and not this:

- Signed, a Canadian in solidarity with OWS.

To Bloggers: Support Occupy Wall Street via Blog-Bombing.

The term is inspired by the concept of Tweet-Bombing, in which many Tweeters engage en masse in tweeting a particular message in order to fill the Tweetosphere with the message. In the case of Blog-Bombing, the idea is for bloggers to make regular (e.g., daily, every few days) quick blog posts in support of Occupy Wall Street so that such posts continually appearing on community blog feed programs such as those run by the major blog platforms – e.g., WordPress. These posts can contain short messages, pictures, videos, links, etc.

My first OWS Blog-Bomb contribution (Note: Posts need not be this long or detailed; the point is to get the word out – JUST POST):

I Support Occupy Wall Street Because…

• I don’t want wealthy, well-connected individuals, corporations and lobbies buying politicians;

• I believe that having a large and secure middle class is vital to a democracy, and that massive gaps between haves and have-nots creates vast political inequality and exploitation;

• I believe that America could simultaneously lower its taxes while also improving its financial stability, healthcare, education and social security systems, domestic and international security and international reputation by countering the costly influence of corporate/industry lobbies (e.g., insurance, pharmaceuticals, defense, private prisons).

• Crony Capitalism is not Capitalism.

• I want America to be this:

and not this:

- Signed, a Canadian in solidarity with OWS.

This is not to discount traditional scouting. I think that the ideal path is the combination of advanced scientific and statistical analysis with expert experiential baseball knowledge. The baseball pro is invaluable in generating testable hypotheses, interpreting data, and responding when there are no numbers or no time for numbers, and so forth. The numbers approach is good because it adds a level of rigor that individual minds often lack and allows for consideration of volumes of data and variables that the individual mind would be hopeless to deal with.

Not everyone likes the Moneyball school of thought, however. As recounted by Michael Lewis in the new Afterword to Moneyball in a recent reprint of the book, many baseball insiders – baseball writers, managers, GMs, ex-ball players, etc. – aggressively scorned the book – usually without even having read it. Some, Lewis claimed, exuded pride in their having not read it and refusal to read it. Another set of detractors that do appear to have read the book exist in Sheldon and Alan Hirsch, who penned the book The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball.

Has anybody read this book? I haven’t, but am considering doing so.

The book, from the summaries I’ve read, argues that Michael Lewis’ Moneyball book (and the subsequent movie) ignore 1) the fact that, for non-moneyball reasons, the A’s had 3 of the best starting pitchers in the game at the time – Barry Zito, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder, and that this was a massive contributing factor to the teams’ success; 2) that chance alone would allow even poor teams to put together a string of good years every now and then; and 3) that chance and circumstance (e.g., bad hops, fan interference, wind, etc.) play a big role in baseball that stats largely can’t account for.

I have to say that, based on the summaries and blurbs on the book authored by the authors, I have some strong skepticism regarding this book’s skepticism toward Moneyball.

Firstly, yes the A’s did have the three big pitchers. However, even after losing Jason Giambi (probably the second most dangerous offensive player in the game at the time), Johnny Damon and Jason Isringhausen, being forced by a tight wallet to replace them with low-rent players that the A’s statistical analyses suggested were tremendously undervalued on the free agent market, the A’s managed to outperform their previous year’s performance, prior to losing these three core players. What is more, they won 103 games (they’d won 102 the year before)! These are STUNNINGLY, EXCEPTIONALLY good win totals! Now, yes, chance, chance, chance. Sure, this team had one of the few lowest payrolls every year from 1999 to 2006 but never won fewer than 54% of their games during that period (this, by the way, is GOOD!), and had an average winning percentage near 60% (this is GREAT!), but yes, chance, chance, chance. Can’t discount chance. Plus, not all of their players were the product of Moneyball methods, and the team wasn’t nearly as poor just prior to this string of 8 consecutive strong years. The team has also done quite poorly since 2006 – though one could argue that this was due in part to their trade secrets having gotten out. So fine. But this is hardly the mother lode of my skepticism.

The Mother Lode of My Skepticism

Yes, chance and circumstance are big parts of baseball and they muddy up prediction, but that does not take away all the value of good data. Chance affects everyone and every game, but some players at the end of the day get on base more often than others (and thus get out less and score more, all else equal) – that matters. As was said repeatedly in Moneyball, Beane saw himself not as a fortune teller but as a card counter at a casino. Card counters don’t know the next card, but they can make probabilistic inferences. To the degree that a team’s management is able to identify, collect and mathematically analyze data that is keenly relevant to the winning and losing of games (or factors indirectly related to this – e.g., bullpen longevity across a 3-game series) or a players value in terms of productivity, the better off they will be, despite still being subject to chance. So long as it is used effectively and weighed in proportion to its epistemological value (that is, one does not under or over-estimate what they know), more information is good.

Can Advanced Baseball Statistics Make a Team Less Vulnerable to Chance?

It can be argued that a team run by card counters may be somewhat less susceptible to chance by virtue of having made more of the unpredictable predictable. A long time ago humanity had no idea what the weather would be like over the next day or two. Today, we still don’t know for sure, but we can make predictions that are more accurate than coin-flipping. That’s an informational advantage over people of the past that allows us to do a bit better than simply taking our chances on the weather. Good baseball data identification, collection and analysis could give the card counting team a bit more leverage over chance. There will still be bad hops, freak accidents, fan interference, pigeons in the wrong place at the wrong time, April flurries and powerful headwinds that will chance the game in ways that stats can hardly address specifically. But these factors affect every team; I’d rather be on the team with more information. What is more, the player with strong aggregate statistics is apparently playing better than other players against the broad spectrum of playing conditions and freak occurrences that take place over the course of the 162 game season.

If anyone has actually read the Hirsch’s book, or objects to Moneyball or anything stated here, please share your views.

PS: Since this is my first substantive baseball/Sabermetrics post, I’ll drop a few links to baseball blogs and sites I’ve been following so that interested readers can take a look at them and, hopefully, some of these bloggers will come here and share their views on this post. You’ll recognize immediately the team that I favour.

Drunk Jays Fans

Mop Up Duty

Blue Jay Hunter

Tao of Stieb

Bleacher Report – Blue Jays- Stephen Brown

Concepts to be addressed:

• Monism
• Atheism
• Impermanence, Emptiness and Dependent Origination
• No Self (or No Soul)
• Attachment as source of Suffering; Letting Go as source of Freedom
• Pursuing Wisdom, not Happiness
• Mindfulness as a path to Wisdom and Wellness
• Reincarnation and Rebirth
• Karma

I. Monism

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are dualist; they divide reality into spiritual/mental reality, on the one hand, and physical/natural reality, on the other. Buddhism has always viewed the mental and physical as being interacting parts of a greater, unified whole. Modern science has favoured monism. For more, see Solving the Mind-Body Problem in Five Minutes.

