A Yaqui Way of Knowing

I bought this poster recently, with 13 different disciplines and their version of the golden rule. You can get one at http://www.scarboromissions.ca/Golden_rule/, along with other related material.

Native Spirituality is lumped into one group. The symbol looks a little like the Great Wheel from the Lakotas. I don’t recognize the quote or the name of the chief who said it. I did notice that the poster does not mention shamans or Carlos Castaneda. I read a couple of the “Don Juan” books in college and wondered for years if there was anything to it. I have met a few people who claimed to have gone to Mexico and found shamans who trained them and now call themselves shamans. I haven’t met one that particularly impressed me.

Castaneda was an anthropoloy student when he wrote his first three books. Maybe if I knew that I would have been a little more skeptical, or if I had read the Time magazine article that described him as “an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a tortilla.” But that would have required going to the library at the time. Now I can just look it up in Wikipedia, where you can find support for whatever opinion you want to adopt. In my defense, he did earn his degree as an anthropologist and was acclaimed by some noted scholars. But before I even knew of the books, he had already been accused of plagarism and the existence of the main subject for his study was called into question.

Taken as a fictional account of a conglomeration of a variety of shamanistic teachings, it is still a worthwhile read. Any study of a spiritual culture with a long history will have some jewels of wisdom and something worth pondering contained within. Taken as something that you might be able to obtain yourself if you follow this spiritual path, I’m pretty sure is a waste of time. And by “pretty sure” I mean it like I’m pretty sure I can’t fly. I have tried a couple times by running really fast down a steep hill and flapping my arms, but I’m not going to jump off a tall building until I figure out how to gain some altitude.

Unfortunately some people read books like this and start right out with an experiment that doesn’t test the assumptions in a way that allows for failure. I’m all for experimentation. There has been some excellent scientific work done with hallucinogenics, one of my earliest blogs discusses it. A bunch of people taking peyote and running around in the desert does not constitute scientific work however.

I also encourage recreation, and finding ways to expand one’s mind. Just don’t fool yourself. If you want to see the result of years of that type of research, I suggest reading The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The final words of that book are, “we blew it”.

There are more people working lately to find sources of valuable insights that are common across many cultures. The idea that someone is going to go on a trek into the wilderness and return with some bit of wisdom that will change the world is fading as we continue to choke off what little wilderness there is. It is fading too because we are losing our sense of “tribe”, our sense that the people we grew up with are the ones who know the best way to survive, and that we are better than those other tribes. That could be a good thing.

A Brief History of God

I have been spending too much time watching YouTubes and chatting on forums lately, so I’m getting behind in blogging. This will be a cross-over of all of that.

I spend some of my time on a site that is mostly populated with atheists. Occasionally an evangelist of some sort comes along with what they think is a bullet-proof explanation for the existence of God. Watching them get blasted is like trying to turn your head when there is an accident on the highway.

A recent one of these had several links to published papers by F. J. Tipler. Tipler is a physicist with a Theory of Everything. I won’t provide the links because I don’t think it is worth it. I have no way of evaluating if his theory is any better than anybody else, other than that he has been peer reviewed and his methods appear sound. I can’t correct his math however. His theory happened to contain a trinity, and he has made some allusions to how it could be compared to Christianity.

Obviously this is a huge leap, but the guy posting at this forum felt it was an obvious correlation and kept repeating his claim. I spent a few years believing that quantum mechanics had some spiritual aspect to it. I learned a lot about physics, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time, but there is no connection. This guy really went overboard, claiming that the universe was coming to an end within 50 years and that his interpretation of Tipler’s theory would allow all of us to live forever. As alluring as that is, I won’t repeat any of it, because it is not worth my time.

In my attempt to debate him, I needed to explain how I think humans got to where we are now, including some humans that have a need to use science to prove Christianity. I wrote this brief history of religion, hope you like it.

So here’s my understanding of how we got to the kind of logic you are claiming. Religion developed as a psychological response to the unknown. Before language, humans started to perceive a past, present and future and attempted to make sense of it. Every teenager who has any sense of responsibility goes through this still today. They realize someone went to a lot of trouble to get them to adulthood and that someone before that did it for their parents and so on. And many (unfortunately not all) also understand that there is a planet that supported all of them and a universe in which it exists.

I called it a psychological response, but this is perfectly consistent with the idea that the Christian God is slowly revealing himself to us, if you want to express it that way. Not everybody sees it that way, as you are well aware. Some people feel the awesomeness of creation and simply take pleasure in it and can see the humor in the odd things that came out of it, like males and females and the awkward fumbling that goes into procreation. Some people see the mystery and want to figure it out. Some people have a need to tell stories to relate to it. Sometimes one person can see it from all perspectives.

