Brief overview of my spirituality

 A brief overview of my spirituality, lifted from a Facebook post (or two).

Religiously, I'm a Unitarian Universalist. That's the church I go to and best symbolizes what I'm teaching my kids. Spiritually, I'm a radical polytheist with humanist tendencies.

I believe in an infinite number of deities with an infinite number of forms and an infinite number of names. Do you want a deity that responds to the name "God" that hates pinball but loves trashy romance novels? I believe such a deity exists. Do you want one that hates all the same people you hate? That one's easy, too. (I caught an episode of "Toddlers and Tiaras" where a woman basically said she prayed until she found a God who wanted her toddler to compete. I totally believe such deities exist.) Who do you talk to when you pray? You talk to the deity that you know most clearly. A person full of rage will find plenty of deities full of rage, and plenty of those willing to be the deity they're looking for.

On a very core level, I don't believe humans are unique. This means, it isn't just humans that have spirits and deities, it is everything. The interaction between things in the form of systems and relationships also have spirits and deities. Perhaps that's the ecology of a small isolated valley. Perhaps that's your own circulatory system. Everything has a soul and deities from your individual cells through the complex interactions of your clan interacting with the environment or other clans. Of note, this means I believe that all spermatozoa and ova have individual souls (and deities) well before fertilization. I'm still pro-choice, however, because none of this is unique or special in any way. The individual grains of rice that go in to Rice Krispies have souls, too, just as Rice Krispie squares have souls. Do they cease having the souls of rice, once they become puffed, once they join together as a Rice Krispie treat, when a piece of puffed rice is cut when slicing individual squares? For me, that's a legitimate question.

And, I believe in things like past-life experiences without believing in even a separable soul, let alone a "real" past life. There's a notion that there is only One, and all of reality is just the One trying it understand itself. If everything is ultimately the same Oneness, then why would the ability to remember someone else's memories as if they were your own require actually owning that person's life? It's an implicit part of being an aspect of the One. I've also experienced a vision in dream that further elaborated upon how this is the case.

I don't believe in an "after" life, so much as I believe in multidimensional beings, parts of which transcend space and time. So our spiritual aspect can experience what we might consider an "afterlife" concurrent to our physical lives being all full of blood and poop. It goes one better, I believe that on a person's death, their reference for time becomes reset to the point of their birth. In effect, they are reincarnated to the same body. They're free to make other choices, but without knowing what happened previously, they rarely make different decisions. Then deja vu becomes a memory of a previous iteration seeping through. This has direct consequences for my views on depression-induced-suicide as well as terminal/assisted-suicide. In one case, pain can only be transcended by living, and in the other a return to a joyful childhood is nothing to spurn.

I have a simple concise reason for life, the universe and everything. It is universal and inescapable: To experience and to be experienced. If your life amounts to a repository of experiences for the universe, what sorts of experiences do you want to store? What do you cherish and cling to?

I firmly believe in a biological basis for what could be called the soul. (Technically, this makes the "soul" references previously states more accurately described as "spirit". Changing that language in myself to be more clear is still a challenge.) What is a person's soul? It is that which would still be like the person if the memories and experiences were stripped away. Two people with the same soul would be a lot alike, even if they lived in different places and times. It amounts to humans being "value engines", and the formula with which we assign value to things is our soul. I know my own formula, and it is simple enough that it could easily be encoded in my DNA, if not an expression of the DNA combined with developmental hormones.

More recently, and a bit more surprising for me, I've stumbled upon what could be a biological basis for the concept of original sin.

Some of these things are, for me, decades-old ideas that I've lived with and that have gradually permeated deeper and deeper in to my being. Even I didn't really believe some of them when I stumbled upon them. It was just a matter of, "Woah. This idea has merit, even if it is totally wrong, the fruit of it is good."

Tis the Season (of death and heartache)

One of the things that marks a person as belonging to a modern faith is having modern concerns.

What counts as a modern concern?

Premarital sex? Back in the fabled Puritan beginnings of the United States some towns had more than 90% of their children get pregnant before marriage. The modern US tends to do a lot better than that these days. Premarital sex is clearly not a modern concern. In fact, I don't consider premarital sex a concern at all, but then this probably doesn't surprise any of my readers.

Homosexuality? This is even less of a modern concern, being that some of our nearest genetic relatives also engage in homosexual acts it seems this is something that actually predates humanity. Don't believe me? Check out some of the antics of the bonobos. Check your local zoo to see if they have them, though be warned that a lot of zoos do not have bonobos as they embarrass the zoo patrons.

Automobiles are clearly a modern concern. Some might say that all of the common well-established religions predate the automobile.

