philosophy and 'Tales From Earthsea'.

By PJK



Few would argue against Miyazaki's film making genius. But does it run in the family? Studio Ghibli's latest offering is not by Miyazaki but in fact by his son. It's called Tales from Earthsea, and like Howl's Moving Castle, it's based on a book by some lady I've never heard of. Not that it matters. By the way, just a warning for anyone who, like me, was expecting a plurality of 'tales' throughout the movie: there is only one tale, the title is erroneous.

By their usual standards the movie was pretty average. You can be sure that, being Studio Ghbili, the artwork and visuals will be as amazing as you've come to expect. Quite frankly though the story is disjointed and its telling is overly dramatic, at times cringe-worthy. Yet the movie does get one thing very right: its philosophical message. After the dragons and sorcery of the first half of the film, the last thing I expected was to be confronted with philosophy in the second half. But sure enough, there were sections of dialogue that sounded hardly dissimilar to something by Albert Camus. I don't want to spoil it for those who have yet to see it, but the movie ultimately deals with the exact themes I discussed in my last post: death, fear of dying, eternal life, and ultimate meaning.

The message is not one of despair but one of hope. As humans, we are the only beings aware of our own mortality. Faced with this knowledge, we should neither by burdened by the immense weight of it all, nor should we take for granted the 'unbearable lightness of being' and in so doing dismiss its value. Whether the promise of eternal life comes from science or from religion (or, in the fictional world of the movie, from magic), it makes no difference: the promise is an empty one. A life without end would be like a song without its final chord, or a story without the last, poignant words of its closing chapter.

Death makes life poetic. Surely we might better embrace life by accepting death?

death is like a box of chocolates.

By PJK

Religion seems to be a hot topic at the moment (the subject of two of our most recent posts, and several before that). This post is a supplement to my recent rant wherein I discussed how people's religious beliefs — specifically their notion of an afterlife — affect their worldview (and hence their attitudes to others). I've been thinking about death a lot lately; not necessarily fretting about it, just pondering. No particular reason, just because I'm getting older I guess (I'll be 20 next month; as a teen it felt like time was standing still for me, now it feels like time is racing ahead much too fast). So I thought I'd now share my beliefs about death honestly and with a frankness that I hope no one finds disrespectful, in the hope that someone out there on the Wide World of Web might find it enlightening. Yes, yes, I know. For a light-hearted satirical blog like this one, I couldn't have picked a less cheery subject. I can only urge you to read on, and you can forget all about the subject in a few short minutes. Sound fair?

"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." — Isaac Asimov.

Of course you might ask why I'm bothering to mention it at all; I'm still young, I have my whole life ahead of me, right? I hate this phrase because it implies that I will surely live a long time and that I won't say, be hit by a car tomorrow and be killed, which is a distinct possibility and one which we should all be aware of, at least some of the time. Here in the developed world we take for granted our ever-increasing lifespan. We owe a great deal of thanks to the benefits of modern healthcare, ready access to food and clean water and a comfortable standard of living. Because of these we therefore expect, nay demand, a long and prosperous life for ourselves and our loved ones. But as we are all made painfully aware from time to time, death can take any one of us at any moment.

What happens when it does? Well, as you might have guessed by now, my belief is that death is final. There is no soul. You and I will someday cease to exist altogether. Some people use very emotionally-charged language to describe this end. They call it 'oblivion', 'nothingness', 'eternal darkness', and so on. It is an idea that makes a lot of people very afraid indeed. This, along with the lack of an objective source of morality, is probably one of the least attractive aspects of modern atheist materialism. But I urge everyone to overcome these emotional stumbling blocks. I contend that death should not be scary, and by confronting it honestly we can achieve a better outlook on the life we have here and now. The rest of this post will be dedicated to showing why this kind of death is actually the ideal, and that belief in a life after death is both unnecessary and undesirable.

"The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look Death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides." — Carl Sagan.

Afterlife beliefs are probably as old as human thought itself. Ever since early man was first able to reason causally (cause X will bring about effect Y), we have considered certain facts about our existence. This includes the observable truth that human beings and other creatures will eventually die. The corpse of a stone age hunter mauled by a sabre-toothed tiger ceases to move, no matter how many times his companions must have tried to rouse him from his slumber. Since primitive humans were a bit of stickler for spirits and sprites and other invisible forces working in nature, they concluded that there must be a spirit in all of us that departs the body at death. Dying, they thought, was just the process of shedding our earthly bodies so we may travel to a wonderful spirit world in the sky.