II. Atheism

Buddhism is also atheistic. The Buddha is not the God of Buddhism. He was just a guy that thought of some useful ideas and practices that a lot of people found value in. Contrary to theistic religions that view reality as comprising a natural realm for mundane materials and mere mortals, and a supernatural realm for God(s) and spirits, Buddhism holds that all there is is this world; and this world has no Gods.

III. Impermanence, Emptiness, Dependent Origination, and No Self

Impermanence refers to how there is nothing that has a permanent, unchanging existence. Reality is dynamic, not static. Everything is constantly in flux and in interaction with its environment. This applies to what we call the physical world, from orbiting electrons, to bonding and breaking molecules, constantly changing cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, organisms, ecosystems, and so on. It also applies to us as individuals. Our personalities, attitudes, beliefs, habits, and everything about us is in constant interaction with our social and physical environments, all susceptible to modification or termination, though some tend to be more enduring than others. No Self, or No Soul, refers to how there is no such thing as an enduring personal essence or soul.

Dependent Origination refers to the transactional nature of everything. No part of the universe gains its nature independent of the universe. Everything that is is a part of the greater system.

Emptiness refers to each thing’s lack of any sort of permanent identity or essence. Everything is made of and through the interactions of other things. Science has yet to find anything that can be described as true atoms of the universe – genuinely indivisible, elementary particles.

IV. Attachment as Source of Suffering and Letting Go as Source of Freedom

There are many things that a person can become attached to, cling to or crave. They can range from possessions, to social positions and eras (e.g., rank, job, relationships, the university years, “the good old days”), body shape, physical health status, self-concepts, happiness ideals, and so on.

“God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.”

- From The Serenity Prayer, by Reinhold Niebuhr

Where attachment often leads to suffering is when the individual fails to appreciate that some things in life are controllable and some things are not. Clinging to or hinging one’s sense of self, well-being or reason for living on things that are beyond our control makes one unnecessarily vulnerable. Possessions can be broken, stolen or never had; relationships can end or never be had; valued social positions can be lost or never had; the last 5 pounds may never be lost or may continue to pop back on upon; there’s almost always someone else that can do what you love to do better than you can; the college years end; vacations end; hips break.

In life, there will always be pain. Suffering joins the pain when we fail to accept that which is and which cannot be changed. Letting go  is about moving past attachment to that which we cannot control. Notice that this is not pacifism. It’s not about doing nothing. It’s about having the wisdom to recognize that which is beyond our control; it says nothing about acting when action can produce positive outcomes.

V. Pursuing Wisdom, Not Happiness

Pursuing happiness is risky. Happiness is one of those things that we cannot fully control. Sometimes we “get up on the wrong side of the bed”; that is, for whatever reason, some days we wake up and are in crappy moods. Sometimes we get rejected, insulted, broken up with, fired, downsized, lied to, beaten up, injured, sick, hungover, and so on. If being happy is our goal, we’re often going to be frustrated. What is more, sometimes our emotions are not willing to be bossed around by our pre-frontal cortices. Telling negative thoughts or feelings to go away and happiness and positive emotions to come out is often about as effective as singing “rain, rain go away….”. This can lead to even more frustration, as now we’re not only upset about what initially upset us; we’re also upset that we are not happy and don’t have the foggiest clue about how to make ourselves happy. So, 

not only is happiness not fully within our control, when we try to control it we often push it further away.

The pursuit of wisdom is the continual honing of one’s understanding of his or her thinking, feelings, and behaviour, the world, how these facets of reality interact, and striving to apply this understanding skillfully. The cultivation of wisdom is far more within our control than is happiness. Incidentally, pursuing wisdom is far more likely to bring us happiness, wellness and serenity than is pursuing these ideals directly. Put another way,

the path is a key concept in Buddhism. Buddhism is very much about process and path, not product and destination. Pursuing the destination of happiness can create an arduous trip that never gets us to where we want to go. Focusing on traveling in a way that builds and exercises wisdom can have the effect of enabling us to travel happily to wherever we are going.

VI. Mindfulness as a Path to Wisdom and Wellness

Mindfulness practices, most notably meditation, has enjoyed an explosion of interest, excitement and inquiry in the West in recent decades. Originating largely from Eastern traditions such as Buddhism, mindfulness meditation has received extensive support in the medical and psychological research communities as an effective therapeutic approach for dealing with depression, anxiety, emotion dysregulation, chronic pain management, addictions recovery, impaired concentration and more.

What is Mindfulness Meditation?

There are various approaches to meditation. The form that I practice involves focusing on the breath. Because it is a dynamic process that happens *right now*, the breath can serve as an anchor to the present moment. By practicing maintaining an attention to the breath, one develops a recognition of what it feels like to be mindful of the present moment. As this recognition becomes more learned, the individual gets better and better at noticing when their mind has wondered off to thoughts about the future, the past, hypothetical wondering, judgment, and so on. The individual likewise becomes more adept at returning their attention to the present moment. What is more, the individual gets better at recognizing thoughts as thoughts, and emotions as emotions, and learning that neither are synonymous with either the “self” or reality. Relatedly, a terrific adjunct to mindfulness is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which comprises strategies for rational thought/emotion analysis and behavioural modification.

By enabling one to continually recognize that the thoughts and emotions that run through them are simply thoughts and emotions – not definitive statements on the nature of oneself, the world and how one must think, feel and act – mindfulness empowers the individual.

Mindfulness also offers an effective approach for reducing suffering. In life, pain is guaranteed. When confronted with pain people often respond by attempting to fight or flee from the pain or its source. Sometimes this is effective. However, sometimes the source of the pain is unfightable and/or unfleeable. Trying to fight or flee from these types of pain only makes things worse in two ways. Firstly, by getting ourselves all worked up and frustrated as we try but fail to fight off or flee from the pain, we increase the total pain experienced. This secondary pain often includes the anguish that comes with thoughts of how many times one has experienced such pain in the past and failed to snuff it out. Secondly, by attempting to stop the pain as soon as possible, we build the pain up in our mind. Each time we attempt to beat the pain down or run away from it and refuse to just be with hit, we are reinforcing the notion that what we cannot tolerate it.

By mindfully being with the pain in this one moment, we reduce the total amount of pain that we experience by eliminating the anguish tied to frustrated fight-or-flight responses and memories of previous bouts with similarly painful experiences. What is more, by exposing oneself to the pain – often necessarily in gradual, incremental doses at first – one often comes to find that the pain isn’t as painful as they had previously imagined. By being with the pain moment-to-moment, simply observing it like a single wave on the ocean, not trying to push it away, one also notices that the pain will often dissipate in time on its own accord. In one of the great ironies of the universe, attempting to crush or flee from pain often strengthens and prolongs it, while steadfastly confronting it often shrinks and shortens it (that’s what she said).

