The Road To Happiness

Man does not live by bread alone. Food is certainly a critical need, as is sleep, but that’s not enough. Rather than merely existing, man lives also by entertainment, intoxication and sex. It’s a very rare man that does not require at least two of those three things on a regular basis to be happy. Which of the three, or all of them, varies from man to man. This is true for the male half of mankind anyway. I don’t know any more about women than does the average man, which is to say, almost nothing.

Individual men may require additional things in order to be truly contented. I don’t think that I could have been as happy as I was without the opportunity to raise children. I say, “as happy as I was . . .” All men experience happiness in different measure. Was I successful? That jury is still out. I did the best that I could. Raising children made it all seem worthwhile, the whole life-on-earth thing. That was a big help.

Some men have interests that absorb them completely, interests that may seem strange to other men. Several men that I have met were all up in a fever about railroad trains. Some men feel compelled to collect tens of thousands of a particular item. These may be record albums or old books of matches; the list of things that men will collect is endless. The people who are subject to these compulsions are usually men. Women seem to be more practical about things in general.

One exception would be religion. Many men, and many women, are seized by religion with a vigor that seems almost dangerous. I’m not sure that I have ever noticed that seizure to produce any genuine happiness. Often it produces the opposite effect.

I think that it is best to try to avoid the overwhelming need to own certain things, or to understand certain arcane subjects, or to be loved by certain Gods. Those complications just make life harder than it already is.

Stick to the basics, that’s my advice.  

The Promise Of Religion

Long time readers know that I am no fan of religion. I have no use for it myself, and I seek no solace from it. I try to tolerate the impulse in others, but if they make too much of a fever of it I find that the whole enterprise becomes distasteful in a big hurry. There are times, however, when my feelings about religion change character. They do not become actually positive, but the tone of my negativity shifts its axis. There are times, frankly, when I dearly wish that the promise of religion could be fulfilled.

All of us face times in life when push comes to shove in dramatic fashion. And then the negatives of life on earth may come into strong contrast with the positives. The process may include details that call into question the very efficacy of the positives in the first place. Things go around, and come around, and may bring with them the seeds of their own horrors down the road, the way that being born ineluctably leads to dying. Where is the profit in all of this suffering? And to whom can we go for help?

It may be that religion itself was a response to just this kind of worrying. We still have little understanding of the natural world, or our place in it, so perhaps we can understand that during the epoch in which religion first appeared man had virtually no understanding of his situation. He felt even more helpless than we do. Religion gave man answers, which I am sure were comforting, and religion gave man rituals to bind him to his community. I might even admit that religion was useful for a time, and to some.

I was raised in the Catholic Church, the one, holy and apostolic Roman Catholic Church. God was in His heaven, usually imagined to be a bearded older gentleman on a throne; to God’s right hand sat Jesus, His only begotten son, still thought to inhabit an earthly body; and the Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit, was . . . where? Perhaps hovering above, yes, that’s it, in the form of a dove, probably more like a holographic dove. The whole earthly family of Jesus was there too, close at hand, probably. There was Mary at least, having also retained an incorruptible earthly human form. (Joseph would be at some remove, if I don’t miss my guess, and without his body. He did not appear in the Baltimore Catechism with anything like Mary’s frequency. He got even less credit than most earthly fathers do.) No other family of Jesus is mentioned in the officially sanctioned ancient writings. And then of course there would be the huge catalog of Catholic saints, one for every occasion, and several for many popular specialties. And dear old Uncle Roger, who was such a nice man, and went to First Friday Mass all of his adult life, well he must be there too. All of these entities were in constant contact with every person on the earth, it was imagined, and any of them could be petitioned to intercede with God and get something done on our behalf, we, the living. That would be a comforting reality to inhabit, especially if positive results could be had.  

Jesus, of course, saw into all of our souls, and was Himself God, cutting out the middle-man of the intercession with God. Help was never further away than the simple thought of it!

How great would that be, if it were true? Why, one could almost wish that it were true.

