Author Archive for Sabio Lantz

Consider hiding your links

Published
by
Sabio Lantz
on May 15, 2012
.

For bloggers and commentors who don’t know how to use HTML, I am writing this short post to teach one important HTML tag to help beautify your comments. If you share a link in your comment without using  HTML, it looks a bit messy like this:

Sabio: Please consider visiting my blog : http://triangulations.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/blog-talk/

But with a simple HTML tag or two, it cleans up nicely to this:

Sabio: Please consider visiting my blog

Here is how to do it:

  • Step 1: type the HTML skeleton  <a href=”"> <a>
  • Step 2: add the URL <a href=”address here“> </a>
  • Step 3: add the words <a href=”">words here</a>
  • Final Product: <a href=”address here“> words here </a>

So in our example, the final product would look like this:

Sabio: Please consider visiting <a href=”http://triangulations.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/blog-talk/”>my blog</a>

The code may look sloppy, but once you submit your comment, the blog makes it beautiful.  NOW you are an HTML Coder!  Congratulations!

Finally, let’s add two more beautification tags – the bold tag (<b></b>) & the italic tag (<i></i>) . If you add the bold tags around the word “Sabio”  and the italic tags around “Please” your comment will now look like this:

Sabio: Please consider visiting my blog

Isn’t that gorgeous?  It may look scary when you put it all together, but with a little practice, it comes easy. The advantage to learning these simple HTML tags is:

  • It beautifies the comment.
  • People may not copy and paste a link, but they will click on it.
  • People may respect your comment more because you took time to make it attractive for readers.

Go ahead, practice the HTML and leave a link in the comments!  And FYI: I made a simple diagram to say the same in another post here.


Tagged: Blogging

Business Principles: Hindu & Christian

Published
by
Sabio Lantz
on May 14, 2012
.

Dancing Lord Shiva

To deeply understand Western literature, you need to know the Bible. Likewise, to understand the allusions and images used in Indian literature, it is critical to be familiar with their most popular religious texts: The Ramayana & The Mahabharata.  However, from my poll we see that only about 40% of my readers read fiction to any extent.  But you illiterate folks (smile) may find it surprising that it is only only Literature that is highly informed by Religion, but also much the business world. Both Christianity and Hinduism flood the business world.

Christian websites abound the tell believers how the Bible is packed with business guidelines to guarantee God’s blessings on their capital ventures. Examples:

HT: AndySinger.com

Not surprisingly, many Hindus also believe their faith is the key to success. From this recent NYDailyNews article we learn of several examples:

  • Mukesh Ambani,  India’s richest man, “talks about spirituality as a “tool to enhance productivity”.  And relies of astrologers for dates to launch new businesses.  [Memories of Nancy Reagan]
  • Kishore Biyani, a retail giant, “believes that traditional Hindu mythology holds a number of management lessons for India Inc.  He has appointed a mythologist as his “Chief Belief Officer”.
  • Vijay Mallya, a jet-setting billionaire, is verging on bankruptcy and so hired a psychic guru to invoke ritual assistance from the gods for his failing Kingfisher Airlines.  Indian Atheists rightly point out that he is using religion to signal his investors and clients that he is trustworth in these insecure times.  Signaling is a major function of religion.
  • Like many Christians, many Hindus try to base their shopping on their religion.  This is exclusive religion at its worse.  See here,

Both Hindu and Christian religious principles state that wealth alone does not make us happy but instead, that deeper spiritual principles must be followed. Both Hindus and Christians expect magic favor from their gods. Religion is a mixed bag.

So you see, religious literacy may be more helpful than you imagine. In our international business world, knowing a bit about Hinduism (the belief of 14% of the planet) may be financially enlightening. ;-)

Note:  This post is from my Ramayana series.


Tagged: Atheism, Christianity, Hinduism, Religion

Black & White Deserts: On Blogging

Published
by
Sabio Lantz
on May 13, 2012
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Some bloggers are so famous or so talented that readers will scroll down paragraph after paragraph of uninterrupted, sterile, black-and-white font without giving up. But for us less amazing bloggers, such a style rightfully may cause our readers to lose interest. So to gain or preserve readers, consider taking time to improve your post’s readability.  Show your audience that you value their reading time and don’t take their efforts for granted.

