Thanks to the San Diego Humanist Book club for a very pleasant evening last night discussing The Religion Virus. It was a real pleasure to hear everyone's thoughts on such a wide-ranging set of topics.
It's always surprising to me which chapters and stories in the book appeal to different people. A number of people really liked the story of "William and Ruth." Several people mentioned how much the story of my father's motorcycle accident affected them. And I had the pleasure of retelling the story of Aunt Carolyn's "unbaptism" to the whole group in greater detail.
But the best part of the evening was the wide-ranging discussion about religion, its peculiar history and how it's still affecting us today. I spend far too much time reading the dogma and irrational faith-based arguments from "the other side," and sometimes I feel submerged. Last night was a refreshing change. It renewed my hope that humanism and rational thinking will prevail some day.
Showing posts with label san diego. Show all posts
Showing posts with label san diego. Show all posts
Friday, July 29, 2011
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Sunday, February 13, 2011
Talking at UC San Diego Rational Thought on Wednesday
For all of my faithful Southern California readers, I've been invited to speak at Rational Thought at UCSD on Wednesday.
It's a concept I've been developing for the last few months: the rise of religion isn't surprising at all. Once we understand the basic tenets of cultural evolution, how ideas form, evolve and spread, we discover that religion is an inevitable side-effect of human civilization. It would be surprising to find a society that wasn't religious.
What's more, religion, like all evolving entities, has a tendency to become better and better adapted to its environment – your brain – to the point where it's become very tenacious indeed. Most of the mysteries of the world that first inspired religion have long since been demystified by science and technology, and yet the religious beliefs persist.
I look forward to seeing you there. UCSD rules don't allow me to sell books on campus, but I'll be happy to autograph copies that you bring with you.
See you there!
| Title: | Is Religion's Incredible Hold on Humanity Predictable? |
| Speaker: | Craig A. James, author of The Religion Virus |
| Date: | Wednesday, Feb 16th at 6:00 PM |
| Location: | 2nd floor of Price Center West Eleanor Roosevelt Room University of California, San Diego (near intersection of Gilman Drive and Myers Drive) |
What's more, religion, like all evolving entities, has a tendency to become better and better adapted to its environment – your brain – to the point where it's become very tenacious indeed. Most of the mysteries of the world that first inspired religion have long since been demystified by science and technology, and yet the religious beliefs persist.
I look forward to seeing you there. UCSD rules don't allow me to sell books on campus, but I'll be happy to autograph copies that you bring with you.
See you there!
Friday, July 16, 2010
Bee Attack is God's Wrath Against Homosexuals!
Sometimes I have to dig for fun blog topics, and sometimes they're in my own back yard!Last weekend, a colony of bees decided to swarm, something bees have been doing for millions of years and if we're lucky, will continue doing for millions of years. In the process, a couple of kids got stung. Just like millions of other kids, including me. So far, no story.
Unless you're James Hartline, an evangelical Christian nutjob who lives right here in San Diego.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Speaking April 18 in San Diego
Hey, faithful subscribers, are you in Southern California? I've been invited to speak this Sunday at the Humanist Association of San Diego at 6:00 PM. Here are the details (or click here for their announcement):
April 18, 2010I hope to see you there!
Sunday
6:00 pm
Joyce Beers Uptown Community Center
1220 Cleveland Ave.
3900 Vermont Street
San Diego, CA 92103
619-646-2191The Joyce Beers Community Center
Potluck. Bring a dish to share if you like.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
F18 crash reveals that God's hand is ... not there
Yesterday I made my lunch and sat down to enjoy the noon news. But when I flipped on the TV, I was greeted by the tragic videos of smoke billowing from a neighborhood just a few miles from me, where an USMC F-18 fighter jet had crashed just two minutes earlier. Sadly, four people were killed: A mother, two very young children, and their grandmother. Four wonderful lives, snuffed out in an instant, by utterly random chance.
Years ago, I remember reading about a couple on a canoe trip in Canada for their honeymoon. A beaver just happened to be gnawing a tree as they paddled by; the tree fell and killed the woman. Utterly and completely random.
I did a lot of camping at Yosemite National Park when my kids were young. One year, we heard that a monstrous branch from an ancient sequoia tree broke off and fell on the open upper deck of a tourist bus, killing a number people. When those people woke up that morning, would any of them have guessed they wouldn't live to see the end of the day?
If you believe, as millions do, that God is omnipotent and omniscient, then God knew these people were going to die, and in fact these deaths were somehow part of His plan. For some reason yesterday, God decided to kill a baby, a toddler, their mother, and their grandmother. God decided to leave behind a widowed grandfather, and a father who not only lost his wife, but also his two tiny children.
And you have to believe that, for some inscrutable reason, God had that beaver cut the tree down right when the happy couple were paddling by, leaving her husband a young widower. The same goes for all those people on the bus in Yosemite – God decided to kill them, too.
There are many far greater tragedies unfolding across the world every day, but these simple, small tragedies hit me much harder. Maybe it's because a million starving people are too much to grasp, but a dead family in my own neighborhood is something my brain can understand.
Jews, Christians and Muslims who believe that God is really in charge, and deliberately causes all of these random, horrible deaths, have resorted to some of the most inscrutable and indefensible logic in the history of humanity. The pinnacle of this "logic," the phrase that I find deeply offensive, is: "God works in mysterious ways." In other words, none of this makes any sense, but God is smarter than us, and uses a superior logic that is far beyond human comprehension. God has a plan, and God is good, so killing some babies, their mother, and their grandmother, must be a good thing. But we poor humans are too dumb to grasp the logic that helps God realize why this random killing was for the best.
As for me, I prefer a much more sensible explanation: Random stuff happens, and sometimes you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Years ago, I remember reading about a couple on a canoe trip in Canada for their honeymoon. A beaver just happened to be gnawing a tree as they paddled by; the tree fell and killed the woman. Utterly and completely random.
I did a lot of camping at Yosemite National Park when my kids were young. One year, we heard that a monstrous branch from an ancient sequoia tree broke off and fell on the open upper deck of a tourist bus, killing a number people. When those people woke up that morning, would any of them have guessed they wouldn't live to see the end of the day?
If you believe, as millions do, that God is omnipotent and omniscient, then God knew these people were going to die, and in fact these deaths were somehow part of His plan. For some reason yesterday, God decided to kill a baby, a toddler, their mother, and their grandmother. God decided to leave behind a widowed grandfather, and a father who not only lost his wife, but also his two tiny children.
And you have to believe that, for some inscrutable reason, God had that beaver cut the tree down right when the happy couple were paddling by, leaving her husband a young widower. The same goes for all those people on the bus in Yosemite – God decided to kill them, too.
There are many far greater tragedies unfolding across the world every day, but these simple, small tragedies hit me much harder. Maybe it's because a million starving people are too much to grasp, but a dead family in my own neighborhood is something my brain can understand.
Jews, Christians and Muslims who believe that God is really in charge, and deliberately causes all of these random, horrible deaths, have resorted to some of the most inscrutable and indefensible logic in the history of humanity. The pinnacle of this "logic," the phrase that I find deeply offensive, is: "God works in mysterious ways." In other words, none of this makes any sense, but God is smarter than us, and uses a superior logic that is far beyond human comprehension. God has a plan, and God is good, so killing some babies, their mother, and their grandmother, must be a good thing. But we poor humans are too dumb to grasp the logic that helps God realize why this random killing was for the best.
As for me, I prefer a much more sensible explanation: Random stuff happens, and sometimes you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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