My 5 dinner guests

A close friend of mine asked me recently if I had to choose 5 people, alive or dead, to sit down with and have a glass of red wine (or two) who would they be? It was a bit of fun so I thought Id share with you the 5 people that I went with, it was hard to choose just 5! No doubt as time goes on and I learn more about the figures that have shaped our history and the people alive today that continue to do the same, these names will change. But for now! This is my awesome foursome, plus 1!

Charles Darwin – While Darwin didn’t invent evolution, he was the first man to organise his findings in a compelling theory called natural selection. I’m currently reading through origin of species and the first thing I noticed is how meticulous the man was. His attention to detail was incredible, at times mind boggling! As a Christian I hated Darwin, giving in to all the perpetuated nonsense I was told about him being a bitter old man who invented evolution because he hated God and Christianity. Then I did what so many fail to do, I read a book about him. Turns out he wasn’t so bad after all! Another thing about his book that strikes me is the humility of the man. He has an entire chapter of the book dedicated to problems with his theory and how we should discard it if we can’t find this or that. Who does that! I would love to see what Darwin thinks of his theory in light of new discoveries about DNA and through fossil records.

Sir Isaac Newton – Newton is believed to have had the biggest influence on modern science, some say even more influential than Albert Einstein. His work on universal gravitation and the three laws of motion are said by some to be the single greatest individual achievement in the history of science. A lot of his work goes straight over my head and I struggle to understand it. But clearly the man had a brilliant mind if he was able to discover the laws of motion in complete solitude. He is also quoted to say: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Which I think is a very insightful statement. Although I have read from some sources that he was a bit of a jerk. He also was a man of strong religious faith, so I think he would make for a very interesting addition to the dinner conversation.

Jacque Fresco – Jacque is the founder of the Venus project, a non profit organisation that is committed to social change and finding solutions too many of the problems we face in our society. He is a man of unique and original ideas and is dedicated to doing what he can to ensure the future of the earth and us. Some of his thoughts and ideas are quite radical and not without controversy but he is I believe a man of sincerity and creativity. I would love to listen to the things he has learnt from a long experienced life and ask him tough questions on where he believes we should move in our society.

Mahatma Gandhi – Ghandi inspired India to break free from the oppression of the British. What makes Ghandi special is he did this without firing one bullet or raising one fist. Ghandi was a pacifist. We are now at a point in our history where our destructive technology has developed the capacity to destroy the entire earth along with all its inhabitants. This kind of technology and power has never been available to us until quite recently and unless we can begin to develop diplomatic and constructive solutions to the differences we have with each other I’m afraid it’s all too obvious what the outcome will be. I would love to get Ghandi’s opinions and ideas on how to achieve these diplomatic solutions without the use of war.

Jesus – Jesus was another person in history who fought against oppression. Jesus was born in Judea in a time when the Roman Empire had expanded and held occupancy over Israel. The people were also under the control of corrupt religious leaders. Jesus inspired his fellow Jews not to put up with oppression and to stand up to those who stood over them. His teachings of ethics and morals were far beyond his time, even people today struggle to live up to the concepts of forgiveness and compassion that Jesus taught. Whether you accept the accounts of his divinity or not, his practical teachings for life are something we can all learn from. Would love to see what Jesus thinks of the world today and what he thinks of the organised religions that established themselves after his death and claim to be working in his name.

I want to give a Special mention to Joan of arc, Helen Keller and Mother Teresa. Some AWESOME ladies who have inspired and influenced people throughout history, I did not mean to choose all men, they just happen to be 5 people who have influenced me in some way :)

Are Psychics for real?