My suggestions are to use one or more of the following to help your readers:

  • Short Posts – try to:
    • stay focused on one major point
    • edit your writing to eliminate rambling and unnecessary tangents
    • break long ideas into several posts and create an index post to link them together.
  • Interesting Layout – break up your post using:
    1. Images: choose carefully & creatively. Or make them!
    2. Tables: a five-paragraph idea can fit into a short table and is much easier to remember. (see here)
    3. Polls: see this post
    4. Section Formats: Add subsections with titles and indenting
    5. Diagrams: Take time to capture your ideas in a diagram which can be worth 1000 words
    6. Bulleted Lists: Breaking up paragraphs with lists helps.  Besides, list will limit your verbosity.

Question to readers: What suggestions do you have?


Poll Challenge

Published
by
Sabio Lantz
on May 12, 2012
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Creating polls which reveal useful information is very difficult.  Researchers have improved polling methods and delineated the limitations of qualitative research over the last fifty years.  After two years of graduate courses in research, I only took one course in qualitative research.  The most important take home messages from that course was the limitations of quantitative research (here are some examples).

With those huge limitations in mind, polls on blogs can still be fun. On this site, I don’t pretend that my polls are at all scientific.  Instead, here are some of the reasons I use polls on Triangulations:

  • to take a quick pulse of readers & improve my understanding
  • to let readers know each other anonymously
  • to spice up my posts
  • to get readers involved
  • to encourage dialogue in the comments
  • to play with the poll option in WordPress
  • to experiment with poll writing

Have you ever considered trying a poll?  I would like to challenge readers with blogs to write their own poll, post it on their site and then come back to the comments and link us to your poll. Here is WordPress page explaining how to post polls.  If you don’t use WordPress but are able to put up polls, please share both the link and a page that explains how to do so using your host.


Is fiction bad for you?

Published
by
Sabio Lantz
on May 11, 2012
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Do you like fiction in books, theater or the movies?

Most readers would agree that religion is fiction — especially if it comes from a religion they don’t embrace.  Many Atheists look down on the fiction in religion as deceptive and self-delusional. Would those same Atheists also agree that fiction outside of religion is bad for you?  For certainly fiction puts false ideas in our heads, stirs our emotions about events that have not happened and can cause us harmful delusions — like the false notions that come from romance novels, the paranoia that remains after watching horror movies and the dreamy idealism of some science fiction.
Does fiction weaken the mind and corrupt society like many atheists think religion does?  Well, Robert Hanson over at OverComing Bias seems to say “Yes!”.   Further, he thinks that just as people embrace religion to gain social status by signaling “I’m safe”, people who are otherwise non-religious do the same with fiction.  I find Hanson’s position a bit extreme, but speaking about movies, TV shows and sports in public, does seem to be a social signaling method.

I have always been leery of fiction.  I have long been scolded by my friends (and now my kids) for blurting out criticisms while watching movies.  Movies are mostly about making money and we have been studied — Hollywood knows how to manipulate our emotions.  The stories are made to trick us.  Fiction can be like alcohol — but maybe we can use it wisely.

I am a pro-story Atheist — and the more stories the better (see One-Story Atheism).  I even love the mythology in religions.  The part of religion I detest the most is their use of sanctimony — the manipulation of the taboo side of the mind to control thought.  I think we need to consume fiction with a discerning mind — something Hollywood wants to numb and turn off.

But I am not as pessimistic as Hanson.  I think we can consume fiction safely because our minds can compartmentalize sufficiently well to live many different lives successfully.  We can, if we are diligently discerning, keep the lies isolated.  Or can we?

We should stay suspicious of fiction and be careful what we allow our minds to feed on.  Here are examples dangerous ideas that fiction (religious or otherwise) can fill our heads with:

  • life is full of simple good-vs-evil conflicts:  that is why I love all the stuff by Miyazaki for my kids and myself which has complex characters.
  • life is out to harm us: conspiracy stories feed this part of the mind
  • others are always to blame:  many films use this theme
  • perfect love awaits us: false expectations of relationships abound
  • others are stupid, evil…:  racial, sexist, jingoist films themes
  • happy endings are always possible:  no, life is messy

Humans are story-telling animals.  Stories are a fundamental method of human communication.  Just as yoga has discovered that breath is a valuable physical tool to work with the mind, stories are also valuable mental tools to observe ourselves.  If we watch our stories, or those of others, we can see behind both our foolishness and our wisdom.  But often we are unconscious consumers who are being trained by the fiction of others.  Even what we call non-fiction is wrapped in a narrative that often escapes our awareness.  Stories are pervasive.  Without stories, it is difficult to pass on information.  Stories are also our source of much fun!