A lot of praying went on in those days, but without a lot of results, I’m afraid. This is where the whole “God’s will” concept comes in, as in, “it just wasn’t God’s will.” Or, “God works in mysterious ways.”  The law of periodic reinforcement was in full effect, because sometimes little Betty would get over that pneumonia after a stern bout of praying. That too, of course, was God’s will, through the power of prayer.

Oh, but sometimes, when the pushing really comes to the shoving, and the going gets tough and it’s time for the tough to get going, I really long for that simple world that religion promised me so long ago. I rejected it then, and I have never regretted it, but sometimes I do wish that it was all really that simple.  

The real world as we find it a mixed bag of tricks that can be truly horrible at times. We’re on our own, with few resources to fall back on. Money does little good in a pinch, and often does no good at all. Family and friends are better, but not consistently reliable. All we can do is suffer with a smile, in silence, and wait our turn for the final bell. If there were a heaven, doing that successfully would get you in for sure. 

Mr. Fred's Dream, Continued: Religion

Those fifteen friends . . . I should mention something about our religious backgrounds. 

Religion

Eleven of us came from families that were more or less Catholic.  No one’s family seems to have taken religion too seriously, though.  I was the only one that had attended Catholic schools.  Catholicism had never really taken root in any of us. 

Of the other four, one came from a nominally Lutheran family, one from a non-religious family that had at one time been Eastern Orthodox, and two came from Jewish families. 

The Lutheran family had been churchgoers when my friend was small, but he had received little or no religious instruction, and his only supernatural interest as a teenager was in the occult. 

The Eastern Orthodox family had long since abandoned any interest in religion at all.  My friend’s parents had been born in the Ukraine, and their experience of Soviet Communism, famine and war had been rather intense.  All of that had left them with the firm opinion that we are on our own in this world, and they sought no assistance from prayer.  My friend had, I believe, never heard a word about religion while growing up. 

One of the Jewish boys came from a mixed family.  Mixed in several ways, actually.  His dad was Jewish, but secular.  His mom was substantially black, from a family that was quite blended, and generically Christian with Catholic overtones from Irish progenitors.  He had hardly heard a word about Judaism while growing up, and his attendance of Catholic grammar school was a matter of geography and convenience.  It was the closest school to his home.  By the time that I met him he was vigorously anti-religious in the French style (he was quite a Francophile).  “Tax the church,” etc.  He had never received Jewish instruction, and he had not been Bar mitzvah’d. 

My other Jewish friend came from a semi-secular family of Reformed Jews.  He had received religious instruction as a boy, from two religions in fact.  The family lived in Puerto Rico for several of his high school years and while there he had attended a Catholic high school.  He did have a Bar mitzvah as a thirteen year old.  By the time that we were all hanging out, he was no longer interested, if he ever had been. 

All of this was somewhat interesting to some of us; less so to others.  My Reformed Jewish friend was interested in Catholic practice, a holdover from his days in Puerto Rico.  He was curious about confession, for instance.  I explained the process to him and taught him the formulas, and he actually did show up for confession once or twice.  We came up with a few sins for him to confess, and he recited the formulas and “confessed” those sins.  He was particularly fascinated by his “penance,” a list of prayers to recite.  He also took me and a couple of others to temple once or twice.  We wore our borrowed yarmulkes and sat respectfully.  It was all very interesting in a social science experiment kind of way.  But not for us, we all agreed. 

For the friends that I am still in contact with, religion has remained a mystery best left to others.  It is possible that some may have passed on their Catholicism to their children. 

I am only informed about one friend that found religion later on.  At some point, my “Lutheran” friend chose to become a Catholic.  He was drawn in equal parts by the ritual aspects of Catholicism and the writings of Catholic mystic Thomas Merton.  I think it all gave him some comfort, and I’d be happy about that.  He had pretty severe hereditary health issues that finally killed him a little on the young side.

For my part, I did not deliver my children to any particular religion, but neither did I bad mouth religion in their presence.  I took them, as boys, to a variety of religious services, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish.  I was leaving the decision to them, religion or not, up to you!  Neither of them has found a need to include religion in their lives.  They are both married to Christian women (one from Indonesia and one from Kenya), and we’ll see what happens with the children.  That one is too early to call. 

