Green Oasis

This essay by Milton Glaser offers a treasure trove of wisdom gleaned from a life working in design. Take for example this gem:

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DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY.

Everyone always talks about confidence in believing what you do. I remember once going to a class in yoga where the teacher said that, spirituality speaking, if you believed that you had achieved enlightenment you have merely arrived at your limitation. I think that is also true in a practical sense. Deeply held beliefs of any kind prevent you from being open to experience, which is why I find all firmly held ideological positions questionable. It makes me nervous when someone believes too deeply or too much. I think that being sceptical and questioning all deeply held beliefs is essential. Of course we must know the difference between scepticism and cynicism because cynicism is as much a restriction of one’s openness to the world as passionate belief is. They are sort of twins. And then in a very real way, solving any problem is more important than being right.

I hope to be able to write an essay like that in 30 years.

Three of us in my family have been suffering with coughs. Did you know that cough syrup has been shown not to work? Or that antibiotics do nothing for common infections which usually clear up on their own? (via Lone Gunman)

…the chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is in its polarization: Us vs. Them—the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you’re sensible, you’ll listen to us; and if not, you’re beyond redemption. This is unconstructive. It does not get the message across. It condemns the skeptics to permanent minority status;… (The Demon Haunted World, p. 300)

I’ve seen this attitude a lot, even in myself. I hear many skeptics despair of ever convincing the credulous; that Dawkins, Dennet, Harris, Hitchens, et al. are preaching to the choir; that religious folk will never see the light.

My message for the beleaguered skeptic is to keep the faith. I am the beneficiary of their efforts. I am proof that people can change their minds when they hear the voice of reason. I don’t like contemplating what my life would be like if no one had bothered to make the case against my former beliefs.

[This was originally part of a comment on a post about original sin at The Slapdash Godliness of a Good Girl.]

We can blame Augustine of Hippo for the idea of original sin. As such, it is one of the most hellish inventions of mankind.

Let me recap. God wanted to show everyone how infinitely loving he is, so he created Adam and Eve and put them in a paradisaical garden knowing that they would break his rule about eating of the fruit one particular tree. When they broke his rule (just like he knew they would), he cast them out of paradise into a torture chamber inhabited by a malicious demon he refuses to rein in. Adam and Eve and all of their children suffer at this demon’s hands. He creates earthquakes, floods, plagues, famines, pestilences, and all manner of suffering to punish Adam and Eve’s family for the time back in paradise when their first parents dared to eat that fruit that God tempted them with. Before the demon can do this, however, he must get God’s approval to make sure that no one who believes in God’s love suffers more than necessary, such are the protocols of the heavenly bureaucracy. Satan is on God’s payroll, doing all the dirty work God doesn’t care to do.

Millions upon millions upon billions of people are tortured and killed in this torture chamber with God’s approval. God’s sense of justice demands that God punish all of humanity for Adam and Eve’s sin of which they had no part and for choosing evil themselves, just as he created them to do. He couldn’t show his love if people didn’t suffer, so his plan from the beginning was to create humanity in such a way that they would certainly sin, torture humanity when they sinned according to his plan, and come to their rescue.

Seeing his plan was going well (what with all the suffering and dying going on), it was time for God to show his love, so he took on a mortal body. After being tortured for a day or two, he gave up and died. (Or even worse, he tortured and killed his own Son to make up for his own actions.) This made God feel better about the suffering of all the billions of people who he’s banished to his torture chamber.

If God let all those tortured souls live forever in paradise, it would probably make up for all his hellish sadism. Yet he still put a condition on humanity’s relief from suffering. They had no choice to come to this nightmare chamber in the first place. He never asked them their preference beforehand, yet they bear the final responsibility for getting themselves out. They must first believe—while still being tortured—that he loves them. Not only that, they must love him in return. Anyone who can’t muster the credulity necessary to believe that, anyone who doubts his love in the face of all his sadism, anyone who doesn’t thank him for the chance to suffer and die at his behest will go on suffering forever in an even worse torture chamber reserved for the skeptical and the ignorant.

God sounds like one hell of a cult leader.

Here’s another for the file of self-deluded martial artists. This man believed that he could perform a ritual that would protect him from his own razor-sharp blade. Result? He nearly hacks off his own left arm.

It’s fascinating what people can convince themselves of.

Warning: if you’re squeamish about the sight of blood, don’t watch. It’s not excessive, but there is blood.

Another example of how faith must be placed in things that are true. The damned hard part is finding out what is true.

I wonder what he learned from this. Will he try to shrug it off as inauspicious spirits? Or perhaps a lack of training? I hope for his sake that when the wound heals and the embarrassment wears off, he can let go of his dangerous delusion.