Tyler Cowen, an economist, agrees, that we should be suspicious of stories. He suggests that we need to be more comfortable with an agnostic/skeptical approach which recognizes life as messy and not settle for simple stories.  We also need to understand that even though we may be brilliantly skeptical in one area, we should not assume we aren’t self-deluded in other areas.  We need to pay attention to deeply inspiring, seductive stories — they may be deceiving one of those compartmentalized areas of life where we are not skeptical.  Those films may be re-enforcing our blind, destructive self-deception.

Questions to commentors:

  • What themes do you see as destructive in films?
  • Do you discriminate in your story consumption?


Expecting God

Published
by
Sabio Lantz
on May 7, 2012
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It is early morning, my house is beautifully quiet as everyone sleeps. I put water on the stove, return to my blogging keyboard and wait for the pot to whistle.

Ah, there it is! — what a beautiful whistle. I prepare my sacred brew and now my blogging proceeds much more inspired.

While I sip my coffee and compose my post, my house remains quiet except for a rare car rolling down our gravel road, an occasional train in the distance or one of my dogs snorting during a dream. But sometimes I think I hear that coffee pot whistling again. But it only takes about a half of a second for my brain to tell me that of course it isn’t — I emptied the water, turned off the stove and put the pot on a cold burner. If there was a noise, it was not the coffee pot. Nonetheless, I have that hallucination a few times each morning. My illusion is primed by sitting in wonderful expectation each morning for the sign that my brew is ready. With that priming, my mind is always ready to hear the wonderful whistle that does not exist.

I have had several camping trips where, throughout the night, I vigilantly hallucinated bears prowling around my tent.  During many a morning jog, I see shadows of menacing people ducking around the back of houses.  And many days as a believer, I have heard the expected soft voice of God.

Even nowadays, when I expect my daily encounters with people to be pregnant with Yuan, my meetings are often more interesting.  If I imagine that the landscape breaths me, I smile more often.  When are deluded expectations harmful?


Tagged: Atheism, Religion

Comment Thread Management

Published
by
Sabio Lantz
on May 6, 2012
.

New Blog Look

First, you may have noticed, I have decided to play with the blog’s appearance.  Sorry if you became attached to the old look, but I am a bit addicted to change.  This funky font is in honor of my recent Ramayana posts.  With this new set-up, I can play with my blog banner more easily and frequently – and in the future, I shall.

Your Favorite Comment Management

Blog Authors (BA) have different methods of interacting with comments on their posts’ threads. Below are a series of three polls for you to tell us your favorite thread management methods. Of course I have my favorite methods (as you’ve seen) but maybe I will change my opinion depending on opinions I hear from commentors on this post. So thank you.

BA Censoring:
  • Approval Screening: Some BA hold all comments for approval. Thus having comments that seem to ignore each other.  Though frustrating for commentors, the BA can thus totally control content and the BA’s controlling is invisible.
  • Deletion Screening: Some BA do not censor comment before posting.  Instead, they only delete those that grossly violate blog comment policies AFTER they are posted.  This can make the BA look mean.
  • No Screening: Some BA don’t delete anything. Any language, any accusation, any content is allowed in their threads. “Freedom of Speech” is their motto.
BA Timing:
  • Continuous Interaction: Some BA continuously respond as the comments unfold in the thread.
  • End Thread Interactions: Some BA waits for most of the comments to be in before saying something
  • Rare Interactions: Some BA rarely, if ever make comments.  They prefer to leave the thread space for commentors.  They may, for example, they may only respond to direct questions.
Grouped or Individual Replies:
  • Grouped Replies: BA combines his/her replies to several commentors thus sparing followers from getting many e-mails.
  • Individual Replies: BA feels each comment deserves and individual comment reply.

Tagged: Blogging

One-Story Atheism

Published
by
Sabio Lantz
on May 5, 2012
.

A reader directed me to this fine TED talk where an African speaker illustrates how stereotypes of Africans are the result of people having only one rather homogenous story about Africa upon which to base their conclusions. She begs listeners to expand their familiarity with more stories.

