I had a raised eyebrow moment when I read this report on the BBC. It’s something that I freely admit I never expected to hear from a serving politician.
To give a quick summary, as I’m aware that these things do vanish sooner or later:
“Atheists could set up their own schools in England under the government’s education reforms, Education Secretary Michael Gove has said.”
The article goes on to explain a little further, with a further quote from Prof Dawkins:
“I would never want to indoctrinate children in atheism, any more than in religion. Instead, children should be taught to ask for evidence, to be sceptical, critical, open-minded.”
I must say that I have watched the argument over faith schools, as they are something I feel strongly about. I agree with Prof Dawkins, children should be taught to think for themselves, be shown critical thinking and the scientific method. Children should not be indoctrinated either for, or against, religion. Put simply, religion has no place in the school system.
I asked a friend who writes more then I do for some feedback on my previous post, she was good enough to give me some clear pointers. But one thing that she made clear was that I’d glossed things over, in fact I’d covered things much too quickly. She’s right and I’m going to make an attempt in the next couple of weeks to explore my ideas in a bit more depth.
I think it’s fair to start with the observation that our religions have, and still can, play a highly controlling part in society. This is usually informally and hand in hand with secular rulers (think religious politicians), but often with enough power of their own that these rulers would not provoke them thoughtlessly. After all, priests could have you executed or banished for arguing with them, and whilst kings have their glamour, priests had a hotline to the ineffable. Of course, as we can see in the West, this power has now shifted heavily towards the secular rulers, to the point that the words of the priests are often disregarded and the police will happily raid a church if they feel they need to (as happened recently in Belgium).
This has, in my opinion, caused a significant move towards faith in a society and its agencies and away from faith in a religion and its agencies. This tends to have a lot of the same characteristics, including an unquestioning belief for many that their society is always right and better, whatever the actual facts might be. Of course, we have a lot invested in these things mentally and often physically and financially, thus the world view that stems from a persons faith (or indeed their society) can frame everything for them. Any challenge to this is highly unwelcome, an observation that leads me onwards.
As in the case of religious faith, questioning this ‘societal faith’ invites swift and harsh criticism from some quarters, which is very understandable in light of my previous paragraph. After all, any challenge to that faith is more than intellectual, it strikes emotionally as well. Our answers to life’s questions and problems are found in the framework of our society or faith. To question that can feel like a very personal attack, it attacks the persons life choices and possibly their sense of who they are.
In religious terms, you’d be a “Heretic”, an “Infidel”, or a “Heathen” and in secular terms you’re a “Commie”, a “Traitor” or a “Subversive”. Interestingly, all of these are ‘ad hominem’ in that they condemn the person without addressing their ideas. I think it’s fair to say that these sort of terms are used to put down the ideas of both secular and religious heretics without thought or consideration. Of course, this is very likely because the faith (whichever that is) can’t afford to have those ideas examined closely. In each respective system you can be ‘excommunicated’ or ‘ostracised’ and capital punishment has been an option in both systems and still is in many places.
In both secular and religious systems we have competing groups and also sub factions within those groups. We can call the groups, ‘faiths’ or ‘nations’, it might then also be fair to call the factions ‘sects’ or ‘political parties’. These groups most often form around a charismatic leader, be it a “Koresh” or a “Stalin”, then power hierarchies form and a dogma is drawn up. There are always disagreements between groups, which can result in conflicts (armed or verbal) for ideology or practical power or the calving of sub groups.
To wrap up this first part, let me say that I take the view that there are definite parallels between a religion and a society. I hope I’ve demonstrated this, or at least planted the seeds of further thought, as is my usual aim. I’m hoping to get more into the ‘Tenets of the Religion’ in Part 2.
I happened across this video, courtesy of TED. It’s a headset that work by reading your brainwaves and at this stage looks like an idea that is coming along very, very nicely.
I’ll only say that I would love one of these for Second Life, but I imagine it’s a few years off a consumer release as yet!
I’ve been harbouring a slightly anti-knowledge view for the last few years. Not against the idea itself, but against what could be termed ‘The Cult of Knowledge’.
I define this as the idea that we should know everything, that to openly confess ignorance is frowned upon. Not to know is intimated as failure, and there is a feeling that we should have all the facts to hand.
It has the result that people are frightened to ask questions, for fear of seeming foolish. I’ve seen this in action throughout my life, in school, college and also at work. I’ve seen people seem frozen with the seeming embarrassment of not knowing, but in reality it’s better to admit this than to carry on under false pretences. I’ve seen managers who expect their staff to have encyclopaedic knowledge of subjects they rarely deal with, and also expect them to waste their time memorising this stuff when a perfectly good reference exists.
Then we have people who consider a particular pet methodology or system (this is prevalent amongst the geek community), if you haven’t heard of it then woe betide you! Yet, one could easily level the charge back: “I was doing quite well without this, I have many calls on my time, why should I spend it on this?”
It seems as if it could be an ego trip, to expect that either you should be able to command encyclopaedic knowledge but also a way of putting down others when they don’t know, a way to stoke a sense of superiority perhaps?
