Notes on solitude. Part I

My efforts at keeping to myself have been thwarted by many forces in my life, not least of which is my extraverted roommate. My customer service job also doesn't help of course. And the few friends that I do have expect me to hang out with them, and make me do stuff like join the local meetup group called "Socrates Cafe" where people talk about social problems and how to solve them. These people can be so full of themselves -- they can't get over their sense of superiority over what they see as the uneducated or unintelligent masses (which is pretty much anyone who is not part of the meetup group). As if getting together once a week to chat ever solved anything. Of course, they are also smart enough to realize they are just doing this for their own pleasure as a kind of mental masturbation, and not necessarily to help change anything. I for one am not a big believer in activism, but many of them seem to be activist wannabes, only they are too busy or lazy.

Anyway, all cynicism aside, I wanted to say that I really have a hard time writing. I am a consumer of words, not a producer. It takes a tremendous amount of effort for me to articulate my thoughts, which is also part of why going to the socrates cafe is frustrating sometimes. And of course it is one of the biggest reasons why this blog has few entries. I find writing exhausting. Thoughts are more fluid and fast, but words drag me down. They want to confine me and make me rethink and restate and reanalyze every thought that is worth expressing. I'm just not that word-y.

But to get back on topic here about solitude. I was unemployed for a while, and so I did get to spend a few months alone without constant contact with co-workers, friends, and strangers. I don't watch TV, but I do go online to read the news and blogs and nutrition/health stuff. I realized that even that is just a lot of noise in the head. I tried to cut that down further and noticed that I was restless and anxious without my daily dose of favorite webpages. Eventually, I trained myself to follow a strict routine of getting up in the morning, having a healthy breakfast of oatmeal and tea, listening to classical music while doing some light chores around the apartment. Classical music soothes my soul, calms me down, helps me focus on the present and keeps me from constantly thinking of lists of things to do.

Then I would sit in my porch under the sun, and meditate for an hour or two, until lunch time calls for a cooking session. Idle days. They were wonderful. I think everyone should get the opportunity to experience solitude without the daily pressure of meeting other people's expectations whether at work or home. To be continued.

Solitude

I have decided to enjoy, appreciate, and cultivate solitude in order to maintain my sanity and peace of mind. I hope it will also help me think more clearly about the nature of reality. People and their cultures can distort one's perception of truth, and I no longer wish to be guided by other people's delusions, illusions, and unexamined assumptions.

On god

The ontological argument for the existence of god is weak because it is a bare assertions fallacy. The argument is that you can make an a priori conclusion that god exists just by using intuition and reason alone. Saying that god exists because people throughout history have thought so is also an ad populum fallacy. A good alternative explanation to why people throughout history have believed in god is this: it was humanity's first attempt at science because the human mind needs explanations for why anything happens in the world. Science has successfully thwarted religion's supernatural explanations for natural disasters, and today religion can only appeal to the god of the gaps (as well as comfort, I will grant).

A debate

The other day, I watched a debate between William Lane Craig and Shelly Kagan about whether God is necessary for morality. I thought Kagan won the debate. His argument was simple: just because I have no cosmic significance does not mean I have no significance at all. He also struck down Craig's moral relativism attack by arguing about the “veil of ignorance” approach to creating a social contract.

The reasonable religious

I value rationality and reasonableness over sentimentality and reactionary communication. Most people that I have found to be reasonable and rational have been non-religious or people with a christian background. But I fear falling into the trap of thinking that all Muslims are unreasonable by virtue of being Muslim. I fear that Muslims may view me as disloyal for favoring the western religion over Islam.

However, I must argue that it is true that you can be a highly reasonable Christian, because Christianity goes back deeper into antiquity than Islam, and therefore allows for flexible interpretation. There have been millenia of Christian scholars who have tried to reconcile Christianity with the secular philosophical tradition, thus allowing for radical changes in how individuals relate to god and the bible. This hasn't happened in the Quran, and it cannot happen in the Quran because by definition, a Muslim believes that it is the direct word of God. A rational Christian on the other hand, does not believe that the bible is the direct word of god. There are few who do, but they realize full well that there are multiple authors who were inspired to write the various books in the bible crossing a vast expanse of time. The Muslim on the other hand has to believe that the Quran was revealed word for word in Muhammad's lifetime. This makes Islam much more rigid, and leaves little room for flexible interpretation of its origins, content, and intent.

Laziness and Socialism

One of the most common arguments against providing food and shelter free for everyone in society is that people will slack off. The belief is that everyone of us secretly wishes not to strive. Without food and shelter as incentives, the argument goes, people will turn into lazy sloths.

Let's grant that the argument is valid. What is so wrong about laziness? There are worse crimes in the world, and laziness in fact indicates a tendency towards calm repose. Slackers are too lazy to rob banks, rape, or murder. In a socialist society, violence and crime will likely decrease.

In reality however, even lazy people like to accomplish something from time to time, as it is boring to be lazy all day long. A lazy person who spends a few hours doing nothing, may feel stirred up to create or do something useful in small bursts. This breeds efficiency because the new action is full of motivation and energy. Believe me, I speak from experience.

