Liff

OK. Here’s the deal.

We don’t really know what started if all off, but some time around 000 000 yeas ago, groups of chemical elements started group together to form chains of molecules.

These chains began to take on forms that enables them to replicate themselves.

Later, replication started in earnest. These chains of amino acids replicated each other.

Errors started to creep into the replication process, meaning that over time, chains of new molecules began to be created.

And then, well, you’ve seen it all in the opening credits of Big Bang Theory …

I mean: what are the odds??

How to live

One of my favourite quotes if from Irving Yalom:

The existential worldview on which I base my clinical work embraces rationality, eschews supernatural beliefs, and posits that life in general, and our human life in particular, has arisen from random events; that, though we crave to persist in our being, we are finite creatures; that we are thrown alone into existence without a predestined life structure and destiny; that each of us must decide how to live as fully, happily, ethically, and meaningfully as possible.

Mid-life

When you get to a certain age you realise that more and more people you know are dying: classmates, friends, friends’ partners, relatives…
What effect does it have?

Does it give you a renewed determination to live your remaining years to the full?

Or, does it rather simply reconfirm your belief that “life is crap and then you die” – so why invest any energy in it?

With me, it’s the latter. But why?

100 things to do before you die (2)

• read a story book with a warm-bodied, wriggling, innocent, full-of-wonder-for-life, little three-year old;
• observe the warmth and affection between an old man and his equally old dog;
• hop all the way around your garden / up your street, just because you can;
• stick your nose in an aromatic herb plant;
• paddle on the sea shore and squiggle the sand between your toes;
• …

100 things to do before you die

Have you noticed how every bookshop has shelves full of book advising you what you simply must do before you die? There’s: unforgettable places to see, unforgettable journeys to make, unforgettable walks to take, and even unforgettable places to have sex … before you die.

(By the way, why must they all be unforgettable? When you’re dead, the chances are you won’t have the ability to remember a single thing. But I digress…)

My question is: could we devise a more meaningful set of suggestions: “100 things to do so you know you’ve really lived”. My idea would be that the book would suggest experiences that would put readers in touch with their true humanity, their true selves, without buying into the belief that the only way to really feel alive is to hit the tourist trail, or even leave home: these should be things you can do wherever you are, and however rich or poor.

Here’s a few of my suggestions; can you add more?

• look into the eyes of a good friend; really see the person they are; let your friend really see you;
• cradle a new-born baby in your arms; let yourself be touched by his or her newness and inncence; you were like this – you still are like this inside;
• on a day when it’s warm and there’s a strong wind, get close to trees; see how they bend and sway in the wind; feel the power of nature;
• be with a dying person; let yourself really know that you, too, are dying; let this deep knowledge inform how you live from now one;
• do a kindness to someone else, for no reason;
• …

Church and State

Joseph Ratzinger will shortly visit the UK as the Head of a State – the Vatican.

But Ratzinger is also the Head of a Church – the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, for a billion Catholics, Ratzinger is the direct successor to the apostle Peter to whom, according to some interpretations of some texts, Jesus handed the leadership of his church.

Is it opssible to do justice to two roles – spiritual and secular?
Isn’t there some room for separation of church and state here?

Dread of death

I recommend Irvin Yalom’s excellent book on death anxiety ‘Staring at the Sun’. Here are some thoughts that I have retained from it.

Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom and, inevitably, diminish and die. Our wish to survive and our dread of annihilation will always be there: they are hard-wired into us.

Realising for the first time that we will die, some of us are like the character in Tolstoy  who feels like a man crossing a bridge who discovers that it is broken and that there is a chasm below.

Some are staggered by the enormity of eternity, others are unable to grasp the state of non-being that awaits us, others focus on death’s inevitability. For some, the thought of becoming nothing consumes them, and becomes everything…

For some the question is: “if nothing is stable, if nothing is enduring, what possible meaning can life of such evanescence contain?”.

Epicurus offers three pieces of advice:

1. if the soul is mortal, we have nothing to fear from death: we will have no consciousness, no regrets and no fear of the gods;
2. death is nothing to us because the soul is dispersed at death, and does not perceive. Death and ‘I’ cannot co-exist;
3. The two states of non-being, one before death and one after it are identical; we did not fear the first one; why should we fear the second one?

Between Monster and Saint

It is a harsh world, indescribably cruel.

It is a gentle world, unbelievably beautiful.

