Tigers real mistake

Tiger, or should I say, the Cheetah, Woods is back in action this weekend at the Masters golf tournament.  Which brings me to a post that I’ve been neglecting.  But now seems an equally appropriate time as Tiger Woods struts around doing what he does best*, smiling, laughing, looking slimmer and more tanned than usual on the golf course.  Okay, he always looks tanned, but now even more so.

I commend him for coming back so quickly to his very public profession, the pressure must be immense, the embarrassment even more so.   However, no matter what stick he receives, whatever hell he goes through, no matter how many boos or catcalls, he deserves every one.  He made a mistake.  Once he got married, even in this atheists world, his wife deserved a whole ton of respect and honor that she didn’t get.   His mistake wasn’t the cheating part, that was just dishonest and disrespectful.  The mistake was getting married when he wanted to live the lifestyle he did.

This leads me to ask.  Why do men such as Tiger, or Jesse, get married when they have the power, fame and money to sleep with practically any woman they want until they just can’t or don’t want to do it anymore?  The world is full of jealous men who wish they had this ability.  This kind of lifestyle, while not that appealing to everyone, or that safe on a practical level, emotionally or health wise, is a man’s wet dream.   That’s why we want to become rock stars.  This reason alone.

Getting married fundamentally changes the rules (unless your wife knows and doesn’t mind), doubly so when you’re famous because no matter what, somebody will spill the beans, get a $10 million buy out, wear a “Team Sandra” T-Shirt on all the blogs or hold a press conference demanding an apology and asking to talk to the wife.  Because they want some of the fame and the money as well.

I guess the answer is that power goes to ones head (or both of them) and you forget that the rules changed when you got married, that you get so powerful that you think you can actually get away with it.  I don’t believe in the ‘sanctity’ of marriage that religious movements promote, however I do believe in love, respect, honesty and abiding by the rules, because there are the lives of the person you love and your family to consider (and they’re probably more important than your sexual conquest desires.)

I understand the fundamental evolutionary reasons why we want monogamous lifelong partners even though we are a species that is not monogamous.   We’re completely dual in nature, with the sides of being faithful (how I hate that term) and having new partners remaining in conflict probably as long as the hormones that drive sexual desire are in our system.

Maybe being rich, famous and powerful deprives you of this competing nature?  When I’m none one of those I’ll let you know.

* This may be left to interpretation since apparently he is good at many things other than golf.

 

When adulthood began (Part 1)

When I was eleven an adult made fun of me.  I was “helping” my father with a documentary that his university was making.  The documentary was about learning disabilities.   There was a particular segment involving motor skills and being able to learn basic abilities such as telling your left from your right.  I was going to be the “normal” kid whose reactions they could use to compare to the kids with the disabilities.

Up until this very moment in my life my childhood had been a childhood like the ones that Norman Rockwell painted.  Before this moment it’s hard to remember anything really that negative in my life.  My life was just this happy, aimless wandering, playing, being in the sun.  Being happy.   Eating mielie-meal.

There were a few blips of course; breaking my moms new vase when she expressly told me not to play near it, and the two spankings I got for it (one from each parent, and the only time my mother ever did).  There was the first day at school and the fear and the almost tears.   The pain of seeing a new classmate break down in full on sobs for an hour.  The realization that I didn’t want this interruption in my perfect life.  In fact, I never did reconcile that feeling about school and  it wasn’t until high school that I found value in school.   And then I only did because there were girls.  And I love girls.

That moment in the TV studio changed everything, it’s the moment when adulthood began for me.  I know I was lucky.  My parents had protected me emotionally.  I grew up knowing about the world, about apartheid and how wrong it was, but it was all on the surface, as it is when you’re a kid like I was.   In my life there was no emotional negativity.  That’s a great credit to my parents.  There are kids who grow up knowing nothing but heartbreak and pain and fear.  I grew up being naive and unaware.

