“Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant’s truce between virtue and vice.” -Thoreau

If you’re playing dice, and you throw seven 7s in a row, you might consider it remarkable, although the likelihood of throwing a 10, 2, 3, 6, 12, 4, and 9, is the same as that of throwing seven 7s. Why is it then that we remember the one and forget the other? It is because our survival as a species depends upon our ability to recognize patterns, the result being that we take advantage of some patterns (such as the seasonal changes that indicate the best time to plant); avoid other patterns (such as the increased risk of being hit by falling rocks during ice melt in high mountains); and imagine still others (as in the case of throwing seven 7s).

I felt frightened when I learned how prevalent randomness is because I took it to mean that I had less control over my destiny than I imagined. I later concluded that, whereas a realistic recognition of what is and isn’t a pattern might not make me feel as safe, it gives me more actual control. Take the case of a ballplayer who pitches a no-hitter while wearing red underwear, and concludes that his future success is more dependent upon red underwear than regular practice. Or consider those who are so enslaved by OCD that they wash their hands a certain number of times at certain intervals, weigh their food to achieve a multiple of that same number, and so on. Belief in an untruth takes energy from productive thoughts and activities and puts it into thoughts and activities that are a waste of time if not destructive.

Another error we humans often make in interpreting reality is that we limit our judgment of what causes an event to that which we either most want to be the cause or most fear to be the cause. For example, a person who is deathly afraid of cancer might interpret every ache and pain as advanced cancer, whereas another person—one who once had cancer—might believe that remission was brought about by chanting the Hare Krishna mantra 1,065 times a day.

Sad to say, a wrong conclusion that is irrationally drawn is less susceptible to being overturned than a wrong conclusion that is rationally drawn. The reason for this is that if you draw a wrong conclusion through rationality, you’re more likely to be open to changing your conclusion through rationality because it is with rationality that your allegiance lies; whereas if you draw a wrong conclusion through an allegiance to that which lacks a rational foundation, how are you to be reached?

"Jizo is a bodhisattva...

...a divine being of infinite grace and compassion who forestalls his own buddhahood in order to help sentient beings to enlightenment. Since the 10th century, he has been portrayed as a young, itinerant monk who carries a pilgrim's staff and a wish-granting jewel. He is popularly believed to assist those condemned to the torments of hell, and the wayward souls of deceased children. This statue shows Jizo descending from the heavens, as suggested by the cloud that supports his lotus pedestal. The exquisite workmanship and extreme elegance of the figure, particularly the serene beauty of the face, are elements associated with the Kei school of sculptors active during the Kamakura period (1185-1336).” –the Minneapolis Institute of Art

As you might recall, my two years in a group marriage in Minneapolis were so hard that I can think of little good to say about them—the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the First Unitarian Society, the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, and a few friends with whom I’ve lost contact, were about it. This 13^th century wood and lacquer statue is but 26” tall, and I all but ran to it the first time I saw it. Those two years marked the only time in my life that I lived near preternaturally beautiful art from every age and every part of the world, and my only regret is that I wasn’t able to take better advantage of it.

After I put this post online just now, I sat looking at the statue and wondering if anyone would understand how beautiful it is. You might respond that beauty is subjective, and I would agree inasmuch as our species is concerned, but, as I see it, that's the problem. How can any species that considers the concept of beauty to be less than absolute (more real than real) be a terribly worthwhile species. When beauty screams at us so loudly, how can we not hear it? 

How dead people are like cats

Dead people are like cats in that you can free associate with them, and they won’t turn away no matter what you say (although cats are prone to interrupt a full hour before mealtime).

My blog is about as close as I come to free association. Yet, more is always possible, and so I tend to write about the same things.

P.S . The portrait is from 1866 and was made by Julia Cameron of Julia Jackson whose only claims to fame are that she was Virginia Woof's mother and Julia Cameron's favorite photographic subject. 

