Je suis pas Charlie

I am an ass. And damn proud of it too.

--Charlie

I am not Charlie. Charlie is an ass. But I am Charlie's brother; I love Charlie and believe that even though he is an ass, he deserves to live a life free from fear. It doesn't matter that Charlie makes fun of things you hold dear.

They were human. Just like you. Each of the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo was a human; with a life; and a family and friends. You killed Charlie, you bastards! I feel angry. I am furious. You behaved like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum. "You don't hit!" I tell my kids. You don't kill, I tell the adults. WTF!?! I shouldn't have to tell you that. I don't even have words for this.

Words are just that, words. They may hurt, but they don't kill. Drawings are just another form of words. Words that are blasphemous to one may not be to another. Given the vast variety of religions and gods that are held in belief by the human population on this planet, the list of blasphemies that could be uttered is very long indeed. And it is not possible to circumlocute around all of them. We, as a species need to develop a thicker skin; be slower to take offense, even when offense was inteded.

The artists of Charlie Hebdo are magnificent at what they do. They poke fun at everything. Nothing is sacred. In fact if it *is* sacred to someone, they will likely poke fun at it just because it is. This is why I say they are asses. I commonly refer to Richard Dawkins as an ass as well. Sometimes it takes an ass to get the point across because all of us pansies are carefully tiptoeing around, too afraid to offend. So I stand up for Charlie Hebdo and their right to be a collective ass.

I am a pacifist. I do not believe that killing of another human is ever justified. Let me make that clear. Killing is always the wrong answer, even if the other person is an ass.

To Believe is to Believe

No amount of belief will make something a fact.

--James Randi

Human brains are hard-wired to make connections and form conclusions that become beliefs. The weird thing is that we don't really get to choose what we believe; well, not so much as a conscious decision as choosing what to wear each day. Indirectly, it does seem that we can open our minds to new information, causing internal conflict which may or may not get resolved as a change in belief.

Take, for instance the 2013 case of Republican Senator Rob Portman's views on gay marriage. As a Republican, he was obligated to tow the line on defence of 'traditional' marriage. His personal views on the matter were likely in line with the party views as well. His world gets shaken up when his son reveals he is gay. Two years of cognitive dissonance and then the Senator announces that he supports gay marriage. This could have played out in a number of ways. Some people disown children that lead lives that are different than their own. Others attempt to ignore the elephant in the room and pretend that their own reality is the one true reality. But Senator Portman's stance on gay marriage changed. He said, "Ultimately, for me, it came down to the Bible's overarching themes of love and compassion and my belief that we are all children of God." The fact of the matter is that we are all humans, whether or not you believe that we are children of any god. We should treat our fellow humans with respect and allow them every right that we would like to enjoy ourselves. You know, the Golden Rule (and the Silver Rule too.)

But sometimes it is hard to see the end game because of our own blindness. What blinds us? Belief. Belief is an irrational mess of neural connections in the brain that causes a person to link some concept with the notion of truth. It is the neural equivalent of a logical identity. It does not require any proof; it just IS. We fill our brains with these beliefs with one informing and changing the next, the whole of which becomes the basis for our world view. The world view filters and influences every new concept and event that enters the brain. These new filtered thoughts then affect our world view; sometimes reinforcing it, sometimes tearing it down for realignment. But it all boils down to the fact that our brains are squishy and fuzzy when it comes to logic and rationality; these two concepts rarely have much sway when we are encountering new ideas. Mostly we believe what we believe because we believe what we believe. People with degrees in this field call this confirmation bias.

So you see, to believe is to believe; it has nothing to do with facts, logic, rational conclusions, or reality. But just because you believe something does not make it a fact.

Once I understood the concept of confirmation bias, I was able to start to see instances where my own beliefs were influencing me, causing me to reject logical or otherwise rational thought because it did not mesh with my current belief system. And then as you know it all fell apart (i.e. my religious foundations crumbled) and I had to start questioning all my beliefs to see if they were founded in reality or if they were floating, supporting themselves by the power of confirmation bias. But I am in a better place now, mentally. I don't have to juggle so many things and my shelf, the things I have questions about, is much less about god and religion and more about life, the universe, and everything. This is not to say that I have conquered confirmation bias; that is not possible. My brain is still every bit as irrational and squishy as it ever was, but now I am much more open to the idea that my belief system might be systemically wrong. Maybe now, you might say that I have to take the periodic effort to prune my belief garden, looking for un-rooted beliefs and moving them over to the unfounded idea museum where live the invisible pink unicorn, Santa Claus, fairies, and yes, all the gods.

Thinking outside of the box

I recently attempted to engage in civil discussion about the Ordain Women (OW) movement in a forum. How did that go, you ask? Not so well. I mean I am pretty it was a waste of time and effort because everything I said fell on deaf ears. It turns out that there are some topics in Mormonism that are taboo to the point of anathema. Literally. There is a woman professor at this very moment under 'investigation' at BYU-Idaho for expressing her personal opinion on her Facebook page. A former student read her remarks and anonymously turned her in to the honor code office. Now has to talk with her bishop, department head, maybe the dean, and who knows what after that to see if she is aligned with the school honor code and church views. Yikes. If she is found to not align with the honor code and church views, her job could be terminated. Anathema.

This is how Mormonism forces people to tow the party line. You agree with us or you get kicked out (and by inference go to Hell.) Some topics are worse than others, but any outspoken idea that does not fit within the correlated doctrine of the church can put you on the outside. OW is one of those ideas. And really it is not so far fetched. Other Christian churches have allowed women (or gasp! homosexuals) become ministers or pastors holding the priesthood. But not Mormonism. It is still waiting for God to reveal to its privileged, white, male, prejudiced leadership that this is the right thing to do. But this won't happen any time soon because the patriarchy must protect its position of power. Don't even mention that SO many women could be wonderful bishops or other leaders. So many are willing and able. The church is overlooking half of its adult population for positions of service just because they are female.

