The Sad Atheist Goat

This made me laugh...I suppose if you look for the "sad goat" chances are it's an atheist...right up there with Michael Coren's label of "The Sads"... Anyway...

Survival of the paranoid

Another Lets Talk campaign from Bell has just passed and for those who know me and care for me also know that I am a sufferer of a mental illness which has been diagnosed as "Social Phobia". It has also been generally assumed that I have Seasonal Affective Disorder as a result of a lack of light. This not something that I am ashamed of. It is also something that I am not afraid to talk about and share with others. I have had several months of successful treatment with my anxiety, and it seems to be managed quite well.

While the illness does not define me, I strive to understand it's origins and understand that despite my attempts in the past to avoid or dodge the issue, it's part of who we are as a species. Oh we like to think we are a modern species but there is very little fundamental difference from our ancestors of two hundred thousand years ago (or more) and a modern human. To quote a 1965 documentary film called The War Game, "technically and intellectually we live in an atomic age, emotionally we are still living in the stone age".

One in five Canadians will experience some form of mental illness in their lifetime. I am one of them.

It is part of who I am although again, it does not define me.

It is not going to go away anytime soon...and for good reason...it is who we are.

It is more than likely where our gods come from.

This video might be true in the sense of who we are and where we came from. I found it enlightening. I find that possible answers drawn from our evolutionary past far more tangible than any answer from the sky, which has no answer.

You might even find this a bit creepy...

Atheists are the "Sads"?

Michael Coren had written an article in the Toronto Sun which you can access here about Christmas and how it is the atheist nightmare. He goes on to say that: "Sads? It’s my pet name for committed atheists, who seem to be the most unhappy, lugubrious, neurotic special interest group I’ve ever encountered. OK, let me qualify that — one of the most unhappy, lugubrious and neurotic. I’d forgotten feminists and socialists."

Aside from the fact that atheists are typically feminist and largely left of centre, I still have not met one atheist that exhibited such unusual depressive attitudes. Most I have met are usually the complete opposite. Some goes as far as referring to themselves as "brights". But don't take my word for it. Oh and that little bit about Xmas? Most atheists are more than happy to celebrate. Personally I'd love to have a Solstice Party on top of my Xmas celebration. And just for good measure, even Hitler gets a token mention because what would an article on atheism be without a mentio of Hitler.

I am not going to go point by point, but I suppose either Coren is being disingenuous or obnoxious for ratings...or in reality, doesn't know many or perhaps, any atheists...

Either way, nice straw-man and ad-hominem.

M:)

Will there be peace in Mordor?

"I am inclined to believe that this is the land God gave to Cain."
--Jacques Cartier

Mordor. Apart from the obvious connotation of being the wasteland and dwelling place of Sauron in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy universe, it was more of an inside joke between Andrew Wareing and myself some years ago when I described Muskoka, Ontario. It was tongue-in-cheek for sure but both of us told stories of difficulty and intense emotions over events that happened "up there, north of Toronto". You will have to ask Andrew about his tale, but mine was a bit different...

On New Years Eve I was given a wonderful gift from mutual friends of K's and mine, a book called "Road Rocks Ontario" by resident geology professor Nick Eyles, a book that mixes tourism with geology with 250 of the finest geological wonders in Ontario. I have just started to go through the book and hope to visit such sites shortly. But as I went through the pages about the sites in Central Ontario, something started to cringe inside me. It is a familiar feeling really, a feeling that has faded somewhat as I become more and more scientifically literate about the local geology and about science in general.

But why the cringe? Why is it that wonderful images of the landscape invoke a response like that? What is it with Muskoka? Why call it Mordor?

It can be said, the geological formation called the Canadian Shield has played a significant role in my life since I can remember. When I was a believer, the Canadian Shield was viewed as some kind of awesome wonder of god's handiwork, something so wonderful looking and quite possibly ineffable that one could only conclude that god was awesome and beyond all human scale. With bible camps dotted all across the landscape, little kids are brainwashed and coerced exposed to such thinking. They don't really have a chance unless they take basic geology and even then, with all the guilt piled on to force a conversion, that young mind may never look at those rocks from the standpoint of the truth, the reality of what the Canadian Shield really is. For a long, long time, I viewed this "land that god gave to Cain" as evidence of a god so big, so powerful, that you could not deny the reality of such a creator.

My passing interest in geology and my slow increase in knowledge changed my view of the Canadian Shield. While I transitioned out of YEC to old Earth thinking, the slow deconversion process was altering my perception of the world around me, and the Shield went from being a place that declared the glory of a god to something colder, barren and darker. I still didn't understand it's origins, but I knew enough from high school that it was very old.

The Shield was becoming a symbol of my ignorance. Serious ignorance!

As the deconverion process began to accelerate, the acceptance of geology and evolution at their face value based on the evidence began to topple old, incorrect ideas. My insatiable curiosity about how the world works was having a tremendous impact on how I viewed our earth. Deconverting from an all-powerful, all-loving, rock shaping, mountain building god can take its toll emotionally, and those emotions can surface when triggered by images. Images of the Muskoka landscape cause such a confluence of emotions and memories from childhood to deconverted adulthood, it's hard to process all of them and make sense of them. No location in Ontario brings such a flood of intense emotion and memories...some good...some not so good...but all part of the ongoing narrative of my life. While there is no "Eye of Sauron" always watching, I sometimes get this feeling someone is watching...I figure it is an archaic emotion from the past.

"If you're scientifically literate, the world looks very different to you..."

--Neil deGrasse Tyson

Today the Canadian Shield is viewed very differently as I have informed myself about its origins, the processes involved and its "wonders" viewed without the "god goggles" yet the memories always haunt me and for good reason as they are part of the narrative. And yet, understanding the Canadian Shield and the Grenville Province has enlightened me far beyond how I used to think. The fact one stands literally in the basement of a mountain range that rivalled the Himalayas over one thousand million years ago when South America slammed into North America is a humbling thing to consider. The Shield was formed when Earth, for what it's worth, was a completely different planet than it is today. That alone is more than awesome...

Will there be peace in Mordor? Possibly. While the confluence of memories and emotions fades under the shear weight of knowledge, I will always carry those memories to my grave. But as knowledge increases, I think there will be more awe and joy from the evidence. So yes, may there be peace in Mordor!

M:)