There's an erotic exoticism of the deepest sort about the past, especially when it's remote enough that all those people, who were once so alive, have long since been consumed by worms. How can I reconcile myself to the beauty that has been lost, even the beauty that no eye ever witnessed? 

“Art thou angry with him whose armpits stink...whose mouth smells foul? What good will this danger do thee?”*

Potentially helpful criticism means calling attention to verifiable mistakes in a person’s facts, actions, or reasoning.

Potentially destructive criticism means offering unverifiable explanations for a person’s thoughts, actions, or character.

I am sometimes praised for having the courage to be open, but I don’t see it as courage because unhelpful criticism has little power to hurt me and therefore little power to inhibit me. I’ll give an example of such criticism by relating an incident that occurred in a philosophy class in 1968. Our homework had been to read a passage from Nietzsche. I enjoyed the reading and looked forward to the discussion, so I was disappointed when the professor dismissed Nietzsche in the space of three minutes by claiming that his overman philosophy was an “obvious attempt to compensate for physical frailty.” Had Nietzsche been in my class, heard what the professor said, and taken it to heart, he might have gone away feeling embarrassed and exposed. He might have told himself that, since he was frail, the professor must surely be right. Yet, even if the professor had been right about Nietzsche’s frailty having inspired his philosophy, he wouldn’t have invalidated Nietzsche’s philosophy because he hadn’t said a word about it, having limited his remarks to unverifiable and irrelevant conjectures regarding Nietzsche’s psychology.

Such statements amount to an ad hominem attack, although they are often presented as an attempt to help the person whose actions or beliefs are being dismissed. I sometimes run into them due to my atheism, a common argument being: “You only call yourself an atheist because you grew up in a fundamentalist household in which God was portrayed in such a cruel way that you came to hate him. Once you see that God isn’t like that, you will no longer call yourself an atheist.” Such statements ignore the fact that my two best fundamentalist friends from those years are still fundamentalists, but, more to the point, they imply that my atheism isn’t worth examining on its own merits but is entirely the result of a trauma that the speaker presumes the insight to diagnose if not to treat. Because such remarks are irrelevant to the validity of my non-belief, and because I regard psychological analysis as pseudoscientific drivel, I respond by losing a measure of respect for the rationality of the people who make them. If I answer at all, it is only to ask, “What is your evidence?” although I know very well that there is none, and that the speaker will most likely answer my request with more unsubstantiable psychodrivel, i.e. “You’re in denial.”

I would say the following to anyone who is so hurt by condescending nonsense—whether it’s meant to be insulting or not—that it makes them afraid to be open: “It’s their problem not yours, and why should you take on their problem?” My willingness to let people keep their problem is why I insist that my openness has nothing to do with courage, but is the result of being experienced enough to see people as they are, which is often irrational. If someone says something about you (or about anything), but has no evidence to support it, why should you believe it? Rising above their insults and condescension is as simple as that, and the more you do it, the better you get.

I could end this here, but I want to say a little more about the kind of criticism I receive regarding atheism because some of you receive it too. The world contains many people who not only regard reason and evidence as unnecessary but go so far as to claim that they are positive hindrances to the discovery of truth, because, as they imagine, “truth lies deeper.” This is not an assumption that they apply to the material world of plugged toilets, blown light bulbs, and dead car batteries, but only to the world of what they call “faith and spirituality.” Unfortunately for them, the only way that I know to establish objective truth is through reason and evidence, and since they have none, communication becomes a problem. I can enjoy talking to believers about belief, and I even love and respect some of them, but it would be absurd for either of us to think that we were going to change the other's mind, because we lack a shared standard for determining truth. I think their standard is ridiculous, and they think my standard is the result of what they call spiritual blindness, i.e. the devil has me by the nuts.

*Marcus Aurelius. The photo is of a fragment of a bronze portrait of him. I think he's extremely handsome, and I wish I could have known him.