Rubénerd!

As someone who's counted himself a spiritual atheist for many years now, I read with much excitement this article in Time by Rabbi David Wolpe:

According to the latest Pew report almost one in five Americans identify themselves as “spiritual but not religious.”

There's hope yet!

In other words,

Oh boy, here it comes.

they have some feeling, some intuition of something greater, but feel allergic to institutions. Yet as we approach Passover and Easter, it’s important to remember that it is institutions and not abstract feelings that tie a community together and lead to meaningful change.

Yeah, doesn't it suck when people think for themselves?

Spirituality is an emotion. Religion is an obligation. Spirituality soothes. Religion mobilizes. Spirituality is satisfied with itself. Religion is dissatisfied with the world. Religions create aid organizations;

Absolutely, I can't effect change or help people because I'm not religious. Glad the Rabbi sorted that out for me!

Feedback

From @Yaakov on Twitter:

@Rubenerd while i’d take what a ‘conservative’ rabbi says with a sack of salt, I don’t see where his post conflicts with your one from ‘08

I thought it was pretty obvious, but for the sake of clarity: the Rabbi's argument is spiritual people can't institute change or help the needy, you need religious institutions. As evidenced by non-religious people doing good things, this premise is obviously absurd, hence this post!

In 2009, my beloved Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens debated that the Catholic Church was not a force for good in the world. In this part of his opening statements, Steven discusses Pope Benedict XVI.

I hope this retiring Pope is proud of his legacy.

(I found a version on YouTube that doesn't need Flash ^_^)

They were out in full force this weekend in Earlwood. Over two days I had flyers handed to me about an End of The World seminar by the Jehovah's Witnesses, a Baptist pledge drive and an invitation for a "dianetic reading" for the low, low price of $1500. Pieces of Sweet Stars Yoko couldn't wait!

Ironically, just as people did with material from The Greens, these flyers were littered all around the street shortly after. Seems "Ruining The Earth" is a self fulfilling prophecy.

Cue Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy references regarding being too hip to see over your own pelvis ;).

Newspapers provide roughage and essential inks!

For puppy paper (as we call it), nothing beats Saturday editions of newspapers. They're cheap, plentiful, and decently absorbent. For rags like the Straits Times and The Australian, I'd even go so far to say that its the best use for them! Unfortunately, you may be tempted to read some of the articles as you're placing them in on the floor for the doggies to do their business, which can lead to frustration and the urge to deride it either in public or your blog.

"Extreme sports are an excellent way of capturing kids' attention", Jim says.

One such article was in the March 5th issue of The Australian that discussed how cool people are keeping the faith. The article was about evangelical protestant Christians of course, presumably because that's The Australian's readership base, because people of other faiths in multicultural Australia don't count, and because non believers such as atheists, agnostics or philosophical systems such as Buddhism aren't cool. Fair enough, I know I'm not hip in the slightest.

It could not have been more cliché and stereotypical if it tried. The author Christine Jackman crammed as many photos of young, super hip and trendy people on motorcycles and covered in tattoos as she could, along with this quote in bold:

To old school Christians, worshipping this way might seem a bit like serving up a cool Jesus with a side order of fries at a convenient and groovy drive-through.

That's right, people of my generation allegedly only care about junk food and extreme sports. Point taken.

I'm the James Dean of the Blogging Scene

Most of the "facts" in the report were derived from a four year old publication. If we're to believe census data, the makeup of religions in Australia is changing rapidly and data from even a couple of years ago is outdated, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

In 2007, Singleton published The Spirit of Generation Y: Young People's Spirituality in a Changing Australia with the Australian Catholic University's Michael Mason and Ruth Webber [...]

I remember a representative from the ACU came to our school in Singapore in year 12 to discuss why we should study at their institution. I asked if you had to be Catholic to join, to which I was told "no" because they "teach secular values", whatever that means. I suppose it wasn't entirely true after all, who'd have thunk it? ;).

What did the report say?

If spiritual health is measured by belief in God, then the news was dire.

Good thing spiritual health isn't measured by a belief in God. There's nothing stopping atheists, agnostics and other free thinkers from being spiritual. Teachings like Buddhism don't have Gods, and arguably they're far more in touch with their spiritual side than any of the Christian denominations the article discussed. Also, what about faiths such as Hinduism that worship more than one God?

