Winter down-time

Done with school and close to closing my business. I'm already a short ways into editing my book for the (hopefully) final draft. After that it's self-publishing time! School didn't go as well as I'd wanted it to this past quarter. None of the ideas I had in mind for club activities went through, but I did manage to pull off a rather successful presentation on how the brain works regarding pattern-seeking and perception of things such as what we find funny, sexy, cute, etc... I do have a lot in the works for the winter, though. We'll be hosting a live broadcast of the radio/podcast program Ask an Atheist and hosting a similar event to the 'brain' event I just mentioned. After that I'll give a presentation on stem cell treatments, and we're hoping to put together an auction to send an atheist to church. Proceeds will go toward the club since our budget is not what it once was. I'm still waiting to see if I passed calculus with at least a C-. That was a tough course. All in all my finals didn't go so well because I began to let my mind wander. Every so often life seems to unravel itself in twisted ways, opening the mind to the possible future(s) that are available and you just get sucked into daydream-scenarios, playing out the possibilities. With my transition to university on the horizon, the closing of my business, and my never-ending recovery from the ill-effects of cancer treatment. There are days I feel less than human, then there are days I feel that I'm the only one to blame for that.

The Open Mind Debate

I think it's important to address the issue of having an open mind. This is tossed around by either side of the God argument and generally speaking it only has merit from the atheist point of view. The reason for this is that most grown adults who claim to be atheist have at some point considered religion, if not actively participated and even believed in the central tenets of a particular religion. Even those that were raised in a secular environment certainly have been exposed to it and at some point considered its validity.

On the other hand, those born into families that have strict religious indoctrination from the time verbal communication between parent and child is possible are probably not as likely to consider the alternatives. Religion is most forms tends to admonish the consideration of other beliefs, sometimes by the use of fear. Monotheistic religions often go to great lengths to stress the righteousness of their views and the danger of even considering other gods - or no gods - even exist.

When a religious zealot tells me that I need to keep an open mind, I'm baffled that they would immediately assume I'd been an atheist my entire life. Yes, we're all born that way, but as a child I was Catholic. If anyone had an open enough mind to change his views it would be me. Had I remained Catholic (especially in the face of my numerous doubts) I'd have been extremely closed-minded. No harm will come to any religious person to apply critical thinking to the question of religion and faith. The application of logic is required, though.

Logic is another one of those words used far too liberally by some. It has an actual applicable process to it, not just feeling or intuition. It's quite the opposite of feeling and intuition, in fact. Logical fallacies are long-standing agreed upon situations of thinking that defy logic. Some common ones are the Slippery Slope (if gays can marry, soon people will marry dogs) and the ad hominem (well, you atheists are just stupid heathens!). In fairness, no one is immune to these fallacies. Atheists will just as easily fall into these snares. Nothing is black and white; you can make perfectly logic decisions about buying a car while making absurd claims that the Earth is hexagonal and made of cream cheese (maybe an overboard example?).

When it comes to religion, the reason most people proceed without logic is the idea that faith is a virtue. Faith is simply the admission that you are believing in something that has no demonstrable reason to be believed in. It is an idea that lacks evidence and often defies logic. I'm not talking about 'having faith that your co-worker will do his or her job' but the kind of faith that leads people to deny evolution in favor of Young Earth Creationism, or that prayer heals the sick and no medical intervention is necessary.

Faith is not a virtue like gambling is not a stable source of income. Both may provide the occasional 'win' by sheer chance, but neither are a sound practice. So if you are ever inclined to tell an atheist they need an open mind, consider that they have come to their conclusion by the application of logic and critical thinking. Open minds are fine for tastes in food and music, arguments of politics and philosophy... but when it comes to the application of real-world science and evidence or lack thereof, it is best to approach with skepticism. Not so heavy a skepticism of the established facts, but definitely a heavy skepticism of that which lacks evidence.