George Carlin's 3 Commandments

This is a response to George Carlin’s bit on the 10 commandments. If you haven’t seen it, it’s not hard to find. It was in his book, “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops”. My Mom got me that for Christmas one year.

This is only bleeped version I have found on YouTube It is a televised version of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Part 7 of 8. About 5 and a half minutes in.

First off, I love George Carlin. I have been following him ever since he wore a tie and had short hair when Johnny Carson hosted The Tonight Show and he did the ippy dippy weather man with all the ippy dippy weather, man. He is a comic genius, a hard worker, and I wish I would have thought of doing this before he died. This is not addressed to George anyway, besides he himself said that he wouldn’t care, he wasn’t trying to create any system of beliefs. This is addressed to you, his audience.

So let’s get started, George’s first question is, why 10? I agree with it being a marketing decision. Designed to control? Well, I’d like to control anyone who wants to come into my house, covet my stuff, including my wife, so maybe agreeing not to do that is not such a bad idea. Let’s look at the list.

The first three are dismissed without much discussion because of “spookey language”, “designed to intimidate”. Okay, but let’s look at what’s was going on at the time. It’s kinda important. It takes 6 verses just to cover the first two commandments. This is a time when Gods are related to tribes and to places. Your tribe has a God, and you assume that the tribe down the river has a different God. Your God is better of course and protects you from theirs. You make sacrifices to make that God happy, and you make idols so you can talk to it. But this new God won’t even tell you know his name, and he says he’s the only one, and he doesn’t want idols.

And “remember the sabbath”, you gotta keep that. First of all, a lot of people went to a lot of trouble so we could have weekends. If I have to claim to be religious just so I can have Sunday off, I’ll do it. Besides, how else am I going to know when football is on? You take away the Sabbath, and the next thing you know football looks like baseball with games on Wednesday afternoon. Nobody wants that, it stays.

These people were creating something new, Moses’ people, they just broke the bonds of slavery, that was something really new. If they had not done that, chances are yours and my life would be very different. These are people defining themselves by something other than who they can defeat and enslave. Take this out and you mess with history. And I’m not saying the book of Exodus is historically accurate. It doesn’t matter who begat whom or when the story was finally written down. The story was being told in a time when there were Kings with slaves, and for a bunch of people to be telling stories about how they didn’t need a King, they answered to a higher power, that would have made those Kings kinda nervous. That’s what the first three are about. We keep the first three, if for nothing else, sentimental purposes.

Okay, what’s next, I’m going to stick to the order,“Thou shalt honor thy mother and father”. Controlling, can’t argue with that on this one. And George rightly points out that respect is earned, not dictated. Instead of throwing this one out, let’s take a cue from George and modernize it, and make the language positive, “Thou shalt honor the roles of mothering and fathering”. That means all of you, and puts the responsibility of effective parenting on the adults as well as the children. This is covered in other parts of the Bible. Never had kids, doesn’t matter, the next generation is still your responsibility. Your kids are all grown up, you’re not off the hook, vote for that tax increase to support your schools, somebody paid for your school when you were just starting out, it’s your turn. The kids in your neighborhood are holy terrors, have you tried talking to them instead of yelling at them? Enough said.

Oh boy, next one is the big one, “Thou shalt not kill”. George says “murder”, then quickly moves on, but this is an important point. The interpretation from the Hebrew is possibly “murder”. That makes this one harder to understand, kill is too broad, murder needs definition. Our Western laws allow for killing under certain circumstances, including times of war, if done under the rules of war. We also have guidelines for a just war, guidelines that have not been followed so well typically. We also have rules for when to engage in war. Look up just war theory. Anyone who claims to be fighting a war simply because God told them to should be critically questioned, and historically they have been. Doesn’t always stop them….

I know this phrase, “more killing has been done in the name of God than anything else” has been bandied about for such a long time, that it’s just accepted as true, but the facts don’t support it. Taking the conflicts that George rattles off rapidly, one by one, let’s start with Northern Ireland. Take a look at a map of the furthest extent of the Roman Empire in about 350 AD and note that Ireland is not included. As Rome fell, much of the knowledge of the Greeks and Romans was taken there and preserved as the rest of Europe fell in to the Dark Ages. This is what we celebrate on St. Patrick’s day by the way. Ireland has enjoyed a long tradition of self-rule.