VII. Reincarnation and Rebirth

There is no scientific reason to believe in literal reincarnation. This is one of those Buddhist ideas that can be more constructively viewed in metaphorical terms. My way of looking at is that each time we change our path, our previous path dies and the next one is born. In terms of wisdom and wellness, not all paths are equal. Some turns will bring as more wisdom and wellness than others. Moreover, not all forks in the road (i.e., decision points) are as big and monumental as others. In fact, most are so trivial as to make talk of reincarnation and rebirth ludicrous. But some are huge. Some beliefs and life orientations can be very destructive to the individual and/or others. Others can alleviate suffering, bring one closer to others, lead to increased confidence, and so on.

As an individual matures in their ability to mindfully observe their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours in the moment, as they come to recognize their thoughts as thoughts and emotions as emotions, and becomes more adept at recognizing in real time that this or that thought or emotion may or may not be in harmony with reality or one’s best interests, they may feel like a new, wiser person.

VIII. Karma

Except in physicalist of terms – i.e., Newton’s each action is opposed by an equal and opposite reaction – I dismiss literal interpretation of karma. I see no reason to believe that if I do something nice for someone there is some sort of universal force that will ensure that something equally nice happens to me at some point. However, I think that a useful metaphorical interpretation of karma is possible.

This interpretation is based on the notion that acting against others often serves to separate us from them and isolates us. It separates us in terms of decreasing our social supports and increasing the chances that others may wish to act against us in the future. In terms of empathy, it reflects and/or creates an increased need to exhibit decreased empathy. It isolates us by reflecting and/or creating a gulf between self and others. Preoccupation with the self and the fostering an unnecessarily adversarial view of the self in relation to others can be a hot-bed for anxiety, depression and social problems.

What is more, acting with consideration of others can make us feel good, give us the sense of mastery that comes from knowing that one has the ability to improve the lives of others, expand our social supports, decrease the chances of others acting against us, and can decrease obsessing over the self. For these reasons, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) – a leading clinically validated cognitive behavioural therapy for people with significant emotional dysregulation – recommends doing things for others as one of many approaches to tolerating distressing emotional states. Though developed in America in the 1990s, ideas and practices from Zen Buddhism form part of the core of DBT.

Final Thoughts

I suspect that skeptics may view the arguments made here for metaphorical interpretations of karma and reincarnation/rebirth as the weakest arguments offered in this post. I acknowledge that they do not have the precision nor the breadth or consistency of application of purely scientific ideas. Nevertheless, they do have a certain metaphorical sensibility to them. It is these sorts of metaphorical interpretations that many – though not all – Buddhists sympathize with.

While I do not call myself a Buddhist, I’ve been told that many of my beliefs and practices are very in-line with Buddhism. What is more, as far as I can tell, no religion has generated more theoretically rich and actionable philosophy than Buddhism. Well-known atheist author and speaker Sam Harris has made similarly favourable comparisons between Buddhism and other Eastern wisdom-based religions and other world religions.

Buddhism is not perfect. It’s not intellectually flawless. But no philosophy is. If you do not want to be connected with ideas that you do not ascribe to, or with the very practice of religious affiliation, don’t call yourself a Buddhist. But if you want to open yourself to a wealth of valuable ideas and practices for cultivating wisdom and wellness, I humbly suggest that you resist any urge to not consider ideas connected to Buddhism simply because they’re Buddhist or religious. Likewise, try not to trust the ideas just because they’re Buddhist. Look into the scientific research literature, reason through the ideas yourself, try out meditation and talk to others that have been doing it for a while.

The Buddha and Sam Harris would both endorse this type of skeptical due diligence

• Reasonable goal setting;
• Commitment and discipline;
• Tolerance for lapses;
• Support;
• Substitutions, Distractions and Strategies; and
• Mindfulness and insight into the nature of one’s emotions and thought.

I. Setting Challenging But Attainable Goals

A good way to get off to a poor start in any attempt at personal improvement is setting goals that do not match the individual in his or her current circumstances. If one sets goals that are too high, they are setting themselves up to be overwhelmed, discouraged and defeated. On the other hand, if they set the bar too low they may succumb to boredom and discouragement and may rob themselves of the excitement that comes from observing meaningful change happen in real-time, all because improvement is so slow-going. A common acronym for effective goal setting in healthcare settings is SMART. Goals should be:

S – Specific. Rather than saying “I’m going to decrease my smoking”, a more specific goal would be “I am going to smoke only 20 cigarrettes a day for the first 2 weeks, 19 for the next 2, 18 for the next 3, and so on”.

M – Measurable. Progress toward the goal needs to be trackable. The example given for Specific is trackable. By contrast, if the goal is to decrease judgmental thinking, it is only trackable if the person is keeping track of the number of judgmental thoughts they have (e.g., by adding a check to a running tally each time the person realizes they’ve had a judgmental thought).

A- Attainable; and R- Realistic. I’ve always found these two to be significantly overlapping and suspect that they were both included just to fill the SMART acronym. Anyhow, goals should be realistic and attainable. They should challenge but not overwhelm one’s abilities and personal orientation with regard to goal pursuit. For example, some people may do well quitting smoking cold turkey. For others, this type of approach would guarantee failure from the very beginning. Goal planning should also be considerate of one’s current circumstances. If the individual is already engaged in a variety of other very personally taxing endeavors (e.g., working two jobs, family difficulties), then they may want to work on kicking their addiction at a slower pace; depending on the type of addiction that they are dealing with, they may even want to delay getting started if some of their other endeavors are going to be winding down soon.

T- Timed. Goal pursuit – e.g., attainment of specific milestones – should be scheduled. Setting challenging but achievable milestone achievement dates is motivating and keeps one on track.

II. Commitment & Discipline

In order to attain a challenging goal, unless the goal is extraneously imposed on the person by a whip-cracking disciplinarian, the person needs to be committed to the goal. How is one to climb a challenging mountain if they couldn’t care less whether they make it up or not? What’s the point of exercising the self-discipline to fore-go immediate gratification when one doesn’t particularly care about the end result?

III. Tolerance for Lapses

Sometimes we slip up. For any number of reasons – e.g., being tired due to too little sleep or two much work, being overwhelmed by various difficult life events, being tempted by environmental triggers (e.g., Friday night at the bar with one’s friends, all of whom are drinking, smoking and having a great time) – most of us will occasionally give in to the behaviours we’re trying to reduce.  While working for Peter Herman, research psychologist specializing in eating (e.g., eating disorders, dieting)  at the University of Toronto, I learned that a major precipitant of failed diets for many is equating lapses with all-out failure. Lapses and failure are not the same thing. Effective goal pursuit requires discipline, but also the humility and compassion for self that recognizes that sometimes we will slip, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot get up again.

IV. Support

Support is very important. Support from family, friends, a support group, and so on. Change is tough. It helps to have people that will cheer you on when you have successes and that will encourage and empathize with you during struggles. Supports can also help provide one with strategies for dealing with and reducing urges, and can serve as substitutions and distractions.

V. Substitutions, Distractions and Strategies

Addictive behaviours fill roles in the life of the engager. For some, they are means of regulating emotions and/or reducing distress. For others they are social/community centrepieces or rituals. They can also simply be aspects of daily routines. When planning and managing goal pursuit, it’s important to figure out what sorts of roles and associations addictive behaviours have in one’s life, and to figure out how to fill these roles with something else.