School quickly approaching

Next week I'll be back in school and in my second quarter as president of the Science and Skepticism club at Tacoma Community College I'm hoping to have a productive quarter. I'm currently trying to get Jerry DeWitt on board to speak at the college. He'll be in Portland at the Freedom From Religion Foundation's yearly convention with Teresa McBain. DeWitt and McBain are part of the Clergy Project that provides a safe (but not necessarily easy) transition out of faith for people that are deeply intertwined with their religion such as priests, pastors, rabbis, and so forth. I've also been asked to be a campus captain for raising awareness for Referendum 74 which, if approved, will allow same-sex marriage in Washington state. Our governor already said this was okay, but bigots put this referendum up attempting to thwart her decision. With all I have on my plate with school, the club, and finalizing my book, I'm not sure I'll have time to do this, though. I also intend to get our club aligned with the Secular Student Alliance and attend the aforementioned FFRF convention in Portland, OR. Also on my list of ideas, I'd like to find someone knowledgeable to speak to the students about the importance of vaccinating children. There are a great deal of young parents at TCC and I think it's vital that they be educated in this matter. I don't believe the media or social networking does the issue any real justice. If you or someone you know is qualified to speak to this, let me know. I'll be making these events available to the public as well (except the trip to the FFRF convention) and will keep you posted.

Demo-god

I'm not quite sure what has so many up in arms about the recent Democratic decision to put the phrase "God-fearing" back into some lengthy bill. Maybe the bigger deal was the part about Jerusalem, but I must admit I'm ignorant to that part of politics altogether. Don't get me wrong: I don't enjoy seeing such a backward step into the Dark Ages, but I fail to see how it's as big a deal as God being plastered all over our money and prayers/invocations being used to open political meetings. That's further ingraining the ever-blurring line between church and state. I feel a top down move is best; get God off the central unit of our country's economy as a strong message that we are (and always have been) a secular nation - not a nation under God. Feel free to fill me in on why I should give a huge-damn instead of a small-damn. Just know I do give a damn.

It's all coming together...

I'm getting really close to finalizing the website (at least the beta version). My book has been sent to a few close friends for review before I begin the self-publishing stage. At that time I will make it available for sale, probably at $15. I just designed a t-shirt (and other stuff) at Cafe Press that has a black and red ribbon and says "I Beat Cancer Without God" and I think it looks pretty snappy! At the moment I just have some short stories and songs I've written on the store website at whengodbecomesfiction.com and external links to Cafe Press and the site I'll host my book at will follow.

Heaven is real...

... insomuch as a dream is a real occurrence that we undergo during REM sleep. In fact I would hypothesize it is exactly that.

I've wanted to articulate this for some time. There are a lot of books my mom has been reading about how "heaven is real, because a little boy died, came back, and said so. And dogs really do go to heaven, too!" If ever religion has tread unprepared into scientific territory, this would be it.

I think we've all experienced the phenomenon in which you fall asleep thinking deeply about a particular subject, only to dream of that very subject. Dreams don't always make sense, and a lot of interpretation happens - perhaps primitive humans even took this to be something quite mystical (and perhaps some modern humans, too). The point is, what is on our minds can stay on our minds when falling into deeper levels of consciousness, be that sleep, or the moments when your heart ceases to function but enough blood remains in the brain to keep it active.

Having never been declared dead, just getting pretty damn close, I can't speak to the exact experience. However, I imagine there is disorientation as the brain struggles to interpret the obvious problems occurring in the body. Likely, if whatever killed you happened slowly enough for you to ponder in your final moments what may be coming next, depending on your beliefs, it is very likely that your brain will expand upon that in an effort to make sense of it all. What that means in simpler terms is: "Oh shit, I'm dying. I guess it's time to meet my maker and ascend to heaven..." *synapses begin to break, shut down, fire randomly in confusion* (enter stage left: your own personal interpretation of what heaven must be like - or hell if you're really down on yourself...)

"But hang on a minute," you might say, "these people are dead for a few minutes before being brought back, but so much seems to happen to them; so much detail!"

Haven't you ever taken a short nap and had what seemed like a several-hour dream? Time is a conscious device, it has no meaning to our subconscious. In retrospect we evaluate dreams and super-impose them on a time-line in order to make sense of the imagery and emotions experienced during the dream. This is probably why the budding research on translating dreams into video is largely garbled, nonsensical static. The dream itself is gibberish. We put the pieces together upon waking. It gets harder to recall a dream by the minute as we quickly realign ourselves with reality. The abstract begins to be sloughed off, regarded as nothing more than sensory white noise.

At the risk of sounding like a religious apologist (since I'm arguing for the absence of mythical things), heaven is simply a dream away. If you want to go there badly enough, fixate on it at the time of your death (assuming your brain remains in tact - sorry, head injury death-ers). Sure, it will all fade to black as your brain slowly dies, but you won't know what's happening. And since time means nothing in a dream, who's to say that moment can't last... forever? Well, that's all relative, anyways.