But that moment for me was the shattering of any illusion that existed.   I was ying on the floor of this TV studio, spread out like a little star.  There were cameras and grown ups I barely knew.  My father was off somewhere in a control room I couldn’t see because of the glare of the lights.  And there was this voice giving me instructions through the speakers.  ”Wiggle your pinky finger on your left hand.  Wave your right hand.  Touch your right hand to your left ear.”

And there was me.  Terrified.  Because I knew something that I had hidden.  I was eleven and I couldn’t tell my left from my right.

So here I was being exposed.  Not just in front of these people but in front of my father.  And it was mortifying.  I could hear the giggles as I constantly screwed up.  I got flustered.  I messed up again.  And then the lights went out and some man thanked me nicely but I knew I’d really fucked it up.   I knew he was thinking I was stupid.  My head hung in shame.

My Dad greeted me as I left the studio and thanked me politely and escorted me to the ‘green room.’   My face was hot with heat and I’m sure that underneath that messy white blonde hair was nothing but glowing red skin.  I didn’t say a word.  I pretended to read the sports section of the newspaper.

And then came the moment.  I heard my father out in the hallway.  One of his co-workers was laughing and said “Jesus, you’re kid did worse than the retarded ones.”  And I didn’t hear my father say anything. He didn’t defend me.  Or maybe he did and I didn’t hear.  We never talked about it.  But I’m 38 now and it still hurts.  I guess he was probably just as or more embarrassed than me.  His stupid kid who couldn’t do something 4 year olds could.  I know they got another kid in and probably never used my footage.   It was just a little heartbreaking and humiliating.

I’m thinking about this because I’m still on a mission that started that day.  I’m sitting here with my life kinda upside down and not knowing where to go and what I’m doing.  I know I’m not happy and I can’t figure out what to do or how I got here, a million miles from my family chasing some dream that is not only increasingly irrelevant but also very unlikely to occur.

I’ve made excuses about how I love what I do and how I have ambition.  But I have ambition only so far as it goes proving to everyone, and mostly to me, that I am not stupid. I am smart.  And I’m doing a job in the public arena because that what as many people as possible will know it.  And damnit, it’s a curse and a waste of time.

Lots of people think I’m smart already.  I did well in school before and after the TV studio incident.  I can’t say why exactly I couldn’t tell my left from my right — and I’ve spent years after that incident struggling to remember and learning visual cues, which in fact I still have to use today because I still struggle with it.

I just have spatial relationship problems all around – I can’t tell how low a ceiling is (my bruised head is proof), how big a pot I need to cook a certain amount of food, or how big a container I need for leftovers.  I struggle with objects that are moving through space towards me, like cricket balls for example.  I went to eye doctors and specialists when I was younger and determined to be a pro ball player –  because I knew that I couldn’t bat as well as I should because I couldn’t “see” the ball right.  Does it mean I’m dumb?  No.  It means I have my dumb moments that I can’t get past.

I didn’t go on this rampage to prove that I was smart or to overcome anything more than a personal stigma that in the big picture of my life, let alone the world, is so minor and irrelevant.  This fight has just happened quietly behind the scenes while inside me it’s eaten away at my self-esteem.   It’s one of the things that tripped childhood into adulthood.   The first feeling of being fragile.  Of  being a human.

 

Religion Fucking it Up Some More

As if Christian missionaries haven’t already fucked up the world a ton already – with a history of corrupting and destroying cultures all across Africa (and in North America with the ‘Indians’) throughout the colonial years – but they continue to do it.

This story is just disgusting and it’s a story that makes you wonder about not just religion ( and whether we should really fight to end religion)but it makes me wonder how anybody can believe in this Christian God.  If one exists then he’s a cruel, and evil for allowing people, in his name, to commit the kinds of crimes against other humans that he’s allowing (which of course he isn’t, because he doesn’t exist.)

This is a story from the NY Times about three American evangelical missionaries who set into action a potential law in Uganda that will lead to the death penalty for any person ‘convicted’ of homosexuality.