If the individual uses a drug to help them regulate their feelings, what are some other ways that they can deal with their emotions? A central facet of Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), a leading cognitive-behavioural therapeutic approach for people with difficulty regulating emotions, is skills training. Emotion Regulation and Distress Tolerance are key skill sets. Having tools other than the addictive behaviour for emotion regulation and distress tolerance are critical to kicking the habit. Otherwise, it will often simply be a matter of time before the individual succumbs to distress and lapses, often resulting in feelings of helplessness, weakness and hopelessness.

Distraction is also key. When one is having an urge, what are some things that they can do to divert their attention? In the mental health unit that I am currently on placement at, clients are supported in developing lists of activities that they can engage in when they are having an urge. It is key to develop such lists when not in the middle of an urge, and to make them easily accessible for when an urge comes up. In the midst of an urge, strong emotions can reduce one’s ability to think clearly and to muster will-power. The idea behind such lists and other such preparations is to do as much of the leg-work as possible when not experiencing the urge so that when the urge arrives it is as easy as possible to engage in something other than the addictive behaviour.

Developing substitutions and distractions are types of strategies for kicking addictions. There are others. As mentioned above, one of the roles that addictive behaviours can play is simply being a facet within broader life routines. A good example of this – and adaptive strategy – that I heard a while back has to do with cutting back on smoking. A person working on quitting and told me about how she used to smoke while walking to and from work each day. Her way of literally getting around this was to start taking a different route to and from work, a route that didn’t inherently trigger her smoking urge like her typical route had. Brilliant! Not all strategies are as easy, however. If one always smokes while they drink, or if all of one’s closest friends smoke, adaptation can be much more difficult than taking a parallel street to work.

VI. Mindfulness & Insight into One’s Emotions and Thought

I am a strong advocate of mindfulness/insight meditation and any practice that helps one gain insight into the nature of one’s emotions, thought and how they relate to each other, to behaviour, and to the self.

What is Mindfulness Meditation?

There are various approaches to meditation. The form that I practice involves focusing on the breath. Because it is a dynamic process that happens *right now*, the breath can serve as an anchor to the present moment. By practicing maintaining an attention to the breath, one develops a recognition of what it feels like to be mindful of the present moment. As this recognition becomes more learned, the individual gets better and better at noticing when their mind has wondered off to thoughts about the future, the past, hypothetical wondering, judgment, and so on. The individual likewise becomes more adept at returning their attention to the present moment. What is more, the individual gets better at recognizing thoughts as thoughts, and emotions as emotions, and learning that neither are synonymous with either the self or reality.Relatedly, a terrific adjunct to mindfulness is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which comprises strategies for rational thought/emotion analysis and behavioural modification.

How Mindfulness of One’s Emotions and Thought Can Facilitate Addiction Recovery

Recognizing an emotion as simply being an emotion, and a thought as simply being a thought is key to kicking an addiction. Without this sort of mindful recognition, a person may feel a strong emotional urge to smoke along with the thought “I NEED A SMOKE!”. It’s like the entire force of one’s being is screaming “SMOKE!”. Consider the following alternative framing: “I am experiencing the feeling of a strong urge to smoke”. What is more negotiable: “I NEED A SMOKE!” or “I am experiencing the feeling of a strong urge to smoke”? Recognizing that feelings and thoughts are just feelings and thoughts, that they are not the same as reality or the self, and that they can be helpful or hurtful, right or wrong, gives one an ability to negotiate with them that they often do not have when they are experienced without such mindfulness. Without mindfulness, thoughts and emotions can be confused with self and reality.

Mindfulness can also help one reduce and cope with the distress of urges. Consider this fundamental truth: life is lived one moment at a time. As time marches on, we experience life moment-by-moment, each preceding moment forever behind us and each future moment a mere possibility that may be experienced directly as the present in due course. Leading mindfulness researcher Jon Kabat-Zinn has demonstrated that an excellent means of reducing suffering in those suffering from chronic pain is to be mindful of the pain, moment-by-moment. What is worse: simply experiencing the pain present in a single moment, or experiencing that pain plus also experiencing the suffering that comes from dwelling over all of the pain that one has previously felt and all that will come in the future? By endeavoring to simply be with this moment and its pain, rather than supplementing the moment’s pain with ruminations of all the pain that came before and will come eventually, total negative affect is significantly reduced.

What is more, have you ever noticed that ruminating over or, alternatively, attempting to suppress negative feelings – physical or more psychological – have the effect of intensifying and prolonging them? As I and many others have personally experienced, simply being with the pain moment-to-moment, observing it and letting it do what it will like a wave on the ocean typically has the effect of reducing its potency and duration. It’s one of life’s many ironies. Just as often finding love comes when we stop trying to find it, reducing emotional suffering can come from facing it head-on, rather than trying to fight or flee from it.

This same type of reasoning can be applied to the pain and suffering that comes from fighting withdrawal from and urges for addictive behaviours. What is more draining and intimidating: experiencing the urges/withdrawal of this moment or of all time? Has ruminating over, being angry at or attempting to suppress an urge or withdrawal made it go away or abate, or does it usually just compound the pain? Withdrawal is painful and, for a time, compulsory. The rest is optional. Lighten your load.

Paraphrasing Jon Kabat-Zinn,

Your mind is like an ocean. Thoughts and emotions are waves.  You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf. That’s what mindfulness is all about.

Feedback

How do the ideas expressed here jibe with your personal experiences, things that you have read, and so on?

Let readers know in the Comment section.

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Close to a year ago, I posted Atheists are Religious. Here I re-post it with modifications. In this article, I argue that while lack of a belief in this or that God is not itself a religion, any value system that an atheist may hold is ultimately ungrounded in any sort of empiricism. Rather, these and all value systems rely on circular self-validation and assumptions and assertions that are themselves unscientific. As I will argue below, this doesn’t make them wrong or deserving of dismissal; it just means that subscribers cannot claim that their values are rooted in nothing but reason and logic. Reason and logic, in these value systems, are applied based on unempirical values, which can be conceived of as faith claims about an implied moral/existential reality.

Just because one does not believe in a God, Gods, karma, reincarnation, astrology, L. Ron Hubbard, or eighteen year old “elders” who knock on your door on Sunday mornings to bring you the good news from Utah, that doesn’t mean that they are not religious. I don’t know that I’ve ever met an atheist who wasn’t religious in their own way. I certainly am. Like other atheists, I subscribe to a sort of religion that is both different and similar to what we conventionally refer to as “religion”.

Like people of conventional religious faith, atheists have beliefs about the nature of the world and the place of humans within it. I’m not concerned here with beliefs based on science (e.g., evolution, quantum physics). I do not consider these to be of a religious nature for they are held with a level of confidence that parallels the level of evidence, are vulnerable to falsification, and are not value-laden. Scientific beliefs say nothing about how humans should live, what is meaningful, and so on. In my view,

The central characteristic of religion is the holding of empirically unsubstantiated beliefs about the nature and meaning of reality and the purpose and moral responsibilities of sentient beings.