[ It turns out that your experience will widely vary from ward to ward, stake to stake. The ward I am currently in, though not exactly active, has a very understanding bishop, who really is Christ-like and loving. He knows who I am and what I believe (or don't, as the case may be) and all he asks is, "Is there anything I can do for you or your family?" Awesome. Now if all wards and stakes in the church could be so inclusive. ]

Another form of sanction besides excommunication is revocation of a temple recommend. One of the questions is: "Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?" So agreeing with OW at this point in time is technically in violation of the questions asked to get a temple recommend. Apparently I am not worthy.

There is so much vitriol on Facebook and other social media sites against any pro-OW discussion. Only in private circles does any reasonable discussion take place. The funniest thing about this is that the people who are so anti-OW would likely about face if the prophet came out tomorrow and announced that women are now eligible for the priesthood. But until that happens, the topic is not up for discussion. Shut it down.

But who am I to talk? I opened my mind to discussion and new ideas and completely lost my faith. So maybe it is better to shut it down and push out the riffraff.

Church and Community

Every one of them needs three things: a friend, a responsibility, and nurturing with the good word of God.

--Gordon B. Hinckley

Gordon B. Hinckley was speaking about how to turn 'converts' into 'members' of the LDS church when he said this line. But I think he probably meant it applied to all members of the church, new or old. Community is a very important part of a person's conversion into Mormonism. Or really, any organization. People like to feel loved, safe, and similar to those around them. It forms a virtual security blanket that they can hold on to.

When I say people need community, some need it more than others. I feel much less need for community than many people I know. In fact, I would be completely content with one or two close friends. Beyond that, I just don't have the capacity for community. So I never fit into that part of church.

I had many responsibilities in the church when I was active, but honestly, I don't think this really helped or hurt my relationship with the church and gospel. I think this is the reciprocation of community; serving others. Okay, I admit it, I was always terrible at home teaching. :) But I did enjoy the opportunity to actually serve the families I was assigned to. Or others. Service is really one of the parts of church that I have no qualms with. I even told my bishop that I am willing to serve.

I really don't know where the nurturing part comes in. I mean after going to church for 30+ years I was to the point that the lessons I was hearing were so boring and old that I was not getting any new nourishment. It is like eating oatmeal three meals a day for a year; it may be good at the start, but it gets old. And ultimately, you need something else besides oatmeal. I went and found something else to nourish me. The only problem was that it turned out to be very incompatible with the church's teachings. Not only was it incompatible, but it felt better; it made more sense and required my brain to jump through fewer hoops to feel at peace. A whole new world was opened up to me when this box opened. I drank deeply from the firehose of 'the best books' but I admit that by this time I was really no longer learning by faith.

These three things probably would keep many of the new converts active. Was I was doomed from the start to fall away from the church because the three things that everyone needs just were not what I needed? Ho hum.

In Science We Trust

How can you trust quantum mechanics, if you haven’t done the requisite experiments yourself? ... Or how can you trust that the government isn’t putting mind-control drugs into the fruit you buy in the supermarket, etc. etc.

--Scott Aaronson

Along these lines, how can we know that God exists? Or Santa, or the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy. If you were anything like me, you figured out that the latter three were stories that your parents told you when you were young because they were part of your culture. You may have asked the right questions to figure it out or maybe a friend or sibling dropped the bomb and your world kind of unraveled for a bit. You may have needed to push a little farther to see exactly how much of your life up to that point was merely a lie.


When all your friends at school forsake Santa, the first is seen as the smartest of the bunch because he or she figured it out. Yet when someone forsakes God, it is a different story altogether. Anathema. Dissociation of friends and family. What is the difference here? Is it that God really exists and Santa doesn't? How can one make that claim? Scott Aaronson hit on the answer that sounds reasonable to me:

So we’re extremely lucky that science hit on a solution to these problems—the only workable solution, really—back in the 17th century. The solution is to open up every question to scrutiny, discussion, and challenge by any interested person. Assertions gain credibility by surviving public criticism—and that’s just as true in math as it is in experimental sciences. I believe many theorems even though I haven’t checked the proofs myself, because I know that if there were an error, then someone else could’ve made a name for themselves by finding it.

I didn't figure out that God was no different than the Santa Claus, but why? Because everyone else around me believed in God too. Maybe they were Catholic or Presbyterian instead of Mormon, but it's the same God. I didn't figure it out so soon because early on, all my elders believed in God (but not Santa Claus) so it was acceptable (and somewhat expected) for me to believe. If I had been born in Iran, I would no doubt have believed the good word of Islam (one variety or another).

If you move a continent or two over, you will find that their God may not by your God. Since both are making the claim that they are the one and only true God (I mean really, who wants to worship a God that says other gods are cool too), at maximum, only one of them can be true. It is still possible that neither are true. If we take all the gods of humankind and sit them in a room with each other, then use this idea that only one of a pair of them can be true until we have reduced the room to only one god, which god would that be? Then we take it a step further and invite someone into the room that does not recognize that god as his or her God and suddenly there are no gods in the room. Just like with science, we crowd source the best solution by having all interested parties attempt to debunk and find holes in theories, we have used the people from all over the world to show that none of the gods are the one and only true God. What are we left with then? Teapots, flying high in orbit, painted with invisible unicorns.

What are we really left with if nobody can really show that any supernatural power exists? Nature. How do we explain nature? Science. How can we trust in science? Test it again and again. Poke holes in it and disprove it where possible. Every time we tear down a theory or hypothesis, we count down one fewer thing that might be true. As each theory and hypothesis is confirmed by another test, we put one more nail in the coffin of the gods. Because the theories are repeatable and not merely the 'revealed truth' from god, others can experiment and show that they are real. No religion can do the same for their gods or beliefs.

Thus, in science we trust.

Q.E.D.

American Gods

This is a bad land for gods.... The old gods are ignored. The new gods are as quickly taken up as they are abandoned, cast aside for the next big thing. Either you've been forgotten, or you're scared you're going to be rendered obsolete, or maybe you're just getting tired of existing on the whim of people.

--Shadow in American Gods by Neil Gaiman

American Gods was a really fun read. I like the strange world that Neil Gaiman came up with. Or was he just writing the reality that he saw? That is what I would like to discuss here. Ever since the possibility that God may not be what I think He is, I started to wonder why religion and gods exist at all. This story explains many of my thoughts in a very artful way.

Gods started out as a way to explain all the things.