The story is HERE

 

To the Editor – from the NYTimes

To the Editor:

Re “The Religious Wars,” by Nicholas D. Kristof (column, Nov. 26):

There seems something facile about Robert Wright’s suggestion that the fact that “god” grows better over time reflects evidence that there is higher purpose, or Karen Armstrong’s notion that pushing reasoning powers to their limit, stretching language and living compassionately produce a transcendence that should be interpreted in a religious sense, and I am surprised that Mr. Kristof presents their arguments as if they offer some rational middle ground for discussion.

“God” has gotten more moral over time because even organized religions have been dragged forward, often kicking and screaming, by human reason, which itself has been pushed forward by our discoveries about nature — discoveries that belied obviously false notions about superiority of one race over another or the need to impose divine vengeance to respond to simple, explicable acts of nature.

While it is surely true that faith itself may exist beyond the bounds of rationality, what Mr. Kristof should be praising is reason and not faith.

If one wants to find transcendent examples of pushing reasoning to its limit and stretching language to the end of its tether, one could do worse than to read the books of my colleagues Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris.

Lawrence Krauss
Tempe, Ariz., Nov. 26, 2009

 

God turned me off from doing good (almost)

A set of unfortunate events has befallen a friend of mine.  She’s had some health problems, her husband lost his job, and the NGO they established has had their funding fall through for a trip to Uganda in the spring.   This couple, Paul and Georgina, have spent time in Africa building water catchments that help small villages create a stable supply of clean water.

It’s usually a mammoth task to build but once its done it uses technology that is simple and easy to operate — with few parts that could break and when they do, its easily fixed with supplies that are available locally.   It’s the kind of development I approve of.  It’s not a handout of money.  It’s something that local communities can maintain themselves without any economic drain and it contributes something fundamental that allows people to move up the ladder to prosperity.

This couple also take it upon themselves to become part of the community while they are working – they teach HIV prevention, the basics of sanitation and other skills.  They also work with local leaders to ensure that what they teach can be taught by locals long after they leave.

They are lovely people.  I’ve really bonded with Georgina, given our common ancestry in Africa and our common emigration to Canada as teens.  Though the couple have moved to South Africa I keep in touch with Georgina and when they started their NGO I donated right away and again when they planned this trip to Uganda in the Spring.

But all of a sudden all these bad things have happened and as happens with people, they’ve turned to god.  On facebook it’s all ‘please pray for us’ and ‘what lesson is God making us learn now’ etc. etc.  And all of a sudden my enthusiasm to jump in and help fundraise to make sure the Uganda trip goes ahead has wained.  Severely.

And of course I feel guilty about that.  Why should somebody else’s belief in god, and their sudden and whole-hearted need for god, make me stop doing something I feel passionate about myself?     I don’t know.  It’s not my atheism per se.   It’s the irrationality that god can help that bugs me.  The complete desertion of rational thought when crisis hits.

I understand the human need for comfort and for understanding of why things are happening to them.   I am the first, when things go wrong, and I’m in a hurry and being impatient, to demand “Why is this happening to me??”  In the moment it seems so unfair and of course, it seems that God is against me.

But of course, a rational mind knows that its just the way it is.  Usually these things are happening because of my own lack of planning and thought, or because of some coincidence over which I have no control.

And when these things ‘come in threes’ it is natural for people who hold religious beliefs to turn to that which they know.  It’s normal I guess.  Though I wish that our educated understanding of the way the world really is, as proven by science, would apply.

Plus, I think the biggest thing is that there is so much additional pain and emotional grief that people feel in times like these because of their religious beliefs.

Instead of panicking that God has some giant lesson for them to learn, or thinking that God is punishing them or making them ill, isn’t it less stressful to know that there was simply a rush of blood to the head caused by some action in the body which made Georgina have a seizure?

And that the funding that fell through for Uganda because of a random set of events by politicians and bureaucrats, it wasn’t that God had decided they were waisting their time or that they personally needed to work harder or pray more.

Of course, perhaps the fact that god is in their lives makes things easier to digest.  Maybe that’s the place of religion.  They can let go and ‘put it in gods hands.’  And I suppose that that can have the same affect as rational thought in making their lives seem better.

