Wednesday, December 05, 2007
For an agnostic/atheist I seem to have had God on the mind a lot recently. Certainly I have a moment of religious weakness each year around this time, or a little later. If I happen to stumble across a Christmas carol concert on TV or radio (and, if I go to stay with my parents for the period then that probability becomes a near-certainty as my Dad, similarly irreligious, seems to enjoy them) then I tend to have the briefest, five-second flutter, in my stomach as the CofE gene that all English boys have tucked away in their genetic code tries to fire and persuade me that that is His voice. Fortunately, as you can prove the monster in the corner of the room is just a pile of clothes by turning the light on, the holy terror never lasts. There are no atheists in foxholes though, and seventy-two hours without sleep makes a desperate man say foolish things, as I found earlier this year.
Anyways, I've just finished Towing Jehovah by James Morrow. God's dead body has been found in the Atlantic, a disgraced former oil-tanker skipper has to command a crew and see the huge corpse safely transported to it's Arctic tomb before radical atheists, the Catholic Church or just the development of a post-Deus morality can destroy it. It's both a funny and thought-provoking book, though I'm a bit annoyed that, yet again, there is the suggestion that belief in a higher power is necessary for good behaviour, and this comes from a humanist author. When are we going to have the good guy who is explicitly a non-believer?
Towards the end of the book, there is a discussion about God's motives for suicide. One character suggests that, looking down on His creation, God sees Himself as a block on humanity's progress, the Stern Father stopping his children from becoming adults, His death acting to confirm that He existed then forcing humanity to stand up for itself. It's a point of view that I have some sympathy for, I've felt that all the nonsense I was taught as a child about how God would love to come down to Earth on a cloud and tell us to stop being beastly to one another but gave us free will so feels obliged to stay away and let us make our own mistakes is a big pile of guff, and that He qualifies as the biggest Deadbeat Dad in all of creation, unworthy of our praise. By chance I had an idea for a story last week, before I started reading this book, which is the opposite of that philosophical point, and ends with, effectively, God rerunning creation and staying alongside humanity, not in any metaphorical way, or the way that some Christians insist "God is always with me, inside " but in a real and direct way, corporeal and present. The difficulty I have is that I've no idea how to direct the story to this conclusion and, as I'm much more in favour of the parent standing aside rather than towering over his children watching what they do, it's beyond my meagre storytelling powers to think of how to argue the point convincingly.
Anyway, I'm off to read In God we Doubt: Confessions of a Failed Atheist by grumpy morning microphone botherer John Humphrys.
Anyways, I've just finished Towing Jehovah by James Morrow. God's dead body has been found in the Atlantic, a disgraced former oil-tanker skipper has to command a crew and see the huge corpse safely transported to it's Arctic tomb before radical atheists, the Catholic Church or just the development of a post-Deus morality can destroy it. It's both a funny and thought-provoking book, though I'm a bit annoyed that, yet again, there is the suggestion that belief in a higher power is necessary for good behaviour, and this comes from a humanist author. When are we going to have the good guy who is explicitly a non-believer?
Towards the end of the book, there is a discussion about God's motives for suicide. One character suggests that, looking down on His creation, God sees Himself as a block on humanity's progress, the Stern Father stopping his children from becoming adults, His death acting to confirm that He existed then forcing humanity to stand up for itself. It's a point of view that I have some sympathy for, I've felt that all the nonsense I was taught as a child about how God would love to come down to Earth on a cloud and tell us to stop being beastly to one another but gave us free will so feels obliged to stay away and let us make our own mistakes is a big pile of guff, and that He qualifies as the biggest Deadbeat Dad in all of creation, unworthy of our praise. By chance I had an idea for a story last week, before I started reading this book, which is the opposite of that philosophical point, and ends with, effectively, God rerunning creation and staying alongside humanity, not in any metaphorical way, or the way that some Christians insist "God is always with me, inside " but in a real and direct way, corporeal and present. The difficulty I have is that I've no idea how to direct the story to this conclusion and, as I'm much more in favour of the parent standing aside rather than towering over his children watching what they do, it's beyond my meagre storytelling powers to think of how to argue the point convincingly.
