The Russian Army is associating units with patron saints, just like in the old pre-Communist days.
With the Marxist-Leninist faith having failed, it’s understandable that Russia would turn back to religion for social cohesion. Ideally, they wouldn’t have to exchange one faith for another, but secular democratic values seem to require a secure and prosperous society to take hold.
The Humanist page on MySpace has lots of friends.
I also learned from the Humanist conference that the Humanist News podcast uses hosting at libsyn and legal music at podsafeaudio
One of the people I met at the Humanst conference was Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist. His post on the question, do tragic events shape your religious views, got a number of thoughtful reposonses.
Before 9/11, I was more favorable to religion. They may have contained false beliefs, but they also taught children discipline, and helped rehabilitate criminals. Post 9/11, I’m more concerned about the downside of apocalyptic violence than the upside of teaching discipline.
Of course, it should be possible to teach children discipline without religion, but in practice, leaving this task to the public schools doesn’t work so well.
In connection with the New Humanism conference, I attended the Secular Student Alliance training on promoting your blog or podcast. Duncan Crary, now with a beard, and Jes Constantine were there.
Duncan, having been a reporter, is very savy about reporter’s tricks, including feigning sympathy, and playing dumb to get a source to talk more.
Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist, was there too. He was friendly indeed when I spoke to him afterward, and recommended Planet Atheism as an aggregator of the latest posts at atheist websites. I also chatted with Becky Robinson, who has found in moving from Pittsburgh to Texas she has moved from a place where people are private about their religion to a place where people are all too pushy about it.
I consider myself agnostic rather than atheist, but I’m certainly in favor of atheist rights.
My agnosticism is because contemporary science has solved some key problems, like the nature of consciousness, and why the universe and the physical laws that govern it exist in the first place. But I’m clear that the Judeo-Christian-Islamic scriptures contain vast amounts of falsehoods, and do not provide a reliable guide to life.
I see not-knowing as open-minded and modest, in the spirit of the Don’t Know Mind of Zen Master Seung Sahn.
The Washington Post reports, Students Turn to God in Wake of Virginia Shooting
John Stremlau, associate director of peace programs at The Carter Center in Atlanta, said Americans will look to religion to help them cope with the massacre, as they have in dealing with past shocks like the Sept. 11 attacks.
“The terrible scale of this forces people to go back to their souls,” said Stremlau in a telephone interview. Because the gunman was not motivated by religion, Stremlau said the nation might find it easier to unite.
“There is no sectarian aspect … so we can seek solace in a common faith that there is still meaning out there.”
Of course, the old question is why a loving God allows these sort of horrors to occur. C.S. Lewis has a Christian answer to this question in The Problem of Pain, one I find contorted and which “blames the victim.”
One Buddhist teaching I find applicable is that of impermanence. I doubt any of the victims, except for the elderly Israeli professor, imagined they were nearing the end of their lives. Buddhism teaches us to find joy in the present moment, but not to expect the things we enjoy to last.
I am of the nature to grow old. I cannot escape growing old.
I am of the nature to have ill-health. I cannot escape having ill-health.
I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.
I inherit the results of my actions in body, speech and mind. My actions are the ground on which I stand.
These are all very sensible, sober, and non-magical. Not upbeat to be sure, but they conform to reality.
Collecting referenced to Pain, I find a free video of Pain by Three Days Grace.
Here are the lyrics to Pain.
Pain, without love
Pain, I can’t get enough
Pain, I like it rough
‘Cause I’d rather feel pain than nothing at all
Not my sentiments, but I must say I like the music quite a bit. A good hard rock song. It reminds me of Styx from my college days.
Julian Baggini, author of Atheism: A Very Short Introduction is in the Guardian today, taking on the postmodern left
Ironically, like many left-leaning intellectuals, Rorty thinks that denying objectivity and truth is politically important, as a way of liberating people from the ways of seeing the world promoted as the Truth by the powerful. However, it turns out that Rorty and his ilk seriously misjudged what happens if intellectuals deny truth stridently and frequently enough. Far from making liberal openness more attractive, such denials actually make it appear empty, repugnant and weak compared to the crystalline clarity and certainty of dogma.
They owe us an apology for failing to either see themselves, or make it clear to others, that in the everyday world we can and must distinguish truth and falsity, right and wrong, even if on close examination these terms do not mean what we thought they did. Science may not be God-like in its objectivity, but it is not just another myth. Moral values must be questioned, but if discrimination against women, homosexuals or ethnic minorities is wrong here, then it is wrong anywhere else in the world. Truth may not be the simple phenomenon we assume it to be, but falsehoods must be challenged.
The alternative to the certainty of religion cannot be a moral standard that every person chooses for themselves. That’s what led to the sex and drugs excesses of the 1960s, and what Tom Wolfe called The Great Relearning. Indeed, the family values movement and fundamentalism gained strength from the foolishness of trying to reinvent values in one swoop.
Instead, we need a way to more systematically study what works to produce a good society, based on data rather than untested theories. One thing I admire about Buddhism is that it does provide a discipline without attributing it to revelation.
How Meditation Heals: A Scientific Explanation by Eric Harrison does a good job of providing a science-based explanation of how meditation works rather than the more common woo-woo explanations. Eric Harrison is an Australian meditation instructor and not a scientist, but he has a rationalist take on meditation.
Though I trained in Buddhist meditation, I always had doubts about Buddhism itself. I decided to teach meditation solely as a method for relaxation and mental clarity, on the assumption that these are extremely valuable in their own right. I try to base my teaching on good science and psychology, so I avoid using religious or ‘New Age’ language that makes little sense to a rational Westerner like myself.
He covers some of the territory of Dr. Herbert Benson’s The Relaxation Reponse, but also moves into new territory.
The book contains simple and useful meditation exercises. He discusses body scanning to reduce muscular tension, and compares it to the method of Progressive Relaxation which has been used in the West since the 1920s. He thinks they both work in similar ways, but Progressive Relaxation is more complex than it needs to be. Having used both methods, I think he’s right.
He correctly states that pain is variable, and offers a “pain meditation” in which the meditator just watches the pain without judgment. This too is consistent with what I wrote about the neuroscience of pain in my Free Inquiry article. He also discusses the application of mindfulness as pioneered by Jon Kabat-Zinn.
He also has an interesting treatment of Positive Thinking, recognizing the usefulness of affirmations, but also noting their limits.
This is one of the best books on meditation I have read.
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