And at the end of the day, when Georgina was decreed healthy (thankfully science has shown that it is not epilepsy or any other serious condition.) her faith that God is looking after her might give her comfort.  It may even help her out at some point in the future whenever trouble comes around.

Many people tell me, even those that don’t believe in a religious god, that things happen for a reason.   And I don’t disagree. But they happen because of the laws of physics, of chemistry and science.  Not because God ordained it.  Or because any higher conscious has something for us to learn.  I don’t believe that I should help out the poor in Africa because God wants it so or because its a lesson I need to learn, or that I am superior and its my job or that I have any moral imperative to help the poor.

I think I should help because I’ve been damn lucky to have been born of European ancestors in Africa and not African ones in Africa (or anywhere else for that matter)   Luck of the genetics draw.   And because I think it would be nice if all humans had the same opportunities I’ve had to drink clean water my whole life.  And because I think they should have a whole lot more than that.  They should have giant TV’s, gas guzzling cars and all the problems we in the Western world have.  Because what we have is completely amazing.  Its the best life humans have had since they evolved.  Everyone should have their share but they don’t – and I can change that a little for a few people.

And so, because of that, and despite the fact that god has turned me off today, and because I can act on reason, I’ve contacted Georgina asking her what I can do, how much money I can I give or raise to make sure they go to Uganda this spring (… and hopefully my work schedule will allow me to go as well to do some actual physical labour on the project.)   I’m sure that my help will be attributed to God, and I also know I should probably won’t ask her not too any such thing,  since quite obviously, I am not a god.

 

Meet GJ 1214b

The next few years will be so exciting as we discover more and more planets that are ‘Earth-like’.   We have now started some serious searching as new technology has come online.  This is the latest one (click on the planet ;))

 

If only #42 had done more…

In the wake of the announcement of the surge in Afghanistan, and the revelations that Tiger Woods was letting his little head do his thinking, my mind has wandered over to the man whose penis has given us the most trouble.  Including our problems with this war in Asia.

That man of course is Bill Clinton.  #42.

And that certain Monica Lewinsky issue.

You see, I have no intellectual issue with rich and powerful men (or women) who have sex with the young women who throw themselves at them.   Even though I do understand the repercussions and the impact that these things have on families.

My father had an affair when I was a teenager.  We found out on Christmas Day when I was 17.  And we learnt that my father was leaving us (and the country) for this new woman.  It hurt like hell.  My mothers devastation was so great that it’s affected my relationships ever since and it’s why, despite opportunity and desire, I’ve never cheated.

But I have been successful in my career, and worked up a fair bit of charm, and I have seen how this makes you desirable to people who otherwise may not look twice.   Which is in part, as ugly as it sounds to say it, one part of the desire to reach the top.  To have this power to pick the best mate.  Or to mate with as many people as possible.  Whichever is your preference.  Or maybe you don’t have that preference, but I believe it’s still the underpinning of the drive to reach the top, this sexual one.

Don’t rich men work harder than anyone else (and often lie, cheat and steal… or other gentler forms of rule breaking) to get laid.  And not just laid.  But to be able to choose from the best that there is.  Or have the most of the best?  Even after they are married they have a hard time stopping.  Its a natural urge (and one of these days I’ll post on monogamy.)

It’s always been a staple saying of mine in debating these issues to ask the fundamental question.  ”What’s the point of being the most powerful man in the entire world if that doesn’t allow you to sleep with whoever you want?”

You have to admit that both Tiger and Bill married from the very top of the pile.   Elin Nordegren is perhaps one of the prettiest faces I’ve ever seen.  And in the age of the Internet, I’ve seen the photos of a lot of beautiful women.   Hilary Rodham may not be a looker, but damn, she is smart, charismatic, powerful and perhaps even more desirable as a mate than someone who is just beautiful (not Elin is just that, but we don’t know since she’s always been pretty private.)