Anyway, I'm off to read In God we Doubt: Confessions of a Failed Atheist by grumpy morning microphone botherer John Humphrys.
Labels: God, philosophy, religion
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Why it's a tragedy that writers concentrate so much on misery at the expense of comedy. And not just prose either, how many long running TV shows have you seen where after a few seasons the program turns in on itself and becomes a never-ending gallery of horrors and pain, based on the mistaken idea that tragedy automatically elevates the tale?
Labels: authors, fiction, philosophy
Saturday, November 17, 2007
F*ck*ng B*st*rd W*nd*ws S***!
Why do we swear at inanimate objects?
I heard that theory somewhere that our species invented tools in order to kill people without feeling guilt, "I didn't kill him, the gun killed him". But perhaps it works in reverse, I'm not typing this on a computer, I'm typing it on my computer, it's me. So when Windows decides to crash for no reason it's like we've decided to do something stupid.
I heard that theory somewhere that our species invented tools in order to kill people without feeling guilt, "I didn't kill him, the gun killed him". But perhaps it works in reverse, I'm not typing this on a computer, I'm typing it on my computer, it's me. So when Windows decides to crash for no reason it's like we've decided to do something stupid.
Labels: philosophy
Monday, April 23, 2007
Where is atheism when bad things happen?. Puh-leaze!. For such a short piece it has any number of misconceptions and just plain wrong arguments. For one thing, it's nihilism rather than atheism that argues that there is no meaning to the universe, though not strictly an atheist myself I would venture a guess that the atheist viewpoint is that life brings it's own meaning to the universe it inhabits rather than assuming that the meaning comes from outside, dumped in by what it considers an illusory God. But really, it's so off-base I hardly think it worth going through and explaining how almost every sentence is untrue.
But where is atheism when bad things happen? I suppose, in the context of the largely Christian or Christian-influenced western world, it comes down to whether one finds it more comforting to believe that there is a God up there who sits back and allows mankind to mess things up on his own, or whether one finds it more comforting to believe there is no larger power and that it's our responsibility to try and make the world a better place for everyone. I get quite angry when anyone tries to write off disaster as 'part of God's greater plan' or tells me that the dead 'are in a happier place', I can't see a point to living if there's actually a book-sanctioned Big Fella upstairs who decided to make a young man of Korean descent unable to handle rejection. That's what seems truly evil, nihilistic and life-denying to me.
But where is atheism when bad things happen? I suppose, in the context of the largely Christian or Christian-influenced western world, it comes down to whether one finds it more comforting to believe that there is a God up there who sits back and allows mankind to mess things up on his own, or whether one finds it more comforting to believe there is no larger power and that it's our responsibility to try and make the world a better place for everyone. I get quite angry when anyone tries to write off disaster as 'part of God's greater plan' or tells me that the dead 'are in a happier place', I can't see a point to living if there's actually a book-sanctioned Big Fella upstairs who decided to make a young man of Korean descent unable to handle rejection. That's what seems truly evil, nihilistic and life-denying to me.
Labels: atheism, atheists, Christianity, death, philosophy, religion, Richard Dawkins, United States
Friday, March 09, 2007
This a terrific little story: Pat Dollard, Hollywood Guy Gone Gonzo. [via LinkMachineGo]
Serbian vampire hunters stake the body of Slobodan Milosevic to make sure he can't come back from the dead. Afterwards they gave themselves up to the police but I'm preparing to bust them out should Margaret Thatcher die in the near future. WE HAVE TO BE SURE IT'S OVER!
