Talking about an evolution

I’ve been thinking about religion lately, mulling it over for the last year or so. When I saw Bill Maher’s film Religulous on Saturday it inspired me to finally write about it. I enjoyed the film and while I think it was a bit unfocused and incomplete, it brings up an excellent point. Bill Maher makes a case that religion is an outmoded social structure based on myth and superstition that we can no longer afford. Al Gore says in his book The Assault on Reason: "We are currently faced with the urgent task of accelerating our own psychological, emotional, intellectual and spiritual evolution in order to see over the internal walls that may have served some useful purpose ages ago but are now merely obstacles that prevent us from securing the new path we must take." Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth, says we must “evolve or die.” Watching, in Religulous, the way people defend their creation myths to the point of insisting that man lived with dinosaurs and refusing to believe the same myths had been repeated in civilizations for over 50,000 years before the Bible was written, makes me wonder if many wouldn’t rather die.

Religion, as a means of government, is an archaic idea that has been replaced by every advanced nation in the world with reason, law and social responsibility. Religion, as the quest for meaning, is not archaic – human beings will seek the answers to how we got here and what our purpose is for as long as we are in this world – but religion no longer satisfies the quest for these answers. Eckhart Tolle is one of the most popular new age writers of our time and while he frequently quotes Jesus in the book, he is clearly promoting an agnostic philosophy. The dictionary defines an agnostic as “one who believes it impossible to know anything about God or about the creation of the universe and refrains from commitment to any religious doctrine.” I love the use of the word ‘refrain’ here. It suggests that precisely because the desire to know about our origins is so strong, we may be tempted to accept easy answers as truth. Tolle cleverly uses the quotes of Jesus to illustrate that he and other spiritual leaders were ahead of their time, teaching a Zen philosophy, and because they were not understood have been misinterpreted and their words misused to further the careers of religious leaders. He no doubt also knows that many Christians are searching for answers beyond their religion and will find comfort in the references to Jesus.

Tolle says that we are in the midst of the great awakening and spends most of the book explaining that in order to evolve, humans will have to free themselves from the grip of the ego. To do it, we must become aware of the insanity of the ego and its control over our thoughts and actions. By being aware, we become present and no longer operate unconsciously. He describes how the ego, when it feels that threatened, grows in power and become increasingly insane. This is what I think is happening now. The religious institutions of the world, fueled by ego, are severely threatened by their declining relevancy in our global culture and are reacting in a fanatical way to survive. Bill Maher says in the film that 16% of Americans do not subscribe to a religious doctrine, the largest percentage in the history of one of the most religious nations on earth.

‘Unconscious’ is how Tolle describes the unenlightened. They are not bad or stupid or inferior, they simply have not yet awakened the part of themselves that is their true being. They are living through the mind and the ego. Unconscious might also be how Maher would describe faith – often referred to as “blind faith.” Religulous humorously demonstrates the absurdity of the “truths” accepted by followers, truths that not only vary from church to church but also contradict truths by other religions. The most frightening thing about faith is that it cannot be questioned without terse rigidity and suspicion. Maher says, once the word faith is spoken, conversation stops. I read, in one article about the film, that Americans would rather vote for a Jew, a black, a woman or a homosexual than an atheist. For all the prejudice in the world, Americans find a person without belief in the talking snake, the virgin birth and the second coming of the messiah, as anathema. Is it because people without “faith” are not likely to take anything at face value? Is because they question everything? Is it because it is assumed that their lack of belief in God means they a lack of belief in anything?

Atheist comes from the Greek word áthe, which means godless. The dictionary defines atheist as “a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a deity or divine beings” but defines godless as “wicked, evil and sinful.” How can anyone believe that a person who doesn’t believe in god is wicked? Both of my parents are atheist yet they went to church growing up. Their mothers were fairly devout as women of that generation tended to be. Half of the kids became atheists and the other half, became born again so I grew up in the conflict of religion as my father said it was stupid and my aunts told us we were going to hell. They tried to save my brother and me by leaving bibles in our rooms whenever they came to visit.