Where do you want to start anyway, with Strongbow, or how about a little more recently, the nicely named Plantation of Ulster? This was the beginning of Protestant and Catholic conflict that still continues. But was it strictly a matter of whose God was better than the other’s or who worshipped the right way? I don’t think so. This has always been a matter of sovereignty and the right to self-govern. Kashmir, pretty much the same, except they are in a cross roads of many governments and cultures and have a long history of changing rulers. Empires such as China, Britain and the United States have tried to get control over this area. Saying this is simply some conflict over whose God can beat up the others is a gross over simplification.

The crusades, wow this one is blown way out of proportion. Yes, it was decreed by a Pope that they would start this war, but where was it to be fought? Were they a world power, seeking to expand their territory and force their beliefs on others? No, the 1st crusade was another in a long line of cultures putting a claim on Jerusalem. In this case the Roman Catholics were the most recently expelled, trying to get it back. If they had done a little negotiating the whole thing probably would have worked out much better, but Emperor Alexius got more than he bargained for when he asked for an army, and the knights took a lot of initiative well beyond the control of King and church. This is more a story of a military out of control than a religion controlling who should kill whom.

As for torture and killing of people for their beliefs, what evidence of this do you have? Much of this mythology comes from Andrew Dickson White and William Draper, two authors who have been disproved by modern historians, but somehow their ideas have perpetuated. What atrocities actually occurred, and how do they compare with the prevailing morals of their time? And how do they compare with today’s system? If you live in America, you live in a country that does a lot of killing and lot of incarcerating. We throw people in jail for minor crimes, and they learn more about how to be criminals in jail than they ever knew while they were out. We are the only modern country that tries minors as if they are adults. Take a look at yourself before you judge any history of collective support for killing.

Finally, he throws in “flying planes into buildings”, the hot button issue of our time. First, they were Muslims, and we are talking about a Jewish document that Christians use but have overridden with the New Testament. Second, they were a tiny minority of Muslims, denounced by many of their same religion. And again, they are angry about a foreign invader coming into their ancient homeland and setting up military bases and taking their resources. Not a justification! Not saying that! They are abusing their own religion to reach a political end. They are violating universal laws of morality, not supported by any modern religion to achieve their goals. I would question if they even could define their own goals any more, or if they understand their own scriptures. “Thou shalt not murder” stays in!

Okay, let’s lighten it up a little now. George jumps around a little and looks at all the coveting going on. One that he actually keeps is “Thou shalt not commit adultery”, he puts the positive spin on it, and combines it with lying and stealing and comes up with “Thou shalt always be honest and faithful”. I like it, you’ve covered most of the core values here. This is right up there with “love your neighbor”. This leads to “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife”. I think George had a good marriage because he doesn’t spend much time here, so neither will I. Let’s keep the modern language in mind and include all definitions of family, so we’ve eliminated 3 by using George’s “especially to the provider of thou nooky.”

A little more time is spent on “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods”. This is a good time to remember that George often used sarcasm. He had a bit on not washing your hands after you go to the bathroom, he said it was a waste of time, unless you get some on your hands, which for him was 2 maybe 3 times a week tops. I’m pretty sure he’s being sarcastic here when he says we should leave “coveting thy neighbor’s goods” alone, ….because that’s what keeps the economy going.” This may be true, and it may get a good laugh, but it’s also very sad. If you are not seeing that setting aside an acre of land, putting a big box on it to live in, burning stuff to keep it warm, filling it with plastic things, adding on another big box with more fuel burning machines in it and keeping them warm, is not working out so well, well then you and I just see things differently.

Competition and a little greed have made progress for a few hundred years, but what has it really got us? Are lights in sneakers really that important? Is spending more money on chewing gum than we do on books really a world in balance? The quality of our food has gone down, our schools are falling apart, and you can’t go anywhere and drink the water if it isn’t in a sealed plastic bottle. If you want to throw out all the other commandments and just focus on this one for a couple decades, I’d be alright with that. Definitely do not eliminate this one.

So, sorry, there are still seven. But I’m not adding on that one that George does, so that’s it.

You know, the one about “Thou shall keep thy religion to thyself”. I’m fine with that as long as you don’t impose on my right to tell a story any more than I impose on yours. No lying, no slander, no inciting people to riot, just telling our stories. All throughout the book of Exodus, it is repeated that the events are happening so the story can be told again and again. Not read, as if the exact words are important, but told, like a story. The New Testament also talks about sharing the story. I’m afraid story telling is an art that we have lost. The trouble starts when someone thinks that they not only should tell you the story, but they should get you to believe it. I think that is what George was saying, and I agree completely. Forcing beliefs on others has no place in the modern world. The roots of understanding that began at least 2,000 years ago, it’s about time we put that into practice. If we worked on understanding the spirit of these 7 guidelines instead of fighting about them, we’d all be a lot better off.