The question of the reality of spirits and psychic ability is a good one. Psychics deliver comfort and hope to a lot of grieving people that their loved ones are safe and sound living on the “other side”. There are genuine times when watching psychics perform when you really feel a sense of bewilderment as to how they could know such intricate details about a person they have never met. Is psychic ability genuine? Can humans really connect with people who have died? To some, the belief that their loved ones are ok in another life is enough to put them at ease and to carry on with their life; if you are one of those people then perhaps deep investigation into physic ability is not for you. But I have a sinking suspicion that most people are genuinely interested in the truth, even if it takes away that security blanket so many hold dear. There is nothing wrong with having hope that we will see our loved ones again, but we should not let hope blind us from deciphering false hope from truth.

Psychic ability is an area where I have done a fair bit of investigation on and would be delighted to share with you what I’ve discovered. Unfortunately if you were looking for conformation or a sense of comfort about life after death I wouldn’t point you in the direction of a psychic. For a long time I was convinced about spirits through an experience I had with an Ouija board. The cup was moving ferociously across the table spelling all sorts of weird words and names. I had barley a finger tip on the glass and I could clearly see my girlfriend at the time also barely touching the glass. This experience led me to believe that there was indeed a “spiritual dimension.” When we have an experience that we cannot explain we tend to latch on to the explanation that is given to us at the time. Once we attach ourselves to a belief it’s very hard for us to let go. It wasn’t until I began looking for other explanations that I found them. Here is a good explanation for how an Ouija board works:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1798/how-does-a-ouija-board-work

As for Psychics, there is a man named Derren Brown. Some of you may have heard of him. He is an illusionist, mentalist and sceptic. His videos are amazing; if you haven’t seen them already I highly recommend them, very entertaining! The reason I’m bringing up his name is because he did a documentary on how easy it is to convince people you are psychic and have special powers. You can watch the documentary for free on YouTube. Here is the first part, keeping in mind Derren does not believe in the super natural nor does he claim to have any special powers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ02I6QyagM

Here is another great video Derren does on spirits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDXQTBUCpYw

After watching these videos I simply could not accept psychics as a valid form of contact to those who are deceased. If a man who claims to have no special powers and attributes Psychic ability to a series of linguist tricks and then goes on to prove this by performing this in front of a live audience. I find little reason to continue to justify psychic ability within my belief system. As much as I would love to believe that when I die I will still get to be with my family, I think the evidence for it is very bleak to nil. Now I am not a materialist by a long shot, there is so much mystery to this world that we don’t understand. I would love to find evidence that led me to hold to the belief that I will see my friends and family again. But ultimately I don’t know, and false hope is not something I’m interested in. I personally would much rather know the truth and live my life according to it.

If anyone is looking for something to comfort them about death I would highly recommend anything by John Shelby Spong or Deepak Chopra. They both have very comforting insightful views and ideas about the afterlife.

Jason

The End of Faith

Book: The End of Faith
Author: Sam Harris

Sam Harris is one of my all time favourite authors/speaker/thinkers. I think I’ve seen every debate he’s ever been in and every time I do I’m blown away by his intelligence and his intellectual integrity. I was very impressed after reading his other book “Letter to a Christian nation” and the end of faith has been on my must read list for quite some time. I like Sam’s work so much I was willing to buy this book instead of my usual poor man’s trip down to the library, although this act didn’t come without a price.

The first time I bought this book, I was planning to read it on my long plane journey to America, which unsurprisingly I did very little as I was distracted by the on flight entertainment system (mainly Tetris). While I was in my hotel room, I happened to leave the book on the bench in what I thought was a very safe (yet oddly placed) plastic container. As it turns out this was a recycling bin and the maid, bless her little heart, thought it right to throw away this perfectly new looking book.

It took me a while, but I finally built up the courage and self esteem to bring myself to spend another twenty or so dollars for another copy of the book. This time I took the book with me to a wedding in Greece. Again very little of the book did I actually read on the plane (dam you Tetris!) and as I was about to step foot off the plane I suddenly realised I had left the book tucked away in my seat pocket. So I barged my way through the oncoming traffic of people and was lucky to retrieve the book that I’ve had to buy twice now. It would seem that the powers that be did not want me reading this book, BUT besides the obvious signs from God, I read it anyway. I’m thankful to say I haven’t been scorched in a freak lighting storm... yet!