Nooooo! Not a Shinto shrine!

No, this article had nothing to do with keeping the faith and being ultra cool and super trendy about it, it was a several page long advertisement for the Hillsong Church/Gloria Jeans (thank you Alex for clearing that up!) and Australian Idol, who's winner Stan Walker graced one of the pages with his super trendy tattoos. Presumably he's unaware of Leviticus 19:28.

Sorry Australians, if you're religious but not Christian, or you're a Buddhist, or you're a free thinking atheist agnostic naturalist humanist Jedi or whatever you call yourself, you're spiritually unwell and worse still, you're not cool! I know right, this is serious!

I suggest you repent by hitching a ride on a motorcycle wearing a bandanna, and hit the drive through for some fries. No seafood though, that's not allowed either!

I forgot that the 30th of September was International Blasphemy Day! To repent for forgetting, I'll merely make the observation that if we've discovered a new habitable planet, will their inhabitants have to be "saved" by our religions too? I mean, they've been living in sin this entire time and they didn't even know it!

Space fairing missionaries... now there's a terrifying thought >___<. Damn you Lord Xenu!

While sitting at my beloved Boatdeck Cafe doing some programming, who I thought was a nice old woman came over to me and complimented me on my work ethic. Then she asked me if I'd accepted Jesus Christ as my saviour, and suffice to say things went downhill.

So here's what happened

After she sat down at my table I told her I wasn't interested. Ignoring me, she started discussing how letting Jesus into my heart would set me free and make me a better person. I'm about as hardline atheist as they come, but unlike people like her I don't attempt to impose my beliefs (or lack thereof) on strangers, so I reiterated I wasn't interested and kept on typing.

Had I just kept ignoring her, she probably would have just got the message and left, but when she started talking about how the lord saves people and cures the sick something snapped inside of me. I told her my mum had cancer for 12 years, and that if God hadn't created illness there'd be no need for cures in the first place. Bad idea.

I don't really know what I expected her to say in reply, but what she did say made my jaw hit the table. This is paraphrased, but is pretty close to what transpired:

Her: "Well... did she accept Jesus as her saviour?"
Me: "Excuse me?"
Her: "She would have been healed…"
Me: "Of all the facetious…
Her: "No, but the lord would have healed her..."
Me: "No, you know who helped her? The doctors and nurses who pulled double shifts several days a week and stayed with her in the ICU and oncology wards for 12 years while..."
Her: "No, don't put your faith in man, put it with God."

At this point I knew there was nothing more to say, so I looked back at my computer and told her to leave again. She tried to shove a pamphlet in my face and I pushed it away, so she kept trying. I could feel my face was burning. Our exact words after this paper scuffle:

Her: "See, you're a bit messed up and..."
Me: "No you know what? FUCK YOU. LEAVE."
Her: "No but you see your mum..."
Me: "LEAVE OR I'M CALLING THE POLICE."

I'm a very shy person, I don't think I've ever shouted a swear to someone in public before. She seemed unfazed and talked to me about how God would fix my messed up mind (her exact description). Some more shouting and she said I was being rude, then finally left.

I've dealt with people like her many times before but for some reason after this encounter I started crying. It was embarrassing as hell and I got a ton of strange looks from people in the cafe, but I just couldn't help it for some reason. I hope she got what she wanted.

I'm for free speech and freedom of (and from) religion, but this is food for thought: in Singapore the Jehovah's Witnesses are a banned organisation.

Dedicated to that vile, facetious women who made out that Debra Schade's slow and painful death was her own fault

It's been so heartening to see all the reports of assistance and aid pouring in from around the world for communities devastated in the Haiti earthquake disaster, but at the same time I'm angered beyond belief that some "people" (and I use the term in a loose Darwinian sense, not a moral one) are already exploiting the tragedy to further their own agendas. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Firstly we have this story by Naomi Klein of disaster capitalism that Annette Shacklett shared in her Google Reader feed this morning:

Readers of The Shock Doctrine know that the Heritage Foundation has been one of the leading advocates of exploiting disasters to push through their unpopular pro-corporate policies. From this document, they're at it again, not even waiting one day to use the devastating earthquake in Haiti to push for their so-called reforms. The following quote was hastily yanked by the Heritage Foundation and replaced with a more diplomatic quote, but their first instinct is revealing:

"In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region."