Ironically, and refreshingly, the speaker also confesses she has done the same with the immigrant Hispanic population in the USA.  She recognized that getting multi-storied approaches to everything is very difficult but suggests that at least we should be aware of the limits of our one-story views.

Many liberal/progressive Christians complain that some Atheists often rant against a different versions of Christianity than their own.  These Christians may also speak out against fundamental Christianity and thus feel the Atheist’s criticism are inaccurate. Atheists responses I have seen are:
  • Well, all the varieties of Christianity are dumb-founding, it ain’t my fault
  • But all Christians share similar silly beliefs even if the particulars vary
  • Even if you don’t hold fundamentalists views, by using the same jargon and merely re-interpreting the same myths they use, you tacitly supporting their autraucities.
  • Your flavor of Christianity is a small minority — I am speaking to the majority.
  • Your version of Christianity is too wiggly — you can escape all criticism because you commit to nothing yet you still love the label.

I myself am obviously very critical of many aspects of Christianity, but I feel focused criticisms are important and gross generalizations are often unfruitful.

 
 It is my experience that Atheists who are significantly or deeply familiar with more than one form of Christianity, are often less prone to over-generalize  about ALL Christianities and less quick to off-hand reject the objections of Christians who seek to be understood on their own terms.With a similar lack of background, I find that many Atheists overgeneralize about ALL religions.  Likewise, my experience seems to suggest that those Atheists who are careful to focus their criticisms tend to be those who are deeply familiar with more than just Abrahamic religions. There are so many religions in the world, we can’t be familiar with all of them, but if you are going to criticize them as a whole, it is best to broaden your experience so as to help avoid the temptation to inaccurately overgeneralize.
Well, those are my impressions. And I realize that very few “One-Story Atheists” frequent my blog, but the phrase had an interesting ring to it so I thought it may be useful.  Is it possible to accurately criticize religion without a broad familiarity of several religions — perhaps, but it is very difficult.   My posts on Hinduism offer a taste of non-Abrahamic theisms and my posts of Buddhism explore a non-theistic religion. I hope those posts help enlarge your multi-story approach to religious dialogue.   I would love to hear your thoughts after you answer one last poll! :-)


Tagged: Atheisms, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Religion

Happy Birthday Bollywood

Published
by
Sabio Lantz
on May 4, 2012
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“Bollywood” is the popular name for India’s major film industry. Bollywood began 100 years ago with the production of India’s first silent film called “Raja Harischandra” (King Harischandra) which was released in 1913. Unfortunatly the film was not preserved, and all that remains are short clips (here is a YouTube example).  However, NetFlix has a 1943 version of the film called “Harischandra”.  Or you can watch  the 2009 film (also at Netflix) called Harishchandrachi Factory which is about the remarkable obstacle producing of the film.

King Harishchandra, like Rama in the Ramayana, was a King who felt obliged sacrifice all he had simply to honor an unwisely made vow (see my post on this theme both in Hindu and Jewish scripture).  The popular Indian press today is saying that the story of Harishcandra is found in both the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.  But from what I can tell, it is only found in the Mahabharata, not in the Ramayana. (Please correct me if I am wrong).  And further, it is the  Markandeya Purana which spells out most the details (source).   I am pretty sure that the Ramayana claim is misinformation found in the wiki article and then spread all over popular news sites today.  Just shows that journalists use Wikipedia as a primary source, it seems.

As you know, I love foreign films.  My Indian film life started in the 1970s with Satyajit Ray’s wonderful Bengali films (The Apu Trilogy & more) when I was still in the USA. When I lived in India I would regularly visit theaters to watch all the popular Hindi films.

Question to readers:  Do you have any favorite Bollywood film recommendations?

Note:  This post is from my Ramayana series.


Tagged: Film, Hinduism

Longevity Myths: Bible & Ramayana

Published
by
Sabio Lantz
on April 30, 2012
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The Hebrew Bible claims that the ancient patriarchs lived for hundreds of years.  The graph above shows the rapid decline in human lifespan since the flood (HT).  Literalist Christians give different reasons for the difference in longevity pre- and post-Flood include:

  • Sin took time to take its toll (here)
  • The Environment changed: radiation, free radicals … (here)
  • Genetic Bottleneck (here)
  • Vela Supernova (here)

The Hindu Ramayana brags of longevity for its heros too. Rama, the hero of the story, is reported to have ruled the Earth for 11,000 years while his father, Dasaratha lived for 16,000 years.  And the writer of the Ramayana laments that in the present times, “men no longer live as long”. Just as there are literalist Christians, there are lots of literalists Hindus who believe the longevity stories in their myths.

