Dollar Store Bibles

Sheeeet, they even sell Bibles at the dollar store beside my house! I'd like to see someone publish cheap or free Freethinking books for the masses, just like Joseph L. Lewis and also Emanuel Haldeman-Julius and son's Little Blue Books on a variety of topics from a non-religious ethical perspective.

Cheers,

Bjarte

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

I am still reading Ehrman´s book on suffering, God´s Problem. I remember so many Marvel superhero movies, and even the cartoon ¨The Incredibles¨, where the hero cannot sleep at night while hearing screams outside his or her door. As they said, ¨With great power comes great responsibility¨. 

Ehrman´s point is the same as the Greek philosopher Epicurus´ [341–270 BCE]: 

¨Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?¨ 

I could not agree more! Maybe the Deists had a good point!

Cheers,

Bjarte

The Struggle of an Ex-Prayer Warrior

 

This is my struggle: is there really "someone out there" who hears my prayers, or am I talking to an imaginary friend?  My brain is telling me the latter, but my heart seems to want to find some external "being" to communicate with.  

Recently, Tanya Luhrmann, a psychological anthropologist and a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University, did a 2 year field study of the Vineyard Movement, which shares a lot in common with other Evangelical Christians trying to "hear from God".  Her results are in When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God (2012).  

Luhrmann's website states: 

"How does God become and remain real for modern evangelicals? How are rational, sensible people of faith able to experience the presence of a powerful yet invisible being and sustain that belief in an environment of overwhelming skepticism? T. M. Luhrmann, an anthropologist trained in psychology and the acclaimed author of Of Two Minds, explores the extraordinary process that leads some believers to a place where God is profoundly real and his voice can be heard amid the clutter of everyday thoughts." (http://luhrmann.net/).  

This is a similar background to where I'm coming from, and it's hard to break the "practicing the presence of God" (à la Brother Lawrence) that I got accustomed to.

Lots to adjust to . . . 

Cheers,


Bjarte

I Woke Up Praying Today

 

I woke up praying today. I used to be a hardcore Evangelical Christian for 30+ years, until recently. I caught myself and thought, "Who the hell am I praying to? I'm not supposed to believe in God!" Then I replied to myself, "Just do whatever you want. You are a rebel by nature. So you can even revolt against your own new found atheism sometimes." Anyways, after reading books on Atheism, Agnosticism, Freethought, Humanism, etc, I found they have many good points, but honestly, it doesn't cover all the necessary issues of life and spiritual needs. OTOH, I'm so wary of New Age & the Human Potential movements with Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, Dalai Lama et al. I want my life to follow REALITY, not everyone's "visions", "revelations", and other various sundrious ridiculousnesses. 

Looks like this spiritual journey is going to take a lot of time and effort ; ) . . .

Cheers,

Bjarte

The Spiritual Journey Is Dangerous

Wow!

At this point in life, the spiritual journey looks like a mine field.  I have recently left Evangelical Christianity along with Biblical Literalism for many reasons: the history of Christian hatred in a religion that supposedly preaches love, gross errors and contradictions in the Bible which I had either glossed over or ignored, leading my life down many unnecessary dead ends, causing friction with unbelievers, and sheer boredom of thinking a bunch of narrow-minded authorities had THE answer to my questions.  Now that that´s over, I´ve embarked on a new journey, exploring various writings on Atheism, Agnosticism, Freethinking, Skepticism and Naturalist Pantheism.  

I don´t know if this is an irrational fear, but I´m very nervous about jumping ¨from the frying pan into the fire¨, i.e., getting involved in an equally or more ridiculous religious philosophy.  With all their attractions, the down side of Atheism is that it only solves half the problem: that the Christian god doesn´t exist.  Yeah, so what?  And what next?  Where do I go in figuring out moral questions?  What is now the ultimate base for the existence of humanity and the rest of the cosmos?  Where do I direct my spiritual seeking energies without going down the rabbit hole of superstition again?  And frankly, the New Atheists often look as scary to me as the Old Fundamentalists of Christendom.  They make a blanket statement that ALL religion is THE problem of humanity, when there are so many problems, for example, Money Worship, disdain for the natural environment, Western imperialism, etc.  Secularists are just as ¨good¨ at abusing nature and fellow humans as the religiosos are.