Now, this week, I'm not going somewhere weird here. This has nothing to do with whether or not cars have souls or deities. This is just the modern phenomena of driving vehicles about.

I got a driver's license specifically because I knew driving would be required living where I do. This is the case for an unfortunate vast part of the US. I was in my mid-twenties before I got my license.

This is to say, by the time I got my license, I had done a lot of work on myself. I had become the sort of person that was prone to crying both when sad as well as when happy. I think of it as being tender-hearted.

Now, my family got together (as they continue to do) several times in the fall and winter. I always had a nice quiet drive for much of the way, but what struck me was always how much roadkill I passed. It pulled and tugged on my heart to the point where at times I would be risking my ability to see the road, due to the tears.

I had to do something about it. So I prepared to pray to the dead. It is heart-breaking to see the dead. Sometimes you'll see a friend or family member to the corpse, walk up, as if to ask if the animal is alright. While I prayed, I wept. I wept for the dead, left beside the road to rot or to be gathered up to be discarded like any other detritus. No one gains with roadkill. It isn't part of some grand circle of life, with everyone eating someone else. It is a life, cut short and abandoned, to feed nothing but bacteria.

Now, I'm not a vegetarian. I understand that animals eat other animals, and you can bet most of the roadkill (except, alas for some of the poor pets) know this quite well. It's a world filled with the hunt, prey and hunters abound. This is, after all, normal and natural when it comes to the natural world. Those we kill with our cars are not part of this natural cycle. They are not killed for food, they're not even killed for pleasure. We take nothing from them but their lives. We give back nothing but pain and loss.

My compromise -- since I can't quit driving -- is to acknowledge the dead as I pass them. I say "Bless its soul." I say this anytime I see anything that could be roadkill. I say this sometimes when I think I see trash or leaves. I say this when there are animals too close to the street -- bless them and protect them so they don't wind up as more corpses on our roads.

I'm freer than perhaps I need to be with my blessings. In truth, I do this so I don't need to look closely. I've seen what I thought was a leaf in the road (that I blessed -- and avoided hitting) turn out to be a live animal. It is enough to know that it has been blessed, if I don't see it clearly then perhaps I am lucky.

How many people talk about peace and love and nature without acknowledging the pain and heartache we bring in our wake?

The Reason for Life, the Universe, and Everything (part 2): Debauchery

debauchery (from Wictionary) (plural debaucheries) n.

1. Indulgence in sensual pleasures; scandalous activities involving sex, alcohol, or drugs without inhibition

2. (archaic) Seduction from duty.

If the reason for existence is to exist, and the reason for life is to live, (which -- let's get real -- I'm basically saying here) then whatever personal meaning you have for your life is just that -- a personal meaning.

Does this mean that a life of debauchery is just as valid as a life of piety? Yes. But, really, when the length and breadth of human religions allows for both chastity and licentiousness while still being pious this shouldn't be a surprise for most people. Sure, it has been a while since temple whores have had popularity, but they have existed in the past, and humanity may well see them again. It seems that any time one group defines sexual morality there is a group somewhere providing an alternate definition.

The universe doesn't care what you do with your life -- only that you live.

What is there to prevent you from living a life of debauchery? Clearly nothing, as we see plenty of people enjoying such lives every day.

Realistically, though, lives of unfettered debauchery tend to lead to hurting a lot of people. It is not in human nature to hurt others needlessly, (most people tend to primarily hurt themselves), however it is even less in human nature to allow friends to be hurt needlessly. (To paraphrase the Christian Bible, "Vengeance is Mine, says the BFF.") Those who would use other people will eventually suffer repercussions for their behavior -- after all, you can fool most of the people most of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.

Note, though, when I speak of a life of debauchery I'm speaking of a self-centered life of excess. The implication with the term "debauchery" is that there is a moral or ethical common-ground and that whatever that common-ground is, debauchery goes below it. This is quite different than ethical hedonism. You can love the pleasures of life while still loving and caring for the other people in your life. In truth, it shouldn't surprise anyone to hear two hedonists complaining about some of the choices of a mutual friend and how that person has slipped from ethical hedonism to a simple life of debauchery.

Some might confuse debauchery with a life of orgies and free-love. In truth, some folks find open and/or polyamorous relationships work well for them. These relationships might be confused for debauchery by some, but when relationships are based upon love and communication it should be clear that they are very much not debauchery.

Now, if a relationship is one-sided and based upon either pleasing only one party or it involves degrading or debasing one partner then it bears a lot in common with debauchery even if the relationship outwardly looks like a typical monogamous marriage. Do you want further proof? Add a video camera that only one member of the relationship knows about. This instantly raises the bar in how one-sided a relationship is, but I argue that if the only thing that is missing is the camera, then the marriage may still be thinly veiled debauchery.

