Gods And Fools

Note to self, on starting profitable new religion

Be sure to base this religion on some conundrum that is so self-contradictory and puzzling that "this story couldn't possibly be made up, because if people had made this up, they'd have done a better job."  Tell people that resolving how they feel about your conundrum is their most important task, as opposed to dealing with all the conundra emanating from rival faiths.   

Let's see...  Angels land on earth, carry me away and show me nine different universes.  They drop me back off and demand that I call on my peers worship them, so that the earth's temperature might drop 2 degrees.  I flee from them foolishly in a gas-guzzling SUV, but they persist till I finally repent and yield. Since I don't know anything about religion, astronomy or climatology, and since I portrayed myself as a fool when I easily could have portrayed myself as a wise man, this must be a real and sincere revelation.  I may be a fool, but I am also now the center of attention.  Hmm, this has got potential...

Next, I need a system of prayer that guarantees miracles but which insists that the greatest miracle of all is when we're spared from what we want. 

Tim's Bathwater

Many thanks to Timmy for his response here, which I'm digesting. 

I'm coming back from a keynote address by Reza Aslan, a modernist/progressive Muslim who attempted to make a case for pan-Abrahamic unity of the three great Western faiths, in a spirit that I think Tim would applaud.

As I wondered if I bought the way in which Aslan smoothed over the various "pox on the unbelievers" doctrines within each of those religions and amplified the "we are all God's children" scriptures, it occurred to me that the real religious battle in every era is not between religions, but between exclusivists and inclusivists within every religion.

Possible new gig

I may well become a regular at the Huffington Post soon.  It would come at a great time, as I may also be signing on with a speaker's bureau.  My platform may finally be solidifying at a time when many columnists and pundits are scrambling for work.  Meanwhile, my agent is reviving my book project.  Good times.

Let me archive this one.

Found this fascinating claim by an atheist on a Richard Dawkins board.  I'll have to mull it, but my first inclination is that he summed up why I walked away:

I've been around enough Christian communities to know that Christianity is closer to being all things to all people than it is to being a clear unifying message to all. This perhaps is to me the most intuitively obvious flaw in the Christian theory of the universe.

Thought for the Day

There is a downside to caring too much about what your family thinks:  Relatives tend either to inflate or deflate your worth, and either form of feedback weakens you.

Now that's an obamanation

Timmy C. notes that this was handed out at a counter-demonstration to the protesting nitwits from Westboro.

Can we talk?

New piece here from the CPD blog, on that wonderful third-rail issue on which few are neutral.

Thought for the Day

Few people board the crazy train alone.  Most do it in groups, surrounded by and tethered to others with similar biases and pathologies; and through their communion they convince themselves they're headed for a grand destination rather than a cliff.

A society of freelancers

Hmm, I'd say this report shows what's inevitable when people become so exposed to such a cacophony of so many gurus claiming that their way is the sole path to success or salvation or good hygiene:

"More than ever before, people are just making up their own stories of who they are. They say, 'I'm everything. I'm nothing. I believe in myself,' " says Barry Kosmin, survey co-author.

Among the key findings in the 2008 survey:

• So many Americans claim no religion at all (15%, up from 8% in 1990), that this category now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics and Baptists. In a nation that has long been mostly Christian, "the challenge to Christianity … does not come from other religions but from a rejection of all forms of organized religion," the report concludes.

Salvation by Lemons: One Way, God's Way, Gold's Way, Which Freakin' Way?

I posted the other day, comparing religious views of salvation ("the path I follow is the one true path which all should follow") to health regimens.  Every fitness instructor has his/her own theory of how to get truly healthy, and this usually involves comically contradictory dogmas and doctrines -- just like what you see in religion, right?

I spent two years at 24 Hour Fitness in Long Beach, where the spin class instructors preached that you should never cycle with low resistance, as it's bad for your knees.  But the Gold's instructors have been hammering us to go ever faster with ever less resistance for extended stints. 

Some trainers have forced me to sprint up the steps in between weight training, to keep my heart rate high; other trainers say that keeping my heart rate that high withers my muscles.

The head trainer at the LA Gold's was stunned to find I had a "high" 20% fat ratio.  He told me this was muscle atrophy, and insisted that I need to build up muscle by eating 6 protein meals a day, which I need to make at home and take to the office.  He told me this was serious business.  I had no interest in paying $1,500 for training, but I realized the stakes were high.

Then the actual trainer to which he assigned me said my fat rate is actually 18%, which is my "target rate," and that I just need to lean out and tone up slightly.  Oh well.

Every expert has a different opinion; some preach stretching and flexibility, some don't, some love cardio, some don't.

Today, my trainer told me that lemon water will reduce salt bloating, so I bought some lemons on the way home.  The Internet had wonderful articles about how lemons will work weight miracles and make my skin shiny and new. 

But then other articles said that lemon water will also wash away more valuable minerals, including calcium.

And yet... still other articles said lemon helps retain calcium. 

Some articles said lemon water has an alkili effect.  Others said it's pure acid. 

What do do...?

I think the reason so many people are dogmatic about religion, or about their health approach, is precisely because it's so confusing, and so contradictory, and so many paths go in so many different directions.  No, not all paths lead to Mt. Olympus, but no two people can seem to agree on how to get to the gawdang mountain. 

If a few of them realize they do agree, they form a tight community that invites everyone to share their own "absolute truth" and ridicules anyone who resists their truth. They, as Eric Hoffer observed, need to expand their flock in order to suppress their own doubts about whether they're on the right path. 

Yet once they've been together for a while, they inevitably realize they don't agree on many things (including their individual interpretrations of their overarching philosophies), and the majority deems the minority a heretic, and the whole process starts again. 

I don't think I'd ultimately say that "there are many ways to be healthy," but I would say that there are many ways to different aspects of health.

But I would not say that one guru or group has all the answers.  There appear to be trade-offs between each school of thought. 

One kind of person will get cynical, lay on the couch with some Lays, and get obese.  Another one makes a decision on one way, then puts on blinders and shouts about how his way is the best way.

The best approach, I think, involves using some intellectual and moral independence in making those trade-offs and choosing a path without feeling an overpowering need to assert that "every knee shall squat and every ab shall crunch to the glory of my gym's way."