But despite the lack of god in our lives, we were raised in a very strict and moral way. There was no drinking, no swearing, no lying and no smoking in our house. We couldn’t watch television, eat junk food or have friends spend the night in our rooms. We lived on a steady diet of exercise, studying and health food. I have always been hardworking, honest and fair. My born-again relatives, on the other hand, were petty and judgmental, they home schooled their kids and restricted contact to only their church congregation, they lied and swindled money from my grandparents and fought amongst themselves about who was most worthy of their charity. They always appeared to me to be the worst kind of people, the kind that preach good but aren’t themselves.

It wasn’t difficult to see the hypocrisy of religion then and it isn’t difficult to see it now. Our President says God told him to run for office and has often used this religious calling to justify his actions which include an unprovoked invasion of a country (that some liken to a holy war and that has left more dead than the ruthless dictator we overthrew), unlawful detention (and alleged torture) of hundreds of innocent people and the erosion of civil liberties promised to us by our intentionally non-religious government. This President who claims to use God and religion as his guiding force is on track to become the least popular president in our history. Odd considering his devout beliefs!

It is easy to understand how 2,000 years ago a belief in god might have been requisite to establishing a set of rules but it seems to me an ancient idea that a person who doesn’t believe in god has no moral code! Religion has never succeeded in getting everyone to agree on a moral code. Nor has it ever succeeded in keeping people from committing sin. So it can be argued that it isn’t an effective method of social control, advancement or enlightenment at all. In addition, governments such as ours were crafted with a level of insight and lucidity not shown in any organized religion. Our founders specifically designed a government based on reason that protects the welfare of people by establishing universal beliefs that determined laws of fairness. As Bill Maher so aptly asks in the film, “Do we really need religion to tell us not to kill people?”

A friend of mine says that I’m not an atheist because atheists are certain that there is no mystery to the universe, no grand design, just a swirling mass of matter bumping into each other. Each of the major religions are also certain that their story is the right one and their way is the right way, making their followers equally rigid in their view of others. This is what makes religion so dangerous in today’s global culture. Religious followers have made it their purpose to judge others and decide who is deserving and who is not, who is sinful and who is not and who is good and who is not. There simply isn’t room on this planet for this kind of nonsense, for fighting over creation myths, gods, messiahs, promised lands, second comings, Armageddons and end times. Maher says his belief is “I don’t know!” but Tolle describes it more like “We couldn’t possibly know.” I wonder why we need to know. Clearly, the creation of the universe and everything in it is beyond our comprehension. We can't even comprehend what we don't know! Enlightenment, then, comes by becoming aware of the temptation to accept a limited truth and instead gain a greater acceptance of the unknown, become more patient with things we don’t understand and learn to appreciate the miracle of life as it manifests within us and around us at every moment.

The evolution has already begun. There are over a million organizations dedicated to positive change, fueled by believers, atheists, agnostics and seekers alike. Some religious leaders are breaking from the establishment to speak out against war, stand up for the welfare of animals and advocate for a better relationship with nature. Scientists and activists are starting to talk about the need for a spiritual aspect of the green movement and in the quest for human and animal rights. In online profiles, included in the list of religions that you could be is the choice “spiritual,” a broad term that says, “I don’t subscribe to a religious doctrine but I am on an individual quest for meaning.” I think the term will soon be broadened to also imply a desire to live in greater harmony with the environment and a need for peace.

The film, The 11th Hour, compares what is happening to our environment as a reflection of what is going on inside us. We have lost our connection to nature and have caused others and ourselves great suffering as a result. But nature is not just leaves and grass and the birds we sometimes get a glimpse of, nature is life. We are life. The life force, what people call god, manifests through all of us as a single being. To choke the life out of other living creatures, no matter how small, is to be truly unconscious and disconnected from the collective miracle of life. My mom just told me a story about her friend’s neighbor who bought the house next door and ripped out all the plants. The yard had been beautifully landscaped but was now just an expanse of dirt in the front. After about a year, my mom’s friend knocked on his neighbor’s door to find out what “his plan” was for it. The neighbor replied, “Nothing. My wife doesn’t like plants.”

