I liked the objective, evidence-based view of the scientists, especially that of the main scientist Dr. Grace Augustine. I also noticed the way that she came to believe in the mystical environmentalist religion of the Na’vi. And I’d have to say that if I observed the things that she observed that I would have believed too.

Think about it. She and the other scientists were first amazed to find out that all the plants on Pandora had some kind of chemical/electrical communication system going on between them. She also would have observed in her Na’vi avatar body, as Jake Sully did, that she had an odd sensor thing at the end of her braid that allowed her to tap into that network. Then she finally got to see the magical tree that was at the hub of all the communication. If I were to see an experience all that, I would definitely be leaning toward some sort of pantheism even if I considered it all to be totally natural (as opposed to supernatural). If I had all these signs, all this evidence, that it was true then I’d be right in there with the believers.

Now for the Issac Asimov explanation I promised. In the book Nemesis, a group of humans who have inhabited an asteroid in the increasingly crowded solar system have found a way to leave for another sun. They try to terraform an earth-like moon of a gas-giant planet in orbit around a large red sun, but workers on this new world are continually struck by some sort of ‘madness.’ It turns out that there is a microbial life form covering the planet, but it’s not just bacteria. It’s a huge planet spanning superorganism, and it does not want to be destroyed to let the humans terraform the planet. To top it all, this interconnected mass of microbes is telepathic, and communicates with the main character in the story, a girl named Marlene. In the end it is able to convince them, by communicating though Marlene, to stop the attempts at terraforming.

A common thread in Avatar and Nemesis is that the main characters are generally skeptically minded rational people who encounter the reality things that they had previously thought impossible. And in the face of this mind-boggling evidence they accept what the evidence implies. It’s any open-minded skeptic’s dream.

Of course, this is all fantasy and not reality. These fantastical happenings are commonplace in fiction, but not so much in the real world. Skeptics are not convinced by fanciful speculations and second-hand stories.

So if you are curious about what would cause this skeptical atheist to believe in (fill in the blank) check out the sort of things that convince the skeptics in these stories. Seeing (and verifying) is believing.

1. I seriously doubt that any religion has the truth or the answers for life. It would be inauthentic for me to say stuff like “I think all paths are equal” or something like that. I can see that religious traditions each contain some bits of truth, but not in sort of way the way that they claim.
2. I think it does injustice to the natural world and to humanity to attribute all that is good and delightful in the world to supernatural causes.
3. Because my reasons for not believing in God goes far beyond the injustices in the Bible or the travesties that have been carried out in the name of religion. I know plenty of people who view God as a loving father and I’ve also heard many variations on the “Footprints in the Sand” motif. I also know that there are lots of Protestants, Catholics, and Unitarians who put a strong focus on social justice and other good works. I will work right beside them. But I don’t need to believe in God to pursue social justice, so I see no reason to throw religious belief into the mix.
4. Because morality is a concern of humans, not of God. Morality that is backed only by religious reasons, and not human reason and empathy, is not real morality. Religious morality is the type that keeps Muslim women hidden from head to toe and attempts to justify the killing of abortion doctors and persecutes people for being gay. Purely secular reasons are sufficient for a morality based on empathy and love.
5. Because talk of God or spirits providing your purpose and meaning is a way to avoid the responsibility to create your own purpose and meaning in life.

It has been suggested to me many times that God is not like a judge, but rather like a really good loving father. Since I don’t believe that supernatural beings exist, either ghosts or gods, there is probably not a lot of reason to labor the point. My disbelief in God is not because I think he is not good, it is because I think he is not real. I have only a very minor disagreement with anyone who wants to use the word “god” to describe things that are indisputably real, like the universe. But as far as believing in a God that exists in an objective and independent way, well, I’ve never seen or heard any evidence to convince me that is true.

Anyway, here are the issues I have with the “God as loving father with a broken heart when he sees your suffer” metaphor.

1. Very unlike a human father, God is all-powerful. That instead of merely wishing he could take suffering away from his children, he could actually do it, with amazing ease. A human father, on the other hand, faces the heartbreak of helplessness when his child is sick or hurt and he can do nothing about it. Even if God would have good reasons to allow suffering to continue, he definitely does not face the same issues that a human father would face in that situation.
2. While it is very hard for a human father to explain something to his small child, communication should be a cinch for an all-powerful God. A human father can pick up his child and cuddle and comfort, while God apparently only leaves us to imagine that he is carrying and cuddling us. It’s as if he is not only not able to communicate what is going on, he is not even there at all.
3. The whole metaphor has us as helpless, uncomprehending, and totally dependant infants. Such a philosophy is not conducive to self-respect and confidence and self-responsibility. It is most definitely not conducive to freethought–since it promotes the idea that we are uncomprehending and unable to think for ourselves in the face of the big scary questions of life.