Let's take one example of an eternal spirit world that continues to have a huge influence on Western Civilization. Let's assume that I (and billions of Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Pagans and other assorted heathens) am wrong, and Christianity is indeed the one true faith (ignoring denominational differences of course). If you've been good you get go to a place called Heaven where everything is perfect and anything is possible. You can meet and converse with God, Jesus, lost relatives, famous dead people from history and so on. Awesome! Well, for a while I guess. But for ETERNITY? That's forever. Think about it. You will eventually get around to doing every activity you've ever wanted to do (many, many times over). You'll have met every dead celebrity from history you've ever wanted to meet. By now you're sick of playing Nintendo with Jesus. Mozart is writing another symphony?! Does this guy ever stop? And watching through the clouds as life on Earth unfolds is getting pretty damn boring. Think of the old saying, history repeats itself. Watching the endless follies of humanity would be a bit like watching endless re-runs on daytime TV.

Heaven: boring?

So the boredom of eternal life starts to look more like an agony without end than a reward, and you'll probably end up having lengthy, heated arguments with God about why he came up with the idea in the first place. Ditto eternal punishment in Hell. Sure, being constantly whipped and beaten by imps and sodomised by Satan's demonic member might be a sheer relentless nightmare for the first few months, but after a dozen or so years of torment, you'll get used to non-stop pain (particularly since you were quite a hardcore dude to get into Hell in the first place). You're there for eternity remember, so pain will soon become a very normal occurrence. At some point you'll start to grow apathetic. Yo Satan, this the best you've got? Give me some real suffering, this stuff's for pussies!

"Since the order of the world is shaped by death, mightn't it be better for God if we refuse to believe in Him, and struggle with all our might against death without raising our eyes towards the heaven where He sits in silence?" — Albert Camus.

What about the more esoteric idea that life is cyclical? Reincarnation has been central to many ancient religions East and West and is still widely believed today. At first glance it has a lot going for it: uh oh, dead... I guess that means Game Over, right? Nope! Simply insert coins and try again! Life is a never-ending arcade lock-in where everyone becomes a winner eventually! Sounds like a positive message huh?

But it raises too many questions. Where do new souls come from? What happens to all the souls if people all agree to stop having babies? But a more profound question: does reincarnation actually guarantee us anything? By which I mean, philosophically speaking, are we still 'us' when we reincarnate? We consider our sense of 'self' to be an accumulation of our deeds, our behaviour, our personality, our thoughts. Our spirit is said to be the enduring qualities of our embodied minds. But when you think about it, a lot of our identity has to do with memory. If we permanently lose our memory due to some sort of brain damage (as many people do), can we ever be 'us' again? Many people who suffer amnesia feel like different people, and fail to connect their past experience with what they think and feel at the present moment. So if at death we lose everything that had contributed to building our identity, does reincarnating without full awareness of our previous life make any difference anyway? Isn't it almost the same as the atheist version of death?

Reincarnation: not the answer.

There is another life-after-death belief that some people posit; I tend to associate the idea with hokey New Age crap and spaced-out hippies on acid. This is the notion that when we die we will all become 'one with the universe'. It's like y'know, dude, perhaps there is like this single, enduring consciousness, okay? Like a universal mind that we are all a part of man, and like, when we die, the like, essences of our being totally become a part of this eternal one-ness! Yeah. Maybe. Maybe not. I just don't find this one very reassuring, which is what afterlife beliefs are supposed to be. If it's true (and there's certainly no reason to think that it is, other than wishful thinking), it's kind of cool. But like re-incarnation, it ignores the fact that what we're really afraid of losing in death is our identity; if we become 'one' with the universe, aren't we becoming something that's pretty far removed from the person we were before we died? So is it really that much better than the atheist version of death?

Far out dude! I'm one with the universe.

So we're back where we're started: death as an eternal, dreamless slumber. Perhaps you're still not convinced. If not on an intellectual level, maybe you object to the idea on an emotional level. After all, if we're all going to die and that's it... why do anything at all? Doesn't death invalidate our lives? Doesn't it make our existence ultimately 'meaningless'? There are many and varied philosophical responses to questions like these. Indeed, the idea is nothing new: people have been considering such questions since at least the mid-19th Century, around the time many people began to suspect there might not be a god after all. This branch of thought is known as existentialism, expounded by thinkers like Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Russel, Satre, and Camus.