We all know someone who finds ways to slack off sneakily to avoid being caught by the boss. Most of us are guilty of that at some period of our lives, because the hours we spend at stifling workplaces breeds inefficiency and laziness. We try to escape the tedium at work by amusing ourselves with either video games or gossip, and it is very possible that the average white collar employee only works 4 hours in a typical 8 hour shift. This is not so different from our hypothetical slacker's acheivements mentioned above.

It is not fair to argue that if people didn't work, we wouldn't have enough food to distribute to everyone. Food is the biggest motivator for work, and there is more than enough of it to feed the entire human population for generations to come.

Hitler and Hell

I was thinking about one of the arguments for the existence of god and the afterlife: how do you process Hitler in your mind without the concept of eternal punishment and accountability? My mom has often brought up this argument and it has always bothered me on several levels, though I've never been able to fully articulate why in the heat of the moment because I fully share the sentiment that bad people should be punished.

The 'Hitler deserves hell' argument for the existence of god and the afterlife is basically an appeal to consequences of a belief, which is a logical fallacy. Nonetheless, in case my opponent remains unconvinced, I have written down various counter-arguments that will speak to hir train of thought. Punishing Hitler after his death is useless because:

a) It would not detract one iota from the suffering of the people he tortured and it would not undo what already occurred.

b) How much should Hitler be tortured in hell and for how long? Should it be the equivalent of the experiences of one of his victims or should it be repeated until all the victims are accounted for? I don't think that an eternity of punishment for finite actions is fair.

c) Even if the punishment teaches Hitler a lesson, it is too late for him to be learning the lesson because he is already dead and his actions no longer have consequences.

d) Punishing him may satisfy the souls of the people he killed, but that satisfaction is merely the base sentiment of revenge which should not exist in a holy place like heaven, in the presence of god.

e) Hitler was not solely responsible for all the tortures and deaths. He was able to do so much damage with the help of a lot of people. So you can't give him an undue amount of credit and ascribe him an undue level of monstrosity.

f) Hitler was mentally unstable, so can you fairly and squarely place all the blame on him? What about blaming his creator?

g) Hitler most likely suffered most of his life with mental anguish, and he definitely did not get off "scott-free" because he did commit suicide.

h) The notion that the expectation of punishment will prevent people from committing crimes is false because we have been jailing and shunning god-fearing rapists, murderers, and pedophiles for a long time, and they still commit crimes (often even after being released from prison).

Is the idea of a personal god an aberration?

(A personal god, according to Karen Armstrong, is one that listens to your prayers and intervenes in the affairs of the physical world.)

The thesis of A History of God is that monotheistic religions as they are practiced today, with their concept of a personal god, are an aberation of their original meanings. She argues that religious texts were never intended to be taken literally; that everything from creation stories to the concept of trinity to the description of hell in the Quran were all intended as a metaphor and myth in order to facilitate ongoing dialog about what god means to the individual.

I am not convinced.

Her evidence in unimpressive. She gives various examples of mystics in all three religions and how they have interpreted the texts. She also cites several intellectuals throughout history who have adopted the mystic's ideas to lead their society towards scientific rationalism in order to keep up with the rest of the modern world.

To strengthen her argument, she gives cherry-picked examples of what the prophets said and did that gives credence to the mystical interpretation of the texts. This simply does not stand up to scrutiny because the prophets' biographies are embeded within the religious tradition itself, which the majority has viewed as literal truth througout history. Intellectual elites and mystics are and have always been a minority.

This book is an interesting defense of religion. Instead of sugarcoating what the majority believes, Armstrong simply says that the majority is wrong, and the minority is right. What a flimsy argument.

Is religion necessary for hope and goodness?

I watched Sam Harris debate Chris Hedges on youtube the other day. Hedges made a lot of claims about religion that are quite common among apologists. Claims like: Religion is important because humans have a spiritual dimension and we need to believe in transcendence of the human spirit for the sake of happiness and goodness in our lives; the prophets intended religion as a peaceful ongoing conversation with our spiritual side.

The problem with those claims is that they legitimize religious prophets and texts, thus making the state of fundamentalism worse. No matter how much you say that Islam is peace and Muhammad was a liberator, the fundies are still going to attribute terrorism to Islam. Arguing that Muhammad was a good man not only reinforces the fundie's convictions, but also distracts us from the root cause of terrorism.

“The Quran is the direct word of God and we must obey it.” There is nothing metaphorical about that statement. Yet Muhammad said it and enforced it. He preached the Quran as a straightforward preordained manual on how to live. For the average Muslim, the spiritual Sufi is a heretic because he believes the Quran is metaphorical. Muhammad would have agreed. Where is the spirituality in this? If its absent, of what use is Islam? It is not fulfilling any need to believe in the transcendence of the spirit, and it is not making people happy or good.