Longevity myths are common fodder in ancient literature.  Here are some other super longevity  reports taken from a wiki article:
  • Sumerian Kings reigned tens of thousands of years.
  • Persian Shahs lived 1000 and 700 years
  • Ancients Chinese lived 800 years (Taoist goals are immortality)

So what do you think? Take this poll to show us if you think these are merely myths or if you think there is something true behind them. Maybe all those ancient stories are right, or maybe exaggeration was an accepted literary form for all the ancients.

Note:  This post is from my Ramayana series.


Otomo: film review

Published
by
Sabio Lantz
on April 29, 2012
.

Europeans invaded Africa to steal her wealth. Germans colonized Cameroon (Kamerun) in 1884. England colonized Nigeria in 1885 (though they slave traded there for a century prior).   Then came the European war to end all wars.  In 1914, during World War I, the British in Nigeria attacked and defeated their German enemies in Cameroon. After the war, the spoils (the land of the Africans in the Cameroon area) were divided among the French and the British.  Cameroon did not secure independence from White Europeans until 1960.

During World War I, an African man helped the Germans in their battles against the British, but after his loyalty to the ‘wrong side’, the man was labeled as a German sympathizer in Cameroon and his family was treated poorly. His son (Otomo) fled Cameroon as a stow-away on a ship from Liberia and ended up as a refugee in Germany. But Germany was no friend to Otomo. Though he lived in Germany for 8 years, he lived in constant poverty, with no work papers and always isolated from German society.

This is a 1999 German film about Otomo’s fate — it is a true story. I liked the film because I got an opportunity to read a little on the history of Cameroon, and to see another side of Germany. It was a dreary film taking place in Stuttgart where we are only shown industrial run down districts with grey buildings giving a sense of hopelessness on foggy, bland days. It is not a fun film and the plot is routine.

Otomo is a religious man. And though his religion was his strength for years, it fails him in the end.  The kindness of a Catholic charity paid his rent for a dingy apartment where his only art was a cheap Jesus poster (reminding me of my embarrassing College poster).  But years of poverty and hopelessness changed the devote Otomo.  The film shows these changes. But we are naive to think that even ourselves, with the best of ideals, would not also change after years of poverty, no respect and no hope?  Even religion can only offer so much salvation.  No god will come to our aid.  For as the heroine of this film pleas: “People can help each other!”

Interestingly, I just saw this short YouTube presentation which bemoans the image Westerners have of Africans through their Hollywood films.  But this German film, just like the previous Zulu film I reviewed, only request from us pity for Africans, it does not offer us an image that this short YouTube presentation requests.  I am not sure where to go with that.  Any suggestions?


Tagged: Africa, Cameroon, Religion

Confessions of a Vegetarian

Published
by
Sabio Lantz
on April 28, 2012
.

“I respect animals; I don’t harm other sentient beings;  Vegetarians care for the planet.  I’m a vegetarian!”

Wow, doesn’t that sound fantastic?  It was my mantra for many years.

My vegetarianism began after being served brains inside of a goat’s head when I was a guest in a Pakistani village. I remember vividly walking home alone on a lonely mountain dirt path during that moonless evening feeling morally corrupt after eating the soul of the goat — its brains.  I swore I would not eat any animal products again. And after that evening I remained a vehement vegetarian for many years.

 Before reading further, please consider taking this poll to share how you see your diet now.  Chose the description that closest fits your thoughts — don’t be too picky — this is just for fun.  If you want to see a more elaborate classification of diets, see my post here.Back to the story: Eventually, my vegetarian obsession faded.  But even though I was transitioning out of being a vegetarian, I kept calling myself a “vegetarian” because the label had become an identity with many benefits I was not excited about giving up. Yet as I added foods that would clearly disqualify me as a “real vegetarian”, I had to eventual re-label myself.Below is a chart to share how my self-labeling ridiculously persisted while I slowly re-entered carnivore land. Each row is separated by months or years.  Check out my questions at the end of the post.
My Rationales Foods Gradually Added
I think I can eat yogurt — I miss its creamy flavor.  Besides, I’m not killing an animals to eat this. Heck, the most religious of Hindu vegetarians eat it too.  I can give up the Vegan label — I am still vegetarian.  Besides, yogurt offers “probiotics” — that sounds good.
If yogurt is OK, other dairy products should be fine too.  Yeah, I can add cheese and milk. Yum, boy I missed cheese.  And I will be careful to buy these from places where animals are well treated.