So here they are, and I took the liberty of modernizing some of the language:

Quit worrying about defining god.

Don’t worship any images of him, her or whatever you might visualize. No burning, bleeding or nailing. A little wine and bread and maybe a candle or some oil are okay. Singing is also good.

Take a day off once a week or so, it’s good for you, meditate or go for a walk.

Thou shalt honor the roles of mothering and fathering.

Thou shalt not murder.

Thou shalt always be honest and faithful, especially to the provider of thou nooky. (Thank you George for that one).
You shall not covet things. Have a goal, follow your bliss, but it’s the journey, not the destination. It’s about your passion, not other people’s stuff.

One Hundred Ideas

I said I would favor my United Methodist leanings, and I think I have made good on that. This week, I provide a link to an atheist website. It is a lot of fun to read, especially if you have pre-teen and early teen kids. I’m sure it will get very interesting as the kids grow. I’ll point you to one of my favorite entries, but there are many other good things there, click around.

In the link, his daughter comes up with the idea that a world where many ideas are presented and freely discussed is a better than one where we all think alike. Not a bad idea. I was raised to think for myself, but never thought of it this way.

Many people turn to religion when they start to think about how to teach values to their kids. Unfortunately, they find a confusing array of choices, each with a confusing array or values that they attempt to teach. For some, finding a church that comes close to their values is pretty difficult. As a Sunday School teacher, I had to figure out just what I would choose, Matthew 25 or Leviticus?

In the end, I concluded we are not much further ahead on how to teach values than they were 2,000 years ago. There is no set of rules out there waiting to be discovered. There are plenty of good ideas. I am not ready to write a book on parenting, but on the site linked above, I found something that works for me as guideline when deciding what to teach a young person.

“If it is ever the case that teaching this system to children will mean that later in life they come to hold beliefs that, were they in fact to have had access to alternatives, they would most likely not have chosen for themselves, then it is morally wrong of whoever presumes to impose this system.”
Nicholas Humphrey, Oxford Amnesty Lecture, 1997

The 13th Baktun

The Mayan calendar is made up of cycles. I’m very impressed at their ability to predict movements of the galaxy over long periods. However I wouldn’t say that it is unbelievable, or that they could only have done it with the help of divine or alien help. To say that is to say that they were not as smart as us.

The date that everyone is focusing on right now is the 21st of December, 2012. That date was determined by converting the Mayan calendar to ours. On that date, there will be a close conjunction of the Winter Solstice Sun with the crossing point of the Galactic Equator and Ecliptic. Of course if you’re like me and didn’t pay that much attention in school, you don’t know what any of those things are. In simpler terms, when the Sun rises, the center of the Milky Way will be right behind it. Of course you won’t see it because the Sun will be there.

Some people think this is significant. Given that this is a 5,000 year cycle in a universe that is 14.5 billion years old, I have my doubts.

But I can still have fun with it. It’s easy because there are so many references from so many cultures. Looking up at the sky has been going on for a long time. It is the beginning of much of what we call religion. It is only with the advent of street lights that we have lost the connection to the stars. Phrases like “cast into the outer darkness” or “following a Northern star” have lost their meaning. A surprising number of people don’t even know why our galaxy is named the Milky Way.

Observing the movements of the heavenly bodies is also the source of science. The farther back you go, the harder it gets to separate ritual and science. The person who could place a few rocks on the ground and tell you that they would line up with where the Sun was going to be on a certain day no doubt had a lot of power in the tribe. Predict an eclipse, and you were close to being a God.

Today, you can spend a lot of time on the Internet and find references to Ouroboros, a snake representing the Milky Way, the Greeks Suntelia Aion, Revelation 12:7, Qi energy and the Chinese Year of the Dragon, channeling Lord Metatron, Sun spots, predictions of the poles flipping and crop circles. All somehow related to this one day. Here’s the thing, none of this means anything. Every religion uses the image of death and rebirth, or destruction and re-creation in some form or another. If the Mayan priests were around today, I’m sure they would be loving the attention.

Why are people spending so much time putting together these ancient pieces? Because we don’t have our own story to work from anymore. As an adolescent, I was not handed one version of a story and told that it explained my place in society. I was blasted with a variety of images and had to sort them out myself. Although this made the job more difficult, I prefer it to the simpler model. I live at the 45th parallel in the Northern hemisphere in a quiet place, so the cold dark nights following the winter solstice work just fine as a time to reflect and hopefully renew my energy and think about making the world a better place before the next significant alignment of stars.

