Jane Goodall @ Hanover College, 03/27/2008

I got to go and hear a presentation by Jane Goodall last Thursday evening. Quite an experience :) The opportunity just fell in my lap when a friend of mine got ahold of a couple of tickets and invited me along (tickets were free, but there was a very limited number of seats and it was PACKED.)

Dr. Goodall spoke on a variety of topics. She started out with giving up the chimp versing of "hello" which got quite a chuckle from the audience. Then she spoke about her own career, starting as a young girl in war-time England. The most amazing part to me was that when these old respectable men could not have a girl running around by herself in the jungles of Africa, she was required to have a companion in order to stay there. So her mother actually came from England to live out in the wild in a leaky tent for about 6 months, if I remember right. LOL There is what I call supporting your kid's dreams.

Of course, she did talk a bit about chimps. But I'm not going to reproduce it all here and I would not do it justice if I did.

What seemed to me to be the most important point made was the need to live and promote environmentally sustainable lifestyles. A major point being that even if we do get the warring factions in places like Africa to put down their guns and make peace, but their environmental issues are not addressed, they will end up just picking those guns right back up again. What good is peace if your land can no longer support crops, and your water supplies are dry or polluted? So the whole idea of envronmental sustainability is a major piece in promoting peace in troubled areas.

After the presentation, my friend and I headed for the book table, where we couldn't resist getting a few books (different ones, so we could borrow off each other). Then, since I decided that I just could not buy a book at a book signing and not get it signed, we ended up waiting about an 1 1/2 to 2 hours in line. It was well worth it.

If only...

If only some religion somewhere out there has shown its god to actually know thousands of years ago what we only have found out very recently. Just something, SOMETHING!, that the human authors could not have known on their own that would have turned out to be amazingly and accurately in line with modern scientific discovery. This video displays the absurdity of all the existing religious creation stories, by way of contrast. Here is what those ancient creation myths should have said.

Why I am an atheist

This is not a comprehensive list. I just had a bit of time on my hands last night and was thinking about a time when someone, pretty much out of the blue, asked me why I was an atheist. I replied that it was because I didn't believe in God. (How much simpler could it get?) But I was thinking that next time someone asked me that I'd rather be a bit more prepared.

Feel free to add more reasons in the comments section. If you disagree with any of my reasons, mention it in the comments and I'll try to address that one in a later post.

Enjoy!

1. I do not believe in an all-powerful invisible human-like figure that controls the clouds to make it rain (or not), and I don’t believe in any such power behind any other natural phenomena either. Including the very origin of the universe (assuming the universe can be coherently said to have an origin...)

2. Because “God” means different things to different people. Vastly different things. So much that the concept of “God” is pretty much useless.

3. Because prayer to any kind of god or force makes no difference whatsoever outside of the physiological realm. If you would like to challenge this assertion, bring evidence.

4. I think it is more plausible to believe that people have lied or been fooled than to believe that any miracle story is actually true. This is why I asked for evidence in #3.

5. Whenever a new scientific breakthrough is made, the realm of the gods gets smaller. Especially stuff like the Theory of Evolution. This is why fundamentalist Christians rage against science—they may be crazy, but they are not stupid.

6. Anytime I’ve questioned a person if they say God has “spoken” to them, it turned out that they just got inspired. I’ve never been able to see what God had to do with it. Why don’t these people credit their own good thinking?

7. Anytime I’ve heard that God has worked in someone’s life, when I found out what actually happened it was usually something really mundane or total explicable by natural causes. Even with the really amazing stories, the conclusion that God had anything to do with it would have to be a non-sequitur.

8. Because “theology” is nothing but speculation—I determined this when taking Bible/theology classes during my two years at Trevecca Nazarene University. Everyone has a pet theory—but naturally no one can actually check to see if their idea is anywhere near the truth.

9. Because the traditional view of the history of Christianity (and probably any religion) does not match the actual history of Christianity. I also learned this at the Christian university mentioned above.