Speaking personally, having had exposure to Taoist thought on the matter, I find the whole notion quite ridiculous.
Chuang-Tzu [1] is quite explicit, “On Levelling all things”:
“For the Tao which is manifest is not Tao. Speech which argues falls short of its aim. Kindness which has fixed objects loses its scope. Integrity which is obvious is not believed in. Courage which pushes itself forward never accomplishes anything. These five are, as it were, round (mellow) with a strong bias towards squareness (sharpness). Therefore that knowledge which stops at what it does not know, is the highest knowledge.”
The Tao Te Ching [2] has it’s own say in Chapter 48:
“Pursue knowledge, daily gain
Pursue Tao, daily loss
Loss and more loss
Until one reaches unattached action
With unattached action, there is nothing one cannot do
Take the world by constantly applying non-interference
The one who interferes is not qualified to take the world”
I prefer to honestly acknowledge that I don’t have all the answers, but if it’s needed, then I’m prepared to make the effort to find out. It’s not the accumulation of knowledge we should value, but the ability to discover and apply knowledge, this knowledge is worthless without the skills that surround it.
I tweeted earlier today that Tameside Council in the UK is closing their Second Life island. I can understand this, especially given the dire state of our public finances. When you consider the reality, SL is probably not the most effective way for a regional council to talk to its citizens.
This brings me to a point I’ve been pondering, it’s not just councils. Why do real life (RL) companies often fail in Second Life ( SL)?
Firstly, I think that a company can fail by not becoming part of the community. SL is not something that can be run in the same way as a corporate website, it requires an engagement with the community, especially if you plan on running a successful business presence.
Secondly, the kinds of products that are successful in SL are not the same as in RL. Yes, Coca Cola and various other companies jumped inworld. But let’s be honest, anybody who wants to drink Coke probably already does. If they don’t then a virtual world is possibly not going to convince them. A car company can offer virtual, drivable versions of its products, which may help RL sales, but whether it will be worth the trouble is questionable at best. IBM seem to be doing quite well in there, but then they are a different kind of company to Coca Cola or a large auto maker.
Thirdly, there are a lot of residents who can and will be very well positioned to compete with RL companies. These residents already have their own established brands, do the job at least as well and tick the community box already.
As a closing remark, I will observe that the companies that prosper bring something to the mix. SL is not just a billboard, not a static website. It’s a dynamic and vibrant virtual ecosystem and economy, thinking you can just walk in and posture is (in this writer’s view) a guaranteed recipe for failure.
Actually, I suspect that a comedian somewhere is getting some great material out of the Catholic Church’s recent announcement. It seems that they’ve made the attempted ordination of women a serious crime, right up there with child abuse and heresy. No, I’m not making this up, the Richard Dawkins Foundation has the story here.
I’ve spoken up in support of women priests before, and also here (also in support of gay clergy) but I would like to say a bit more as I find my patience is wearing very thin.
Now, quite aside from the fact that they’re dismissing half the human race out of hand and showing a breathtaking level of arrogance into the bargain. Just who the hell do they think they’re impressing?
Maybe the Catholic church missed the part where we moved into the 20th century, and then from there into the 21st. If anything is guaranteed to show how out of touch they are with modern society this is it. The zeitgeist has moved on, things are changing and rapidly. The church is going to have to adapt with the times or be swept away, do they not grasp this?
You want my advice? You speak of your faith as a ‘rock’, well the tides of change are wearing at it. Old handholds you thought you had are vanishing, in order to get a good grip again you will need to change position or be carried off by the tide.
This is something that came to me the other day, a stray thought that happened into my mind as I pondered the almost single minded way in which many people block out things that threaten our hold on Business As Usual.
It’s not just an opposition to those of us who hold the view that a big change is coming, a desire to make us shut up and stop spoiling the party with inconvenient reality. It’s not just denial, the stuffing of an envelope full of bad news down the back of the sofa to be ignored; I’ve seen others do it, I’ve done it myself, and I admit this is what our society’s response seems to amount to in some areas. I also know from bitter experience that it’s not a clever game plan in the long term, not clever at all.
But no, that didn’t seem to quite fit somehow. Then I thought of celebrity, media, politics, the whole thing and a thought stood up in my mind and waved – “What if, in an increasingly secular society, our society is our surrogate religion?”
Well, I fired up my trusty mind mapping software and started a map. A little spare time later this is what I have, let me see if I can run with this thought experiment.
In my experience, Religions are based on a series of faith based assumptions that are not to be questioned. Now it seems to me that in the West there’s an unquestioning assumption, held by many, that Western society is better than any other. Well, in many areas that’s true; but in others our record is, to say the least, a little shabby. Those who question this assumption are often labelled “unpatriotic” or worse. Why not call them “Heretics”? After all they hold ideas that are in some areas in disagreement with the status quo and that’s what a Heretic does. It’s OK to play the home team, but not senselessly, we need to admit when we’re wrong.