 At some point in our prehistory, one of our ancestors found the mental capacity to think about something besides survival; food, protection, and reproduction. They had questions like: why lightning? or what after death? or cause of random event? Maybe the first questions were even more basic than these. "Some external power makes it so" seems to be a reasonable answer when you don't have any other answer. As one person told another person this idea, it spread like wildfire because there was no evidence to the contrary.

People believe. It's what people do. They believe. And then they will not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjurations. People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine, and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen.

--Shadow in American Gods by Neil Gaiman

We believe not because we want to believe, but because the evidence compels us to believe. It would have made my life a lot easier to just believe that God exists and not deal with the fallout with my believing family, but the evidence compelled me to believe that there probably (very, very, very likely) is no god, thus my exodus from religion. But when fire still seems like magic, and lightning can only be explained by supernatural powers, believing in a god only makes sense.

There are fewer things that need explaining.

 The gods (and mostly Yahweh, because he was the main God in the region at that time) started to loose their mighty grasp on the minds of their creators sometime around the Renaissance. People started to think, reason, and understand; science started to explain the mysteries of God. Copernicus, in my opinion, though he was a Christian, pried back the first finger of God, allowing later freethinkers to finish Him off. Stating that the earth is NOT the center of the universe starts one thinking about why God would have created humankind, the pinnacle of His creation, off to the side, putting the sun at the center of our galaxy instead. So maybe we aren't as important as we thought? As science and reason advanced, we found that lightning (and all weather in general) is not caused by a vengeful or loving god, but rather it is a natural part of the earth's ecosystem, water cycle, etc. The same goes for earthquakes and volcanoes, tsunamis and hurricanes. Not a vengeful god that is trying to punish us, but rather the earth, doing what it does without malice or forethought. Medicine has come a long way from humours and leeches to antibiotics and DNA sequencing. Thanks to Darwin, humankind no longer has reason to doubt that we are cousins to every living thing on earth.

Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.

--American Gods by Neil Gaiman

The gods are going extinct.

It would take hours to list all the things that were once ascribed to gods that we now have non-supernatural reasons for. The tenacious grip of god has turned tenuous. The gods of yesteryear are merely the stuff of myth and legend today. If it were not for the vast quantity of writing and digital caching of the Internet, they would fade away even faster. For this same reason, it seems that Yahweh (and Allah for that matter, though they are really just two names for the same God) have had a strong grip on the world because their stories are immortalized in the written word.

If it makes you more comfortable, you could simply think of it as metaphor. Religions are, by definition, metaphors, after all: God is a dream, a hope, a woman, an ironist, a father....

--American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Someday, I expect, that even though it says in the writing that those books of scripture are the word of God written by his holy prophets, people will come to realize that it is just a story (and not a very good one at that). They will realize that religion is a metaphor, a tool that was used to calm the doubts and fears of the masses to allow civilization to flourish.

What is religion anyway?

Yes, I believe that we are genetically inclined to believe in religion. I think that Richard Dawkins has some great points in The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion.  I think that religion evolved as a social mechanism to help mankind form societies where intelligence, peace and prosperity could thrive, thus further separating us from our cousins and reaffirming the dominance of our species. But, as Dawkins says in The Selfish Gene, "Whenever a system of communication evolves, there is always the danger that some will exploit the system for their own ends." This is one of the dangers of religion: leaders wielding their power for their own ends, usually with detrimental effect to many others. Now that science has squeezed all the gods into the cracks of the unknown, another one of the issues I have with religion is that it reinforces ignorance and praises blind faith. I find it hilarious that many Mormons (members and leaders) are terrified of reading "anti-Mormon literature" because it can pull you away from the true teachings of the church. Yet, if there are things that are that dangerous to your "truths" you may want to examine those truths again to see if they match up with reality.

Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them. Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival: the analogue of steering by the moon for a moth. But the flip side of trusting obedience is slavish gullibility. The inevitable by-product is vulnerability to infection by mind viruses.

--The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

As terrible as the phrase sounds (and I think the pointed wording was on purpose, because we all know that Richard Dawkins is an ass), it really rings true to me. I believed as a child with all my heart in the truth of the gospel as taught by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I knew it was true because I was taught that it was true. I had become a carrier to pass it onto my children as well. And I did. Isn't that how viruses spread? Or how 'viral marketing' works? One person to the next because of how great it is. When you are a believer, your religion is the one true religion and it is great, so you want to pass it on. The newly indoctrinated take over the cause and make it their own.

Now if religion did no harm, I would not have so much problem with it. But you saw how the gods in American Gods fought each other. Their subjects do as well. They are commanded by their gods to conquer other unbelieving nations and impose the good word on the infidels. Nearly universally, they oppress women and homosexuals (and every other minority). Because of this, I am somewhat anti-religious. Yes they do great good, but until we can convince the leaders of these religions of the need for HUMANITY, that there is no "us and them," that we should not be fighting, but helping, lifting up instead of oppressing, most all religions should be torn down.

Now I get off my high horse.

Root of All Belief

I am at root a physical thinker and learner, but when that is not possible, I think my next best learning language is visual. I can't listen to people drone on and expect to learn half of what is expected. I didn't have a physical representation of God, revelation, the spirit, priesthood, etc., to see how it all related, so how better to know what I believe that to map it out visually.

I planned this great little application (originally php, later javascript) that would allow me to add 'Tenets' and relate them to each other logically (IF -> THEN, AND, OR, NOT, etc.) to make a web of belief. It was a great idea, but really flawed at its root: I didn't have absolute knowledge of much at all in which to ground my beliefs; I really only had a belief with some certainty.

It turns out that I was not the first one to come up with the idea of probabilistic logic. When I read about it, I was amazed at how well it fit my problem. All I had to do was make my Tenets application into a probabilistic logic network. Then I could see how much I really believe.

By this time, I had already pretty much come to the conclusion that my beliefs were all rooted in the idea that God exists. If God exists, it would make sense that God would want to create wonders (earth, the universe, and mankind) and would want to talk to us through revelation. Mormon theology is deeply rooted in revelation; prophetic and personal. From there, we get all other manner of beliefs: priesthood, miracles, ordinances, church organization, etc. We can trace it all back to God. If God doesn't exist, then it is all moot. Thus my radical change from a believing Mormon to an atheist, agnostic, or whatever. It's not that I found a religion that explains my purpose better, it is that I don't believe in ANY religion. As Dawkins put it, I had already stopped believing in all the other gods (thought of them as nice, interesting, or weird myths) and just took it one step further to stop believing in the last god that I had held onto since my childhood.