I remain non-religious, bordering now on being anti-religious.  I would tolerate it better if religion was merely a harmless diversion for fearful, confused people.  It certainly is that for most adherents, but for many it is a fever that causes much mischief in the world.  Many of the religions themselves have, over the centuries, generated a lot of mischief and terror on their own motion.  I find it all unforgivable and quite unnecessary.  

What's God Got To Do With It?

Am I an atheist?  Maybe.  Merely faithless?  Could be more accurate.  Agnostic?  That much is for sure.  For the purposes of this blog, let’s just go with atheist.

I don’t allow more than one chance in a million that God exists as he is described in the literature, and I only put it that way as a kindness to believers.  That’s one ten-thousandth of one percent chance, and generous at that.  (You can check my math.  I’m a lawyer, not a scientist.)  But if there is a God, and we must pass some kind of test in the end, I’m pretty sure that I’ll pass.  Why?  Because I try to treat people well, that’s why.

Day to day, day in and day out, I try to validate people.  I flatter and encourage them; I try to make them laugh.  I always try to help others to have a good day.  I comfort sufferers.  I do this for friends, co-workers and total strangers.  If anything, my attentions favor the less fortunate.  I appreciate the security and housecleaning staff wherever I go, and I make sure that they know it.   I’m a good tipper, even in Thailand where people think tipping is ridiculous.  (After seven years, my barber still smiles and shakes his head when I tip him.)  When I was younger, I lost my temper frequently, but it hardly happens at all anymore.  Now I’m all about bringing happiness to the world, one smile and a half-a-buck at a time. 

Honestly, I don’t know why I behave this way.  God certainly has nothing to do with it.  It’s certainly not as a gesture to that ten-thousandth of a percent chance that I don’t believe in anyway.  Is it for others?  For myself?  Because I believe that it’s the right thing to do?  I couldn’t say with any confidence.  Maybe it’s just my personality.  Maybe it’s because I desperately wish that I had been treated that way during the difficult passages in my life.  

One thing is for sure: we don't need God looking over our shoulder to behave well in this world.   

In spite of all of this excellent behavior, I don’t think of myself as a particularly good person.  This could be because I know what goes on in the darkest corners of my psyche when the lights are out.  Or perhaps because I have known so many people that were more worthy than me.  Most likely it’s because I can remember so many times when I was less than good. 

Come to think of it, I’m not a very good person at all.  I probably try to be a positive presence in the lives of the people around me to make up for my shortcomings. 

Mea maxima culpa!  I hope that it’s enough. 

Alert The Media: Shrimp Dietary Update

In the knock-me-over-with-a-feather department, please note:

Shrimp are, of course, not Kosher,

BUT:

Shrimp are, indeed, Halal. 

We had our graduation at school today, with the usual giant lunch room set up for those of us with official duties.  All week, in fact, today was just day one.  One of the five or so food stations was a Muslim outfit, three or four women in head scarves.  One of their food trays was full of shrimp, and it gave me a start.  I had thought that the dietary laws for Muslims and Jews came from the same place, both stem from the Abrahamic tradition, and both respect the Old Testament as a revealed document.  Leviticus is clear on the shrimp issue:  it's verboten.  So what's up with the shrimp here, I wondered, are they just too Thai to worry about it?  (Thais are really wild about shrimp.)  Turns out that Muslims have permission to eat shrimp, while Jews do not.

It called to mind the first-hand story that I heard one time about a Jewish lawyer who visits gentile clients at dinner time and is informed, "I'd ask you to stay for dinner, but we're having pork chops."  The lawyer says, "smells great!  It's okay, I'll just bless it and call it fish."  (True story.)  

Thanks, Professor Google!  Shrimp are Halal, Muslims are free to indulge.  (Crab, on the other hand, are Haram, forbidden.)  Sorry, my Jewish friends, still forbidden, and sorry my fundie Christian friends, if you really insist on living your life according to "Biblical principles," you'll still be needing to grow a beard and give up shrimp if you want us to take you seriously. 

Another of the mysteries of religion, I suppose. 