These attributes are surely found in our world religions. But atheists, too?

At The Level of Behaviour, We MUST Act In Accord With Empirically Unsubstantiated Principles

We are not bound to believe in a God, Gods, or any of the other religious concepts discussed above. We do not have to pick a stance with regard to the inception of the universe, what happens after death, and the like. We don’t even have to take ultimate stances with regard to morality or purpose. But we have to act, which means that even if philosophically we cannot claim to have deciphered the moral fabric of the universe, at the level of behaviour we have to make moral choices. Analogously, just because our experience and every opinion we’ve ever heard on the matter indicates that unsupported objects always fall down, we cannot know that they always will; nevertheless, at the level of behaviour we cannot be agnostic about this.

As an agnostic atheist, I do not know whether or not there is a God (let alone who that God would be, if there is more than one, etc.), and I do not subscribe to any particular God/supernatural theory. However, at the level of behaviour, I must choose whether or not to organize my life with reference to a supernatural belief system. I choose not to. As such, my behaviour is presumably indistinguishable from what it would be if I was an absolute atheist (i.e., someone who claims to know that there is no God).

Does This Mean That Atheism Is Religious Like Theism?

No. Agnostic atheism is not a belief; it’s a lack of belief. At most, it is associated with the claim that credible cases have not been made for actual beliefs pertaining to theism. It entails no claims about the nature of anything, and it offers no guidance on how to live. In this way, as has been said before, atheism is a religion in the same sense that bald is a hair colour. An agnostic atheist choosing not to live in accordance with certain religious principles is no more religious than him choosing not to live in accordance with the unsubstantiated claim that the world is going to end tomorrow. It is consistent with the general practice of basically ignoring an infinite supply of theoretical possibilities (e.g., there are Martians living 40 feet below the surface of Stockholm controlling the world) until there is reason to believe that they are more than simple what-ifs. In the case of absolute atheism, I’m not sure I would call it religious so much as just unfounded. The reason for this is that absolute atheism merely constitutes a negative stance with regard to particular theories of the universe, purpose and morality; it says little about how the universe really is and nothing about what matters, what is meaningful or what is moral.

What Sorts Of Values Do Atheists Have?

There is no one atheist value system. Atheism is not a religion. In and of itself, it’s not even a belief community. It’s a lack-of-belief community. If suddenly people started believing in the Swedish Martians mentioned above and started trying to shift public policy to reflect these beliefs (e.g., lobbying for government funding to sponsor Martian digs), an a-Martian lack-of-belief community would form in an effort to stop the wasteful spending. This community, like atheists, would be bound by nothing more than a disbelief in one thing. Its members would come from a plurality of cultural, racial, religious, socioeconomic, and political backgrounds.

Some of these people, like some atheists, may also actively support scientific rationalism more generally. At first glance, supporting scientific rationalism may seem like an empirically-based value. As noble as I and many others find it to be it is not empirically-based, as will be discussed below.

Secular value systems are often called philosophies. These systems can span as far and wide as those of traditional religion. They include, for example, progressivism, libertarianism, utilitarianism, communism, socialism, secular humanism, and so on. Foundational beliefs include that we should have full rights to our property and not be subject to any form of external force under any conditions (as in libertarianism); that we should protect each others’ individual freedoms but also – as a matter of public policy – provide needed supports to those having difficulty (as in progressivism); that all people should be treated equally and moral decisions should be directed at maximizing flourishing and minimizing suffering (utilitarianism); everything should be publicly owned, and people should contribute to the collective insofar as they are able and receive from it insofar as they need to (communism); etc.

The existence of many different ethical philosophies reflect the diversity of humanity’s opinions on issues of morality, purpose and politics. But amidst our differences are many points of agreement. None of these communities endorse stealing, rape, random acts of violence, child neglect, lying, or a host of other things, and all encourage voluntary acts of charity, friendliness, and so on. This agreement, of course, is not empirical substantiation of these shared values. It’s just popularity. If they are going to be substantiated, it’s not going to be because they won the Moral Mr./Ms. Congeniality Contest.

Can Any Ethical Philosophy Be Empirically Substantiated?

With regard to ethical precepts of conventional religions, substantiation can be left to God. But what about moral precepts accepted in secular arenas? Can any ethical system be substantiated without reliance on circular reasoning or on other premises that are themselves unsubstantiated? A label of pride among many atheists is “rationalist”. Rationalists define themselves by their proclivity to arrive at beliefs through clear, honest reasoning. But reasoning is a formal process that operates on premises. Value systems come equipped with premises (e.g., treat all people equally, as this is fair and leads to the most favourable overall outcomes). But when you get down to the real bedrock foundations of human experience – be they our basic experience of the physical world or the social/moral world – reason ceases to be able to dig deeper. At a certain point, we realize that we cannot substantiate a foundational axiom of a belief system without invoking another element of the belief system itself or some other unsubstantiated claim. To do so would require us to be able to perceive more of reality than we are able. Sometimes we discover ways to see more (e.g., research in chemistry and physics can be advanced through the development of new technologies that allow us to see and measure smaller and smaller things). In other cases we reach an impasse. In the sciences, the impasse is often pretty clear. What’s inside an atom? I don’t know, we can’t see or measure anything that small? In the case of morality, however, it seems that we sometimes hallucinate that we know more than we do, or that our beliefs are more substantiated than they really are.

Consider The Golden Rule. I suspect that there may be no moral precept in human history that is more universally accepted than the instruction to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But, why should you do this? What if the other person’s wants are unknown and/or different from what yours would be in the given situation? While it could be retorted that you could simply do your best to act in the other person’s interests, what about your interests in the here-and-now, and those of other others? Perhaps the solution is to endeavour to treat everyone – self included – equally, and from this starting point, try to do what best satisfies the personal interests and perceived rights of everyone involved. But what about when one person’s interests conflict with those of another? Furthermore, on what grounds is it your responsibility to serve the interests of others? Sure, people may judge you as a relatively good or bad person based on how you respond to the interests of others, but what if you are not particularly concerned with their opinions, or if you disagree with them? What if you believe that the quality of your personhood has nothing to do with what society says it does? The mere fact that we have an evolved capacity for empathy – as found in research on a number of species – says nothing about what we objectively should or should not do; to argue this would be a case of the naturalistic fallacy. The retort that we should be considerate of each other because it promotes well-being, social stability, trust, safety, sustained peace in a nuclear era, and so on assumes that 1) these are all objectively good things, 2) that we should therefore value them, and 3) we have a responsibility to act in their favour.

If as an individual I want a society with these qualities, then I can act in their service. But what if I don’t feel this way? Can anyone prove that life and Earth are worth preserving? That a safe and stable society is better than a volatile one? Sure, the grand majority of people believe these things to be true, but who made them God? If I were to follow popular opinion, given that I was born, raised and continue to live in Canada, I’d be Christian. If popular opinion in and of itself doesn’t convince me to be Christian why would I ascribe it such power with respect to other belief systems?