Since I had ruled out the root of all belief, my religious views crumbled and I kind of found my Tenets application no longer necessary. But I was thinking that someday it might be nice to revisit and put scientific discovery in where God once was. How do I explain the universe now? Someday when I get around to it, I will dust off my javascript skillz and make something cool.

Comedy v. Tragedy

God's sense of humor is very different from our own.
He does not laugh at the simple
"man walks into a bar" joke. No, God needs
complex irony and subtle farcical twists
that seem macabre to you and me.
All that we can hope for is that God
God got his good laugh and
a tragedy such as this will never happen again.

--South Park (Season 7, Episode 10, Grey Dawn)

After I finished watching all 16 available seasons of South park, I thought I should mention one of the more striking quotes. When I watched season 7, it was much closer to the Newtown, CT, massacre than now. But I still think the quote is applicable. Trey Parker and Matt Stone both say they are not atheist, but they do freely poke at all things, including religion. I think that is a fairly healthy habit to do; poke and prod at things that don't make sense.

Anyhow, this episode was about old people driving cars and killing people. But really, any tragedy, disaster, terrorist attack, etc. will work fine in this situation. If you believe in God, it makes it very hard to explain some of these tragic events. How could a loving God allow that kind of stuff to happen to His children? The LDS theology says that He cannot interfere with mankind's agency, so bad things happen because of bad people. But that doesn't account for natural disasters. Do they happen because of bad people too? I suppose some of the stuff in scripture did. That does not sound like much of a loving God; vengeful, jealous, and hateful, more like. You know, the kind of God that this quote so aptly describes.

I personally reject the notion of a God that is just messing with us. I refuse to worship such a being. I also reject the notion of a God that supposedly loves us and yet allows such terrible things to happen. Hell, I am a mere mortal and can get my kids to not kill each other. I can teach them love, respect, honesty, and all manner of goodness BECAUSE I AM HERE. God would get a lot farther in His desires for all mankind to worship his great name if he were physically here doing good things for His children that He supposedly loves.

In the meantime, I will just have to give credit for all the terrible things that happen on this planet to the same place I give credit for all the wonderful things that happen: mankind. We as a species span the spectrum from unbelievably horrible to spectacularly wonderful. And I will attribute to any God the same credit I give to Santa Claus: nothing.

Caffè Lento

es·pres·so

/eˈspresō/

Noun

Strong black coffee made by forcing steam through ground coffee beans.

len·to

/ˈlentō/

Noun

Strong black coffee made by steeping ground coffee beans in cold water overnight.


I like a good espresso. I think I would LOVE a good sweet espresso from northern Italy. But I can't make espresso without a fancy machine. I don't drink enough espresso to make a fancy machine worthwhile financially (unless you count the plane tickets to Italy.) So I have had to take another path to extract that elusive coffee flavor from those tricky beans.

Words of Wisdom

Drinking coffee is contrary to the Word of Wisdom, which says 'hot drinks are not for the body or belly.' Modern prophets of the LDS church have said that Joseph really meant coffee and tea when he said 'hot drinks.' I disagree with that, having done my research into the life and times of Joseph. I would argue that he really meant hot drinks (water, coffee, tea, hot cocoa, soup, etc.) when he said hot drinks. This is because he believed that introducing hot liquids into your body was bad for your humors and lead to sickness. So according to Joseph's philosophy, an iced tea or an iced lento would be perfectly fine. Not that I need Joseph's approval of what I drink.

My solution: caffè lento. The opposite of caffè espresso, with regards to method, but the same in purpose. Espresso uses the perfect balance of heat, pressure, grind, roast, and bean to produce the pure essence of the coffee bean. Lento, on the other hand uses a cold-water extraction technique to pursue that same essence.

I start with freshly roasted beans. I think this makes the biggest difference. Beans roasted more than a week ago are too stale. Then I grind them with an espresso grind (pretty fine, but not quite turkish grind.) I am using a hand grinder that produces a bit of a range from fines to coarse. My guess is that even a turkish grind would do well in this. It does not seem to be as large a factor as the freshness of the roast. I grind daily in a single batch. Then add two parts water (by volume) to the ground coffee to my half-pint jar. The jar is nearly full by now; the coffee grounds don't really fit unless you pack them in a little bit. Put the lid on, shake several times over the next few hours and wait until the next day. In the morning, I take the brew, shake it, and pour it into my Aeropress filter and press the lento into my mug. I top off the mug with ice-cold milk and enjoy. This makes an iced lento. You can also use steamed milk if you want a hot lento.

The result is so smooth and flavorful without the bitter and burnt flavors that bad espresso has. I am still saving my pennies for that trip to Italy to try out a real, sweet espresso. But in the meantime, I have my sweet lento.

I used to say: I don't drink coffee, I drink espresso. Now my tune is: I don't drink coffee, I drink lento.

Telling Mom: Revisited

Mom, it's okay. I'm okay. I'm an atheist.

--The Thinking Atheist

This is the sort of conversation I had with my mother in person. It hurts more than words can say. People can say terrible thing (me included) in situations like these. I wish sometimes that it hadn't gone down like it did. I hope when my kids come to me with something, I can react differently.

Yes this is staged, but it rings so true.

Cell-icide: drawing a line in the sands of abortion

What bothers me is that if a rover
on Mars discovered a single cell organism,
the science world would be abuzz
about the discovery of life.

But discover a single cell organism
in the human uterus, and they refuse
to recognize it as life.

Hypocrites.

--Repeated again and again on the internet

I recently saw (for the thousandth time) this comment on Facebook. This pro-life argument lacks steam because it's not that I don't recognize the fertilized egg in a uterus as life, it's that I don't recognize that it is human. So terminating its life is no different to me than pulling a carrot from the ground, using anti-bacterial hand wash or squishing a mosquito. The true hypocrites in this are those that refuse an abortion to 'save a life' when the mother may die or the child, when born, may die an early death anyway from some terrible debilitating disease. Who are you to sentence a mother to death or another human to lead a life that he never would have chosen to live?

