extra! extra!

Richard Dawkins, best known for his book 'The God Delusion' has a new book that is on display at Barnes and Noble. It's titled 'The Greatest Show on Earth'. Having given it a glimpse while browsing at my local bookstore, it appears to be another bestseller for one of the most pubblic faces of atheism and a collaborator on 'The Reason Project' (http://www.reasonproject.org/). His website http://richarddawkins.net is also worth visiting and if you click on the book title you will find a brief video posted there as well.

Traditionally

Traditions and ritual have great significance in life. That is one of the reasons that I began a blog on Christmas traditions-- because in the fast paced world that we live in, we often fail to include ritual in our lives. This is one purpose that religions serve (if you can call it serve) but even many churches have less and less of an understanding of how deeply people need ceremony and rites.

Sam Harris, in his book 'The end of faith' writes about the need for atheists to acknowledge this and goes on to state that meditation and solitude are also important for the spirit. The increase of wicken ceremonies and the study of ancient women's religions reflects this need for ritual, I believe. A book "Mother, daughter, sister, bride: rituals of womanhood' which I spotted on Amazon appears to contains many of these and Sue Monk Kidd also writes about rituals that she and many of her friends engage in in 'Dance of the dissident daughter'. The rituals that represent a passage from one stage of life to another are particularly powerful. Other rituals that simply note a new season or a special day add a uniqueness to life that differentiates one day from another.

As an example: a friend told me she grew up doing a snow dance. On the morning of the first snow, her family would jump out of bed, strip their clothes off and dance around the living room. I have no idea if they had special music, but it seems to me that adding a special song would make the ceremony stronger.

It's easier to use ceremonies that others have developed and nurtured but when a family creates it's own traditions that occur year after year, one generation to the next, the meaning becomes deeper and more meaninful.

Reason again?

A recent commenter on my post "Reason" stated "God is a meaning larger than ourselves that creates a framework for the randomness that is life and death." I do not disagree with the comment, after all, death is the great unknown, the darkness that is beyond what we know, yet a fundamental fact of life (and for ancient people who died at the age of 45 or so it was even more so). And it is this fear of death that causes so many to cling to the hope of something or Someone in the BEYOND.

I was raised a Christian-- with the devil and hell as deeply ingrained upon my psyche as the idea of god. There was no doubt in my mind for most of my life, including adulthood, that some people would go to hell. But the more I pondered upon who exactly it was that was going to hell, the more ridiculous the afterlife seemed to be. After all, if christians are right (and they sincerely believe they are!) most of us who do not BELIEVE (and note that I am not saying that you have to be good or anything-- you simply have to believe) that jesus is the son of god, that he died for our sins, and will come again some day to save us all, then we, the ones who don't believe that exact line about Jesus, are ALL going to hell. And it is this fundamental fear that still streaks through most Americans, in particular, whether they actually go to a christian church or not. And it is this same fear that the church, as stated in the article I quoted from the Telegraph in my post "Reason" that church leaders hope to capitalize on.

And as far as "the randomness of life" well, I will say that on the most fundamental level-- the quantum level life is random and that is difficult to understand. In fact it is the very randomness of life that seems to keep life on any kind of stable ground. For example: if electrons spun around the nucleus the way they should according to classical physics, the atom would not exist. It would collapse. But because the orbit of the electron is random, the atom is sable. And the atom is the fundamental building block of all life. Even Einstein struggled with the randomness that quantum physics revealed yet his belief did not change the facts of quantum physics. He was a genius, yet he was wrong fundamentally about the randomness of the universe.

Finally, to the idea that believing in god makes people better or gives them meaning that might give them a greater purpose as seemed to be implied in that statement (although if it was not implied by the commenter it does not take away from the importance of making this point)... most people who believe in god do not adhere to a higher standard of living or behavior because there is a god, and in fact too many of them behave abominably and can because they BELIEVE the right thing. They don't have to ACT in any certain way. god forgives them after all and they are going to heaven! (i.e George Bush or Mohammad Atta although these are not even very good examples since both had the very dangerous attitude that they were working on god's behalf. Perhaps Dick Cheney would be a better example of what I am trying to illustrate.)

In actuality, those people that do have a high standard of behavior or have a sense of a higher purpose may attribute it to god but if they gave some in depth thought to their standards they would most likely find that they would behave they way they do with or without god. It simply makes life better and they are able to hold their heads up in dignity. And after all, the life we have today is what we know and what we do actually have. It's worth doing well.

Atheist quote of the day:
"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children are smart." ~~ H.L. Menken

Not a myth

Science is always on the hunt for new discoveries. Not in order to disprove the bible as many believers would like to believe but in order to answer questions about the earth and the origins of humans. ScienceDaily.com is reporting today that the largest dinosaur footprints ever found have been discovered near Lyon France. (See the full article at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091009132928.htm)

It should be exciting to all of us to hear this kind of news! After all, we are learning new things daily about creatures who lived, essentially, on a faraway planet in another time and another place. A place we call Earth but as different from the Earth we know as the Moon is from us (although not in the same way!)

Doesn't it make you curious???


Titanosaur (Credit: Image courtesy of Queensland Museum)