10. Because it used to matter dearly what version of Christianity a person followed—so much so that members of different versions of Christianity would sometimes torture and kill each other over theological differences—now people are relieved if you only just believe in some sort of higher power at all. Just so long as you are not an atheist. The church used to rip its critics like an enraged pit bull, but the influence of secular Enlightenment values and scientific discovery has knocked out most of its teeth.

11. Because any real morality and ethnics has a perfectly good secular foundation. No one bases their morality on the Bible, except maybe Fred Phelps. And most Christians I know don’t think much of people like him.

12. Because no God or any form of higher power has ever shown himself to me, even when I believed that one would.

The Four Horsemen--Hour 1

Good stuff. I found this on Google videos and thought I'd do my part to pass it on.

Expelled from Expelled

This is too funny. PZ Myers tried to go see the new creationist propoganda film, and they wouldn't let him. Oh, the irony...

EXPELLED

Padme

I have more cute cat video :) She really gets into the acrobatics when going after the door hanger toy, so I had to get some of that on video.



Besides attacking her toys, and my washcloth (I'll have to get a vid of that later) her next favorite pastime is fish watching.

I could title the pictures below "temptation". :-)

Obama and his Pastor

Obama denounces pastor's 9/11 comments
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080315/ap_on_el_pr/obama_pastor

Apparently, Obama's long time pastor, the one who converted him to Christianity and the one that inspired the title of one of his books, has made a statement that Obama very clearly does not want to be associated with.

In a sermon on the Sunday after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Wright suggested the United States brought on the attacks.

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Wright said. "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

In a 2003 sermon, he said blacks should condemn the United States.

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

I find this story very interesting, from a number of angles. There is the religious angle, the political angle, and the social justice angle.

On the religous level, anyone who knows me well knows that I am an atheist and would really rather have someone in the most powerful office in the world be lead by reason and not by faith. Please, no more faith-based foreign policy!

I'm also wondering if this church is still tax exempt, as they have clearly been endorsing a candidate.

As for the political level, I think the influence of religious zealots on the American political system is ludicrous in a country for which there is supposed to be no religious test for office. There have even been rumors circulating that Obama is a Muslim and is trying to destroy America. Knowing full well the prejudice against Muslims in this country, this can only be a rather nasty smear tactic. But it seems to have been swallowed hook line and sinker by a number of people in this country including a lady who works in the same office as myself.

As for his needing to openly reject these remarks of his pastor, I am a bit torn. Yes, I think if you are a public figure and you have have publicly tagged someone as your spiritual leader, in cases like this it would be appropriate to go on the record as seriously disagreeing with what they have to say. On the other hand, I think it is stupid for the media to latch on to this. First Obama's a Muslim, now they seems to conceded that he is a Christian, but his pastor's a hate-spewing anti-American! Where does it end?

Finally, on the issue of social justice, I am deeply disturbed by what this pastor has to say. America has most definitely committed some terrible foreign policy snafus in the past...hold on, did I just call Hiroshima and Iraq snafus? When all is said and done, I think there needs to be some people in America who are speaking about against these sorts of atocities. It's not popular and not politically correct. Not good publicity for a presidential candidate, whatever his views really are, that is for sure. Anyway, it's part of the job of a politician to try and make sure only their popular views make it to the public light I suppose. So even with the candidates I like, and I do like Obama, I still don't believe half of what they say. Sad state of affairs, isn't it?

So am I a Buddhist or an atheist who meditates?

These thoughts have been rolling around in my head lately, though I haven't really given voice to them. I found the article below which describes very well how I've been thinking lately. While still being absolutly conviced that practicing Buddhist meditation and mindfulness, etc, is very beneficial in everyday life, I'm not sure if it is really honest for me to call myself a Buddhist. But maybe it doesn't really matter :)

http://homoeconomicusnet.wordpress.com/2008/01/03/why-i-am-not-a-buddhist/

Birds Do It. Bees Do It. Dragons Don’t Need To.