I hope you will all find the time to do the same.

If you haven’t heard about this yet, you probably will. I have been following the advance work for the movie 2012, this one is definitely my favorite, and links to all the rest.
This is the End

Via that site, I was led to the 2 part video below. Given the nature of linking on the Internet, I haven’t figured out yet how related the two are, but I like the coverage provided in it. There is a point where he says, “if you don’t want to hear my analysis, feel free to shut off the video at this point”. He shifts to a Biblical analysis. I am always surprised when a seemingly scientific analysis shifts like this. But that’s for another day.

Mr. Deity

I have a couple things cooking, but meanwhile, here’s something really fun I just found. Mr. Deity is somewhat of a Hollywood producer, not caring much about the show he is putting on, but everyone has to put up with him, because he is the deity. He has trouble remembering Jesus’ name, and likes to leave his all knowing power turned off because it’s too much to deal with.

Some of the jokes are better if you know your Bible, like when Jesus and Mr. Deity are discussing the differences between the gospels, but most of it covers the big issues, like why are we here anyway.

From Crackle: Mr. Deity and the Evil - Season 1, Ep 1

The episodes will keep playing if you let them, or you can go to mrdeity.com to pick them out yourself.

Be sure to catch these highlights:

Season 1 Episode 1 – right at the end when they are deciding what evil thing to leave in creation, catch the one right at the end.
Don’t miss the Superbowl extra interview when he explains why he can’t support either team.
Season 2 Episode 1 – It was God who taught George how to mess up the “fool me once, shame on me” saying.
Season 2 Episode 4 – Mr. Deity says, “What would the meek do with the earth?”
Season 2 Episode 8 – Mr. Deity says, “Hardcore atheists are basically just fundamentalist without the big hair and toll free phone number.”
Throughout, Mr. Deity refuses to take responsibility for much of anything, and no one can figure out what “thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain” means.

Doesn't Matter

Remember when Peter Jennings was doing all those reports in Ethiopia? Or was it Catie Couric in Kenya, doesn’t matter. A story I remember from that is of just one of those hungry kids. There was a major famine at the time and somebody decided it was news. Children are always dying somewhere. I don’t mean to be harsh about that, it’s just a fact. It’s unusual when people take note of it. We’ll take days playing out the story of a plane crash, but just as many people die every few minutes of hunger, but that is not news.

This is not a digression, but let’s get back to the one kid.

I don’t remember his name, but somebody did. Some couple, watching those programs sitting in their nice living room in New Jersey or Minnetonka or wherever it was, doesn’t matter, saw one face and got attached to it. They went to great lengths to find that one kid and bring him back to America, so he could grow up healthy. I can remember the video of him arriving at the airport, kind of a stunned look with his jaw hanging down, wondering what all the fuss was about.

For many people that is a heart warming story. For me it’s a little disturbing. For a few it’s just dumb, but we’ll put those people in the “doesn’t matter” bin with the other stuff. It’s disturbing because of the expense of tracking down just one kid. I have spent many hours fighting hunger and I know of one organization in particular, Kids Against Hunger, that can feed people for 25 cents a meal. Just one of the trips that couple made to Africa could have bought a lot of food.

So how do I get something good out of this ridiculous effort that did more to make a couple of suburbanites feel good than it did for a hungry country? The first step is to think of all of the times that someone has said, “If I can help just one person…” and fill in whatever cause that they are working on. This is commonly heard from people who have difficult jobs working with young people who are destroying their own lives and bringing down others with them. It can often seem like you are not making any difference. In those moments of despair saying, “If I can just save the life of one kid, and have them grow up and raise their own healthy children, it will have been worth it.”

Okay, they did that, they saved one kid. The second thing I would love to know, how did their friends and neighbors react? David Sedaris tells a story of two competing suburban families who start giving things to the homeless and bragging about it in their Christmas letters. Eventually they are giving away their own organs just to do their neighbors one better. Among the friends and neighbors of our child saving couple, I imagine the ratios of “didn’t care”, “were inspired”, and “found it disturbing” reflected the general population anywhere.

Is that bad? No. If you are disturbed by it, then you understand the issues, and you are probably involved with something because you know why tracking down one kid doesn’t make sense. If you don’t care, you may be beyond hope, or some other heart warming story will have to cross your path to make any difference. If you were inspired, that’s awesome, I hope you find something to do that does matter.

You know, I wonder what happened to that kid from Ethiopia. I should try to track him down.