When I was growing up, I attended many different churches with friends and relatives. I got to sample quite a few and as an adult found myself curious enough to keep going whenever an opportunity would arise. I went to Tibetan Buddhist services with a boyfriend, Catholic services with my dad and his second wife (I know, bizarre!), and when in D.C. as a college student, went to the oldest Baptist church there. Each time I remember thinking that what was being said was fairly unremarkable, but what was amazing was the energy in the room. Hundreds of people together, shaking hands and meeting their neighbor, bowing their head in silent contemplation, giving their full attention to another person. These were remarkable and uncommon experiences in my life. The other outlet for this kind of community gathering, the town hall, Al Gore says we've lost. Now instead of people getting together to discuss issues, the direction of our world is communicated to us as a one-way conversation. The first time I went to yoga, I recognized that a class contained the incredibly powerful elements of church, which I think explains the rapidly growing popularity of yoga. In each class I’ve taken in more than ten years of practice, the teacher asks us to be thankful for the privilege of being able to do yoga and for a full hour and a half we mindfully turn our attention inward.

The evolution of religion has taken us from god-fearing people who believed god was angry or happy with us based on the weather. We made ritual killings and other sacrifices to appease the gods. Later, that type of religion was considered barbaric. At another point in time, there were special priests who said that only they could speak to god and they would translate for us. Later, we came to regard that type of religion as elitist and a way to control the people. The Jews suggested that people could speak directly to god, that we didn’t need priests, and they were banished for it. Now, people gather in churches or pray in groups or home alone, believing that god is listening. Bill Maher says, isn’t it ridiculous to think there’s a guy somewhere listening to all of us murmur about our lives?

We’re certainly getting closer to the truth but I say, isn’t it time for another evolution? One in which we finally turn our focus inward and stop talking to an external god. Let us be released from the bondage of our collective insanity and recognize the life force in all of us. We are part of a whole that is much bigger than ourselves. We’re like the blood cells in a body sitting around trying to figure out how we got there and what we’re supposed to be doing. I'm not saying we should stop seeking answers but it seems to me that science, not religion, is doing that. And for everything that scientists say they have found an answer to, hundreds more things are revealed that they don't understand. The mystery only grows with exploration. That applies to our bodies and our brains as much as our planet and our universe. We’re trying to figure out what makes the universe tick instead of simply being a part of it. We’re busy launching wars and choking the life out of on various other parts of the whole because we don’t understand ourselves. Clearly, the answers are not out there, they’re in here.

Intelligence is in the mind of the beholder

There’s a fantastic article in National Geographic this month about animal intelligence, which apparently is a pretty recent concept. Alex, an African Gray Parrot, knows that what’s the same between a green cup and a green key is their color and he knows that what’s different is their shape. Betsy, a Border Collie, knows 15 people by name and can link photographs with objects they represent. The male African Cichlid, a fish with a brain the size of a pea, will disguise itself as a female to steal food from another male’s territory. The Asian Elephant sees itself in a mirror and will touch a part of its head with its trunk when it sees a spot painted on it that doesn’t belong. The Ring-tailed Lemur can repeat arbitrary sequences and gets better each time, learning how to learn.

Does anyone else find it astoundingly arrogant that humans came up with the idea of intelligence, defined its characteristics and then proceeded to assign an abundance of it to ourselves and claim that other animals are merely responding to a series of instincts, not really thinking? Our brains are the biggest so we must be the smartest! We also decided that many of these dumb beasts also don’t experience fear and pain; a tragic miscalculation for most animals we come into contact with.

We’ve spent even less time wondering if plants have intelligence even though they literally transformed a ball of lava and toxic gas into a lush paradise, making it possible for all of us to live here. In fact, I’d say we’ve spent far more time and money looking for intelligence in outer space, on the desolate moon and the red hot Mars, than we have on our own planet.

I blame the Bible and its story of Eden that teaches people we are God’s special creatures and everything else is here for our exploitation. Again, isn’t it unbelievably arrogant to assert a single creation myth? Every civilization that’s ever lived has boasted one just as glorious and awe-inspiring, many not resembling the one in the Bible at all!