This is a very interesting article about odd reproductive methods found in nature. I knew that some species could reproduce without the assistance of a male when the males are not accessible. I've even heard of one type of fish (though I don't remember the species right off the bat) where their is no male at all--though the females mimic heterosexual sex in order to conceive. I think what makes this article most interesting is the way addresses the issue of cloning in human circles (since for an animal to reproduce asexually is for it to produce a clone of itself) and challenges the argument that cloning should not be done because it goes against the natural order. Anyway, I think it is an interesting read so I am passing it on.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/opinion/24shubin.html?ex=1361509200&en=c439992dc81f4cae&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Thought for the Day

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences. Robert Green Ingersoll

I was just browsing the web, and found this link for a quiz to help you determine how the presidential canditates line up with your own political views. You have to skip a bunch of adds right after the quiz before you get to your results, but otherwise it is a pretty good quiz. Here are my results:

http://www.selectsmart.com/president/2008.html

1.
Theoretical Ideal Candidate (100%)
2.
Barack Obama (71%) Information link
3.
Hillary Clinton (62%) Information link
4.
Christopher Dodd (withdrawn) (61%) Information link
5.
Wesley Clark (not running, endorsed Clinton) (61%) Information link
6.
John Edwards (withdrawn) (60%) Information link
7.
Al Gore (not announced) (59%) Information link
8.
Dennis Kucinich (withdrawn) (58%) Information link
9.
Joseph Biden (withdrawn) (58%) Information link
10.
Alan Augustson (campaign suspended) (55%) Information link
11.
Bill Richardson (withdrawn) (52%) Information link
12.
Michael Bloomberg (says he will not run) (48%) Information link
13.
Ron Paul (44%) Information link
14.
Mike Gravel (43%) Information link
15.
John McCain (40%) Information link
16.
Rudolph Giuliani (withdrawn, endorsed McCain) (40%) Information link
17.
Wayne Allyn Root (37%) Information link
18.
Mike Huckabee (34%) Information link
19.
Kent McManigal (campaign suspended) (32%) Information link
20.
Chuck Hagel (not running) (31%) Information link
21.
Elaine Brown (29%) Information link
22.
Alan Keyes (27%) Information link
23.
Mitt Romney (withdrawn, endorsed McCain) (26%) Information link
24.
Newt Gingrich (says he will not run) (25%) Information link
25.
Sam Brownback (withdrawn, endorsed McCain) (23%) Information link
26.
Fred Thompson (withdrawn) (22%) Information link
27.
Tommy Thompson (withdrawn, endorsed Giuliani) (22%) Information link
28.
Tom Tancredo (withdrawn, endorsed Romney) (21%) Information link
29.
Duncan Hunter (withdrawn, endorsed Huckabee) (20%) Information link
30.
Jim Gilmore (withdrawn) (17%) Information link
31.
Stephen Colbert (campaign halted) (12%) Information link

What Book Are You?

LOL Some people may see a bit of irony here... But I have read the book before though, and liked it.

You're The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe!

by C.S. Lewis

You were just looking for some decent clothes when everything changed
quite dramatically. For the better or for the worse, it is still hard to tell. Now it
seems like winter will never end and you feel cursed. Soon there will be an epic
struggle between two forces in your life and you are very concerned about a betrayal
that could turn the balance. If this makes it sound like you're re-enacting Christian
theological events, that may or may not be coincidence. When in doubt, put your trust
in zoo animals.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Update

Padme is doing much better now, finally. When I took her into the vet Monday, the doc said she was looking much better, and her fever was gone. She is also being a lot more playful and mischevious...I need to keep an eye on her. lol

I'm also working as a consultant programmer at UPS now. Started on Monday. So far, so good :)

Since I don't really feel like writing now, I'll leave it at that.