And what does Bills Johnson have to do with Afghanistan?  It all comes down to the political shit-storm of the Lewinski scandal.  Bill had chances to take out Osama Bin Laden but didn’t, because he didn’t want the negative publicity right when he was facing impeachment.  If that had happened, perhaps there would have been no 9/11 and we wouldn’t be fighting in a country so resource poor that it will never be stable.  There will always be fighting and warlords and corruption because there is so little to fight over, that you literally have to fight and be corrupt to get ahead.  That’s why Afghanistan, and Chad, and the Sudan, and all these countries are like they are.

I was reading this fantastic article on #42 on my new favorite web hangout, Foreign Policy, and it made me think to how much Bill Clinton could have done had the political system been in his favour. He’s a smart guy who was a real leader and its guys like him that should be Presidents.  I think he could have done a lot of good for America and the world.  But little Willy, while it got him to the top, it also got in the way.

 

Life. Everywhere. Even out there.

Some people still doubt.  No conclusive proof has been found.  But I really think, and I know I’m not alone in this, that the universe is FULL of life.  It will be everywhere.

And as such, until it’s actually found, I will blog about the discoveries on Earth that show how life will exist elsewhere.

Four interesting stories just out.

1 – Over 15,000 new species were discovered living over 200 metres below the surface of the Ocean.  This is the limit of where sunlight can travel through the water.    These creatures live under extremely high pressures that would crush a human.  It is brutally cold.  Creatures here have devised ways to extract and live off the few resources which live at places sometimes over a mile and a half below the surface.

This Telegraph article covers the story.

2 – Another story circulating is the closest we’ve come to finding actual life is what appears to be fossils of bacterial life found in a rock from Mars.

The Telegraph has the story again.

3 – NASA shot a rocket into the south pole of the moon.   Not just for fun (or to kill the wolves there) but to show the existence of water on the moon.  And they found tons.

CNN has water on the moon.

4 – Bacteria are NOT simple.  They are complex organisms that are capable of subtle yet telling changes even though they may have just a few genes.

I love WIRED.

Here is a partial list of why Bacteria, which by the way are the oldest known life form on Earth, will be able to live anywhere in the universe.   There are many compelling arguments to say that environments are too hostile in space for life and that outside of Earth the conditions do not exist for life as we know it (in the places we can see from here anyway.) but there is also just as compelling evidence suggesting that it could.

Some of those include:

Intense Radiation & the Vacuum of Space: But Deinococcus Radiodurans can survive cold, dehydration, vacuums and radiation.  It can survive almost 10,000 times the dose of radiation that we can.

Lack of water: but we’ve now seen evidence for water on the moons of Jupiter, on our moon (see above) and on mars.

Food & Oxygen: What are these bacteria going to eat?  I bet they can eat just about anything.  Here on Earth, bacteria found deep underground live on sulfur compounds and have been living below the Earth for millions of years.  In fact, they can’t be exposed to Oxygen or they die.

So – remember what I’ve said.  Save the Bacteria!

 

Consciousness is just an opposable thumb

What is consciousness?  Not in the what is it exactly, but more in the, what does it grant us?  What is the reason we evolved it?    Is it some feature that makes us Gods?  While we humans seem to believe, or at least act like we believe, that it does.

Along with this consciousness, we’ve developed a set of moral values, ones that from an evolutionary point of view make sense.  Although, your morality is not mine.   For me, sometimes morality is fine, just as long as it controls the basic behaviour to allow us humans to live in a community together and not piss each other off.

But sometimes it drives me crazy.  Not my own.  Though I understand that sometimes my morality does stop me enjoying some good things in life just because that little inner voice is chatting to my consciousness and saying, stop!

It’s this high-minded, as a human we ought to know better than that morality that pits one segment of people (who think they are better than others) against everyone else.

Especially when it comes from a place that, in my opinion, doesn’t reflect what our consciousness is really all about.

I just don’t believe that our consciousness makes us god.  Nor do I believe that our consciousness gives us reason to disobey all our other evolutionary traits – EVEN when our morality, or someones morality makes us think we should.