In a discussion with a friend yesterday about our religious upbringing – he’s Irish Catholic, I was raised an atheist – I told him that after years of exploration and experimentation, I decided that I believe in nature. Every living thing on this planet is made of DNA, a blueprint to create all living matter. We still know so little (and yet claim to know so much!) that we’ve deemed 80-90% of our own DNA as “junk.” Which means, in yet another arrogant move, that we don’t know what it does so it must not do anything. Also interesting is that some creatures that we consider far simpler are made up of a lot more DNA. (In their universe, they must think they’re smarter than us because they have more DNA).

That we all share this incredibly complex code is proof enough for me that we are all part of the same thing. There is overwhelming evidence that each living being’s presence and activity on this planet affects every other living being’s experience. We are not living ON this planet, we ARE this planet and this planet is all of us; it changes constantly and always has.

If we really are the most intelligent creatures, shouldn’t we be able to figure out a way to stop global warming? In fact, we should be able to at least agree that a) we have a considerable impact on this planet and everything on it and b) we have choices as to what that impact is. I don’t think the majority of people have accepted those things yet. If they believed in nature instead of God, maybe they would.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb in one of my PopTech! lectures talks about what he calls "epistemic arrogance," which describes how we focus only on what we know and what we think we know and ignore everything else, which as it turns out, is most things. It's the reason that we are lousy as forecasting everything. Our world, our brains, even our own bodies are far too complex for us to fully comprehend.

In another really good PopTech! lecture by Dan Gilbert, he says we aren’t equipped mentally to deal with global warming. He says we have an enormous capacity for change and can mobilize against a common enemy with swift force. The problem in this situation is defining the common enemy.

These are his four reasons that we will fail to do so:
1) It doesn’t have a human face. We’re obsessed with humans; we see their faces in clouds and other abstract objects. Global warming isn’t human enough.
2) We aren’t morally repulsed by it. It’s bad, it’s yucky but it doesn’t literally make us sick the way abortion, torture, the death penalty, child abuse and gay marriage do to some. Those are hot issues for a reason.
3) We tend to think about the future but live in the present. We can't react to that is going to happen in the same way as what is happening now, like ducking when someone throws a baseball your head. We have the capacity to recognize future threats but still lack the brainpower to react to them.
4) We react to relative change and, ironically, environmental changes aren't happening fast enough. We have enough time to adjust and think that drying coral, trees, and animals are the way things are.

President Bush had all of those things on his side when he took us to war:
1) A human face – Osama bin Laden
2) Moral revulsion – “freedom haters,” people who oppress women, blow themselves up and train kids to be killers
3) Present threat – 9/11
4) Relative change – laws passed to tap our phones, get our library records, detain people without cause, long lines at the airport

This ties back into my earlier post about how we just need better marketing and PR for global warming. But first, I might have to start the church of nature and start proselytizing!

Fear of God

A couple of different articles I’ve read lately have referenced Bill Gates as a philanthropist. But even though his contributions far outweigh that of say, Mother Theresa, she is widely recognized as a saint and he is not. Public perception, the theory goes, is not determined by actual contribution, but by the nature of the giver and their giving. One is a billionaire who created a monopoly in business and donates a portion of the massive profits, the other is a nun who lived with lepers and helped anyone who needed it.

Another article said that most people only contribute to very personal causes, that we are motivated by emotion rather than actual need. After 9-11, The Red Cross issued a statement that they had received more donations than they could deal with and asked the public to donate elsewhere. Still, the money poured in. But there are some people with a far more scientific approach to philanthropy. Their brains are configured slightly differently, making them more rational than emotional so that when they think of doing good, they think of how they can do the most good with the money they have. Bill Gates asked what were the biggest problems that could be solved – hunger and disease – and set to solving them.

I bring this up because in my daily observations of people, we are fickle, inconsistent and highly personal in our choices. Scientists have said that stopping global warming and other environmental disasters – like the impending shortage of potable water, melting of the polar ice caps, and the destruction of the seas and rainforests – would require a collaborative effort the scale of which has never been achieved by humans. (Ants, yes. Humans, no.) In other words, we need a lot more people with Bill Gates type brains.