I think we can all agree that killing humans is bad. The big question then becomes, "What is a human?" The North Dakota 'Personhood Amendment' would define that a fertilized egg, or zygote, is human and therefore unlawful to abort. I think they could go farther. Even human egg cells are alive. They respirate just like any other human cell. Human sperm cells are alive as well. In some religions it is already unlawful according to God's laws to 'spill seed' or masturbate. Enlisting a federal ban on masturbation might help prevent killing all these innocent sperm. We should also take this procreation debate one step further and ensure that no human egg cells are wasted; we should ban menstruation. It would be required for all women of menstruating age to become pregnant to prevent the loss of the precious life of these human eggs.

Sound a little bit crazy to you? Me too.

I don't know a man alive who would vote on a *secret ballot* for a ban on masturbation in order to 'save seed.' Maybe publicly they would support a ban, but not when it comes down to the actual vote.  And I am sure that all pro-life women would support a ban on menstruation requiring them to be constantly pregnant to save their eggs from certain doom and destruction.

Let's get real. We need to draw a line in the sand, but let's do it with logic, not emotion; science, not god.

What IS the difference between the amoeba on Mars and a human zygote? Potential. The amoeba will not grow into a multi-cellular, intelligent, life form. I am going to pull a fast one and swap out that amoeba for a chimpanzee zygote. Now, both will grow into multi-cellular, intelligent, life forms. The only difference is that one will grow into a human and the other a chimpanzee. Since we kill chimpanzees all the time, it is okay to abort a chimpanzee embryo. Wait! We kill humans all the time too....

If we use DNA to compare the difference between the human and chimpanzee zygotes, we find that we share 98.7% of our DNA in common with chimpanzees. So we are really close. At the zygote, blastocyst and embryo stages, I am pretty sure that it would be impossible to tell a chimpanzee from a human. Well other than the obvious fact that chimpanzee embryos grow in a chimpanzee uterus. It should be possible to find some point at which it is obvious that a human fetus is really a human fetus by observation.

Just because it looks like a human does not necessarily make the thing a human. Can it sustain life outside of the uterus? If no, I would still argue that it still has a parasitic relationship with its host. Why didn't I say mother? Because theoretically we could come up with some machine that could serve as a host to a fetus. Doctors can already keep a fetus alive long before the 40-week mark.

We can take this too far in the other direction too, though. A one-year-old child cannot survive on his own. He requires food, shelter, protection, and love. That sounds like a parasitic relationship to me. So really only independent adults are human. You don't like your needy teenager? Abort him!

It turns out that we can really draw a line in the sand anywhere from pre-conception through early adulthood. Almost all using the same logic. The saddest part of this is that while we debate this, people are dying; people are getting killed. Abortion clinics are getting bombed. Teenage girls are dying from back-alley abortions gone wrong. Where is the humanity. I don't care if you believe in a god or not. Do you love your fellow humans? Maybe you don't believe that it is right to have an abortion. So don't have an abortion. But understand that maybe someone else has a different point of view on what a human is. Maybe you are not human to them.

Personally, I don't believe that abortion is a good practice. If you don't want to have a baby, don't have unprotected sex. But I can't fault a person for drawing the line at 10 or 20 weeks because I really don't know if that is a human yet. Because there is so much gray area in this matter, it is hard to say exactly where to draw the line. I don't want to snuff out human life, but I don't yet really understand what it means to be human. I am on a journey of learning to find that answer for myself. In the mean time, I don't plan on killing anybody: pro-life or pro-choice.

Ethical Omnivore

I was poking around on the interwebs and found a New York Times article encouraging readers to write a 600-word essay on why eating meat is ethical.

I am only a year late for entering the contest, but I still felt compelled to write something.

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I was once a Christian who believed that God created mankind and gave us dominion over the beasts of the field.  We were to be good stewards over the earth; being kind to the animals and only using them prudently.  My family raised beef cows for food and as part of our family's livelihood.  There was nothing wrong with this picture.  When I grew older and realized that not all cows lead as happy lives as the ones I raised, I tried to buy meat only from local, more trusted sources instead of CAFOs.  I also started eating less meat when I realized how wasteful (in terms of energy) meat is compared to plants.  I was at peace with my food habits; eating mostly plants, but some meat too.

Then I lost God.

My basis of morality was suddenly no longer on the shoulders of an omniscient being; it was mine alone to bear.  When I realized that for the most part nothing changed, it was not too bad.  Then I realized that I am not a vegan.  I kill (or more correctly, pay others to kill) animals for my food.  Killing is wrong; that is one of my morals.  Knowing that my nine-year-old daughter has a way with reasoning, I put the question to her:  "Is it okay to kill animals for food?"  She answers without hesitation, "Yes.  They kill each other for food too."  So we can kill them, but they cannot kill us, I think to myself.  I ask, "Is it okay if an animal kills a human?"  Her head cocked to the side, with a quizzical look on her face, "Yes."  Obviously a stupid question.

From the mouth of my family's ethicist, it *is* okay to eat the flesh of other animals so long as they are allowed that same privilege.  When a mountain lion mauls your child and eats him for breakfast, there is no need for alarm.  Run!  Don't shoot unless you need to eat breakfast too.

Is eating meat unethical because it requires the death of another animal?  All animals die.  You are an animal and you will die too.  Eating plants requires us to kill living organisms too; does that make eating plants unethical?  A cow that lead a happy life, eating grass and resting in the shade of a tree does not care a whit what happens to his muscle tissue after he dies.  Really, what is so different between plants and animals?  We are all made of the same DNA.  We are all alive because of the energy of the sun.  We are all cousins; trees, fish, monkeys, humans, grass, lichens, etc.  If eating animal flesh is wrong, I would argue that eating plant flesh is every bit as wrong.

Or is eating meat wrong because we *kill* the animal?  If I were that cow, I would certainly rather die at the mercy of a gun than be torn apart by wolves.  Just because death by wolves happens in nature does not mean it is the best end.