Eggs are also an animal product that don’t involve harming an animal. Eggs are like the fruit of trees. So, if no chickens are hurt in producing the eggs, I will eat them.  But I will have to be sure the eggs are not fertilized and the chickens are free-range.

I can’t live in Japan if I don’t eat some seafood.  Shrimp are barely animals.  The are mindless twitching things in the ocean.  I can handle eating them.  That way I can eat sushi with people.  Besides, it is not a mammal or a bird — shrimps can’t really count as ‘sentient’.
Shrimp wasn’t bad.  I don’t feel guilty.  Wheew, I wasn’t sure how that would go. Fish aren’t mammals either.  Besides, they certainly don’t look like us warmblooded creatures.  They have no expressions, so how can they have a soul? Even Japanese Buddhists eat fish.  My life here is Japan will improve greatly if I eat fish — I can eat with everyone.  Besides, fish are just swimming vegetables, I am still a “vegetarian”.  These are not warm blooded animals.

I will only eat chicken occasionally.  I am tired of embarrassing my hosts by refusing food. I am still essentially a vegetarian.  I won’t eat any mammals.  Chickens don’t have lips.  I don’t eat things with lips — that has got to be a kind of vegetarian.  Besides, I remember Hindus who felt it was OK to eat chicken.

Heck, I am eating chicken.  Pork is white meat too.  At least I will still be eating a health, partial-Vegetarian diet.  I am “vegetarian-friendly”.   Besides, I won’t eat pork often and I will eat it with thankfulness.

Pigs weren’t bad and they were mammals. The impotence of the rationales generated by my mind naturally dissipated.  And when I was offered grass-fed cow meat which I felt was also healthy meat, beef entered my life again after more than 25 years of purity.Once I accepted the Holy Cow back into my diet, I was forced to give up any qualifing adjectives to describe the vegetarianism in my life.  Instead, I had to confess: “OK, so I admit, I am no longer a vegetarian!”

 

Oh what the hell, I’ve come this far.

(all things I have eaten after my fall from vegetarian purity — all while in China)

Next?

 

Well, it was a nice long vegetarian run. I felt pretty good about calling myself a vegetarian while it lasted.  In light of my past self-righteous fanaticism, I can see several options my mind could use to handle the tension of my cognitive dissonance:

  1. I am a compromising loser  - I gave up beautiful ideals of animal kindness and/or sustainability.
  2. Vegetarians are stupid, I am smarter than them. I saw through all that idiocy.
  3. Vegetarians come from a good place, but they just don’t have enough information.
  4. Vegetarian diet is better than the SAD (Standard American Diet), but a healthy carnivore diet is better yet.
  5. We are all silly and make imperfect decisions.  Though I am committed to my present preferences, I am willing to change again if the evidence is clear.  Meanwhile, I smile.

Here are some questions to inspire comments:

  • Do you see the parallels to changing religion?
  • Do you agree that we are silly in everything we do.  Or is it just me? Have you ever done anything like this?
  • Can you think of other framing concepts I could embrace to package my contradictions?

Note: See my other Confession Tales


Tagged: Diet, Food, Religion

Confession Tales

Published
by
Sabio Lantz
on April 27, 2012
.

This is an index of posts related to the foibles of my fanatic, experimental, immersive personality.   These posts confess former obsessions with things I no longer believe or practice.  It is due to these memories that I can no long but help laughing at any righteous seriousness that pops up in my life.  I am a weird creature who keeps doing the same thing over-and-over.  If only these confessions would cure me!

Related Posts:


Tagged: Christianity, Medicine, Politics, Religion

We are all Atheish

Published
by
Sabio Lantz
on April 25, 2012
.