Agnosticism looks appealing in that it humbly admits, as Socrates did, that ¨I know that I don´t know¨.  On the other hand, in its wishy-washiness, Agnosticism does not have that critical edge of being able to assess religions, superstitions and truth claims.  While I believe that we´ll never really know full truth, at least we can know enough to make important decisions about life. Agnosticism almost becomes an excuse for laziness. Or, worse, Agnostics stand back while watching the religious make really stupid mistakes, fearful of speaking out, and actually having no basis to do so.

Natural Pantheism, which Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion called a ¨Sexed-Up Atheism¨, is a reverence for Nature, seeing it as divine-like. Classical Pantheists actually believe that the universe IS God, but Natural Pantheists give no personality or force-like characteristics to nature. Instead, Nature is the basis of existence, and should be honoured as such. There is no belief in spirits, or another parallel world, as in Gnosticism. This is it, what you and I see, feel, smell, taste and hear.

I´ve been attracted to Natural Pantheism recently and admired some of the articles online. However, there is a fine line here: it appears very easy for a NP to slide down the slippery slope of the metaphysics of other religions the ¨New Age¨ or the Human Potential Movement. Frankly, I´m not interested in crystals, seances, channeling, out-of-body experiences, guardian angels, manifesting, controlling the Force or Qi or Manna, or any other ridiculousness. In fact, I will join the Skeptics in publically critiquing this crap which passes for spirituality. Nor am I curious about reincarnation, resurrection, Heaven or Hell, hearing voices, healing and miracles, etc.

In addition, the REAL religions that dominate our society go under other names: Capitalism, i.e., Money-Worship, Techno-Worship, Progress, etc. Basically it´s the ¨American Dream¨ which has sucked in the entire planet. Yes, this is really a religion. Money, technology and progress seem to promise us limitlessness. We can have what we want, when we want. New technologies, as Marshall McLuhan once said, overcome our physical restrictions, that is, they extend our faculties. Cars are extensions of our feet. Phones extend our voices. Google endows us with omniscient-like qualities, the ability to ¨know all¨. These forms of belief and action are in fact even more dangerous that formal religions or New Age. Altogether, both the money-worshipping secularists and their religious counterparts are destroying nature as they continue to expand the Western Empire not only geographically, but to every sphere of human existence.

Any spirituality that´s worth its salt will oppose Empire and provide alternatives. This is the part I have rarely seen. Most religions, philosophies and spiritualities, including New Atheism, seem to also support money-making and techno-worship. However, to me, true spirituality would do no harm to the environment that sustains us. Nor harm to other humans.  Truth opposes the deceit of capitalism and its twin offspring of science and technology.

While I´m all for the scientific method, and for scientific explanations of the universe, most of what science has been used for is to rape Mother Nature and increase the stock prices of the capitalists. This is something the New Atheists need to answer, instead of limiting their critiques to easy targets. And the rest of us need to find a spirituality that honours the universe without falling into superstition and cult-like tendencies. And at the same time defend nature and humans from the continued onslaught of the capitalists who screw the planet with impunity.

Back to my main idea: spirituality is dangerous. On the one hand, you could slip down one side of the slope into superstition and creepy rituals. With all your friends pushing the writings of Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, the Dalai Lama, etc, and the innumerable flakey New Agers who are ready to take your reverencing of Mother Nature and pull you down into strange superstitious practices. I was thinking of starting a Naturalist Pantheist group in my neighbourhood, but the fear of the flakes coming out of the woodwork and hijacking any effort I make discourages me at times. On the other hand, the other slippery slope is to forget spirituality, to abandon Mother Nature and just live for the same empty values as the rest of society, bowing at the altar of money and technology. Or to simply join the Freethinkers and Skeptics who spend their time sitting on their asses and scolding the religiosos, which equally appears to be a waste of time and energy.