On the bus home the other day, I was looking out the window at a blanket of scattered clouds engulfing the sky as the sun went down, and thought about how inspiring nature is. The primitives were right to be awestruck by its beauty and fearful of its power. Nature could squash us like a bug. Our few hundred thousand years on this planet is no assurance of our future durability. Greater beasts than us have lived ten times longer and disappeared.

What if we are, in fact, a virus on this planet like The Matrix says? Then surely nature will eventually unleash storms, floods, droughts, disease and whatever else she can muster to cleanse herself of us. And history tells us that she will succeed. To quote another trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, “Are you frightened? Not nearly enough.” If we were living in a primitive society, the pagans would know that we've angered the gods and better get busy appeasing them.

A recent piece in Wired says that we humans don’t like science because it makes us look dumb. We’re happier with our myths and primitive beliefs when science challenges us to doubt everything we believe and diminish our significance in the universe. According to the article, half of all Americans don’t believe in evolution! So doesn't it seem strange that scientists are leading the discourse on global warming and not religious leaders? Why isn’t the church calling us all gluttonous and greedy and calling for humble restraint in our decadent lifestyles, citing the rise in natural disasters as evidence? Clearly, God is not happy with us. Have you seen the air in China?

Shouldn't the church be lambasting us for our wanton disregard of nature, God’s most gracious gift to us? What use is modern religion if not to motivate masses of people to become environmental stewards? Why is it that liberal science loving types are dropping everything to change their lifestyle to reduce their impact - hybrid vehicles, cloth diapers, non-toxic chemicals, recycled goods - and the Bush loving conservative types are all calling it a bunch of phooey? Clearly, the solution to our environmental woes is to get the church on board and put the fear of God in these people! It doesn't take a scientist to figure out that the pursuit of wealth through constant rape and abuse of the planet and our fellow creatures isn't very Christian.

A question about Israel

I spent some time with a friend of mine over Thanksgiving who is a quarter Native-American. He visits his Inupiaq relatives in Alaska every year. He towers over them at over six feet tall, a trait inherited from his Dutch grandfather, and at home in L.A. is often mistaken for Hispanic or if he lets his beard grow, Middle Eastern. Once, in a traffic skirmish, a guy yelled out his window for my friend to "go back to your own country," to which he retorted, "I'm Native fucking American, asshole!"

We were having drinks with a couple of girlfriends of mine and he told us that his family justifies celebrating the holiday of the white man who stole their lands and slaughtered its people by purchasing everything with the federal funds they receive each year as compensation for the aforementioned atrocities. Then my Eskimo friend disparaged the expenditure of federal funds to maintain a Jewish state thousands of miles away. I said jokingly that I didn’t understand the need for it since we already have New York and he added that an Israeli friend of his says the same thing about Beverly Hills. But I thought he had an interesting point when he asked why it should be different for the Jews. One woman at the table started rattling off the standard diatribe about Jews being kicked all over the globe as if anyone present honestly didn’t know. Yes, he countered, but what about Native Americans? Why not create a state for them? There are countless numbers of persecuted tribes in the world who don’t enjoy the same protection, many who have suffered genocide at the hands of those who displace them.

In a fantastic Pop!Tech lecture, Richard Dawkins questions the special significance allowed to religions. Why is it, he asks, that we consider it rude to challenge a person’s religion but acceptable to challenge just about everything else related to lifestyle? Who we have sex with, what kind of parents we make, what sports team we root for, our political views, our aesthetic taste, what food we eat, etc. What makes religion so special? He counters religion's attacks on science by showing that science is a study built on critique and sharing of information. Science is a discipline that has evolved by its members proving each other wrong and changing the public’s beliefs 180 degrees, over and over again. Perhaps, he suggests, it’s that religion cannot withstand critique so those organizations have protected themselves though a fabricated sense of reverence that tell us not to question.

I'm certainly no expert on the Israeli conflict but it made me think about the role of religion in how nation states are created.