is the preconceived notions people come up with about me and why I am the way I am. I at least ask questions about people's faith and try to find out what makes them tick. The fact that I'm so easily write-offable as "just another one of those people" bugs the hell out of me. I don't treat people like that. Yes, I ridicule the idea of a "super demon beast" compelling my thoughts and actions. Yes I ask for more than "look around, here of this miracle?, you don't know how it feels" as your justification for your actions. And finally yes, I will always bring it back up, ask more questions, challenge you, and voice my opinion. If you don't want to "fight", as my one friend so puts it, back then that's your prerogative. Do not expect me to give up having "faith" in knowledge and truth in "respect" for your ironclad belief. Not gonna happen.

I'm just really tired of getting headaches over all this shit. The more I encounter people who don't live up to the standards they set for themselves, or worse, live up to an idiotic standard, I feel like I lose something deeper than respect. The idea of anything being eternal or forever recurring attached to consciousness is tormenting if its going to be in constant struggle against pure egotism. Will Smith was kinda freakin out there for a while not being around people and I kinda connected with that when I think about how frequently I'm shut off to people. I'm bugging out talking to people who either completely agree with me or don't care to offer a solid opinion. No religious minded person cares to challenge me? None want to put their views up to a test, if you could call it that, against a foe they already "know" they will beat? I think because that idea doesn't bother them as much as it does me is why I get these headaches. I get to empathize with feelings they've learned to ignore. Sure I'll play the victim here at the end because I only have a reader to empathize with, not god for me to pretend like the problem disappeared or is any less significant.

AH I mean how many fucking times do I have to see the same stupidity over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Fucking denial, putting on a fake face. Split personalities that fucking scar the real one? Its sickening, literally I get sick to think about this shit for too long. I write to make the headaches go away and until I fucking rant about the ignorance and intolerance I guess I won't be ok. 

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I'M SICK AND I'M TIRED, AND I'M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE. :) peace. And remember, bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks.

[46] And Your Name Was?

Category: Writing and Poetry

The leather was cool on the back of her neck, inviting. Her eyes we closed yet she could feel his presence in the air. With every soft, gentle breath, she slipped down into the smooth sofa. Her lips craving to be touched. He drew closer. The small of her neck tingled as the first kiss made its intention. She felt herself grip the cushion. He moved down. Planting little pleasures as he made his way. She opens her eyes straight into his, passionate aggression staring back. The air is shrouded in an animal lust making her breath harder. She sets her head back down as she senses the backs of his fingers run down her chest. Her heart yearns for more. Her chest raises and falls. Up and down, soft and slow, he barely caresses her stomach and thighs. He plays with her, toying with her body as it screams out to be touched. Her heart beats faster. She bites her bottom lip, ever anticipating when he'll make his move. Eyes squeezing tighter and tighter each moment. He makes small circles on her stomach and chest, never allowing her more than two fingers. Soft as silk. His hand rises and falls with her heavy breaths. She pushes out towards him, her body aching. His hand moves to her knee and creeps up her thigh. The fringe from her new skirt excites and tickles her all the more. Her head starts getting lighter as she realizes her clenching of the cushion is the only thing stopping her from bursting. She feels herself getting wet. He allows for one finger to brush just around her clit. She quivers. Her breaths allow for anxious moans to sneak out. He works his fingers around a little faster, a little longer, never fully touching. She grasps and re grasps the cushions and feels herself pushing back into the sofa. Pleading in her head for the moment he'll touch it. Faster he swirls. Feeling the lust drip from his other fingers he retracts. She springs at his hands, pulling them towards her, but he resists. She never dares open her eyes. Her heart is racing and breath becoming short. In his teeth the bottom end of her shirt begins to move up her stomach. She can feel his warm breath all the way up. Her shirt lies just above her red bra. He undoes the hook and exposes her. Perfect. Licking his lips he plants wet kisses around each breast. Each spot grows cool as he soothingly blows. Her nipples instantly become poised and stiff. He lets his fingers lay atop one breast while his pointer slowly circles each rim. Every nerve ending suffers the tantalizing. She can't take it anymore,  he knows it. All at once the warmth from his mouth and hands consumes her. His middle and forefinger are thrust inside. She feels his tongue play with her nipples while his fingers stroke her. She throws her stomach into the air unable to subside the convulsions. The tiny moans turn into cries of pure expression on waters where words cannot tread. The teasing, the soft blows on wet kisses, had all led up to this. She grew hotter. Sweat beading and dripping down her chest. The whirlwind of overwhelming obsession for this moment made her not want, but need him. His lion's gaze melting away any chance of insecurity. Her head felt as though it were on acid, disbelieving the truth of the encounter. He never tired. He never stopped. Every ounce of his being was concentrated on her. Her brow forced together, breasts heaving up and down. One shockwave after another he sent her. His lust knew no bounds. Each move deliberate. The sheer ecstasy that immersed her very soul was more than any meager orgasm of the past. She felt it would last with her forever. There was no couch or cushions. There was no frilled skirt or red bra. The only two things left in the world were them at that moment. Bliss. The more she came the harder it was to listen when her body signaled that she needed to stop. Desperately giving in she felt herself settling down. Too exhausted and enthralled to even utter another sound. He took his hands from their positions and slid them around her stomach as she settled in, hair strewn about her face. She laid there on his chest and they stared out at the night sky. Hearts and breaths in sync. After all calmed down and they grew tired, her last thought was stricken with concern. What would she possibly be able to do? If he could make her feel like that on the first date, how would she survive when they started having sex.  