In The New Atheists have just changed God’s name, Objectivist atheist Evanescent criticizes left-leaning atheists like Sam Harris for treating empirically unsubstantiated progressive values as if they were substantiated. When this is done, it is akin to deifying or making idols of the values. I would non-combatively retort to this blogger – on whose blog I have had good discussion with libertarian atheists – that libertarian ethics are no more empirically substantiated than progressive ethics. They are on equal ground.

Secular Assumptions of Transcendence

In reality, I do try to promote well-being of myself and others, and generally try to live in a way that contributes to a safe and trusting society. Further, I strongly advocate for reason, intellectual honesty secularism, and progressive causes (though I’m also sympathetic to libertarianism). I have strong values, and I am no less judgmental when I see a moral precept violated (e.g., the telling of a malicious lie) than anyone else, religious or not . Like people of conventional faith, atheists do not simply think that telling malicious lies is wrong for themselves as individuals. We find it to be universally wrong. At least implicitly, we seem to be assuming some sort of transcendent morality that represents, at the very least, a deep sense of obligation to humanity as a whole. Our sense of obligation might even extend beyond humanity or any particular referent. The grandiosity and unspecificity of the referent of this obligation resembles some less personalized conceptions of God.

Secular Sects

Just about everyone wants equality. However, we don’t all mean the same thing by equality. Progressives and libertarians both believe that the law is the law and that it should be applied to everyone. They both believe that people should be free to choose whom they associate with. But should a racist white person be forced by society to hire or serve a person of another race? While the progressive and libertarian may both have a strong distaste for racism, the libertarian is less likely to support enforced racial equality in hiring or service provision. To support this could contradict their libertarianism. And the progressive does not want to use force and has great respect for individual freedoms, but they also do not want anybody to be marginalized because of the colour of their skin.

What about taxpayer-funded social supports for those in need of assistance? Progressives believe that we should, as a matter of policy, provide assistance to people in their times of need. They believe that people should pay taxes to enable assistance programs. Libertarians on the other hand want no part of this. They have no problem with voluntary charity; but they are stridently against having the government or anyone else force them to do anything. “Live free or die” is a popular libertarian motto. It’s not that progressives do not care about the individual freedom of property owners, or that libertarians are cold and heartless. Moral reasoning can be messy, and sometimes we have to serve one moral precept at the expense of another.

Why be progressive? Why should people be forced to support others? Why should people be forced to associate with others that they wish not to associate with? How can these questions be answered without resorting to other unsubstantiated value judgments (e.g., happiness, wellness, trust, safety, and cooperation are good; suffering, hate, distrust, and conflict are bad), many of which are intrinsic to progressivism, thereby making the retort a case of circular reasoning?

Why be libertarian? Who says anything objectively belongs to anybody? On what grounds can one stake a claim on something? Everything there is was there before you got there. Of the things one makes oneself, one makes them out of things that they have no claim to. If I tore down your house and built a new one, I couldn’t say that it is my house. It wasn’t my land or materials. So how is your house your house when you have no objective claim to any of the materials or space needed to make it?

Why defend science and truth? The primacy of science and truth is valued by secularists of all value systems. But why should one feel obligated to value truth or honesty? Why is one obligated to do what promotes understanding, fluid and trustworthy social relations, this or that form of “progress”, and so on? I’m surely not saying that we shouldn’t do these things; I greatly value them. But on what grounds do I substantiate this value?

God Is On My Side

As with conventional religions, progressivism, libertarianism and indeed all ethical/political philosophies and systems of meaning are unsubstantiated. Even more like conventional religions, they can be divisive and even lead to bloody conflict. The same goes for more universal moral tenets. What do we do with people who kill or rape? We lock them up or kill them. What is our opinion of people who lie? Do we not feel that they are behaving badly; that they are wronging someone, or even transgressing something bigger than any individual (e.g., the entire social order)? Even though our secular philosophies are ultimately unsubstantiated, we are just as libel to take them deeply seriously as are religious people with their ethical beliefs. And when we defend our beliefs, we will often fervently believe that we are doing the right thing. A religious person might say that God is on their side, or that they are doing God’s Will. An atheist fighting a moral cause might say that they are defending truth, reason, justice, fairness, civility, or human rights, all of which are profound universal concepts that go beyond individuals and communities, and space and time. While some religionists might claim that God is on their side, some atheists may claim that reason is on their side. Both sides are, in effect, presenting their unsubstantiated moral beliefs as if they have been substantiated. And this is usually not a dishonest act – both sides are libel to genuinely belief that their values have an objective truth to them.

So, What?

What does all of this mean? Does this mean that atheists have no leg to stand on when it comes to criticizing beliefs such as that the world was created six to ten thousand years ago by God in six days? Absolutely not. Not all questions are the same. While our ability to learn about the world is inherently limited by our limited perceptual and conceptual abilities, some methods for discovery are more substantiated than others. The scientific method, by devising and rigorously testing theories about how reality works has brought us automobiles, airplanes, space travel, wireless technologies, medicines and biotechnology, improved understanding of social systems, the ability to predict weather patterns, and so on, has more than a leg-up on the practice of building a worldview by interpreting a 2000+ year old book loaded with contradictions, vagueness, and claims contradicted by modern science, archaeology and anthropology.

I definitely think that we can and should do better than religion has when it comes to gaining honest understanding. I also think that we can and should have as keen an understanding as possible of the nature and foundations of our beliefs and those of others, especially when it comes to issues of values. As I wrote in a post last Fall entitled “There Will Be War”, I believe that our moral differences are a key factor underlying what I deem to be the near complete impossibility of world peace. However, I think that we would have fewer and less destructive conflicts and generally get along better if we had a better understanding of the epistemological limitations of our own beliefs and the nature and meaning of those of others. And if nothing else, as someone who has a deep appreciation for learning and trying to understand things, I think it’s simply interesting and worth thinking about.

Atheist Bloggers Across the Political Spectrum

As Evanescent pointed out, there appears to be more atheists on the political left than right. Some atheist/nontheist blogs that tend to lean left include Pharygula, Sandwalk, Dispatches from the Culture Wars, Progressive Proselytizing, Unreasonable Faith ,The Friendly Atheist, The Barefoot Bum, Daylight Atheism and Always Question Authority. Right-leaning atheist/nontheist bloggers that I know of include Evanescent and Secular Right. There is also Reason.Com. I’m not sure how the Atheist Ethicist would describe his personal ethical philosophy.

A Parting Question For Discussion

I hope that this post has inspired people to think about why they hold the moral beliefs they do, as well as why people of differing moral views belief as they do. For anyone who still believes that their values are not of a religious nature, I ask you a question that I sometimes ask people of religious faith:

What would it take for you to not believe as you do now?

Are Any Identifiable Groups Not At Risk?