I can see Hedges countering that by saying religion is not about me, it is about the poor, downtrodden, not very well educated masses. It provides meaning in their lives. However, I think it is condescending to say that the poor and uneducated need fundamental religion because they are incapable of sophisticated thought. In believing that, we neglect our social responsibility for educating and pulling up the poor. Religion is not best tool for hope and goodness. Education, compassion and better public policy are.

The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong

This is not a book review. I am writing about things that occurred to me while reading the book.

Armstrong says that people have struggled with loneliness and meaning since the dawn of time and religions are a product of this struggle. I think religious wars happen when people become aware that there are whole big groups of others out there who don't believe as they do. They fear falling back into doubt and despair, so they demonize the other to reinforce conviction in their own world-view. After that, political conflict is just a catalyst for a cosmic war.

According to Armstrong, modernism with its technology and rationalism is also threatening to the religious because it prefers a hardy material understanding of the universe over spiritual conviction guided by religious text. I can understand why they feel threatened. Rationalism offers no comfort in face of tragedy. It says tragedy is random, meaningless, and out of human control. If mental and physical anguish is useless, why not end it by killing yourself? In order to prevent mass despair and suicide, our ancestors came up with a solution, albeit an imperfect one: believe that your life has ultimate meaning, that god is watching what you do and therefore you actions have consequences. This is why suicide is possibly the biggest sin in almost all religions of the world: committing suicide is rejecting the meaning your ancestors created for you to keep you from despair.

Atheists have to create their own meaning. The well adjusted atheist has passions and goals and good relationships. What about the deeply spiritual atheist? Ze must feel empty a lot. I do. But I fill it with music, books, food, conversation, and meditation. It does not make me feel whole, I admit, but I accept the challenge of struggling through life without the aid of delusions.

So I have this to say to my well meaning ancestors who devised religion for themselves and for me: Don't worry. I won't kill myself, for I love chocolate and tea. As for living a healthy life in a healthy community, it will happen in time. We have not yet witnessed entire families and generations that are completely atheistic materialists. We can't know if something will work until we try it.

Another thought: Armstrong says that most monotheistic prophets sprung in response to the despair of the working class. From what I know of prehistory, before the dawn of mass agriculture, societies were pretty egalitarian. Hierarchy was not profound and neither was wealth disparity. With the aid of agriculture, when a few people started getting rich and powerful at the expense of the poor struggling masses, the sensitive ones spoke against the injustice. They created religion to deal with the despair. We still struggle with the injustice of wealth disparity. How do I deal with it? I am a rebel of sorts. I try not to participate in the unfair roles provided by society that contributes to the disparity. I cannot drop out completely, of course, because that would be the death of me. But I do as little as possible. I'm the philosophical slacker rebel. It is better than religion.

The Problem with Reza Aslan and Irshad Manji

Both of the self professed public intellectuals are of the opinion that it is time to reform Islam to make it more compatible with modern moral and ethical sensibilities. Aslan sees the Quran as a historical document and a people's language of transcendence. I think this view legitimizes the way fundamentalists view and practice the religion, because by Aslan's standards you can argue that the fundies are justified in interpreting the Quran according to their own misguided, divisive cultural and social context. Furthermore, you cannot in good faith simultaneously think that the Quran is just a historical document and call yourself a Muslim. Aslan is an apostate, and won't admit it because his career depends on being a -Muslim- intellectual voice.

Manji sees the Quran as the word of God that should be reinterpreted in the tradition of ijtihad. She is of the opinion that the Quran should be released from the shackles bound by traditionalist Sheikhs who have no true understanding of the struggles of young Muslims living in the modern world. The problem with that position is this: the reason Islam is attractive to some people is that it looks backward to old traditions as a way of making sense of the rapidly changing modern world. When you strip Islam of its traditional roots, it loses its appeal. When that happens, you can no longer rally Muslims together towards the ideal of a unified ummah struggling together against a clearly visible evil other. Furthermore, it baffles me how Manji has made a career out of arguing that the Quran should be reinterpreted. It has already been done to death. There are already various schools of thoughts that interpret the Quran in milder more humane ways. The only angle that she's got going for her is homosexuality, which is about the only topic that all schools agree on – that it is wrong. Manji wants a new school of thought that says it is right. But the thing is, there are already thousands of Muslims that believe homosexuality is OK with God. The average Muslims are already doing their own reinterpreting. Manji wishes those reinterpreting average Muslims to have a more authoritative voice, but when you do that, like I pointed out earlier, Islam loses the sanctity that unites the Sunnis.

Aslan and Manji are irritating to me like the rest of the moderates because they are not intellectually honest people. They engage in a lot of mental gymnastics to hold on to and defend the faith. What they should be doing is admitting that there are only two choices that are rational: either you believe in the teachings of Islam and become fundamentalist, or you admit that Islam is ludicrous and leave it behind. Their struggle with Islam is the struggle of coming to a compromise between an identity in modern society and a place in their traditional Islamic community. In other words, they are cowards. They refuse to let go because they fear disapproval and abandonment. They are doing a disservice to the confused young Muslims by further confusing them with their suppressed and convoluted variety of cognitive dissonance.