Remember that website with the teeny-tiny tourists standing on paving-stones the size of tennis courts and looking over kerb drops that were deeper than the Grand Canyon? Perhaps they'd like to visit some of the miniature properties on this site. Fantastically detailed castles that fit into gaps in masonry, beach huts in an undusted room corner.
The Long Now Foundation. Because slower/better is better than faster/cheaper. They're the people that invented the clock that ticks once a year, bongs once a century, and the cuckoo comes out every millennium.
Readings from Beowulf in ye authentic olde English. Possibly of interest to people who liked the Riders of Rohan bits of Lord of the Rings . Wikipedia Beowulf page.
Here's an interesting little video, Joshua Ramo on Movement, Enlightenment and Why He's Still Single. It's looking at the concept that while knowledge (or perhaps information) is easier to access in the IntertubeWebbed world today than it might have been forty years ago, has the speed of (or time it takes to) understanding that knowledge increased at all and how that relates to the personal quest for enlightenment. [via Aula]
Serbian vampire hunters stake the body of Slobodan Milosevic to make sure he can't come back from the dead. Afterwards they gave themselves up to the police but I'm preparing to bust them out should Margaret Thatcher die in the near future. WE HAVE TO BE SURE IT'S OVER!
Remember that website with the teeny-tiny tourists standing on paving-stones the size of tennis courts and looking over kerb drops that were deeper than the Grand Canyon? Perhaps they'd like to visit some of the miniature properties on this site. Fantastically detailed castles that fit into gaps in masonry, beach huts in an undusted room corner.
The Long Now Foundation. Because slower/better is better than faster/cheaper. They're the people that invented the clock that ticks once a year, bongs once a century, and the cuckoo comes out every millennium.
Readings from Beowulf in ye authentic olde English. Possibly of interest to people who liked the Riders of Rohan bits of Lord of the Rings . Wikipedia Beowulf page.
Here's an interesting little video, Joshua Ramo on Movement, Enlightenment and Why He's Still Single. It's looking at the concept that while knowledge (or perhaps information) is easier to access in the IntertubeWebbed world today than it might have been forty years ago, has the speed of (or time it takes to) understanding that knowledge increased at all and how that relates to the personal quest for enlightenment. [via Aula]
Labels: art, Conservatives, internet, Iraq, literature, news, philosophy
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Links O'Lordy
The Japanese view of transgenderism.
The Guardian talk to Gilbert and George ahead of their Tate retrospective.
The Pursuit of Emptiness by John Perry Barlow. You'll be happy if you don't consider it your right to be happy. I would have thought it was obvious but then some people seem to think poking an ape with a stick is a good idea.
An interesting and thought-provoking video by an autistic woman on personhood and how those who differ from the norm are often viewed as non-people. [via BoingBoing]
Google take steps to stop Googlebombs from going off. Does that mean the charmless bigots are safe? (I also note that the charmless bigots have an opinion on the latest round in the never-ending saga of the death of a Sloaney some nine years ago. I'm surprised that the charmless bigots appear to have ignored completely the 'gay adoption' story.) [first link via Slashdot]
The Guardian talk to Gilbert and George ahead of their Tate retrospective.
The Pursuit of Emptiness by John Perry Barlow. You'll be happy if you don't consider it your right to be happy. I would have thought it was obvious but then some people seem to think poking an ape with a stick is a good idea.
 | I am:Olaf StapledonStanding outside the science fiction "field", he wrote fictional explorations of the futures of whole species and galaxies. |
An interesting and thought-provoking video by an autistic woman on personhood and how those who differ from the norm are often viewed as non-people. [via BoingBoing]
Google take steps to stop Googlebombs from going off. Does that mean the charmless bigots are safe? (I also note that the charmless bigots have an opinion on the latest round in the never-ending saga of the death of a Sloaney some nine years ago. I'm surprised that the charmless bigots appear to have ignored completely the 'gay adoption' story.) [first link via Slashdot]
Labels: art, autism, Gilbert and George, Google, philosophy, Tate Modern/Britain, transgenderism