The Forced Observance Of Religion

In the news last week was a Cleveland woman named Sakeema Majeed.  Ms. Majeed was in jail (not prison) for something that really happened, and there was nothing untoward about her conviction or incarceration.  She made the news because in the Cleveland jail she was required to attend Christian church services.  Ms. Majeed happens to be a Muslim.  A law suit has been filed.

This is as close to the state establishing a religion as I have seen in my lifetime.

Oh, I’ve seen similar things, but nothing so blatant.  For example, I have written here about the policy of the United States Navy at their Great Lakes Recruit Training facility, back in the 1960’s.  They would not take my heartfelt “no preference” as an answer to the question about religion.  No, we were all to have a religion at boot camp.  With considerable snark, I said okay, I’m a Buddhist.  That was not one of the choices, which were Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish.  I was put down as a Protestant without further adieu, because, as the petty officer said, “I was protesting something.”  As indeed I was.  For ten weeks I attended non-specific Protestant services every Sunday morning.  In 1967, I was, of course, no more a Buddhist than I was a Jew or a Hindu.  But back then I wouldn’t even admit to being a Christian of any kind.  I had been raised Catholic, and had attended Catholic schools for both grammar and high school.  That experience had put me off religion in a comprehensive manner.  I’d say that I was no more of a Protestant than a Jew or a Hindu either, but there I was.

This was not like the establishment of a religion though.  All that was required was that each of the recruits practice some form of religion, within narrow parameters.  The Cleveland jail system is requiring all of its charges to practice Christianity, probably without even the Catholic option.   This might be something new.

“The government shall make no establishment of religion . . .” (I paraphrase.)   This is the Establishment Clause of our constitution.  But where are we going with this thing at this point in our history? 

In our brave new Twenty-First Century world, any politician who wants to get elected in the United States must at least pay lip-service to the Christian God.  “God bless America!”  Except maybe in Vermont, or Brooklyn.  There are one or two professed atheists in our government, and a sprinkling of Jews, Muslims and Hindus, but the Protestants are clearly ascendant.   And they are a busy bunch too, with an active religious agenda. 

Not just the Sarah Palins of the world.  The entire structure of American government is well to the right of center now, including almost the entirety of both houses of congress and maybe even the president as well.  Not to mention the Supreme Court and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and most state and local governments too.   The entire Right Wing Establishment feels somewhat beholding to the religious fanatics among us.   I don’t think that it’s even all about the votes anymore.  They’ve decided that religion is of great assistance to them in matters of crowd control and fear mongering. 

There’s the talk of America being a Christian country, which is always dramatically overstated, and the feeling that America must get back to God.  The Ten Commandments have more adherents these days than there are people who can actually recite them.  Abortion and gay rights issues are deliberately used as clubs to drive people apart.  Religious considerations, so-called Christian religious values, are being inserted into a broader range of our laws with each passing year.  Many are specifically Christian, or specifically anti-Muslim.  (Sharia Law!)  The anti-abortion struggle is morphing into an anti-contraception crusade.   Religion, the non-specific “evangelical” form of the Christian religion in particular, is waging a war against our American democracy.  They are cleverly masking it behind a claimed war on religion, a claimed war on the Christian religion. 

They want us to believe that there is a war on Christmas!  That saying “Happy Holidays!” is actually some kind of code for Christians ‘raus!  The paranoia is running so deep that many overly credulous Christians feel like there are deep conspiracies against them, and that some kind of socialist or United Nations takeover is imminent in which they will be rounded up and put in camps.  Run by FEMA!  All of this against the backdrop of an American government that is obviously on a march to establish Christianity as the National Religion of the United States.  Maybe, like in The Handmaid’s Tale, they’ll  call it the United States of Gilead. 

The laws that are being promulgated are intended to force all of us to live by the laws of their religion, as interpreted by them.  To shove, as it were, their religion down our throats.  The worst of it is that they are, in the process, ignoring all that is good and noble in Christianity.  The brotherhood, the charity, the social justice.  We may end up wishing that we were only being dictated to by Episcopalians.  