It is a world that can make us bitter, hateful, rabid, destroyers of joy.

It is a world that can draw forth tenderness from us, as we lean towards one another over broken gates.

It is a world of monsters and saints, a mutilated world, but it is the only one we have been given.

We should let it shock us not into hatred or anxiety but into unconditional love.

– Richard Holloway: ‘Between the Monster and the Saint’

A small victory for common sense

BBC News reports that the UK High Court has disallowed a man the right to challenge his sacking for refusing to give sex therapy to gay couples. He had claimed that his Christian beliefs did not allow him to deal with gay couples.

However, Lord Justice Laws said legislation for the protection of views held purely on religious grounds cannot be justified. He said it was irrational and “also divisive, capricious and arbitrary”.

Are we finally beginning to understand that so-called ‘religious beliefs’ are just that: beliefs and opinions?  

They can’t be used as a kind of trump card to allow us to stay outside laws that apply to the rest of society.

“I hope the wretched organisation will vanish entirely”

This from an interesting interview with Phillip Pullman in the Guardian:

The other subject of his vitriol is the Catholic church. “It’s been caught with its trousers down, in many different ways, hasn’t it?” he says of the recent abuse scandals. “They didn’t expect this sort of thing to happen, this sort of thing to come out; they didn’t expect to have to account for themselves in the way that they’ve had to. But this is what happens, always, when you have an organisation whose authority derives from something that may not be questioned.

“Now,” he continues, “when you get that sort of authority, in any set-up, the potential for corruption is wide open. And when it comes to looking after children or people who are incapable or helpless, well human beings are tempted. And of course part of the reason it happens is priestly celibacy. They’ll deny it and say it’s nothing to do with that, but of course it is, of course it is. That’s not to say that married men are free from temptation or never given way to it, because of course they have, but the level of frustration and unhappiness and unfulfillment that must build up in a man who’s denied one of the most important aspects of his humanity, it’ll get bad.”

I ask him if he thinks the scandal will change the Catholic church. “I hope so,” he says quickly, and then draws back. “Well why do I hope so? In one way, I hope the wretched organisation will vanish entirely. So I’m looking on with a degree of dispassionate interest.” He does not, at this moment, seem so dispassionate.

Sharing the blame..

So, now we know: according to the Pope, it’s all Christians who have to do penance because of the child abuse committed by priests and the cover-ups by the male hierarchy.

“I must say, we Christians, even in recent times, have often avoided the word ‘repent’, which seemed too tough,” he said. But now, under attack from the world which talks to us of our sins, we can see that being able to do penance is a grace and we see how necessary it is to do penance and thus recognise what is wrong in our lives.”

 Talk about trying to spread the blame …

Death Anxiety

On my ‘to read’ list:

In ‘Staring at the Sun’, Irvin Yalom asserts that the fear of death is at the heart of much of our anxiety. Once we confront our own mortality, he believes, we are inspired to rearrange our priorities, communicate more deeply with those we love, appreciate more keenly the beauty of life, and increase our willingness to take the risks necessary for personal fulfillment.

Well, if these are the benefits, it’s gotta be worth a try, I guess.

We’ll see…

Organised religions – why not just disband them?

Pope unable to understand pain of flock at instutionalised widespread child abuse.

Why? What’s so hard to get?

Church connives with child abusers in order to maintain power, therefore people feel let down.

Church not practicing what Jesus preached…

Church seen to be hypocritical.

Church seen to be out of touch both with its ‘founder’ and with its flock.

Why not just disband? People will somehow cope without the hypocritical, duplicitous, power-mad male hierarchy.

No doubt at all!

Thanks to NSS for this information about the increasing number of Britons who see religion as irrelevant…

New research from the National Centre for Social Research shows that:

• over the last 2 decades the number of people describing themselves as atheist or agnostic has risen to 37%, while those identifying themselves as Christian has dropped from 66% to 50%. (but there has been an increase from 2% to 7% in non-Christian religious affiliation due to immigration and population growth amongst ethnic minorities. )
• in 1983, 40% of people described themselves as Anglicans, now only 23% do so; (among these, not even a fifth attend church as much as once a month, and half never go at all.)
• 43% of people do not feel they belong to any particular religion, up from 31% in 1983.
• 62% of people in Britain never attend religious services;
• 67% think religious leaders should not try to influence Government decision-making;
• 73% think people with strong religious beliefs are often too intolerant of others.