I believe that you should be vegan not because it is more ethical, but because it is a more healthy lifestyle.

You know what really is unethical?  Treating animals poorly.  The pain and suffering that animals in so many CAFOs and slaughter houses go through is unethical.  A quick, painless death is not so unethical; it is the most that I can hope for when my time is at an end.

Coping With Death

Life ends with death. A cruel thought. But unless that thought can be sufficiently internalized, processed, and de-stigmatized, life itself can become very unbearable indeed. Enter religion.

The Mormon faith (along with many others) teaches of one form of immortality. The kicker is that if you are good here in this life, you have the chance to be with your loved ones for eternity. Now isn't that a nice idea? Very soothing. *If* you are good enough to merit it.... So don't you worry about your father, mother, son, or daughter, you will see them again. Don't cry, they have returned to live with God. Don't mourn, they are happy now and you should be too. Well, that all assumes that *they* lived righteously enough to merit living with God again. Live righteously and you will live eternally ever after with them.

I never really mourned for my grandfather's death. At the age of 14, I had a unshakable knowledge that all would be well. Sure, I missed him, but I don't even remember shedding a single tear. Not when I first heard the news, not at the funeral, not when I played Taps at the cemetery. He was my mentor in the wood shop and working there was never the same without him. But he lived on in my memory. Now that I no longer believe that I will ever see him again, I feel like my religion took from me the one thing that could help me more than anything else now: my chance to grieve.

I probably would not really be thinking about death too much (being in the prime of my life and all) but a very close relative (who we will call "J") died a few months back. Well, he should have been more close, but to be honest, my relationship with him was more "on paper only" than what one might call a real relationship. I would see him about once a year and that was just because he liked my kids. Yet, since his death, in the intervening weeks, I have, on more than one occasion, shed a tear for him. It's not so much that I miss him, but that it was a shame that he is dead and that the last few years were so hard for him.

To be honest, I can see a lot of his characteristics in myself. This would likely be a lot more scary if I wasn't married to such a wonderful wife, who helps mitigate a lot of my anti-social behaviors. But when I look back at his life and see how full of pain it was (and how different it could have been,) it is like a little stab in the heart. I wonder if this is my weird way of grieving for him.

The kids were pretty shocked when they heard of J's death. But then, given their ages, this is the first death of anyone they were remotely close to that they can remember. Sure, they knew about the death of two great grandmas, but they really hardly knew either one of them at all.

Given that death is such a huge part of life (you know, the part that ENDS life) we really ought to have a better relationship with it.  Many people are afraid of the 'unknown' and face death with a lot of fear and trepidation. Our species goes to great lengths to avoid death; it invented religion as one escape. Some religions offer a way to 'cheat death' via resurrection and 'living forever.' Is this really cheating death or is it merely cheating life because you are not living for today?

Death is inevitable and something that we should all be comfortable with at the least. We don't have to necessarily WELCOME death, but in some cases, it is a blessed release from the pains of this world. Death, according to me, is quite completely the opposite of birth. We had no existence before birth except maybe that twinkle in your Mama's eye; we will have no existence after death except for the memories that live on in the minds of others. But the end itself is not to be feared.

The Book of Mormon Musical

A couple of weekends ago, I was able to attend a performance of The Book of Mormon musical. In two words, it was "f@ckin' awesome." That is not language that I normally use, given it is pretty offensive to many people, but Trey Parker and Matt Stone have no trouble using it when creating their shows. The show had some very offensive material in it, but it seemed to be more an integral part of the show rather than its actual content; like the makeup or costumes for the characters.

Of course, parody isn't reality, and it's the very distortion that makes it appealing and often funny. The danger is not when people laugh but when they take it seriously—if they leave a theater believing that Mormons really do live in some kind of a surreal world of self-deception and illusion

--Michael Otterson, Head of Public Affairs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

I don't think that anyone who actually watched the show thinks that Mormons are that crazy, living in a world of self-deception and illusion, but the truth is that many people (not just Mormons) really do live in that world. What I take from his quote is not that the danger is believing that Mormons live that way, but really, actually living that way. Living in reality (whatever that is) rather than self-deception is the only healthy way to live. I believe that humor is also an important part of a healthy life. Being a post-Mormon, part of me really wanted to see the Mormons getting poked in the eye. And they did, but it wasn't so bad as it could have been. I actually think that Trey and Matt took an almost sympathetic and kind sort of poking at the Mormons (and really at religion on a larger scale).  As my wife said, "It was very crude, but also kind of sweet."

I watched the South Park: About Mormons episode way back when I was still a true-believing Mormon. I found it amusing to hear a complete outsider's view of my beliefs and had to laugh a little. I didn't find it offensive and it did not lead me to lose my testimony. I would have to say that same about The Book of Mormon. It was funny to see a slightly twisted view of what Mormons really do believe. It was a great satire. As such, it gave a lot of food for thought. Some that the LDS church could use to feed its fleeing masses.

I have maggots in my scrotum!

--Village Doctor, The Book of Mormon Musical

The points chosen for abuse were exceptionally well chosen.

1. How can a first-world raised, nineteen (and now eighteen) year-old young man even start to comprehend the problems facing an impoverished, third-world village?
• Unless you have health, food, shelter, and safety, spiritual things don't matter. How can the Book of Mormon (or any book of scripture) cure your maggots, feed your family, keep you safe, etc.?
2. Is not acting on homosexual tendencies really just lying to yourself? Because lying is one of the big Ten.
• The song "Turn It Off" was hilarious.
3. Sal Tlake a-City does not really exist; it's a metaphor!
• All religion should be taken metaphorically. Otherwise you get terrible stuff happening.
4. Some take a lot more time to grow up.
• Arnold learned quickly that it didn't really matter what he was teaching the people; the important thing was to help them—in ways that really mattered at their level.
• Keven, on the other hand took a much longer time to really love the people and see that the Book of Mormon really could not help them (or at least until he could cure AIDS, secure the food supply, guarantee safety, and remove all scrotum maggots.)
5. Mormon Hell was a funny place.
• It's true that Mormon's have a different view on Heaven and Hell than much of the rest of Christianity, but abandoning your mission companion does not put you in the same place as Hitler or Genghis Khan.
• Mormon Hell really is anywhere you are, knowing that you could be somewhere better. So the second level of the Celestial Kingdom of Heaven would be Hell, knowing that you weren't in the first level. But to someone in the Terrestrial or Telestial worlds, both are evidence that where you are is Hell.
6. How is your story really better than mine?
• We all live believing some stories. It is likely that none of the stories in anyone's head are true. So why is the Book of Arnold any less precious than the Book of Mormon?
7. "Hasa diga eebowai" is not a bad way to live, but a better way might be to embrace a way of life that does not depend on God in the first place.

