Nonconformist

Higher education

2010-04-09T13:57:00.000-07:00

One key to happiness is having a goal toward which you always strive because keeping your brain busy and preoccupied makes time move faster. Animals are happy in nature because they are constantly exercising their mental faculties for mere survival, but they also have plenty of leisure time to balance out the stress of daily survival, and humans could do well to learn from their example. Once you come to the realization that all animals have this hardwired biological compulsion to move forward through change toward a goal, is it possible to overcome this perpetual condition through sheer will and meditation? Maybe that is exactly what I am trying to do with my life; I am trying to stay in the present without goals in sight. I am trying to practice the art of sheer being, of observing nature and reality through stillness and repose. Because what the human species has done is taken this perfectly healthy biological goal orienting tendency and turned it into a grotesque destructive force.

To reject society's ideals about civilization's progress as essential to individual happiness is indeed not easy to do. You end up puzzling and frustrating people close to you who have swallowed the blue pill and accepted whatever version of fantasy fed to them by greedy corporate players. You confuse them either because they want you to be happy by society's definition or because they themselves want what you are doing but feel shackled by their own oppressive belief systems, or both.

The same biological urge that drives squirrels to collect and store acorns for the winter months, also drives the human ambition of higher education in order to become respected high wage earners. It is imagined that the non-schooled are like the non acorn collectors. Those that don't collect, perish. However this analogy is flawed in two ways: There are no lazy squirrels in nature, and non-schooled humans don't necessarily perish. Healthy survival is perfectly possible without schooling. Schooling is thus superfluous; a social construct for solidifying the human pecking order.

Yesterday I felt like a failure at life and I felt sorry for myself for lacking the kind of social skills required to climb up the economic ladder that is so deeply connected with social status. This because of a single conversation I had with my sister, who is succeeding socioeconomically on the basis of her ability to influence and win people -- sheer charm. Later in the day, I went home and stumbled upon the Canadian documentary "the corporation," and that instantly made me feel better about my position and role in society. It seemed to justify my choices in life: I have simply refused to participate in a destructive system other than what is absolutely required to stay alive safely, i.e., food, rent, and transportation. True, if I worked harder at psychological games, I would have a more respected job. However, for me the work and stress is not worth the benefits -- I do no wish to expend my mental energies on superficial endeavors for which I possess no natural talent.

I have no ill-feeling toward my sister's participation in the system even though she deludes herself into believing she's working for the greater good. All around I see band-aids that hide deep wounds that actually require sutures, and I for one have no wish to compound the problem by joining the chaos created by the mindless doers.

Most all careers the system has to offer are far from the nobility and utility they claim to have. Everything from medicine to engineering to academia is detrimental to environmental and human well being. The main attraction of these professions are social status and intellectual challenge, even though the latter can be had through far less costly means.

Staring

2010-01-30T18:01:00.000-08:00

Stare, stare, stare.
That's all I do at work some days, when I'm not into a book.
Stare at the trees. Stare at the tree trunks.
Stare at the road, stare at the sky.
Stare at the fast cars zooming by.

Staring is therapeutic and meditative. We should all do it for an hour everyday. That's what I would require of everyone if I was queen of the world.

Grindstones

2010-01-30T17:57:00.000-08:00

I think I would rather actually operate a grindstone instead of using it as a metaphor. Sounds way more interesting and exciting, not to mention good for my muscles. Here's a picture of one:

http://www.hampshirecam.co.uk/longparish/longparish_grindstone.jpg

It is sunny outside, and green all around. Looks like heaven. People don't realize that the real grindstone is way more fun that the negative association they make with it to refer to their career paths. Seriously.

Notes on Solitude Part II

2010-01-17T12:05:00.001-08:00

No, solitude cannot be had in a world that does not want to leave you alone. Exploitation exists on every level of society, and everyone with any power demands your time and energy with the threat of homelessness and starvation. There are very few people in the world who are not control freaks or attention hogs, your "loving families" included.

Livelihood

2010-01-17T12:04:00.001-08:00

Lately I have been preoccupied with trying to decide what career path to take. There are too many options out there fraught with risks both monetary and social that prevent me from taking a concrete step in any direction. My philosophical and political leanings certainly don't help the matter. I believe most careers are bullshit that require expensive bullshit education so we get hired by bullshit corporations. I am cynical and skeptical of almost every career out there except family farms which is not an option for someone like me who neither has the money nor the connections to start a farming business. I like simplicity and straightforwardness and farming seems to be the only thing that matters -- it is about making food so you can survive and thrive. It is a direct meaningful link to livelihood.

Making 8.50 an hour is not adequate if I want to live an independent life while maintaining a certain lifestyle. I need Internet connection, I need a car, I need healthful organic food. Those things cannot be had at $1000 a month without strict budgeting and stress. In a better world, the need for those things would not exist. Better public transportation and city infrastructure would make having a car unnecessary and without the existence of a handful of corporations in control of all the food production of the world without regard for nutrition or health, the word "organic" wouldn't be part of the modern lingo.

Thinking about making a living in a sick world depresses me.

Notes on solitude. Part I

2009-11-03T19:47:00.000-08:00

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

2009-06-05T07:41:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-05T13:13:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-05T13:06:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-05T12:49:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-05T12:47:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-25T14:29:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-03-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

(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?

2009-03-15T14:50:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-14T12:42:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-14T12:41:00.000-07:00

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.