Atheist? Agnostic? Humanist.

I recently saw a video of Neil deGrasse Tyson, who considers himself an agnostic and prefers to avoid the atheist label, talking about his perspective on religion. This and the ensuing conversation got me thinking, to the point that I decided another long-overdue blog is in order. (if you’re interested, the video is here.

 

As some of you know, I struggled with defining my religion (or lack thereof) for a long time. Starting life as a Lutheran, giving that up post-confirmation, then exploring a lot, mainly other versions of Christianity and many Eastern religions. What they all lacked for me was a rational basis, which is one point of this blog. For me, if you are a person who values rationality and evidence/proof, you are far less likely to have deep, religious convictions that drive your everyday life. You might accept that there is some kind of “god” out there, and maybe even a god that set the universe in motion and then watched what happens. But a god that listens to prayers? A god that intercedes? A god that prefers one sports team or athlete to another? A god who blesses your country and by implication damns others? These all seem unlikely.

What I personally realized about religion, for me, is that I liked a lot of the philosophy and at least some of the symbolism, but these didn’t form a basis for belief in any higher power that deserves to be worshiped. And this realization led me to become an atheist for a short amount of time, and then an agnostic for the majority of my life to this point.

But a few years ago that changed. I’d been thinking about it for a while, and found myself speaking to a Unitarian youth group. Ironically or not, my expertise on some humanitarian issues leads me to spend a lot of time with religious people who want to learn more about these issues, and who are often invaluable in working toward solutions.  I actually think “not” on the ironic side, as you find good people everywhere if you look. But my conversion came during Q&A, when one of the students in the audience asked if my personal religious beliefs were part of what drove me to work on this issue. I had to think for a moment, since I wanted to put it in terms the audience would understand. I also wanted to be truthful, and responded that religiously I’m an agnostic, but I see the problem under discussion as a moral issue that goes beyond religion.

After that speech, I returned to some deep thought about how to best describe myself in these terms. And what I realized is that “agnostic” is almost as bad a label for me as “atheist.” When a non-religious person uses these labels, I think that in many ways they are trying to define themselves in the terms that can be understood by a largely religious world. Thus we find different ways to say “I’m not religious.” Some atheists (far fewer agnostics in my experience) choose to prosthelytize about their lack of religion, in response to a loud minority of religious individuals who preach the other way.  Since I’m not someone who needs to shout my lack of belief from the tree tops, this was often a conundrum for me.

What I realized after the Unitarian youth’s question though was that he wasn’t really asking about my religion. And he didn’t really care that much if I was religious or not – if you’ve ever met a Unitarian, you’ll understand this easily enough. I realized what he was really asking was something like this: where does your morality come from, and what drives you to take action?

For most of us, society and culture have taught us that some amount of morality is given to us by our religious upbringing and beliefs. And I believe that one of the undertones of religion is that if you don’t have it, you are somehow less moral. Actually, for most religions this is more a blatant threat than an undertone – believe or go to hell. My apologies to Christian and Muslim friends who don’t like this picture, but from my reading of your books it is pretty accurate. You may not want to focus on what happens to non-believers, and your personal beliefs may not synch with your holy books and churches, but one side gets to be with God/Allah post-death, and the other doesn’t. Jews don’t have a hell, but they still get to be with g*d. So at some level, a moral judgment is being made, even if you don’t personally choose to follow that.

In defining myself as an atheist or an agnostic, I realized a long time ago that I was creating a definition for the rest of the world, not for myself. If it were just me, I simply don’t care. The idea of a god or gods has no importance to me beyond interesting literature and philosophy. And I see no personal relevance to any supernatural aspects or “answers” to what comes after life. On the latter, I can’t know by definition, and I’m ok with that. (and yes, one day science could come up with an after-life-scope that might provide actual evidence, at which time I’ll be happy to revisit this conversation. Until then, it’s all “what-ifs” that are interesting uses of supposition at best for me.)

But back to my Unitarian acquaintance – that kid made me realize that I was labeling myself incorrectly. When I say I’m an “agnostic,” this only refers to my lack of belief in any given god, combined in my case with openness to review evidence if/when presented and work that into my religious worldview. But the agnostic label said absolutely nothing about my morality.

And it was then that I switched to the “humanist” label. It’s self-explanatory at a simplistic level, and if you want more complex you can ask and I’ll be happy to chat about it. Simply put morally, humanism is the idea that humans are the primary unit of analysis for moral questions, and appropriate behavior can be derived from how human beings should be treated. Effectively humanism is centered around a “do unto others” philosophy, shared with many religions. I prefer to think of it as “if you were in that person’s shoes, how would you want to be treated?” Humans should have food, water, shelter, a decent chance to provide for themselves and their families, etc. etc. etc. And these things should be unhindered by others, including governments – you don’t get to stomp on anyone else’s rights and no one else should stomp on yours.