My life is good without God. I am not suffering, nor do a feel a hole in my life that I need God to fill. In times when I am suffering I will do what I can about it, and hopefully I will have the support and care of friends and family. There will not necessarily be any ultimate purpose behind it, and I will not be looking for any.

Unlike Laura Miller, when I was a child the Christian symbolism of Narnia was the most obvious and natural thing in the world to me. I was a Christian child and was used to interpreting just about anything in Biblical terms, from the self-sacrifice of Aslan in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, to the creation of Narnia in The Magician’s Nephew. But there was a problem for me in terms of my faith…I loved Aslan and knew he was intended as an analogue for Jesus. But I could not fully believe that the things Aslan said and did were really representative of Jesus.

Take, for example, this scene from The Last Battle, which is rather like the “Book of Revelations” of Narnia. A great battle is depicted between the forces of Aslan, and those of Tash, a grotesque rival god/demon. Yet, at the end, one of Tash’s young soldiers is welcomed by Aslan into paradise, the New Narnia. Here is the scene in his words after he has entered the New Narnia (the analogue for heaven), having no clue what to expect:

“But I said [to Aslan], Alas, Lord, I am no some of thine but a servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou has done to Tash, I account as service done to me. . . not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him for I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and note that is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me he has truly sworn, although he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do cruelty in my name, then though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted…”

I have always seen this as C.S. Lewis’s idea of what Jesus is like, and how he would reward the good and kind things done by people even if they did them in the name of another religion or another God. Nevermind for a moment that this type of thinking could be used to say that vile things done in the name of God weren’t really done in the name of God. I thought then, and still do now, that any good and just God would accept a person of good intention even if that person was not a believer. This, however, is what I was not taught about God. I could see it as being C.S. Lewis’s view of Jesus, but not how Jesus was portrayed via the Bible and in my church. In the Bible, having the correct belief and professing the correct God was so much more important than that. And I could not accept an interpretation of Jesus that was not compatible with what the Bible said, just because it would be pleasant and a guy who was a theologian liked to think of Jesus that way.

In the Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan always reveals himself to those who honestly doubt him, such as Bree in The Horse and His Boy, even if with a bit of a rebuke. He counts the mythical creatures and gods of Greek and pagan mythology among his followers. He always comes though, like any good hero of fiction. And best of all he was mysterious and exciting: “Not a tame lion.” He was all the things to me that Jesus was supposed to be, but somehow just wasn’t.

Addition:

I just found this article, which describes the situation of another child who had the same thoughts as I did about Aslan and Jesus, that is, Aslan is better. C.S. Lewis’s response is telling.

“Tell Laurence from me, with my love,” Lewis wrote in a detailed letter, “ … [He] can’t really love Aslan more than Jesus, even if he feels that’s what he is doing. For the things he loves Aslan for doing or saying are simply the things Jesus really did and said. So that when Laurence thinks he is loving Aslan, he is really loving Jesus: and perhaps loving Him more than he ever did before. … I don’t think he need be bothered at all. God knows all about the way a little boy’s imagination works (He made it, after all) … .”

from: http://www.spu.edu/depts/uc/response/winter2k6/features/aslan.asp

Of course, Jesus didn’t say just about anything that Aslan says in the books–it’s all artistic licence and interpretation by C.S. Lewis. It’s an example to me of people putting words in to Jesus’s mouth, because that’s the sort of Jesus they want to believe in. Of course, you can put whatever words you want into the mouth of your own fictional character.

• We’re going to have a relaxed class today because it’s near the new moon. Our energy levels are lowest during the new moon.
• Anything about chakras.
• Anything about Kundalini.
• Anything about Ayurveda.
• Claims that any of the above must be real and good because it’s been practiced for 1000′s of years.

I’ve tolerated this stuff for the most part, and have even gone along with it for the sake of experimentation. I have found that, in general, these things have not been core to the classes. The chakra talk I can deal with as being symbolic for different areas and characteristics of the body. No problem. Same with Kundalini. The alternative medicine stuff does set me a bit on edge though. Especially when I read about things like this: http://whatstheharm.net/ayurvedicmedicine.html. Maybe I’ll ask my teacher about that. Were all these people just doing it wrong?

I’m into the holistic aspect of yoga, and this is why it’s been the only exercise program I’ve stuck with regularly going on two years now. I’m not in it “just for the workout,” it’s also about the mental and emotional benefit as well. I’m all for the non-rational–I don’t have to reason everything out and understand how everything works in order to accept it. What I can’t accept is the irrational.  What if some of these things being practiced as part of yoga can actually be harmful?