Exploring further, the world’s religions have tenets that are to be accepted, again on faith. In the West we have Capitalism, the idea of ‘the bottom line’, the ‘doctrine of unlimited growth’, various economic doctrines and in the UK the idea that ‘house prices only go up’ (that’ll get me lynched if I’m not careful). These are clung to with a religious fervour, some due to the consequences of following a failed doctrine, others because there is no room in the heads of the faithful for any internal dissent. Brainwashing, indoctrination, it has to be like this….. we can keep growing…..
Our holy book has the ‘Gospel according to Keynes’, ‘The book of Capitalism’,'The Corporate Handbook’ (though this one varies from place to place). To question these tenets and books is again to invite charges of heresy, the ‘doctrine of unlimited growth’ especially, as our whole faith is bound up in it.
But what of the priests? Our society has a priesthood, politicians and corporate leaders provide guidance and leadership, and they’re only arguably doing any better or worse than the clergy managed overall. In addition we have celebrities, the ranks of our ‘saints’, those whose word and actions many follow adoringly. We can elevate mere mortals as saints as well, through the medium of Reality TV shows such as ‘Pop Idol’ or ‘Big Brother’, though are they any more seemingly valid than the religious ones?
In summing up, am I trying to say religion came first and is somehow more valid? No, but what I’m observing is that as religion vacates the lives of so many, other things are moving in to take it’s place. They’re not necessarily better or worse, but it is certainly going to be interesting to watch.
I have to say that I believe that an awareness of our society’s problems with Peak Oil and the end of growth is creeping slowly further into the mainstream consciousness. The assumptions that our Western way of life is based on are being called further into question over time and the voices doing the questioning are growing more numerous and louder with the passing of time.
With each problem, each speed bump along the way, more people get bumped onto the road towards waking up and people already on the road get moved along. With that said, I know that many people have a colossal investment in Business As Usual, there are many who will fight the coming changes fanatically; even though their position in that of King Canute, their belief in the status quo is almost religious in it’s intensity.
For their part, the Vested Interests; the powers that be, are deploying every while and weapon in their not inconsiderable arsenals to fight this. Every person whose consciousness is raised and who starts thinking freely is a loss for them, a body blow, and the more people that awaken to our situation the easier it is for others to do so.
For my part, I think the VIs are fighting a losing battle. Once a person awakens, it’s impossible to unawaken; a consciousness raised cannot truly be lowered. You may have denial and suppression but that’s all you have, consider that a religion knows that once the conditioning is broken that person is lost to them, it’s the same here. This is a secular raising of consciousness that goes far beyond anything we’ve seen in religious terms.
But that’s a thought, and I will swing towards religion as my final thought in this post. Religions hold views that are in some cases counter to the coming reality, those faiths are in for a shock. For example consider Catholicism and contraception. The coming population issues will challenge and break that teaching, the faithful believe the Pope is infallible, they are about to see both their leader and their faith shown to be in error. Where does that lead?
I received the link to this Carl Sagan video in my RSS today and in light of what’s been happening in the Gulf of Mexico, I thought this was something I had to share.
In common with many people of late, I’ve been watching unfolding events in the Gulf of Mexico with a sense of growing foreboding. The plight of the families and communities caught up in this cataclysm is heartbreaking and images of seabirds covered in oil are distressing.
I’ve been pondering this tragedy and am wondering at the scale of it, a dark stygian cloud seeping beneath the water. Some say it will spread up the Atlantic coastline, indeed, some rumors say it has already begun to. This has been likened to an American Chernobyl, I think that’s an entirely justified comparison.
The cost in terms of both the environment and economy is well covered elsewhere, the political row echoes across the Atlantic, and reading newspaper website comments I wonder if many people in the UK can empathise with Obama. I find myself feeling a deep sympathy for the man, and hoping that he can use this to break the stranglehold of Big Oil and move the US towards an alternative energy policy that includes walkable cities and clean efficient rail.
I was also pondering the effects on the mental level. We’ve been caught out in our greed, as Peter so accurately puts it over at The Buddha Diaries:
“We have known for at least forty years that this dependency was a threat to our well-being and to the natural environment, but have done nothing to address it. Indeed, the reverse, our demand has only increased, our addiction deepened.”
I agree wholeheartedly. This has been brought on by our greed, grasping for the things we feel entitled to, without realising that our sense of entitlement will be our undoing. We have grasped and hoarded with no thought and our “solutions” to the World’s financial mess have seen us grasping at the resources of the future, impoverishing future generations to sate our own appetites.
So, are we Preta, hungry ghosts (speaking psychologically) with an insatiable appetite for a substance or object? Our greed is forcing us recklessly onwards, as evidenced by internal emails from BP. I’ve observed that the drive for profits, and damn the consequences, has stored up some pretty alarming trouble for us. But I plan to cover that another time.
Or can we rise above that? I believe that answer is “yes, we can”. We will need to rediscover our humility in the face of nature, we have pushed too far thinking we could beat the odds; we couldn’t, you don’t beat Mother Nature.
I can only see only one solution. That we must grow into a stewardship of this planet, and learn to use it sustainably; after all, it’s not like we have another. Some vested interests are going to be severely inconvenienced, and will have to learn to restrain their greed but either we do this voluntarily and get a say in how it goes, or we sleep walk into another catastrophe.