Maybe you’re thinking, Oh, Fred, you’re so oversensitive.  You’re the one who’s being paranoid.   I hope that I am.  But that whole pendulum swinging back and forth thing doesn’t work as well as it used to.  I’m afraid that these days momentum rules and pendulums are found only in antique clocks.  The momentum is clearly with the right wing so-called conservatives, and they’ve got so much wind in their sails that it might be hard to reverse all of the mischief that they’ve been up to for almost forty years now. 

As usual, I wish us luck and move on.   I’m halfway through an interesting article about the mess in the Ukraine.   Things like that calm me down.  The history of the Ukraine, present and recent, is such a catalog of horror that any problems that America has quickly pale into insignificance.  

Am I An Atheist?

It’s starting to look a little bit dangerous to be identified as an atheist these days.  The circle of demonization has been extending itself since the infamous Nine/Eleven.  That event put Muslims on the shit list.  Homosexuals have been thoroughly demonized by now.  Liberals need not apply in some quarters.  People are angry, and as the world gets weirder and the changes in society come along faster, people are looking for someone or some group or groups to blame it on, to blame whatever the voices in their heads are telling them is happening on. 

Not only Muslims now, but, depending on whom you ask, also Hindus, Sikhs, animists (!!!) and atheists are coming up for the treatment.  Somehow anyone in any of those groups, maybe particularly the homosexuals, is individually and collectively responsible for all of the evils of our society, as delineated by the haters, the demonizers. 

Make your own list of the demons, it’s fun.  Hamas sympathizers!  Washington insiders!  Global Warming patsies!  Dissidents!  Contraceptive mongers!  Democrats!  Leftists!  Congressmen!  Federal agents!  FEMA!  The UN!  The possibilities are endless. 

This is all dangerous, especially if you find yourself in one of the demon categories.  Eliminationist language is frequently employed, often by semi-famous people on Facebook or the radio, and daily by anonymous paranoids in the comment threads of the Internet.  Often they do now shy away from mentioning their preference for Final Solutions. 

So I am moved to wonder:  do my views on religion make me eligible for death? 

What Am I?

I have never made a secret of my views on religion.  I don’t approve of it.  I generally claim that I respect religion, all religions, as other people’s business, it’s up to them.  But that’s not entirely true, the respecting part.  Really I think it’s all poppycock. 

Perhaps luckily for me and my fellow travelers, that may not be enough to make one an atheist.  Let’s hold this thing up to the light.

“Atheism/atheist:  a disbelief in the existence of a god or gods.”  (Not capitalized in the source.)  From the Greek, “a theos,” without God.  (All definitions from the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, 2006.)

This might save me on a technicality, because disbelief, like belief, is an affirmative act.  You can argue with atheists, they have taken a position.  It seems to me that atheism is a faith, as much as any religion is a faith.  Atheism is a belief, based not on evidence, that there is no God.  It is based, if anything, on the lack of evidence for the existence of God.  In my Weltanschauung, either the belief in God or the belief that God does not exist are equally foolish. 

There is another category, a kind of “atheism lite,” a kind of wishy-washy almost atheism. 

“Agnostic:  a person who believes that nothing is known, or can be known, of the existence or nature of God."  (Capitalized in the source.)  From the Greek, “a gnostic,” without knowledge. 

Well, that’s a lot more like it.  “Agnostic” seems to sum up my feelings on the matter quite nicely.  As little as we now understand even about ordinary reality, which can be observed and quantified, it seems ridiculous to me to begin pretending that we understand the nature of God.  I am quite satisfied to continue to capitalize the word, “God,” while I remain unpersuaded on the subject of God’s existence of lack thereof.  Who knows?  Stranger things have happened than God. 

Agnostic still has a belief component though, and I’m pretty sure that I don’t believe in anything at all on the subject.  Besides, claiming the status of an agnostic when they come for the atheists would be a lot like hiding from the Big Bad Wolf in a house made of straw.  I’m pretty sure that such a narrow distinction would not be honored by hunters.  