It is possible the philosophers listed above didn't consider the possibility (now becoming more and more realistic) that as technology advances, we may be able to cheat death altogether. Should we, if possible, do away with death? If we have the technology to 'live forever', would it be a good idea? If current knowledge of the laws of physics is to believed, such a feat would be impossible. The universe is finite, and billions of years from now it will collapse, at which point it will no longer be possible for anything to exist. We may be able to increase our lifespan for aeons to come, but since our lives would still be finite, questions of life and death would simply be put off for a later day.

'Transhumanism' is thus not an answer, merely a means of delaying the question. In any case, as I mentioned in my response to traditional afterlife beliefs, living forever simply isn't desirable anyway. What gives us our impetus for action, what drives us to fill our days with the things that bring us great joy, is the knowledge that our time on earth is limited. If there was no end in sight we would simply put off all our ambitions, take for granted everything we have and everything we strive for, and eventually grow completely apathetic and weary of the world. That's not living. That's not the kind of existence I want, and on reflection, I don't think there are many people who would want it either (and those that think they do now would live to regret their mistake!)

"Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not." — Epicurus.

In sum, there is no reason to fear death, and indeed it gives us a solid grounding from which we may make sense of our lives. I argue that given this knowledge, we must either accept that death is final, or else live our lives as if it were. Because if we don't, and our beliefs about an afterlife are wrong, we risk taking for granted the only life we get. Of course, if I'm wrong and there really is a hell, I can only hope God is not so petty that he'd send me there simply for not believing in him.

Obviously none of this is really the most comforting message. When a loved one dies, the knowledge that they are gone forever, that it is impossible to ever see them again, is shattering. As anyone who has suffered loss will know, the first stage of the grief process is denial. Even when you finally accept that they're gone, it's still difficult to think that they aren't somehow here in spirit. I lost my grandmother when I was seven. I didn't see her very often and we were never very close, but it was still a huge shock. I was not raised in any religion and I don't believe in Heaven, but I still felt as if she was here, watching over me somehow. This feeling lasted many years, even as I became more convinced of my atheism.

This 'feeling' might not represent a metaphysical reality, but there is a sense in which it is significant. Indeed, we can all achieve some kind of immortality, because in a sense we do survive our death; in the thoughts and memories of our loved ones; on inscriptions on tombstones and in photographs and written records; through our contributions to society (whether they be our life's labours or our creative accomplishments); and in our genetic lineage, through our children and grandchildren and so on. Some day the planet will burn up, or we will destroy ourselves in a petty war, or the universe will have collapsed. But by then it won't matter. As long as the spark of humanity persists, we will all have shared in it, an experience which is significant to us if only because we know it can't last forever.

"Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have." — James Baldwin.

a smite at the museum.

By Challi

Does anyone else just find this adorable? A museum has been opened in America that tries to scientifically explain Creation and other completely understandable things like how Noah had dinosaurs on board the Ark with him! Oh yes, wood was really strong back then.



Now look, I understand how frustrating it is for Catholics to be believed by pretty much anyone that aren't them, but this stupid museum isn't exactly helping. I mean c'mon, dinosaurs on the Ark? Not even most hardcore Catholics are that fucking stupid. Besides, why do Catholics even feel that they have to explain themselves to the scientific world? Isn't God supposed to be some super all-powerful magic being that defies such restrictive boundaries like logic? If there was no evidence available to support otherwise, then wouldn't that prove that point more, and thus restore the majesty of God for the followers who would want to believe it like that? It's much better than trying to find a systematically sound reason as to how eating fruit from one particular tree made us ashamed of our nudity or how an old guy parted the sea with a magic stick, isn't it?

So likewise, I'm also annoyed that there were party-pooper protesters outside the museum with signs like "DEFCON SAYS THOU SHALT NOT LIE".



Yes, sure the museum is stupid and pointless, but that doesn't give them the right to ruin the creation idea for believers anyway. Do Catholic priests go around telling the little kids they lured into their confessional booths that the Easter Bunny and tooth fairy doesn't exist? Hell no, and they shouldn't do the same.

-C

imagine no religion...

By PJK

"The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most destructive to the peace of man since man began to exist."

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason.