Before getting into possible links between having a political activist orientation and mental health, I’ll wonder out loud if there are many lifestyle orientations that would not be linked to their own respective clusters of mental health risks. Just as I will argue that an activist mindset may be a statistical risk factor for certain types of mental health issues, one could make similar arguments for other mental health issues with respect to readers (statistically speaking, perhaps readers are more likely to have avoidance issues), housewives (see readers), people who live in houses (again statistically speaking, perhaps these people are more likely to be afraid of heights than the average person), and so on.

On the flip-side, it is highly plausible that activists are at reduced risk for certain mental health issues. For example, they may be less likely than the average person to feel a lack of purpose in life, or to lack courage or tenacity to fight against opposition. Likewise, readers may be less likely to have concentration difficulties, housewives may be less susceptible to boredom and/or be better at entertaining themselves, and house dwellers may be better at keeping on top of many priorities without getting overwhelmed (living in a house comes with more domestic chores than living in an apartment).

Is An Activist Orientation A Mental Health Risk Factor?

“God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.”

- From The Serenity Prayer, by Reinhold Niebuhr

The Serenity Prayer is frequently cited in mental health settings and within the pages of self-help and mental health literature. The ability to accept that which one cannot change, courage to act when positive change is possible and the ability to distinguish between the two are core goals of many clinically-validated mental health therapies, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT).

As stated above, courage to change that which can be changed may be a strength among many activists. If they did not believe that they could facilitate change they probably would not have pursued activism in the first place. If they didn’t have tenacity, they probably would not have lasted long. Of course, I’m speaking very generally, here. It’s entirely possible that some activists, while fiercely pounding the pavement for a valued political issue,  may be loathe to directly confront other, more personal issues.

Where I fear that fellow activists might, on average, be at elevated risk is when it comes to accepting that which one cannot change. In some avenues, a refusal to accept things the way that they are is an admirable quality of activists. While one person’s freedom fighter may be another person’s agitator or even terrorist, we tend to admire tenacity in those whom we view to be fighting the good fight. And perhaps less easily, many of us have a genuine respect for tenacity and earnestness of activists advocating on the other side of issues we value. All of this said, there are certain things that we simply cannot change. Of central importance,

We Cannot Change People’s Minds For Them

In a democracy, change is created by winning hearts and minds. Often times, people can be very reasonable, honest and can see eye to eye on something. However, when it comes to politics, not everyone is reasonable, not everyone is honest, and even among those who are, not everyone acts on the same underlying values.  A progressive and a libertarian can be equally honest, reasonable and good-intentioned but still remain at an irreconcilable impasse on whether the rich should be forced to subsidize social programming for the less affluent. In this situation, the activist’s tenacity can hurt them. If the activist is unable to accept and live with the fact that the other person may never change his or her mind, the activist is destined for a world of emotional suffering.

It will often start with anger (our emotional system’s response to frustration in obtaining a goal), but can lead in time to helplessness, hopelessness and despair that one is powerless and that change will never come. Hopelessness is a leading red flag for suicide risk.

Just as emotional suffering can result from continually failing to win over a political opponent, it can also result from failing to get other people to care about the issue like you do. No matter how much an activist cares or tries to convey the importance of an issue, most others are not going to take up the cause. In a way, this may induce more despair than failing to win over an opponent. At least the opponent cares about the issues and realizes that it is important and worth fighting for. Is there anything more infuriating and disillusioning than watching people who you want to believe are good people just standing there doing nothing while something awful is happening?

Few things call into question one’s confidence in the goodness of mankind like apathy in the face of injustice.

Anger, Disillusionment and Social Estrangement

Anger and disillusionment over the inability to get others on board what one views as a critically important moral mission can be devastating. If an activist is not able to accept that they may never succeed in persuading others, or if they cannot help but feel helpless, or that the world is hopeless or that other people are hopelessly wrong or indifferent, they are inviting a whole new problem on top of what may already be a full plate: social estrangement. In addition to compounding the activist’s problems, this simultaneously withdraws critical sources of social support. This can be dangerous.

Final Thoughts

Activist goals aren’t your typical goals. They can be of transcendental religious-like importance to the activist’s worldview and senses of justice, meaning and purpose. Thus, frustration of these sorts of goals has the potential to deeply unsettle much of what keeps the activist together. This in itself is a huge reason for activists to have sympathy for activists on the other side of the the dispute:

“Be Kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle”

- Plato

In sharing these ideas, I have spoken not simply as an activist that works in healthcare, but as a person that has personally experienced every pain and problem discussed. I have experienced the anger, helplessness, hopelessness, despair, and estrangement. While most of this is a thing of the past for me, finding and maintaining the right balance for me and striving to accept that which is out of my control and finding effective ways to work on those things that I can affect is an ongoing process.

In my current Occupational Therapy placement in outpatient mental health working with people struggling with their own issues with depression, anxiety and emotional dysregulation, I have learned that the types of experiences that I have had are far from unique to me. In reading up on Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) – a condition whose hallmark attribute is impaired emotional regulation – I was not surprised to learn that people with BPD are more likely than the average person to gravitate toward social/political causes. My personal experiences and learning on placement compelled me to share my concern with other activists.

If you are an activist, all the credit in the world for standing up for what you believe in. But be wary of the temptation and risks of not being able to come to terms with the fact that you can only control what you do, not what the other guy does. You can be honest, reasonable, and earnest in your attempts to persuade others and to see the world from their perspective, and these are all good, noble things. But you can’t change anyone’s mind for them.

You can be the change you want to see, but you can only be it for you.

Feedback?

I’m curious as to whether anyone else can empathize with the ideas and issues discussed in this post. I’d love to hear what others have experienced or have observed others to have experienced. Given the personal nature of this sort of thing, feel free to leave anonymous replies.

Depending on whether readers express interest (i.e., in the Comments section), I may do a second post on avenues for help and strategies for dealing with the sorts of emotional issues discussed here.

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This appears to be the premise of an unduly dismissive commenter responding to a recent post on homeopathy. For your enjoyment, here is what he/she had to say:

Hi Ron,

I hope you will forgive me for sounding a tad harsh here, but a trade school certificate from a tenth rate university does not qualify you to speak about scientific research, pro or con. An OT MA is science only in pretension, not in fact. Ditto for an undergrad BA in psych, albeit at a much better university. Get a good Ph.D. in a hard science, then get a few decades under your belt as a real researcher, publish in major peer reviewed journals, and perhaps you will have earned sufficient knowledge (and humility) to be able to comment intelligently. Otherwise I regret to say, it just may be possible that some of your blogging may be more about the hubris inherent in being young (29 years old) than about carefully weighed, thoughtful analysis.

So we’re all clear on the new rule, yes? Until you have earned a PhD in a hard science (i.e., bio, chem, physics) from an Ivy League school, have gotten a couple of decades of research under your belt, authored publications in major peer reviewed journals, and are much older than 29, if you have an opinion on something scientific, for heaven’s sake,

SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU ARROGANT LITTLE BASTARD!