To me, this is a standard of morality that should be normal human behavior. Note that we all stray from this, but at a basic level these things are derivable from the experience of being a human being. “I want this for myself and my loved ones” should lead to “and it seems reasonable that everyone else wants the same things.” That’s the basis of morality. Beyond that, we move into questions of how far can you go to provide these things for yourself, what/who governs what you can and can’t do, etc. That’s society and government, and that’s also a question for another time.

So to answer the implied question posed in Neil deGrasse Tyson’s video – I think if you just say that you’re a “scientist,” you are not fully answering the issue at hand. Being a scientist actually tells me nothing about your morality. It tells me that you value evidentiary truth and rationality, which is important in defining who you are. But it doesn’t tell me what morals drive your use of that search for truth. So are you one of those scientists who doesn’t care what gets in the way, or one who seeks truth to advance the human condition, and avoids harming humans along the way? (or one of many other options) I think deGrasse Tyson may also be a humanist (as I have defined it) from what I know of him, but I also think he wasn’t answering the real question.

On Corporatist Plutocracy (redux)

[Author's note: this is a "best of" blog from my old blog site. I really am trying to get back into the swing of blogging, but grading finals and papers seems to be getting in the way! For those of you who have read it already, feel free to revisit or not. And if I have a new generation of readers, welcome to my world... B]

----------------------------------------------
(Original post November '05)

I’ve been kicking around an idea for some time now, and this seems as good a time as any to go public with it. Comments/thoughts are welcome! (and since this is a public blog...)

Suggestion: the United States is not a "capitalist democracy," but is rather a "corporatist plutocracy." This may beg the question of whether we ever were really either capitalist or democratic, but regardless I think corporatist and plutocratic are better definers today.

Some of you may think this is insane, while others may see it as self-evident and respond with "so what's the problem?" I actually think it is a VERY important distinction. If we are NOT a capitalist democracy, then the people of this country are being fooled and/or lied to every day when the principles and ideals of capitalism and democracy are used as rationales for public action -- and almost every politician of both parties, along with much of the press, either explicitly or implicitly assume these ideals every day.

By way of definition, I am assuming that capitalism is the ideal expressed by Adam Smith, that every individual has a right and desire to increase their own wealth, and they should be at liberty to do this in an open, competitive process, SO LONG AS they don't hurt anyone else or trample on anyone else's liberty while doing this. When applied to governmental policy, under a capitalist system the government should be primarily interested (at least economically) in ensuring fair play and open competition in the economic system, and in making sure that no person hurts another person (at least not without their permission) during economic transactions. btw, I’m not explicitly defending capitalism here, which could be another whole thread – I’m just stating that the US is allegedly capitalistic. Democracy then is a system of government in which each person has an equal ability to take part in the decision-making process, either personally (which rarely happens and arguably doesn't work very well when it does, see California...) or through their elected representatives who a) represent their interests, and b) can be replaced intermittently when they do not.

That being said, I define corporatism as an economic system in which big business is seen as the most important component, driving the economy and leading to the best “good” for everyone (growing jobs, trickle down, etc.) A government that values corporatism will thus do things to benefit big business, sometimes to the detriment of other businesses, individuals, and/or competition. A plutocracy then, in the classic sense, is rule by and/or for the wealthy. Note that this does not need to be some cabalistic meeting of rich people in dark rooms wearing disguises or funny hats, or even leaders selected solely by those with more than x dollars (with x being a huge amount!) – plutocracy can happen anytime that government policies are disproportionately controlled by the rich, and this is typically evident when government policies disproportionately benefit the rich. Plutocracy in practice is unlikely to be blatant, but it can be seen in the end results, and then traced back through things like campaign contributions, lobbying efforts, rich and/or connected politicians, etc.

And this leads to the problem – corporatism in practice is nearly the exact opposite of capitalism – in fact, I can argue (but won’t here) that socialism is more compatible with capitalism (its possible to have a capitalist society with large elements of socialism, e.g. most of Europe). But if corporatism causes government to do things for the benefit of one group that don’t benefit others equally, and if corporatism does NOT foster competition (or at least leave it alone when it isn’t broken), then corporatism is almost by definition anti-capitalist. This is the key part that I think is totally unclear to pretty much all Americans – what’s good for corporations is NOT good capitalism, and in fact probably takes away from the liberty of individuals who are not involved with the corporations that the government is benefiting! For example, when was the last time you heard about the government fostering competition, versus the last time you heard about the government giving a hand out to some business interest or even to a specific company???