The title of the book comes across quite aggressive, “the end of faith”, and If me being quite a liberal open minded guy when it comes to faith and spirituality found it so, I can only imagine how those who hold some sort of religious faith might feel about it. I imagine this title would turn them away immediately, which is a shame because this book makes a lot of good points aimed directly at people who hold strong religious convictions. If the only people reading this book are atheists, agnostics and men and woman of the secular persuasion, then I think a lot of what Sam has to say in this book goes to waste.

The first two chapters of the book were so far in my short journey of intellectual pursuits, the best two chapters I have ever read about understanding the concept of belief, what beliefs are and why we believe certain things. This is probably aided by the fact Sam has a Ph.D. in neuroscience. The way in which Sam explores belief, religious belief especially, and lays it out on the table seems both wonderfully insightful and painfully obvious:

“It is time we recognized that belief is not a private matter; it has never been merely private. In fact, beliefs are scarcely more private than actions are, for every belief is a fount of action in potentia. The belief that it will rain puts an umbrella in the hand of every man or woman who owns one. It should be easy enough to see that belief in the full efficacy of prayer, for instance, becomes an emphatically public concern the moment it is actually put into practice: the moment a surgeon lays aside his worldly instruments and attempts to suture his patients with prayer, or a pilot tries to land a passenger jet with nothing but repetitions of the word “Hallelujah” applied to the controls, we are swiftly delivered from the provinces of private faith to those of a criminal court.

As a man believes, so he will act. Believe that you are the member of a chosen people, awash in the salacious exports of an evil culture that is turning your children away from God, believe that you will be rewarded with an eternity of unimaginable delights by dealing death to the infidels - and flying a plane into a building is scarcely more than a matter of being asked to do it. It follows, then, that certain beliefs are intrinsically dangerous. We all know that human beings are capable of incredible brutality, but we would do well to ask, what sort of ideology will make us most capable of it?...”

Sam argues in the book that the we need new rules of conversation when talking to those who are convinced by things through unjustified beliefs, or “faith”. He uses Islamic fundamentalism to back up his arguments. The rise in Islamic fundamentalism is one that has affected the entire world. For those of us in the west, no longer is it something we can just pass off as something happening far away and not worry about it, but over the past couple of years as we’ve seen on our televisions and our newspapers is something that is beginning to trespass ever more dangerously in our lives. Sam attacks not only fundamentalist’s beliefs in his book, but religious moderates as well:

“Of course, people of faith fall on a continuum: some draw solace and inspiration from a specific spiritual tradition, and yet remain fully committed to tolerance and diversity, while others would burn the earth to cinders if it would put an end to heresy. There are, in other words, religious moderates and religious extremists, and their various passions and projects should not be confused. One of the central themes of this book, however, is that religious moderates are themselves the bearers of a terrible dogma: they imagine that the path to peace will be paved once each of us has learned to respect the unjustified beliefs of others. I hope to show that the very ideal of religious tolerance born of the notion that every human being should be free to believe whatever he wants about God is one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss.”

I understand exactly where he is coming from and agree with him to an extent, but when I think about the idea of crushing religious moderates, I think of all my dearest and closest friends who hold to a religious belief, the kind of people that wouldn’t hurt a fly. I think of all the honest and sincere people of the world that are inspired to do good through their personal faith and religious beliefs. I am currently at a deep conflict within myself when it comes to “fighting” religion. Yes we can all agree that fundamentalism is a genuine threat and problem to our society and to the freedom of the standard of life we love so much. We should oppose this kind of black and white thinking with everything we’ve got. But do religious moderates really fuel this fundamentalism? Don’t they oppose fundamentalism just as much as those who oppose religion entirely. Should something that inspires someone to become a better person and build greater feelings of love and tolerance towards fellow human beings really be thrown in the garbage heap with radical fundamentalism? Isn’t that common ground that believers and non believers such as myself can come too?