Our consciousness, and morals, are their as part of what we are as humans.   It’s not separate.

And you ask, what is it about these morals and this consciousness that pisses me off?  (Of course, it only pisses off my morality and consciouness, so I’m probably talking in circles, as Hester has pointed out to me)

It’s when these high-moral people call out to what they perceive as lower minded humans, humans who are doing exactly what millions of years of evolution have programmed them to do  for the survival of our species?  And when they act like, well, animals (WHICH BY THE WAY WE ARE!!!!), then well, damn them to hell – at least according to these people who are better than others because of their  higher standards of “morality” and the fact that they are more “conscious.”

Let me start the story this way -

Today I was hanging out with a tree hugging, but arrogant, liberal woman who was bemoaning the fact that Sarah Palin was out making money on her book (good for SP, if I was an illiterate who backstabbed my way into power in some provincial outpost and was then thrust into the limelight I’d take the money and run too, before too many people figured it out).

“Shame on that woman,” commented my THliberal friend, “I mean, have you seen what they do to the wolves in Alaska?  They hunt them in helicopters and shoot them with rifles!”

As they say down here in ‘Merica.

Uh-huh.

Okay, okay fair enough.  It’s hardly fair is it?   I get it.  Life isn’t fair.  I evolved consciousness and I made tools.  Amazing tools like flying machines and tiny, fire propelled bits of metal that kill.   And, with it, I hunt wolves (well, not me directly, as a city living bonobo whose only shooting experience comes from a helicopter armed with only a film camera, but the “I” I refer to is us human beings.)

I mean, I actually kinda care about the wolves.  I was happy when they took a bunch of Canadian wolves and repopulated southern Montana and the Yellowstone.  Good for us, I thought.  Trying to set right a wrong we’d wrought.  And for trying to re-set the balance of nature.  Even though, god bless us (don’t get me started), we’ve doggone and fucked it up so much already that there is no going back (and why that doesn’t matter will be another post.)

I’m all for recycling and not wasting and not killing spiders (much to the chagrin of all my ex-girlfriends).  I’m really up there with Ghandi when it comes to being all about the animals.  I even make my girlfriends spend stinky days at zoos.  And I don’t want the wolves to die off.  And I’d agree that its probably a waste of gas to hunt wolves in helicopters.

But what bothers me is this whole idea that we should be above what we are.

We are animals.  We’ve been evolving and living as a species for millenia alongside the wolf.  We’ve fought for the same resources before we became farmers, and after we fought to keep them from eating our hard earned chickens and the like.

And when we behave like animals.  It’s because we are.  Despite, or in fact, because of our consciousness.

Out consciousness has led to this morality that I described in the open.   And in combination with our innate mothering, its led us to feel sorry for the cute little animals – which by the way is just an evolutionary tool to ensure we look after our cute little newborns and chillens, and don’t abandon them after that first sleepless night – one of our evolutionary advantages is this long child rearing phase we go through – one that lets our consciousness grow and develop so we can have all these amazing skills such as flying helicopters – and has led our culture, or certain segments of it, to become overly concerned with the goings on of these other animals.

I mean, listen.  I’m all against the extinction that we’ve caused to animal species in the last 250 years.  It’s brutal.  Really brutal.

But too cry and whine that humans should know better because we can think.  I dunno.

My point is this.  Consciousness evolved.  As a tool.  As a tool to enable us to make our lives better and for us to dominate and spread out to every corner of the planet.  And we have.  It’s kind of one of those miracles of evolution.

But, while it separates us from bonobos, and wolves, it is not something godlike, not should it be viewed as something that puts us on a pedestal so high that we no longer recognize that we ARE wolves, just a little more evolved. Consciousness is NO DIFFERENT than an opposable thumb or a gene that allows us to have speech or any of the other evolutionary advantages that our species has.