Because of course, if you don’t meet all of those qualifications, you couldn’t possibly have done extensive research. You couldn’t possibly have thoughtfully looked at both sides. And, if you are like me, all of the following is not even close to qualifying you for any type of scientific thinking:

* Hon. B.Sc in Psychology Research and Cognitive Science with High Distinction from the University of Toronto;

* A 3.9 GPA in my MS/PhD program in Cognitive Psychology at Rutgers University – before I dropped out, having finally realized how terrible the job market is for psych profs and how tedious I found most of what I was doing to be;

* Completion of an MSc(Occupational Therapy) at the University of Western Ontario, which far from being a “10th rate university”, is among the top 15% or so of Canadian universities; furthermore, the average incoming GPA to the OT program was ~3.6/4.

* 4-5 years of experience working in labs in Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology, and Social/Personality Psychology.

* 12 full course equivalents (FCE) at the undergraduate and graduate levels in statistics, research methodology and design, and lab research. Since a typical school year contains 5 FCEs, this experience is equivalent to taking nothing but scientific methodology, statistics and lab research courses for about 2.5 school years.

* Being an intellectually curious person who regularly reads up on areas of interest.

What this commenter has demonstrated is a form of elitism. What is more, the comment exudes incredible ignorance with regard to everything it addresses. In addition to radically under-estimating pretty well everyone that has not become a tenured university professor, it radically over-estimates the value of the education and experience required to meet the commenter’s criteria.

The 50 year old PhD that our commenter has given exclusive speaking privileges to need not be dramatically more scientifically literate in a broad sense than a Masters graduate, a very keen B.Sc graduate, or an exceptionally keen person without university education but with a determined willingness to engage in years of independent study of critical thinking, scientific methodology and particular areas of research, and intellectual fellowship with other rigorously interested parties.

It really does not take nearly as long as our commenter seems to believe to become scientifically literate and informed. The 50 year old PhD’s understanding of how science works, scientific thinking, and the like, was probably for the most part about as developed as it was going to get by the time he or she was part-way through their Masters, if not earlier. In terms of developing expertise in their field, they could easily have been quite up to snuff before the completion of their PhD. Speaking from personal experience, I was able to hold my own quite well with leading scientists in my area of research – first language acquisition and related areas of cognitive development – prior to even starting my Masters at Rutgers. Most of the many years invested by mid and late career PhD scientists are spent doing the laborious, time-consuming and often tedious work that goes into doing and getting funding for good science, not in developing scientific literacy or subject matter expertise.

However, as a service to the commenter, I’ll recommend that he visits the blog of University of Toronto biochemist, Larry Moran, if he wants more credentialed views on homeopathy. Maybe while our commenter is there, he’ll notice that like many other esteemed scientists, Larry positively encourages the masses to engage with science.

Some on the American Christian Right have attempted to argue that Jesus was not a socialist or even remotely liberal. The honesty-impaired crew over at Conservapedia have even taken it upon themselves to literally begin re-writing the Bible, claiming that previous translations have packed it full of liberal spin. Of course, the Conservapedia answer to this alleged problem is not to create a balanced Bible, but to create a Conservative Bible – hence the name of the project, the Conservative Bible Project.

Daniel Florien, ex-Christian turned atheist, recently posted some of the more liberal, socialist New Testament passages on his blog, Unreasonable Faith. Here are a few of them:

44 And all that believed were together, and had all things in common;
45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.

Acts 2: 44, 45

13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.
14 You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.

Luke 14:13, 14

If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

Matthew 19:21

24 You cannot serve both God and Money.

Matthew 6:24.

In addition to these quotes are Jesus’ famous endorsements of forgiveness, compassion and acceptance, rather than grudge-holding, retribution-seeking and judging (e.g., Let he who is without sin cast the first stone; judge not lest ye be judged; turn the other cheek).

When you look at these sorts of quotes, it is perplexing to fathom how Conservative Christians could see themselves in Christ and how they could appreciate let alone revere him. How do they square their widespread antipathy for government assistance programs and homosexuality with these iconic passages? Now, it’s true that the Bible may well be the most cherry-picked, quote-mined text of all time. Given this,

Are there New Testament passages that Conservative Christians can interpret as endorsing their political values?

We’ve all seen Conservative Christians site verses from the Old Testament, perhaps none more so than Leviticus 20:13 (“If a man lies with another man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood is on their own hands.”). Indeed, the more grim, authoritarian theme of the Old Testament appears – to me, at least – to jive far better with modern day American Conservative values of respect for authority, tradition, corporal punishment, capital punishment, and thoroughly retributive justice. The New Testament, judging by mainstream cultural folklore, sounds to be far more liberal, socialist, egalitarian, compassionate, and forgiving. Am I wrong? I’ll admit that I’ve only read parts of the Old Testament and none of the New, so my question is not rhetorical. What exactly is the Right taking from the New Testament?

What About Jewish Moral Theology?

The Old Testament is often viewed as hellishly harsh and unforgiving. If a country today were to use it as a strict policy guide, said country would rightly be considered to be a stunningly cruel, vicious, totalitarian state. Many Christians today, in my limited experience, seem to downplay the moral significance of the Old Testament, pointing to the New Testament as the relevant Christian moral framework. Accepting this, I can’t help but ask:

Where is the warmer, more humane side of Jewish Theology?

For Christianity, it’s the New Testament. The New Testament gives license to Christians to move past authoritarian barbarism toward less judgmental forgiveness and acceptance. Where does that come in within Judaism? Where is the feel good part of Jewish Moral Theology? It’s got to be in there somewhere. Is it burried within the OT, or in a sister scripture? I don’t for a minute buy that people get their morals from scripture. But there are plenty of people who do. So from this perspective,

Where do observant Jews get their morals?

Share your views and knowledge in the Comment section!

Skeptic North, a well-written Canadian team blog advocating for science, skepticism and rationalism, has been a great source of information on the ongoing scientific, intellectual and moral train-wreck that is homeopathy. I have a bit of a warm spot for this blog, as it was formed in part by concurrent and later-coming members of Canadian skeptic organizations that I have been a member of in the past, and continue to endorse to this day (e.g., the University of Toronto Secular Alliance; Centre for Inquiry Canada). And though I’ve never met her, Skeptic North-er Kim Hebert and I have a fair bit in common – we’re both Canadian Occupational Therapists whom have been independently concerned about the “feel good” post-modernist “science-isn’t-the-only-truth” type thinking that often pervades the public healthcare and healthcare education systems. Each of us have experienced strong pressure within our Master’s of Science in Occupational Therapy professional graduate programs to “respect” homeopathy. Quite frankly, if I was respecting homeopathy while knowing what it was, I’d hardly be a Master of Science.

Anyhow, the most recent posting in Skeptic North’s ongoing coverage of homeopathy’s trials and tribulations (e.g., the tribulations resulting from one failed clinical trial after another) is a listing of embarrassing and potentially expensive legal suits that various homeopathic education and product outfits are currently ensnared in in the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, Israel and Australia.

When they lose their cases, maybe they can try to pay off the settlements with bags and suitcases that previously contained money…

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