What to do? I´m the kind of person who, like Will and Jaden Smith´s characters in the recent movie After Earth, face and eradicate my fears. And boldly moves ahead. To face off against the Money, Technology and Progress (MTP) Worshippers, the religiosos and the New Age flakes, and the divisive, troublemaking extremists in the Green and Social Justice Movements. And to seek a spirituality that respects Mother Nature, upholds a set of ethics that far surpasses the Evangelical Christians, and works toward the Common Good.

Time to dream on . . . and get moving.

Cheers,

Bjarte

Email me at 

harvisenATgmail.com

An Out-of-Fishbowl Look at Christianity

Christian Church's Stained Glass Ceiling - Toronto, Canada

Because I've spent a lot of time working overseas and also hanging with immigrants and indigenous peoples, the idea hit me:

Why is it that the entire planet has to follow the culture (Western) and religion (Christianity) of history's greatest empire, the Anglo-American one?

Doesn't it just show that British, American and other European imperialism was entirely successful? 

I mean, think about it, everyone worldwide is expected to use Western technology, food, business methods, economic and political structures, social mores, family patterns, and now, even religion? 

Becoming Christian in today's world = becoming Westernised = becoming cool, educated, civilised, tech savvy, etc. 

In my neck of the woods, most Chinese and Koreans convert to Christianity, I believe, because they're "betting on the winning horse".  Is it by coincidence that the One Way to get to Heaven is via the faith held by Westerners?  Not only have we dominated this life, but we also claim a monopoly on the one to come!
And how is it that a small tribal religion of a bunch of diaspora Jews became the faith of the Roman Empire, and later the British and American (and other European) Empires?  One thing is for certain: Christianity has proven itself to be a very, very useful tool in the hands of imperialists!

Isn't it also very strange that the faith of one small ethnic group, the Jews, was co-opted by their neighbours, morphed into Christianity, then everyone blamed the Jews for rejecting the new, hybrid religion which bore very little resemblance to their original Judaism?  Why do we Gentiles think we know the identity of the true Jewish Messiah than the Jews themselves?  Isn't it ironic?  It's like God revealing himself to the Irish, then the Brits and everyone steal their religion, transform it into something entirely new, then blame, persecute and kill the Irish for not accepting the bastardised version of their original faith? 

The more I look at Christianity in the Big Picture, the stranger it gets!

Crap, maybe I'm just a Conspiracy Theorist . . .

Cheers,

Bjarte

E-mail me at
harvisen AT gmail.com

Make Nature, Not Science, Your ¨Religion¨

Outside Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China, while on our honeymoon

I just noticed a pic on Facebook:

My question about this is: Shouldn´t all of us also be skeptical about science?  After all, most scientists are paid for by huge American and other Western corporations.  Therefore, their research is biased toward what will make money for the corporation and their stockholders.  ¨Independent¨ science is a myth.  

Better to make Nature our ¨religion¨.  At least Nature is observable and can tell us about the nature of reality.  While we may not have all the money scientists have at their disposal to do high-level research, at least we can understand reality more to some extent through our observation and experience.  

While I´m all for the Scientist Method, we have to be rich to use it effectively.  And if we simply believe the published research of scientists, we are putting our faith in people who claim to be ¨experts¨, and who may be intentionally or unintentionally deceiving people.  For example, I have seen environmental destruction all over the US, Canada and China.  My own observation ¨warms¨ up my mind to accept the scientific findings regarding Climate Change and predictions of increasing ecologically crises.  

As some people here in Vancouver, BC, Unceded Salish Territories, used to say on their bumper stickers, while ironically polluting Mother Earth with their fricking vehicles: ¨Nature is my Church¨.  She´s mine too, but at the same time, I´m not going to adopt a bunch of superstitious beliefs and rituals from New Age gurus and anyone else, usually trying to make a buck off spirituality!  I remain agnostic on God/the gods and the claims of all religions.  And yet, I´m always seeking, seeking, seeking ; )

Cheers,

Bjarte Harvisen

Drop me a line at

harvisen AT gmail.com

The Wild Wall outside of Beijing, China