What’s REALLY scary, though, is this:

• 17% of Britons are completely without doubt about the existence of God (17% too many, but OK …)
• BUT in the USA, a MASSIVE 61% of people say they have no doubt that God exists.

Two thirds of people have no doubts, at all? … what are they ON?

Life is, er … precious?

Meantime, over at Yahoo Answers, they’ve been pondering this question from Sam:

Are we just super-evolved monkeys clinging to a rock that at this moment is heading pretty much… nowhere?

Here’s a selection of the answers I liked:

You could say we are super-evolved from a primate branch that includes chimpanzees. …

Yeah, the rock is headed pretty much no where, but why does it have to? You are not expecting it to take you anywhere, but simply to provide you a place on which to exist. Where it goes doesn’t matter. Where you go on your personal journey does matter.

Which brings me to the part I disagree with: “clinging”. If you put your life to a purpose that suits you, that provides you with the ability to pursue happiness, then you cannot be said to be “clinging.”

Instead, you could be said to be “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.”

 

(from MetaNaturalist)

 

and this:

As intelligent as we are, the existence of our species is only a small blip in the grand scheme of the planet, and even if humans continue to exist for another million years we will *still* be just a blip.

You see, contemplations of the value or meaning of life are simply human creations. When we think about life, death and the meaning of it all, we’re really just thinking inside a box that we ourselves created. We are the only species capable of such thought, and thus we are prone to do it, however I don’t think any of that philisophising matters.

The Earth will continue to spin orbit in circles for all time, long after we are gone, or at least until the sun supernovas.

 

(from Canadian Bacon)

 

And this, from Hoodooro:

Yep, you pretty much have it figured out. Why is that not good enough? Why aren’t you comfortable with the idea? Why must there be more?

There is no need to justify your existence. There is no reason for life. But at the same time, recognize that life is precious and life is brief. Choose your actions carefully to do that which you determine to be most important at this instant.

Good luck.

Where I get stuck is with the last bit: I know my life is brief, but why should I think that life is precious?

Isn’t that ‘preciousness’ also a human construct?

So why shouldn’t I choose ‘valueless’?

WikiGod

God’s a human construct.

Just like a wikipedia entry, we keep discussing, adding to and updating our understanding of ‘God’: redefining what we mean by ‘God’ so it fits our changing perception of reality, so it fits with the understanding of as many interested people as possible.

And, just like an encyclopedia entry, the problems only really come when a group of self-appointed men (they’re usually men) stop the interactive updating process, deny open access to the wiki and decide that :

• what they have written is the absolute, unchangeable truth; 
• those whose understanding of reality is different from this are to be shunned, outlawed, or even killed.

We need to get back to a more wiki understanding of ‘God’.

Hell

“Each of us is responsible for one particular point in space and time in which our body and mind forms a link within the total network of existence.

“Whether our present consciousness of individuality is preserved in some dimension of existence after death or disappears completely, the unalterable fact is that our being will forever remain part of the warp and woof of what is. The more psychic energy I invest in the future of life, the more I become a part of it.

“Hell is the separation of the individual from the flow of life. It is clinging to the past, to the self, to the safety of inertia. What is diabolical is to weaken the emerging complexity by withdrawing one’s psychic energy from it.”

Mihail Csikszentmihalyi, ‘Flow’

Humans

We are not so much
thinking creatures that feel,
as feeling creature that think.

Jill Bolte Taylor – ‘My stroke of insight’

Danger

The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.

ALFRED ADLER (1870-1937)

Mystic

Isn’t it weird that the word ‘Mystic’ can mean so many different, often opposing, things?

 

Differing religious traditions describe mystical experience variously on continua ranging

 

From:        union with God (Henosis in Neoplatonism and Theosis in Christianity, Brahma-Prapti or Brahma-Nirvana in Hinduism) [possibly through Nullification and absorption within God‘s Infinite Light (Chassidic schools of Judaism)]

To:           experience of one’s own true blissful nature (Samadhi or Svarupa-Avirbhava in Hinduism).

 

Or from:    complete detachment from the world (Kaivalya in some schools of Hinduism, including Sankhya and Yoga; Jhana in Buddhism) through

To:           deep intrinsic connection to the world (Satori in Mahayana Buddhism, Te in Taoism)

 

Via:           Innate Knowledge (Irfan and fitra in Islam),

and:          liberation from the cycles of Karma (Moksha in Jainism and Hinduism, Nirvana in Buddhism).