The image above is meant to capture five ideas:

  • Modular Diversity:  We are all composed of very different aspects – as should our community. (see my post)
  • Epiphenomena:  ”Atheism” often only appears to those looking for it. It is merely an epiphenomena. (see my post)
  • Believing Atheists: My post that explains how we have both inner believers and disbelievers
  • Atheist Christians: The fact that even believers are “atheish”: they don’t believe in the gods of others
  • Softened Views: Naked Pastor’s  “atheish” post suggests a term which helps capture some of the above.
The image below was my first attempt but it left out the modularity and diversity — it had monotonous modules which make “atheish” stand out more clearly.  But in reality, as the top image shows, our modules are highly varied and so the “atheish” epiphenomena really only stands out to those who are looking for it.


Tagged: Atheism, Buddhism, Christianity, Religion

Coffee as Religion

Published
by
Sabio Lantz
on April 24, 2012
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I drink coffee. But my coffee life is not as simple as it may sound.  My coffee life may be richer than you imagine.

I buy freshly-roasted, whole coffee beans at a local shop where I recklessly invest precious time discussing with the owner the virtues of the various beans: the distant land from whence they come, the soil of their upbringing, their method of cultivation, their roasting styles and their freshness. Thus I bring my beans home with great pride and thankfulness.

My Crucible (click)

Each morning I wake early and while my family sleeps, I begin my day by preparing my coffee.  I delicately measure out a large handful of those lovingly chosen beans and place them into the holy crucible — my unique, ceramic, Japanese hand-grinder.   I then take several awareness-filled minutes to hand-grind those sacred beans.  The sound of the grinder fills those meditative minutes as the delicate beans slowly and gently become a rich, fine, brown, fragrant powder.  My labor of love yields a sensual aromatic earth which magically transforms my kitchen into an expensive, warm, cozy cafe.

Then my church bell, the teapot, rings out to call me to the next step of the holy ritual. The hissing pot also wakes my dogs who slumber into my cafe to join me as I gently place my hand-ground alchemy into the chalice — my French-press. The stove is turned off, the water allowed to cool to the perfect temperature and the communion transformation is initiated as the attentively prepared water is gently poured into the chalice. Now, time. Time for the effort of those who graciously planted, picked, bagged, transported, roasted and sold me the trees’ offerings to become the elixir of my life.

My Chalice (click)

I won’t bore you with the details of how I actually drink my coffee (a story in itself) — for you are perhaps not sympathetic to my religion. Indeed some people tell me my religion is delusional.  They tell me that my experience is all in my head. They claim that their machine-ground, pre-packaged secular coffee tastes no different from mine — sacrilege! They have even challenged me to try a taste test, but I refuse. I would never give up the magic of my ritual. Even if somehow they momentarily tricked me into feeling their profane factory coffee is no different from my sacred brew, I know my life would lose deep flavor and meaning without my loving ritual. They can not understand — the taste is more than the components — it is the lived experience.

Conclusion: When we discuss religion with people, we often forget how the mind works and how people are served by their rituals and beliefs.  This morning I intended to read and write about the Ramayana, but this analogy came to mind during my morning ritual and the blogging muses demanded keyboard time from me.  I was unabashedly blatant about some of the parallels in the analogy but I left the rest for the reader to imagine.  Hope you enjoyed it.


Tagged: Coffee, Religion

Reclaiming Villains: Judas & Ravana

Published
by
Sabio Lantz
on April 22, 2012
.

From my Ramayana series:

Judas was possessed by the Devil and betrayed Jesus — he is one of the major bad guys in the Christian Bible.  In the Hindu Ramayana, Ravana is the King of Demons — ya can’t get much worse than that.  But within both Christianity and Hinduism, we find revisionists who rebel against orthodoxy and say, “Wait, the villain ain’t who you think he is.”

Christianity’s Various Judases

The hanging Judas' soul harvested by the Devil

Episcopal Bishop Spong (and others) theorize that early Christians wanted to distance themselves from Jews and so created the myth of Judas Iscariot (Gk for the Hebrew word “Judea”) and hung him (Gk: iskarioutha = chokiness).  The Bible contains hints of the gradual development of the Judas myth:  Paul, who wrote the earliest Christian documents, never mentioned Judas. And in the earliest gospel, Mark (written after Paul’s writings) doesn’t have motives for Judas like the later gospels.  The contradictory myth evolved slowly but is well accepted today.  Ask most Christians and they will give you the homogenized orthodox version: Judas was a demon-possessed, Jewish traitor.