On the plutocracy side, I think this is almost self-evident at this point. Most people will pretty freely acknowledge that the rich have more rights and privileges in our society, and clearly more political power.

Something to think about for anyone who thinks the American system of government and way of life is either a good thing, or at least the best thing out there...

-----------------------------
Update, December '08: please note that our recent election has not changed my perspective on this in the least. I hold out minor hope that things will get better, but think its more likely that on issues of corporatism and plutocracy, the new boss will be different than the old boss, but not necessarily better. But I very much hope I'm wrong on this one!

Well tonight thank god its them, instead of you

“Well tonight thank god its them, instead of you”

This is the song line that I probably think of most from the Thanksgiving to Christmas season. I think of the line as an ironic and sad thing, but ultimately in a good way. Most of the people reading this probably don’t remember Band Aid I as anything beyond rock history, but I clearly remember the first time I heard that line. And I remember thinking “what the hell does that mean?”

Over time, I learned that the line caused contention between Bono (who sang it) and Sir Bob Geldof (who wrote it). There seems to be a lot of confusion even about the argument those two had, but that’s not the point. The question is, how could Bono (who has since become the very positive poster child for humanitarian do-gooders who choose to NOT remain anonymous) sing that? What could it mean?

I’m not sure about the original intent, but I know how I choose to view it – its irony – plain and not at all simple.

Its ironic that someone would thank their god that someone else is in pain and dying, but that they are ok. Of course, its ironic at an entirely different level that someone would choose to worship a god who could allow this to happen to other people. And its particularly ironic that many people in the rich, industrialized countries probably didn’t get the irony. I’m afraid that there actually ARE people out there who pray that way – “god, please help the poor, suffering people in Africa, and thank you for not making me one of them.”

And this is all particularly ironic because the song was NOT about what some unseen god did to the poor, starving people in Africa and elsewhere in the world. When taken properly, this song is about the need to HELP these people.

Regardless of your religion or lack thereof, a great thing about the winter holiday season can be the focus on giving. Giving thanks (to whomever you choose). Giving gifts (not just this year’s newest e-toy). And thinking of others. Which, if you choose to be a human being who looks beyond yourself, may also translate into helping others.

By the way, in every religion that I know of, the “god” in question wants human beings to do good things – he/she/it doesn’t usually do things for them.

So I hope you give to your favorite charity. Perhaps plant a tree. Or volunteer at a place that provides necessities to those less fortunate. And beyond all that, inform yourself. And when you get more information, tell others. Do something yourself, let that serve as an example to others, and it probably doesn’t hurt to throw a little guilt into the mix if it will bring someone else on board to help.

Because there’s nothing wrong with appreciating what you have, and even being thankful for the fact that you are not suffering. But there is something right about going out after that and giving at least a little back to those who were born into circumstances less fortunate than yours, or who fell into a less fortunate path.

Starting again at blogspot...

Just a quick starting note here. I originally started blogging a couple of years ago on myspace, first because it was easy, but also because it fulfilled a desire to make it easily available to one of my primary target groups, college students.

Over time though, I've realized that myspace has a few issues that make it desirable to move elsewhere. First, blogs on myspace are much more often in the realm of "I brushed my teeth at 7:34 am this morning, and spit twice." I've never been writing a "personal interest" blog" (and amy still VERY unclear on who finds that stuff interesting...) and thus being blended in with them is a problem. Second, myspace is just plain taken less seriously than other sites, which is too bad; I'd rather the world was a place of fairness and light, where people are judged on their ideas, but hey, we all know how likely that is... Third, the myspace interface is just NOT very good for blogging -- especially if you write off-line and then try to cut and paste something heavily formatted into the myspace blog. If you've tried it, you know how frustrating it is. If not, this is fair warning... And finally, myspace has really become JUST a music spot now, with a whole lot less social stuff going on outside of the artsy realm. A great place to find new music, but not so much for sharing ideas...

Soooooo... I'll now start blogging over here on blogspot. It seems to be reasonably reputable, I did a minimal amount of research which suggests its pretty easy to use, and it was handy. I may eventually go back and post some (or all) of my old posts from myspace, but for now, this is a start.

And if you are finding me here by random, or are moving with me from myspace, please know that I am here not just to share ideas that I've had, but also to hear back from you. Comments, thoughts, questions and rebuttals are always appreciated!

B