Religion Is a Funny Thing

Religion is a funny thing. So is English, but that is an entirely different story. I find it really strange that at the same time I am leaving the Mormon church and religion in general, my gay dad is trying to find his way back into the Mormon community (while completely open about his husband and his prior excommunication). It's not that he believes the correlated doctrine of the Mormon church is true, but that he craves the unity and community that was forcibly taken away so many years ago when he was excommunicated.

It just struck me as a strange pair of unrelated events.

Makings of a Cult

Religion, cult, there's no real definition of which is which. It's more like, "if the shoe fits". I personally define a "cult" as any religion with fewer followers than Snooki has on Twitter.

--Bill Maher

The difference between a cult and an established religion is sometimes about one generation.

--Scott McLemee, "Rethinking Jonestown", salon.com

Many people have made claims that Mormonism is a cult. Having been on the inside, I can certainly see some of the reasons that people might say this. What I find funny, after hearing about the Russia's Young Guard recently protesting against Mormonism in Russian as a US cult/CIA conspiracy/totalitarian organization, is that all of this is just the pot calling the kettle black. Cult has a very strong negative connotation, to the point that some people argue that we shouldn't even use it.

As a kid, I can remember hearing from other kids in school that Mormonism was not a Christian religion, but a cult. It hurt a little, but I didn't really see any harm in my family's beliefs at that time. But what I am starting to see now, as I start to step further away from religion altogether is that ALL religion is a bit cult-ish. Before I get out the skewers and start roasting on this front, let us pull up some examples of what religion is doing for us today.

Religion has many faces. Some are pretty, others are downright ugly. Take, for example, the idea that all mankind is born in such an awful state that God himself (or his Son) had to come down and be killed in a most brutal manner to save us from original sin. If that is not ugly enough, how about the idea that if you don't accept Jesus as your personal savior, after you die, you will spend the rest of eternity roasting in hell. The Christians are safe, but what about the Muslims, who only believe that Jesus was a prophet? Historically, both religions are willing to die (or kill) to enforce and prove their beliefs, yet both cannot be right. The same goes as we move on to other world religions. Some nice beliefs might be love thy neighbor as thyself. Or the giant relief organizations sponsored by churches around the world. A sinister face that all religions (as well as political views and other cultural memes) have is that children are indoctrinated from an early age to believe that they belong to the only true religion.

Sure, you can call Mormonism a cult, but you have to accept that every other religion in the world has many of the same terrible cult behaviors. The only difference is that for other well-established world religions, the internal biases that people carry from their infancy convince them that their religion is not a cult. I think it is pretty clear that most sane adults would steer clear of a cult if they were approached by it in adulthood. Very few Christians convert to Hindi, and very few Muslims convert to Christianity (and some don't live to tell the tale or live in fear for their lives.) The reason is that those childhood indoctrinations have such a strong hold on the mind as to make all other beliefs seem preposterous.

This is not to say that all religion is bad. Religion has given us many wonderful things: art, music, community, etc. I just wish that we could somehow strain out the ugly parts and keep the good. I think the part of religion that makes it so cult-ish is that when you have a set of [religious] beliefs, you can see and believe nothing that does not fit within that paradigm. This makes it very difficult to see that there even exists grass on the other side of the fence, let alone that it might be greener. And if it is not greener, there is no point in leaving the comfort of your own pasture to seek the unknown. This is why every religion is somewhat cult-ish; very few can escape the fences in their own minds.

How to Live Forever

Brother Brigham was obviously full of something when he said that by living the Word of Wisdom, we should all easily be able to attain at least two hundred years of age ("The Word of Wisdom—Degeneracy—Wickedness in the United States—How to Prolong Life", Journal of Discourses, Volume 12, pp. 117-123).  Yet by pushing the evolutionary envelope, it theoretically would be possible to increase the life span of humans through selective breeding.

I am currently reading "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins.  This idea comes from there.  If we restrict having children until age 40, then after several generations, bump it up to 50, then 60, and so on, eventually, the 'old-age' diseases that are hereditary, including old age itself, would be selectively bred out.  On paper, this sounds all fine and dandy, but first off, it would be very difficult to accomplish, and second, we have no idea what the side effects would be.  Maybe nature would trade off the shorter life span for a smaller brain.  We then would all live long lives as idiots. :)  In the process, it is possible that much of the human gene pool would go extinct, which could also cause problems.

But this is certainly a much more scientifically founded idea than 'no hot drinks, alcohol, or tobacco' will make our marrow and sinews stronger, enabling us to live hundreds of years.

Telling Family

Imagining it is bad. Doing it is worse. Done with it is a weight off my chest.

I have a pretty good imagination, but I don't really think much could have prepared me for telling my family. Especially my folks. Mostly my Mom.

The storm is brewing...

We went to visit my parents and other family in the area, hoping for the chance to talk to Mom and Dad face to face rather than over the phone for this big conversation. I had hoped for a nice conversation with them, but my Dad always seems to dominate the conversation whenever we talk (unless he falls asleep). As per usual, the Dad-dominated conversation turned to politics and why the liberal Left is wrong and why the conservative Right is going to save the country from certain, imminent peril. As I have grown older, there is less and less that I agree with him in these areas, so occasionally, when I could get a word in, I would try to rebut his arguments. On one such occasion, I asked the question, "Do you have to be Mormon to be a good person?" Mom jumped on that immediately and asked "Why?" I think she may have started to suspect something by this point in the conversation.  I had tried to move the conversation over to the whole lack of faith thing several times by this point only to fail. Given her tone and a glance at the clock on the wall, I figured maybe our conversation would have to wait until tomorrow. A quick brush off by my sweet wife and the conversation moved on to other topics, like why we don't need to worry about global climate change because God will step in and fix it before it is too late. Yikes.