Atheist opposition to religion should be unnecessary in principle. It makes no difference to me whether you believe in an omniscient creator, or whether you believe in the tooth fairy. As readers may have noticed, I am firmly against the idea that anyone's beliefs (political, religious, cultural, etc.) should be grounds for discrimination in a democratic, secular, and pluralist society. But this is not the same as saying that belief should be immune from criticism, and when it comes to religion there is certainly a lot to critique, even oppose.

For one thing, my tolerance is certainly strained after having personally encountered (on no less that two occasions in the past six months) representatives of organised religion who have either directly stated or implied that I am going to Hell.

Sure, we could ignore them. We could just walk away. But should we? Shouldn't we be opposed to this kind of hateful bile as a matter of principle? The idea that 'sinners' and 'unbelievers' will be subjected to a divine punishment (especially the Christian and Islamic conceptions of Hell) is an archaic and poisonous one, particularly when what is considered 'sinful' is based on ancient and erroneous notions of morality. But sadly this view continues to have an emotional stranglehold on millions around the world. Even simply implying that the godless will have no place in an eternal afterlife is in my opinion emotional blackmail of the most sickening kind. While there exist people and organizations that continue to espouse these views, they MUST BE OPPOSED by all rational and tolerant people.

So too must religious interference in politics. The faith of a political figure is one thing; it's as personal as my preference for coffee over tea. But when the leader of a secular democracy openly promotes the religious views of one sect over all others, then our liberty (in the Enlightenment sense) is compromised. This means no references to 'God' in official documents and ceremonies. No 'Day of Prayer'. No public money for pushing 'abstinence' or 'intelligent design' into schools. These are all aberrations. Thomas Paine would've been appalled.

Enforcing secularism and promoting tolerance is a noble cause, but I would suggest that it alone is not enough. Rational people have a duty to oppose intolerant faiths. When Churches and Sunday Schools evoke the concept of Hell and divine punishment, they are blackmailing and threatening people. Worst of all, they are blackmailing and threatening children. If I threatened or blackmailed a child, shouldn't I be prosecuted? And if there is any justice in the world, shouldn't I be punished for it? People are easily led astray by hateful rhetoric. So why let religions get away with propagating the worst threat of all? (ie. an eternity of the worst suffering imaginable!)

Finally, I have this to add. People object to the way 'militant' atheists such as Richard Dawkins attack religion. You might be inclined to think he is just as bad. I would disagree. Dawkins is not threatening anybody. Unlike many religious believers, Dawkins is not suggesting that if you don't adopt his beliefs, you will be eternally punished. And though I haven't read The God Delusion, from what I've heard it mainly targets the fundamentalist God (ie. a bearded man in the clouds), and this I have no qualms with. If anything, Fundamentalists should be attacked more often and more harshly by noteworthy intellectuals, and their ludicrously primitive and dangerous beliefs like 'creationism' should be exposed for what they're truly worth (ie. nothing).

And if this argument sounds one-sided, understand too that my tolerance for 'Islamic sensibilities', particularly the hypocrisy involved in responding to cultural offences with senseless violence, is wearing thinner by the day.

Islamic sensibilities or Islamic double standards?

officially un-Australian.

By PJK

Yes, that's right. I am now officially un-Australian. Explanation follows.

When you log into MSN Messenger, you have the option of displaying "MSN Today", which summarises the daily news as decided by our good friends over at Murdoch's Nine Network. You know this already, but read on! Each day it has a user poll pertaining to a particular news item, which is the main reason I look at it rather than turning it off — the polls are always so absurdly biased, set-up or worded in such a way that they almost always coincide with the government's latest talking-points, or whatever blatant rightwingery Rupert Murdoch has decided we ought to be buying-into at the moment.

Today's poll is possibly the most outrageous I've seen thus far: "should the government cap immigration for particular religions?" If you didn't manage to take that in properly at first glance, what it's asking is this: should the government limit the number of people belonging to a certain religion from living in Australia or not.

Here's what MSN users have to say thus far:

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK???

And gee, I wonder what the "particular religion" is they had in mind?

Democracy, people. Ever hear of it? It entitles people to certain freedoms. One of those freedoms is the one that allowed you (and I'm now addressing the average Joe nationalists who voted yes in the above poll) to wake up this morning without being beaten to within an inch of your life by men with large sticks, for example. There are others.