Faithless

So I’m going with faithless to describe my own condition.  I’ve written about my failure in this area before.   I’ve never in my life had any faith in anything religious.  It’s not something that I lost at some point, it never took root in me in the first place.  From the earliest attempts by teachers, or my parents, or the church, to inculcate some kind of religious belief in me, I have universally found those efforts to be dubious at best, frequently ridiculous, and certainly nothing that remotely lined up with the world that was staring me in the face. 

Could I be demonized for faithlessness?  It wouldn’t be easy, but those who might seek to do so paint with big brushes, so I guess anything is possible.  My defense would be that faithlessness is not a moral or intellectual position, it is a straightforward confession of fact.   Some may disapprove of it, but you cannot argue with it.  Faithlessness is blameless.  

Chinese Deities

"Chinese Deities" is the usual point of reference, but these guys should probably be referred to as "folk heroes," or maybe "saints." 

There are a bunch of them, a real Chinese temple will have alters to about twenty or so.  They all have stories that illustrate an aspect of human nature, and they are all fit for a certain kind of invocation, in the manner of a saint ("patron saint of travelers;" "patron of hopeless cases.") 

These paintings were on the underside of the roof of a pavilion in a park in Nakorn Sawan.  That's a river city, always a center of commerce and accessible by river from China.  So there are lots of Thai-Chinese families there.  

Mobile Buddha Delivers

This truck and its sacred passenger were outside my local mall last week.  Some of the faithful took small vials of water and poured them over the Great Man's shoulder. 

I'm not a religious man, but if I were this is the way I'd go.  The Buddha part, not the truck.  Buddhism has no strange or impossible directives, no disagreeable prohibitions.  It's more of a way of life than a religion, in Thailand anyway (and Lao, Cambodia, Burma and Sri Lanka). 

Freedom Of Religion

Here's a quote that I think is foolish:

"The First Amendment was written by the Founders to protect the free exercise of Christianity. They were making no effort to give special protections to Islam. Quite the contrary," Fischer wrote on his Renew America blog. Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam. Islam is entitled only to the religious liberty we extend to it out of courtesy." - Bryan Fischer, American Family Association.

I'm afraid that Mr. Fischer is expressing a mistaken impression of early American Christianity here.

One of the things that I explain to my students is that local control was so important to the new American states partly because the Christians in one state didn't really trust, or even particularly like, the Christians in certain other states. My students, like Mr. Fischer, tend to think that "Christians" are "Christians," but I put a list on the board to clear up that over-simplification. Of course, most of the early Americans were Christians, but there were Catholics, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Reformed, Baptists, Puritans and even, God forbid! Quakers among them.

Remember antidisestablishmentarianism? (My spell check, unfortunately, does not.) The tension between the establishment Christianities and the outsider Christianities was a big political issue at the time in both England and the colonies.

The First Amendment was intended to prevent "the establishment of Religion," which was a real problem in the colonies. In some states, a Catholic could not hold public office; in Maryland, only a Catholic could do so. Catholics were discriminated against in many colonies, and the very foundation of Maryland as a Catholic colony was intended as a refuge for Catholics. Let's face it, no one liked the Quakers very much. They were usually forced to live outside the mainstream somewhere, on their own. The "Flushing Remonstrance" was an early effort to remedy that situation. Rhode Island was founded by people who wanted to get away from the Puritans in Massachusetts, people who preferred more singing and dancing than went on in Massachusetts (more piracy too, but that's another story).

I'm pretty sure that the First Amendment was always intended to protect the Jews too, although in New York, long the only colony that would accept them, they already enjoyed considerable freedom. No "strict constructionist" I, so I'll also mention that the Supreme Court over the years has interpreted the First Amendment as protecting the free expression of any religion. That's their job, the "what do the words mean?" thing. I get a big kick out of people who think that they are qualified to tell us what the so-called founders were really, really thinking. And who cares anyway? Haven't we learned something over the course of the last two-hundred plus years? Don't we know better now? Certain things, anyway.

Who knows if there were more than two or three Muslims in the colonies before the revolution, but that only puts them on a long list of people whose religion only later came to our shores. They're all here now, that's for sure, every single religion of them. Religious freedom, and equal protection, are their constitutional rights, whether Mr. Fischer thinks so or not.