Padme

I have renamed my kitty Padme. It sanskrit for lotus, and she is my little lotus. (It's not a Star Wars reference, at least that's not what I had in mind. Take it however you want though. :-p) This lotus is still a bit in the muck though, as she has been sick for as long as I've had her. Without divulging all the fun details, I can just say I can now better understand the new mother who gets frantic every time her kid sneezes. I took her in for an inpromptu check at the vet today, and was assured this is just the sick taking it's normal course. *sigh*

I did at least spy her getting into her food bowl a moment ago...since I haven't seen her eat for a while, that is a good sign.

My new kitty

I found Sue at a Feeder's Supply over the weekend, and brought her home yesterday. Been thinking about getting a furry roommate for a couple months now, and now I've gone and done it.



Fearlessly exploring every bit of the apartment, Sue leaves no laundry basket unturned.



More cutesy video.

Accents

Yep, just what I thought.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The West   Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.
The Midland
The South
Boston
North Central
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Yoga

I'm a Balanced Yogi!

A Balanced Yogi You love your friends unconditionally and accept them for who they are no matter what their yoga style preference, religious beliefs, or spending habits. You focus on the good in people and would never try to change them. Almost everyone feels comfortable in your presence. You live your yoga. You are an inspiration to yoga students everywhere!

Take the Yoga Journal Yoga Snob Quiz!

My first Buddhist Retreat

A thought arises
Just a ripple in my mind.
Who dropped the pebble?

-A haiku that came to me during a sitting meditation at the retreat.

About a month ago, a regular member of my Sangha that meets on Sunday mornings announced that there was going to be a Vipassana retreat over New Year's weekend. It sounded interesting to me, so I took one of the registration forms he had, and looked up the website for the group that was sponsoring the retreat. So, after giving it a week's worth of thought and making sure I could get New Year's Eve off (New Year's Day is a paid holiday anyway) I filled out the registration form and sent in my payment.

The retreat lasted from Friday evening until Tuesday noon. I don't know what I expected, but I did not know what I was getting into. I had slight misgivings on the first day when I told someone it was my first retreat, and they said this one was a bit long for a first timer. For one thing, it was a silent retreat. I didn't mind the silence, but what made it really strange was the minimal contact we had with each other (There were about 20 participants.) The basic rules of etiquette were to be silent and stay out of each other's way--no eye contact either (not that this was enforced or anything, but everyone pretty much abided by it.) So pretty much we just stood back and gave each other lots of space.

From Saturday to Monday this was the schedule:
6:30 am: Wake Up
7:00 am: Sitting Meditation (We all meditated in one big room upstairs in the building I was sleeping in.)
8:00 am: Breakfast (The food was excellent.)
9:30 am: Teaching and Sitting Meditation
10:30 am: Walking Meditation
11:00 am: Sitting Meditation
12:00: Lunch
2:00 pm: Sitting Meditation
2:45: Walking Meditation
3:15: Sitting
4:00: Walking
4:30: Sitting
5:30: Supper
7:00: Sitting Meditation
7:45: Walking Meditation
8:15: Sitting Meditation
8:45: Dharma Talk
9:30: Sleep

Now, beings as I've never been in a sitting meditation longer than about 30 minutes, this schedule was quite a challenge for me. In fact, Saturday was absolutely miserable! I could never sit still for 45 minutes at a time and really got a lot of experimenting done with meditation postures. I'm quite certain I made a lot of noise. And on top of that, I had a cold with a runny nose, so I was needing to blow my nose about every 10 minutes at least. I think in every single sit I spent probably the last 10 minutes just wondering when she was finally going to ring that bell. By the end of the day I would be totally spend and irritated, but then there would finally be the Dharma talk at the end, and that would inspire me with enough courage to face the next 7:00 am sit.

Fortunately things improved a bit after the first full day. To the very end of the retreat I still could not sit still a whole 45 minutes, but I did start sitting still for longer periods of time, learned a few sitting postures that were tolerable to me for long periods and learned how to meditate in a chair from time to time. On Monday I was able to maintain a meditative frame of mind though the first two sets of sitting and walking sessions before dinner, though my concentration was pretty always well spent by the third sit in a row. I learned a lot of resisting the craving to move or just give up and go back to my room, and I learned a bit about where my mind goes when it does start to wander. Not bad for a fledgling meditator.