Richard Beck, a Christian psychologist at “Experimental Theology“, admits that the Judas story evolved and chooses to have pity on the Gospel’s Judas character.  He feels that Judas was repentant and that God had mercy on him.  He feels that Judas was falsely demonized.  Beck wants Judas to be one of us and agrees with Susan Gubar that Judas was a vehicle for the Church’s anti-semitism. Bob Dylan, in “With God on Our Side”, also sympathizes with Judas:

Through many a dark hour
I been thinkin’ ’bout this,
How Jesus Christ was
Betrayed by a kiss.
But I can’t think for you,
You have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot had
God on his side.

Lady Gaga's Judas

While some Christians kindly take pity on Judas, others go even further.  Some early and modern Christians actually turn Judas into a hero.  Church apologist Irenaeus (180 AD) tells us that his enemies, the Gnostics, made Judas into an instrument of Divine Wisdom.  Elaine Pagel tells us that the Gnostic Gospel of Judas reports Judas as following Jesus’ instructions to help free Christ’s soul from Jesus’ physical constraints.  Thus Judas is portrayed as the only disciple who really understood who Jesus really was.  Judas was a saint.

No matter what you think about Judas, my point is that believers can remain believers and yet still rebel against the hegemony of orthodoxy by revising established stories.  A modern example could be Lady Gaga, a Catholic hedonist, who manipulates Judas with her incoherent song to continue to challenge orthodoxy’s asceticism — she loves Judas.

Such manipulations by believers who want to stay in the faith and yet change it can also be seen in the manipulations of the Hindu villain Ravana.

Hinduism’s various Ravanas

Rama kills the evil Ravana

The summary of the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, is simple: Sita (the hero’s wife) is kidnapped by Ravana (the evil king of demons).  Rama (the hero) and Ravana battle with their armies. Rama wins by killing Ravana and brings Sita home.  So what’s to not like about that?

Well, like the Judas story, this story is the orthodox version and if a Hindu wants to challenge the dominating powers who use this story, one way is to revise the apparent villain — Ravana.

My daughter and I are presently reading another fun summary of the Ramayana by Sanjay Patel which has great illustrations.  In Patel’s story, Ravana is an unembarrassingly flat representation of total evil.  And this simplicity hides the variety of attitudes toward Ravana that exist in India and around the world.

Thailand's virtuous Ravana

In the April 2nd “The Times of India” we read a story where students in the University of Hyderabad rebelliously celebrate the life of Ravana on Ram Navami (the birthday celebration of Ram).  This is a political move.

Hyderabad is in South India (see my post on the North-South India divide).  In South India many see Ravana as the protype Dravidian King.   They feel the Ramayana myth is a suppression vehicle by North Indians to hold down both Dravidians (predominant in the South) and the lower castes (Dalit and Bahujan).  They contend that careful reading of the Ramayana shows this suppressive history and the manipulation of Ravana who was actually a good king and better leader than Rama.

Actually there are several Indian temples devoted to Ravana where he is revered as a devotee of Lord Shiva.  Remember, Hinduism has 3 main gods (the Trimurti):

    1. Brahma: the inactive creator (yawn)
    2. Vishnu: of whom, Rama and Krishna are his incarnations
    3. Shiva: who has no incarnations and thus his worshippers would be inclined to see Ravana a bit differently.

Jainism, a non-Hinduism religion in India, has its own version of the Ramayana (Paumacariya) where “the Rama story no longer carries Hindu values. Indeed the Jaina texts express the feeling that the Hindus, especially the Brahmins, have maligned Ravana, made him into a villain.”   In the Jain’s version, Ravana is a great man undone by his passions.  Likewise, in Thailand’s Buddhist version of the Ramayana (called “The Ramakirti”), Ravana is admired for his resourcefulness, learning and sacrifice.  For the Thai people, Ravana’s death is a sad occasion. [see Ramanujan's article]

Conclusion

Mythical characters are used for social ends.  Revision of villains in these myths is one of many means for believers to rebel against political agendas.  Above I have explained how this has been done with Judas in the Christian Bible and with Ravana in the Hindu Ramayana.  Understanding these shared manipulation techniques may help some believers to see the very human side of their own religion.

____________

Sources:

Further Reading on Ravana:

  • Neelakantan, Anand: Asura: Tale of the Vanquished.  Ravana re-explored. (website)
  • Vijayendra Mohanty and Vivek Goel: Ravanayan. Ravana revamped! (website)

Further Readings on Judas:


Tagged: Bible, Christianity, Hinduism, Ramayana, Religion