The hunters are merely acting like animals.  Because they are.  In the same way I do.  And, in fact, in the same way that the THliberal did when her mothering instincts got her overly concerned about the wolves.  But she didn’t see it that way.  It was all cross armed and I’m disgusted because we’re humans and we’re better than that.  Apparently not though, are we.

Anyway – To add to it – I asked her what she was doing about saving the wolves (nothing) and why isn’t she more concerned with the fact her people (Americans) are off killing human beings in Iraq and Afghanistan, by ironically (coincidentally) shooting them with guns from helicopters.  She said, well one thing at a time and the wolves were her priority.

Well, fuck the wolves.  If they’d become conscious they’d be hunting and killing me.  So, if you’re gonna get all moral on my ass, at least have the decency to save a human.

~ GB

p.s.   I listened to this great comedic bit recently.  The stand-up was going on about the beached whales, and all the people who panicked and cried, poured water over the poor creature etc.  The comedian kinda hit it on the head really.  1 – the whale beached itself… so….  2 – so what if the whale dies, bacteria’s gotta eat too.  I know.  Bacteria aren’t as cute or cuddly as Shamu.    But they are vital to our species.  Moreso than whales.  We can live without whales.  We couldn’t live or have evolved without bacteria.

In fact, I think my morality is telling me to go right now to the THliberal’s condo, and abscond with her anti-bacterial soap.  Does she know what it’s doing to the bacteria?  How’s she’s killing MILLIONS of them?  How unfair it is that, that we’ve used our consciousness to create SOAP.  OM-EFFING G.  DO SOMETHING PEOPLE!  SAVE THE BACTERIA!

 

The Scarlet A

I recently read Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion.  By the time I read it I’d already come to terms with my own atheism and most people in my life probably already suspect it.   Nobody had asked me and I’ve volunteered nothing about my own status or beliefs.  Until now.

I thought that reading the Dawkins book would be some kind of confirmation of my belief system, a series of rational arguments that would agree with my emotional core, and wah-lah!, something would change.  I’m not sure what would change, or why it should change.  In fact I’m still exploring the answer to the fundamental question.

Why does it matter at all?

WHAT I BELIEVE

I believe in science.  I don’t believe that science has all the answers.  Yet.

But  science is right.  I am an animal.  A mammal.   Evolved from the same basic family tree as Chimps.

And the Earth is a tiny  little planet in an insignificant suburbia of a giant city of the universe.

It’s probably one of millions of planets or moons that has  life as we know it on it.   Most of that life is probably just like life on this planet.  It’s diverse.  It’s evolving.  It’s mostly small and complex but simple in what it does.  Like bacteria.   And unless we are one of the oldest planets, we are probably not the first conscious, sentient species who has looked out into the universe and thought “I wonder if there is a god?  Should I tell anyone that I don’t think there is?”

As we find ways to journey out into the universe (should we survive long enough as a species) we will find life EVERYWHERE.  In every tiny little dank corner of every boring moon there she will be.  Life.

Life will be as common as, well, suns, because if life on Earth can live at the very edges of volcanoes, as the depths of deepest darkest oceans, in the extreme heat and cold, then it can and will live everywhere in the universe in the same way.

I don’t believe in god.

God doesn’t make sense to me.  Especially the gods described by the major religions.  Why the hell would god, with the power to create the universe, be bothered with the life of Betty Pogge, of 24 Dunsmore Crescent, and her dogs and cats?   Why would god set up all kinds of road blocks and why would she make terrible thing, and good things, happen to Betty?

Doesn’t god have some black hole to set up to devour an entire universe somewhere?

And what about the six billion other Betty’s on Earth?  And the sixty billion flies?  And the sixty trillion ants?  And the sixty million billion trillion bacteria?  Is god directing every little one of them, making conscious thought about every interaction?  And when god needs a new punishment she’s organizing a bunch of virus’ to mutate and infect Betty’s dog because they got a little too friendly with the peanut butter?

What about all the other life?  You’re telling me that god is out there on the ten million other inhabitable planets, each with six billion sentient life forms on each, setting up floods and shit just because he/she may be a little angry that Betty let her dog into her bed?   It just doesn’t make any sense at all that a conscious god would bother.