[45] Letter To A Fearful Nation

Category: Religion and Philosophy

None of us seem to care about the world outside our window. The millions slaughtered overseas. The children dying of AIDS and sickness in Africa. The people perhaps in your own family that are suffering because of screwed up medical policies or lack of insurance. We all know its around, surrounding our minds and suffocating our tolerance for life. It looms over our heads always antagonizing, reminding you one day you could and will end up like that. Maybe the next few hours of your life will be the last. All that you ever held dear will be cut off. The love of your life will take part of your soul with them as they're lowered into the grave. Your friends and family may have died September 11th, they may be dying in Iraq, or maybe they're slowing drifting away on a hospital bed. How easy it is to just push the thoughts away. Who can blame you for pretending? We're all just big kids right? What would telling a child that their pets, parents, and friends were all going to die make them do? How would they start to think? Sure, people can suffer from diseases or get maimed in a firefight. Unfortunately, nothing quite compares to a suffering mind. Your eyes tear up and go blurry. Your head pounds and throbs over and endlessly picking away at a spot just above your eye. Restless or sleepless nights when you find yourself drenched in sweat and methodically rocking your feet side to side. The world is real. Your pain and confusion are almost too real to even handle. But what could make it all go away? There has to be something so drastically perfect and loving that evens the desperate odds in your mind. Innumerable ideas or theories are desperately tossed about. People turn to alcohol or drugs to help convince their mind that some things don't have to be thought about. But nothing goes away.

We're all connected. Whether you know (or at least think) you know everything there is about the world, you don't know anything if you don't empathize with that idea. If you can imagine endless suffering and pain in hell then so can the next person. It should bother you to think about babies being cut out of their mothers wombs, because its happening as recently as 2002. You don't like to think about it, imagine how the women felt dying from it. Everyone knows the kinds of insufferable thoughts that seem too hard to face. Their not all sympathetic to the idea that maybe they don't really know how to help you. While knowledge is not the perfect cure-all for the compounding problems on earth, I believe it is the basis of anything that seeks to even begin alleviating suffering. This so called "intellectual arrogance" in another realm of understanding is nothing more than the self righteous pride a religious person feels when they memorize scripture. The idea two sides of the same coin does not always apply to every conversation about religion. The bigger picture ensues a better understanding of people and their reasons behind their actions. The terms good and bad are so near-sided we change their meaning and twist them to feel comfortable about commands we ignore "from the pulpit." A "good" action can be taken on its base, but how many of you would call it good when you knew the motives, understood the variables, realized how ignorant one can be and still be considered good.

To say you respect my views in the last blog and then in the next sentence throw scripture at me and bring a devil scenario is to disrespect (or helplessly not understand) my views. We tolerate this verbal contradiction of belief(better known as respecting it) to such a crazy extent that we don't even recognize when the president calls on god for help or state supreme court judge admits to abiding a "higher power's" law. What about that little rule separating church and state? Parasites inhabit the mind and make you do things for the good of their health, not yours. They make animals, including humans, suicidal and incapable of reason. The diabolical genius of any cult convincing its members to drink the punch, wine, etc.. Yes, you can be brilliant, well endowed, a seemingly stunning example of humility and humanity and still be infested with bigoted ideas or completely off base assumptions and assertions with nothing but your strong inner feelings about them as justification. No one will tolerate the white guy screaming nigger over and over in a class room because his dad taught him to feel such strong hatred for black people. All ideas come to you like this. Unorganized or unreasoned and have to be sorted out as "right" or "wrong" in your mind. How quickly the terms embody new meaning when you find yourself in a new environment.

It bothers me that people can know so much about their minds (or have the ability to learn) and don't accept how futile the evidence paints the picture of their lives. And granted, its only futile if you choose to see it that way. If your brain had the infinite power of the universe and was running at the speed of light it would struggle to fully and unequivocally believe just 300 things. Scale that down to what your working with and ask yourself what your even capable of believing well before you say you actually do. Your mind can't even operate unless it reasons and deduces that what its taking in is helpful and "true." No I do not say that any person of religious faith is any less thoughtful, has struggled any less with questions, or is completely invalid as a human because they so vehemently attest to the truth and reason behind their beliefs. The problems arise and all boil down to evidence. Is your evidence based from really strong, compelling feelings and "miracles" or on something you can test? Something that can take on the full repercussions of what it means to be wrong. Here the great divide between science and faith takes foot. Who would even want to face the idea that what they have faith in could be wrong? Even scientists struggle with their convictions, but the scientific method and ideal hold true. Raised your entire life to believe a tsunami is evidence for the second coming leaves no question about why people confuse their meaning of the word evidence. Unfortunately, no matter how many times you are told by your parents, pastor, or friends that "because the bible says so" is any evidence whatsoever for valid belief, it isn't.

The writing styles, the (mis)translations, and historical claims of the book can all be studied and tested. Take note of where you get the evidence as well. Every source is going to have at least a hint of personal bias if not outright agenda to capture your mind. Don't for a second think that one ideal, one person, or one book... is the be all end all authority about anything. Whether we like the results or not the evidence backed facts remain. This is too big a problem for religious people and I hate to see the desperation, denial, depravity, delusion, defensiveness, and dogma sound all the sweeter if any discussion tries to push their minds further. I can't blame them for feeling bad or angry. Even more resent the very idea of questioning anything in the first place. I can asess responsibility upon those that don't take the information and use it to change and conclude that others can be helped by hearing what they now know. They can use it to better themselves and finally face the increasingly undeniable contradictions one must live, and blindly embrace, to be a "moderate believer." I've said it before, I don't care what you believe if it isn't harming anybody, but who can really appreciate how much universal harm is done when ideas and reasoning are abused to justify blind ignorance.