The final chapter of the book and the epilogue were by far my favourite. Sam unlike a lot of outspoken atheist or agnostics is not afraid to explore spirituality and take ever so careful steps into trying to understand the mystical and spiritual experiences that so many have. In his last chapter of the book Sam explores meditation and the value of spiritual experience, although he tries so very hard not to use the word spiritual, instead opting for a much more liberal term “mysticism”. I really enjoyed this book and I recommend it to everyone, instead of explaining my conclusion of the book I will simply share the last paragraph of Sam’s epilogue with you, I think it sums up the book wonderfully and if any one wishes to know more they need only to read the book.

"...Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name. The consciousness that animates us is itself central to this mystery and the ground for any experience we might wish to call - spiritual. No myths need be embraced for us to commune with the profundity of our circumstance. No personal God need be worshiped for us to live in awe at the beauty and immensity of creation. No tribal fictions need be rehearsed for us to realize, one fine day, that we do, in fact, love our neighbours, that our happiness is inextricable from their own, and that our interdependence demands that people everywhere be given the opportunity to flourish. The days of our religious identities are clearly numbered. Whether the days of civilization itself are numbered would seem to depend, rather too much, on how soon we realize this.”

The Value of Vertigo

http://skepticblog.org/2010/08/03/the-value-of-vertigo/

Great post By Daniel Loxton from Skepticblog about understanding that vertiginous "what if?” feeling when analysing unreasonable claims.

Debate: Does God have a future?

Sam Harris and Michael shermer debate with Deepak Chopra and Jean Huston in a discussion about the future of God. The reason this debate is so interesting is because it’s not a traditionalists view of God there debating, but a sort of new age mystic view of God. I’m very familiar with Michael and Sam‘s work and I have heard a little about Deepak Chopra and have watched a few of his videos. I thought it was a great debate and I’ll let you decide for yourself who you think had the strongest arguments. For me I think it was pretty clear that Sam and Michael had the upper hand.

Quote: Buddha

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.

Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many.

Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.

Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.

Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.

But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." -Buddha

Why I hate labels

If there is one thing that gets on my nerves when talking about ideas and concepts in any situation, it is our desire to label everything. Don’t get me wrong. I understand the need for labels in order for identification purposes and as a tool for building our language and understanding. But the kind of labelling I’m referring to is the labels we give each other. We all have different ideas and opinions on any number of issues and by the basis of our ideas we will fall into a category, from our beliefs about religion and politics to our ideas on philosophy and life.

But the problem with labels is it gives us a means to immediately dismiss someone’s ideas without even listening to them. If you start a sentence with “I disagree with capitalism”, than you must be a communist! If you start a conversation with “I don’t believe in the bible” your an Atheist! As soon as we hear the words come out of someone’s mouth our brain immediately tries to fit the person in a preconceived label we already have. If we have a negative view of that position our brain tends to shut off from listening to this person because we think we’ve already got them figured out. We all do it! If someone has good ideas; regardless of “who they are” we should listen to them. We should listen to people and agree or disagree on the basis of WHAT they are saying, not WHO is saying it. I don’t care if your an atheist, Christian, socialist, agnostic, liberal, Muslim, Hindu, nihilist, materialist, communist, Buddhist, deist, scientologist, spiritualist or just a plain old existentialist. If you have good ideas I want to hear them!

Sure we need labels for means of identifying things in our society and for the purposes of engaging in meaningful conversations. But we should never use labels against each other. At the end of the day labels are only disguises of who we really are. Were not “conservatives” or “liberals” were not “communists” or “capitalists” were not even “Christians” or “atheists”. If we break things down we are all breathing, talking, feeling human beings. Don’t let something as trivial and meaningless as a label get in the way of connecting with other people. Next time you’re in a conflicting conversation with someone try to remember your talking to a person. Not a label.