I mean, I can play god.  I can take a bunch of ants, create my own ant hill and world for them in a glass tank.  Would I sit there, 24/7, moving them around?  Creating volcanoes and floods in my little ant tank world? Watching with glee as they drown and burn?   Fun maybe.  But FOREVER?   No.  Damn that’d be boring.  And kinda pointless. That’s why there is no conscious god, because if there was, they’d find something better to do than bother with Betty or ants like us.

And any ideas of an unconscious god or life force, such as the one who set up the universe and then hasn’t bothered to check in – whats the point?  And if its true, then fuck it, it REALLY doesn’t matter does it.

While the cats are away mourning their loss of Betty’s dog, the mice will play.

As such I just don’t think that much that happens on this world, or in my life, really matters in the great big scheme of the  universe.  And I adapt world view to the way I live my life.

That doesn’t mean I run around raping and pillaging and not caring.

I do care.  Deeply.

Because evolution has made me.  And my parents added to that.  And because my life is substantially better for the fact that I life in a community where other people do jobs I don’t want to, buy the things I make and therefore allow me to have not only resources but a life of ease and luxury.

They support me emotionally and love me when I need it and in turn I do for them.  So, despite the fact I know there are no consequences for me (other than jail) in the afterlife (because it doesn’t exist) I still don’t rape and pillage.

We are monkey yes, but we are advanced monkeys.  And it’s not just because we can think about Betty and see and understand a bit about the universe.   We are advanced monkeys because we are in it together.

As such, if one person is a Christian, and another an Atheist, or whatever, it just doesn’t matter to me.  I am happy in some ways that these differences exist just because I find the debate entertaining sport.  Nothing more.  Live and let live.  You do what you need to.  I’ll do what I need to.  If that comes into conflict, I’m sure there will be a way to resolve the conflict.  If not, well, does it really matter?

I also don’t believe that religion is the root of all evil.  Because people are the ones who do the actions, and its immaterial if people use the power of religion (or any large organized group likes governments) to start wars and genocides.  Its just the evolutionary drive of mankind that causes evil (and religion too.)

THAT DARN BOOK

But that darn book, the one mentioned in the open.  It just rubbed me the wrong way.  I can’t imagine if any god-fearing, Jesus loving peeps read that book.  The horror.  I didn’t like some of the arguments, and I didn’t like some of the logic, and I didn’t enjoy it, even though I believe in fundamentally  the same beliefs that Richard puts forward.

But this blog isn’t about the book.  It’s about the Out Campaign, which I found through Dawkins.  At some point a few weeks ago, I saw that Richard was on Twitter.  But I wasn’t about to follow.  Due to that darn book.  But I browsed anyway and I saw a link to this thing called the Out Campaign and began reading.

And I was like, Damn.  Why am I not “out”?  Why am I hiding?  Since none of  it matters and my beliefs influence few if any at all, should I?   I mean really.  I have no grand statement to make to my friends or humanity.

Due to my belief system stated above, it just doesn’t matter what I or anyone else believe, the universe has a set of rules and its going on no matter what I believe, or if I state what I believe.

So why am I coming out?

Do I feel repressed?  Probably a little.  But I don’t exactly know why.  I feel free.  I am free (as you can be with laws (both man made and those of physics.)   I don’t think I’ll be persecuted.  People that dislike me already have enough reasons.

p.s. I do have a problem with the name of the Out Campaign, because the political struggle by homosexuals for equal rights and against REAL persecution is something far more important than declaring your atheism and should have been respected a whole bunch more in the choice of names.

I guess what does matter is my ability to express myself fully and without reservation.   And to explore my belief systems and I can’t explore this if I don’t admit to it.   And I want to do it just to stretch my brain.  And so.  I blog.   For these purely selfish reasons.  Just like any godless (or god filled) monkey can.  I even updated my facebook status.  So – thanks Richard.  And sorry for the book review.