For another example: I was once told quite matter-of-factly that "not everything in a marriage is consensual." I was appalled, particularly when she added, "You'll understand after you get married." I'm married now. Rape within the context of a marriage is just as abhorrent to me as it was back then. At least most single-people who opt for a life of debauchery do not need to stoop so low. Sure, they may manipulate, the other party may know it was a bad idea (both before and after), they may even explicitly set out to seduce someone's spouse, but what happens is consensual at the time.

This is really just to make a point. The universe is quite content for you to have a life of debauchery (though you'll probably be happier with yourself if you opt for ethical hedonism instead), and if you do really want debauchery, you can still have that while outwardly keeping a monogamous heteronormative lifestyle.

Now, in the next part, I'll move on to talk more about personal meaning.

The Reason for Life, the Universe, and Everything (part 1)

I've mentioned before that I have a Reason for Life, the Universe, and Everything.

More than that, to be truly universal, it can't be something restricted to humanity. Additionally, it must be inescapable. If it is the reason for everything, then it makes sense that it would be something that is unavoidable -- everything always does does it regardless of personal inclination or desire.

Quite simply, I believe the purpose of everything is to experience and to be experienced.

This is inescapable: We say that something exists when it can be experienced. If something can not be experienced in any way then few would doubt that the thing does not exist.

This is universal: Nothing about this is unique to life, let alone humanity.

It is unavoidable: Neither the hardest rocks nor the folks crippled by anxiety and stuck at home can avoid experiencing and being experienced. It isn't like death and most folks avoid it most days, though they know that one day their time will come.

Are you going to fill your life with the regularity of the tides? Are you going to fill it with new and unusual experiences? In the end both are equivalent. You, like everything else, collect experiences until at last you die. Some of us have a better memory of our experiences, but we all experience and are experienced.

This reason for existence seems self-evident upon reflection, what with some religions believing that the universe exists as such specifically to experience itself. If differentiation happened specifically for self-experience, then of course the reason for existence is so that we can experience and be experienced.

I suspect the only thing that prevented it from being self-evident was my Western upbringing, and the thing that gets a lot of people: Wanting the search, but not wanting the answer. It isn't particularly an uplifting reason for existence. It is easy to see where a person might over-think the question in an attempt to find a happier (or otherwise "better") answer.

(In the next part, I'll mention where debauchery comes in.)

Life as a game

I was playing Conway's Game of Life on my phone and a thought occurred to me, "You know, if God treated Life like I play this game, we would all be doomed."

Conway's Game of Life is a cellular automata simulator. The version I play starts with an empty field. I swipe my finger along the screen to create life. Then I go about interfering with any form of stability or stasis in an attempt to clear the screen with as little interaction as possible. Put simply, first I create life then I set about to destroy it with as few moves as possible.

Any sort of massive single deity which claims to be both the creator and destroyer may be interested in playing similar games on a larger scale. Such games would, of course, ultimately lead to our destruction. Frankly, such games are fun, so I can clearly see the draw.

Multiple deities provide a checks-and-balances that you can't get with a single deity. This would be why there's an assumption that any single deity must be the definition of good. Defining anything as being "inherently good" is a rationalization, an excuse. It is an ethical cop-out.

Would you blindly follow a deity to the destruction of all life on the planet? What if you were sure that would trigger the return of your heroes and deities? What if you were given proof that the request came from your deity of choice?

Personally, I don't think I can call any deities inherently good, as I can not call any inherently bad. They exist. They may have their own agenda. They may believe their agenda would be beneficial to you or to humanity as a whole. But... inherently good? Is a tree inherently good? Are the stars inherently good? (Note that I can't talk about people this way due to the belief that some folks have that people are inherently bad.)

Good and evil are often just labels. If I said everything I did was good because I had been touched by my gods then I would be given carte blanche to be extremely damaging to my fellow humans without consequence or remorse. Unfortunately, this seems to happen with some cults.

You need to look at everything with a sense of ethics. Is the goal to win the game at any cost, or is it to play honorably while everyone has fun?

When dealing with divinities, a little doubt is good, as you may not be communicating with the deity you expect. (More on this later.) If you are asked to do something that doesn't seem ethical do not blindly accept it as a test of faith as it is just possible you may not be dealing with an ethical deity. Ethical deities not only don't cheat, they don't ask others to cheat for them.

Out here the game we play is for the hearts and minds of humanity -- the very future of our people. Play fair and we can all have fun. Cheat and you may still lose.