One freedom that we've associated with democracy since, well, let's say the American Revolution OVER 200 YEARS AGO, is called Freedom of Religion. The deal is, you get to worship whatever make-believe deity you want, and get this: as a bonus, you don't get a hot iron rod inserted into your anus (ala a certain Spanish Inquisition). Until recently it has generally been thought of as a good idea.

But I guess now you want to shit upon that idea huh? Those Muslims, they don't respect OUR way of life, do they? And terrorism and things. Therefore we don't want THEM coming HERE anymore. Yeah, I can totally understand where you're coming from. I get your line of thinking. Oh wait, hang on a mo', THAT'S RETARDED.

Religion and culture are two different things. The former is just an idea. The latter is how you put it into practice. Now I'm not saying there aren't aspects of people's culture that are definately NOT compatible with the Australian way of life. There most certainly are. Treating women like sub-human scum for example is going to get me very mad at you indeed. Blowing yourself and others to smithereens in order to promote medieval bullshit like Sharia law is another. That kind of shit severely riles me.

But belief in a particular God or a particular Holy Book is no basis for discrimination in any civilised society, and until recently I was sort of hoping Australia was still one of those. If the majority of you fucktards though want to make this country into one giant Cronulla riot then I guess that makes me what you're not.

And judging by the Stormfront posters I've been seeing all over town, including at the bus stop by my house, I guess such thinking is becoming the norm.

Guess that makes me un-Australian. Meh.

Enjoy your Crusade, bitches.

the cash-in of the christ.

By Challi

I'm curious. Why the hell is there a movie out about the birth of Jesus? We Christians and all those other serious denominations of the Catholic church have already suffered as much as Jesus did because of hearing about the freaking birth of Jesus every single Christmas when we get forced by our parents or religious significant other to go to church and sit through that whole story about Mary and Joseph looking for a place to give birth to their magical ninja child and they found a barn because there was no room at the hotel. Sure, they could of tried the hospital but they didn't want to pay the bill.

We've heard this story over and over again every year at school. What was even worse was that we had to watch it played out by a whole lot of year 1 kids that are clearly poorly schooled in drama, but that's ok I guess, all of that is free. Now we are given an option to pay to watch a poor reenactment of the birth of Jesus, which we have heard and seen so many times before? I don't think so, Tim. I'll just stick to having to hear about it for free at church.

Oh yeah and lol @ the idiot protestors who tried to fill up the MCG on November 15 with people protesting about the Industrial Relations laws. They only managed about 120,000 when they were aiming for half a million. You know why they fell so short of the amount of people they were expecting? It must have something to do with everyone else having jobs! Despite the hype, these new laws have somehow improved Australia's employment figures dramatically, or so Kevin Andrews states: "We have seen 1.7 million extra jobs created in Australia, more than a 14% increase in real wages. Part of the reason for that is because of the reforms that we made in 1996.". So stop complaining!

-C

reactions to the pope's comments.

By PJK

Just some quick thoughts RE: the Pope's comments. Now, obviously the comments were bound to spur controversy, and if the the Pope didn't think people would overreact, or was hoping for that effect, he's an idiot, plain and simple (yes, I am allowed to call the Pope an idiot if I want, and remember that what I just said was a conditional statement). HOWEVER, there is no reason why anyone should arrive at the conclusion, as one commenter on our Cbox remarked, that "the Pope doesn't like Muslim people".

First of all, the Pope was QUOTING. He made perfectly clear that the quote was not a reflection of his own view, so unfortunately for all you rabid anti-Papal nutjobs, we have to give him the benefit of the doubt here. And if you look at the comment in context, it's a valid point. The Pope was speaking on the subject of "faith and reason", specifically, suggesting that anyone who spreads faith through violence shows a lack of reason. I agree. And it is a historical fact that the religion of Islam, at the command of its own prophet, did at one time spread the Islamic faith by the sword, killing many innocent people in the name of Allah. Let's not sugar-coat history here people. Christians did the same thing, so did Hindus and Buddhists and probably at some point even Jews. The fact that he focused on Islam was probably a bad move, but so what? Why do we allow one religion's sensitivity to blanket any criticism of its radical elements? Particularly something that happened over 600 years ago? Any religion should be open to criticism. Yet the hysteria mounts, and even in this enlightened age, we see people firebombed for drawing cartoons of Muhammed (for example). How can anyone who believes in free speech defend that? Political correctness, if taken seriously (and that is a whole other discussion entirely), should not accept double-standards.