I also learned a lot about perception. There was a woman in the meditation room that I'd imagined looked at me crossly because I was making too much noise. Because I did tend to shuffle around quite a bit--especially on Saturday. But this morning after the closing when everyone started talking again she was just as talkative and friendly towards me as anyone else. It's amazing how your mind can convince you that you know what is going on inside someone else's mind. Actually I realised quite clearly that I did NOT know what she was thinking, but that did not stop that idea from popping up in my mind repeatedly. I told this to the teacher at the retreat when I had an interview with her, and she told me that there are several instances where people get odd ideas about other people at a retreat such as this. In fact, she knew someone at a different who had become convinced that one of the other meditators had fallen in love with her. Erroneously, I presume. :p

The friend that I rode to the retreat with has a way with words about these things . . . : "The difference between the summer and the winter retreats is that the summer retreats are hot, painful, and boring but the winter retreats are cold, painful, and boring." Bit of a wry sense of humor there. But he goes every New Year's and at other times as well. So he can't think it's all that bad. :)

It was quite the experience. Maybe next year I'll try it again.

The trouble with quoting people out of context

Can a person not make a nuanced statement about the complexity of human behavior and motivation without having their words twisted by someone? Funny how even the mention of Hitler still causes people to lose all sense of reason.

In a story published Saturday in the Daily Record, Smith was quoted saying: "Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.' "

I think Will's absolutely right. What Hitler did is what would be expected when you combine charisma, ignorance, hatred, extreme nationalism, and way too much power. Other than that, he was just a normal human like the rest of us.

Just my two cents...

Will Smith angry over Hitler comment interpretation - CNN.com

on being a practicing Buddhist but still a cultural Christian

I think this is an interesting thing to make note of today, as this is Christmas Eve. Although I am now a practicing Buddhist, I will fully participating in Christmas celebrations with my family this evening and tomorrow morning.
What brings this to mind is a bit of conversation about religion I had with a guy I've been seeing and a friend of his over dinner on Saturday evening. Both he and his friend are East Indian, and what is what made the conversation particularly interesting.
I guess my friend was just making some casual conversation, but for some reason or another he asked me about church. We've discussed religion before (I told him about Unitarian Universalism, and I already knew he was a Sikh). I'd told him that I didn't believe in a God but that I went to a church that didn't place so much emphasis on belief as on how one lives one's life. And that my religion is different from my parents, who are evangelical Christians. I've never told him I was studying Buddhism.
Anyway, I was slightly perturbed about him bringing it up because for some reason or another I get painfully shy about discussing my religion. It's an incredibly personal thing to me, and also I'm fairly new to Buddhism and I'm concerned that I might say something that would give a wrong impression. But I think it's mostly just a fear of having my thoughts and feelings rejected.
Anyway, I decided on this occasion that I would tell him that I haven't been actually going to Church, that I haven't been a Christian for several years, and that I was actually now a Buddhist. He seemed absolutely shocked. I'm not really sure why I got that reaction. What surprised me was that he didn't even know that Buddhism originated in India--this was a surprised cause he likes to brag a lot about all the good stuff that came from India--but at least his friend knew about that. His friend asked where there was a Buddhist temple in this area, and honestly I don't know of any. This, I suspect, is a cultural thing. I mean, where they are from it might be assumed that a Buddhist would visit a temple regularly. I would like to visit one from time to time, but I can't see how that would be essential to practicing. My friend thought if I was a Buddhist I was supposed to shave my head. (LOL) I explained that is something I'd only be expected to do if I was a monk.
So, apparently they have a bit of a hard time seeing how someone can be a Buddhist without all the cultural stuff that would come with being raised as a Buddhist in a country that is largely Buddhist. Well, that is just not the situation I am in--no matter how much my personal beliefs and practice are Buddhist, I'm still culturally a Christian. And that is my reality.