I've read The Shock Doctrine twice now and as soon as news of the disaster broke in Haiti my first gut wrenching thought was how it was going to be exploited. Some people take the high moral ground, some the low ground, and some dig trenches.

Speaking of morals, or the lack thereof, the tevangelist Pat Robinson couldn't wait to use the disaster as a platform to further spew his nonsense. From Yahoo7, the Aussie Yahoo! news portal:

American televangelist Pat Robertson has blamed the devastating earthquake in Haiti on a pact between the impoverished nation's founders and the devil.

"They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon III [sic] and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil," he said.

Forgive my language dear reader, but when I see exploitation I have to comment on it: I'm just dismayed there isn't a Hell for Pat Robinson to go to when he dies. He's a charlatan, fraud, bottom of the barrel scum and a coward.

Update

In my haste to write this post and publish it I failed to notice his name is spelt Pat Robertson, not Pat Robinson. Please accept my apology if your name is Pat Robinson and I associated you with an arsehole.

This is the third time I've written this post! All I wanted to say is, if I tell people I'm an atheist and they say "they'll still pray for me", I find that to be a backhanded compliment at best, and condescending at worst. They might not mean it, but motive doesn't negate the result.

Since posting version one of this though I've learned religious people are allowed to offend atheists, scientists, biologists, doctors and geologists whom they passionately (or often tacitly) disagree with, but if we're offended and explain why as I did with my post, we're called out as being rude and intolerant, along with several strings of four letter words.

It's interesting that people can discuss their favourite music, author, politician and grilled cheese sandwich and discussions can occur, but if it's about faith there's an untouchable social taboo. Often being religious is enough; if most Christians meet a Hindu for example, they'll get along just fine. If a religious person meets an atheist (or agnostic, or another non-believer) though, it's automatically expected the atheist has to defend his or her position, and then to take insults without responding. It's downright weird.

There's also a popular analogy that "atheism is just another religion". Even if we weren't to assist in the suicide of this fatuous proposition (thank you Christopher Hitchens for that line!) and we played along, why is it unique amongst religions in that it's the only one that's allowed to be criticised? If the answer is because atheists reject religious teachings, don't different religions reject each others teachings too?

Given it was just recently the 4th of July in the United States, I'm reminded of that infamous passage in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Apparently though the next passage states that if you believe your creator was the beautiful and elegant universe which evolved in space and time, this does not apply. Good to know!

As I've said before, I don't think the world would be better without religion per se (I love cultural festivals for example!), I just want the ability to one day have honest and meaningful conversations about them. I suspect that day will come, but it won't be for a while. I'm guess I'm just sick of apologising!

To all my readers,

After my latest post concerning matters of religion and my assertion that "pro life" and "pro family" are misnomers, I received positive feedback from half a dozen people in various channels, rude emails from over ten people, and two comments here that included so many profanities and nothing of value I did what I thought I would never do here and decided not to publish them.

People obviously have heartfelt opinions on these issues and many are willing to discuss them in constructive ways, but a disproportionate number seem to be unable to post without resorting to ad hominum attacks on my character. To be blunt, I couldn't be bothered dealing with these any more.

I am a proudly a humanist atheist and may on occasion relay some interesting sites I find here, but I will no longer be creating new posts from scratch about such material. If you have been offended by posts about religion I've posted here, believe me when I say it was not my intention and I apologise.

I'm looking forward to the day when I can have frank and honest discussions about religion and faith without being insulted by religious conservatives or being labelled intolerant by social liberals whom I identify with on virtually everything else. Clearly this time has not yet come.

If you came to my blog here expecting such material, I encourage you to click over to RichardDawkins.net, SamHarris.org, the Skeptics Annotated Bible, the Out Campaign and of course the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Searches for Russel's Teapot, Occam's Razor, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, humanism and secularism will also (to borrow a phrase) set you on the right path.

Sincerely,
Ruben

I was reading a book
Well maybe it was a magazine
Suggestions on where to place faith
Suggestions on what to believe

But I read somewhere that you've got to beware
You can't believe anything you read
But the good book is good and that's well understood
So don't even question
If you know what I mean

But it's all relative even if we don't understand
And it's all understood especially when we don’t understand
And it's all just because
Even if we don't understand then let's all just believe

~ Jack Johnson, "It's All Understood"