The next morning after exercise and a shower, Mom confronts me and says she is worried about me and my family. I tell her that we are fine. She moves on to ask how my testimony is doing. I tell her that it is non-existent. I realize that this may have been somewhat blunt, but I couldn't lie to her and I didn't want her to get the impression that I was merely having questions. Remember that by this time, my questions had moved up the food chain from "was Joseph a true prophet of God?" to "does God exist?" So basically any testimony of anything I had before withered in the presence of the larger question. The only question that had no dependencies in the tenets graph.

The conversation with Mom was mostly how could this happen, where did she go wrong, why didn't I speak up sooner, how can I not believe, etc. I tried to reassure her that she did nothing wrong raising me. I grew up strong in the faith. But when I realized that the things my faith was based on were unfounded, I could no longer depend on that testimony. She did not seem to catch this logical conclusion, making it very hard to talk with her. I didn't want to tell her sooner because until the very last straw, I always assumed that I would figure out how to make this all work and would stay a faithful member of the church. Why bring up worries if I was only going to return? I tried to explain the need for evidence and that a feeling does not count as evidence because I can recreate that on demand, thus invalidating all prior foundations based on feelings. As expected she is really worried about my eternal fate, and I told her that *if* God really does exist and really loves us then he will have to find some way to sort out this little misunderstanding. Then, as expected, she pulled out Pascal's wager, saying what do I have to lose by believing? Really my only answer to that is my sanity and integrity. I could not go on as an orthopraxic member of the church with my personal beliefs so widely different than what the church teaches. At one point she said that she could tell even as far as a year back that something was up, but given that I didn't even know it then (because nothing was) I can chalk that up to over-active 20-20 vision. We covered so many topics, but I don't really think she was actually listening to any of my words, because nothing I said seemed to help her. I think the worst part about this is that I can see both sides of the story, having lived on both sides of the fence.  But from her perspective, the world outside is too dangerous to even think about, let alone step into even for a second. By this time, we were late for our next engagement and the kids were getting impatient, so we called a truce until later.

That night, we all discussed this some more. Mostly it was bearing testimony by parents, but that really doesn't do anything for me, given that their testimonies are not founded in evidence that I can believe. At times the conversation got heated and I nearly walked out more than once, but came back at pleadings to not leave angry. In the end, it was more a "agree to disagree" sort of thing, but it was over.

Over the next few days, I called all my siblings. The sisters, who I don't have quite as much in common anymore, took it pretty hard. Some had friends or in-laws that had recently left the church and were very worried for me and my family. I know just like my Mom, that they are only showing their love and concern, but really at this stage in my life, I am absolutely sure that I can make these decisions for myself. My brother, on the other hand, said, "Yeah, I could kind of see that coming." Unlike my Mom, he is a 'book friend' and he noticed that I had posted a review for "No Man Knows My History." So we talked for five minutes about my disaffection and then continued on for another forty about the things we usually talk about. Nothing had changed. It was wonderful. This was the only good experience that I had talking with my family about my new beliefs.

God of Love

I think all of us would agree that if God exists, we would prefer that he/she/it to be a God of love.  I mean really, who wants a hateful, jealous God?  Well, maybe some of our social conservative politicians worship a hateful God.

(credit: http://memegenerator.net/Vengeful-God)

Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said:

I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.

Did you catch that? <dripping sarcasm>God wanted you to get raped so you could create that little baby that will forever remind you that you were raped. Now that's a loving God!</dripping sarcasm>. But then what does he really mean? Because his first statement is not very ambiguous.

In a mad attempt to recant his words Mourdock said:

God creates life, and that was my point. God does not want rape, and by no means was I suggesting that he does. Rape is a horrible thing, and for anyone to twist my words otherwise is absurd and sick.

Only later when he opens his mouth a third time do we see what is really going on. He has no idea how biology really works:

I believe God controls the universe. I don't believe biology works in an uncontrolled fashion.

Oh, so what he is saying that while God doesn't want the rape, God DOES think that starting a new life as a result of the rape is a good idea and as a result coerces biology to work in a "controlled fashion."

If abortion is only okay in cases where the mother's life is threatened, we are looking at choosing between two lives.  But in the case of abortion because of a rape, the mother (and likely the child) will be permanently, emotionally scarred.  Is that better or worse than aborting the pregnancy? It should be pretty clear by now that I would vote to allow abortion in the case of rape, incest, mother peril, etc.

If Mourdock can put words into God's mouth to say that God intended the rape-induced pregnancy to happen, I think I can put words into God's mouth to say that God is much more interested in the woman's mental well-being and happiness than the rape-induced life of a fetus.

Yes, life is a gift. We should cherish it. Some would debate whether it is from God or not. But would you EVER wish the gift of a rape-induced pregnancy on anyone you love? Do you worship a God who intends this atrocity to happen? Please say, "No!"

Eight Months of Hell

At first I thought I could be a cafeteria Mormon. While the actual cannon of Mormon belief is fairly small, the surrounding beliefs and cultural portions are varied and many. I started with a big list of things I needed to research more before making any decisions about cutting off 'parts of the body' as Paul might suggest.

The whirlwind of questions pelted me mercilessly. It was like the shelf falling off the wall set off an avalanche. Nothing to grab on to. Not much to keep me from going under.

I read Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman, No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, more of the scriptures, almost the entire MormonThink website, various talks from The Journal of Discourses, hundreds of wikipedia pages, and various other websites; I listened to a bunch of the Mormon Stories podcasts, the Mormon Expression podcasts, and a few others; I prayed; I talked with my wife and another friend. This was an all-consuming quest for answers.

I would ask a question, see that it and three others would all depend on a larger question. Then move on to the larger question, only to see that it required another idea. I moved on until the only question out there looming in my mind was, "Is there a God?" If there is, he/she/it has a lot of 'splainin' to do. If not, my world makes a lot more sense because all those other questions are either not important ("Is Joseph a true prophet of God?") or no longer a question ("How does evolution fit in with the creation story?")

I ended up as an atheist. Maybe an agnostic. Whatever.