As someone who deals with mental illness in my home daily, this article infuriated me. According to the story, a Scientologist father convinced his schizophrenic son to stop taking his medications, AND he placed a loaded gun on the teenage boy's nightstand. Not surprisingly, with the sudden withdrawal the anti-depressants, the young man's voices began tormenting him again, and the boy killed himself.
Anyone who lives with a person afflicted with schizophrenia knows what a terrible affliction it is. The victims are often terrorized by voices, running 24/7, that are so realistic, so convincing, that they lose track of reality. They believe these are real people. And these voices are not nice – often they're yelling, saying horrible, insulting, or degrading things to the patient. All day long.
Schizophrenia is not something that these patients make up. They don't just feel a little bit off, or unhappy. They can be completely incapacitated by fear from the unrelenting voices that yell at them, curse them, or just whisper awful things to them, day after day, year after year.
Getting back to Scientology, they are flat out WRONG about the causes of schizophrenia. It is not a matter of poor diet, or "allergies," or of psychiatrists getting patients addicted to drugs they don't need. Schizophrenia is a terrible disease. Nobody knows the cause. Nobody knows the cure.
Scientologists, in my opinion, are acting immorally and irresponsibly when they, with no scientific or medical training, diagnose illnesses, contradict the best scientific and medical advice available, and convince a patient to stop following the doctor's prescribed treatment plan.
Only a religious group could get away with such immoral and outrageous behavior.
Modern medicine doesn't have all the answers, but in this case, I can say from first-hand personal experience, as well as a thirty-year career working with some of the finest medical researchers in the world, that Scientology is wrong. And in the case of this teen who shot himself, they're dead wrong.
As far as I can tell, Scientology has always been, and continues to be, a destructive religion. It was a complete fraud, perpetrated by founder Hubbard, from day one, and it's disgraceful that so many have fallen into its grip. I hope those responsible, directly and indirectly, for this young man's death will be punished. Unfortunately, the reality is that they'll probably get a "Get out of Jail Free" card, because their quackery was done in the name of religion. They can make any wild-ass claims they like, and the government can't stop them. Even if someone dies.
I can understand many things, but Scientology's stance on psychiatry and mental illness is beyond belief, beyond rationality. It's just cruel.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
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Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Why Abraham is not the story to guide you
An open letter to my cousin – someone advised him to read Abraham to help him understand some of the difficult things going on in his life.
I disagree – Abraham has no lessons for us.
In times of trouble, Christians and Jews point to the stories of Abraham, Jonah, and other men who were severely tested by God, and draw parallels to our own troubles. God, it is said, has a plan for us, and sometimes our loving God knows that we need to suffer in order to be better people, or in the service of some greater good.
Abraham was ordered to kill his own son Isaac, surely the most precious thing a man has. What task could ever be harder than that? Abraham was surely as unhappy as a man could be, yet he knew that one must serve God's purpose, no matter what.
The modern interpretation tells us we should take comfort from this during our own times of trouble. We should obey God's will no matter what, and accept fate just as Abraham did. God has a plan for us, our unhappiness has a purpose, even if we can't fathom it.
That's the modern interpretation, but it's wrong.
The first mistake in this interpretation is that most modern Christians think that Abraham's God (or rather the God who was worshipped by the author of Genesis) is the same God that we worship today – all powerful, full of love, fatherly, and wise. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The ancients who told this story, and the biblical author who first wrote this story down, worshipped a completely different idea of God. They thought their god was a flesh-and-blood god, made of the same stuff as you and me, but with god-like powers. He was the God of Armies, not our Almighty god. Abraham's God was not a nice guy. Back in Abraham's time, warriors were brutal, death was commonplace, and God was believed to be sort of a super-warrior.
So the correct interpretation of Abraham and Isaac is that God was deliberately being cruel to Abraham, putting him to a very harsh test, just to prove to himself that Abraham was reliable. It was hardly more than a modern hazing or gang initiation rite. There was no kindness in God's actions, no great lesson for Abraham to learn.
The second mistake in the modern interpretation of Abraham is that it is part of the "slave mentality" of Christianity, a way to keep Christians in slave-like servitude to the church and the monarchies of the middle ages. People were taught that when your life is miserable, rather than rising up to change things, rather than fighting to make things better, we should accept our fate. It's God's will – after all, look at Abraham and the test God put him through. Whatever is wrong in our lives, just accept it as your fate, and be strong and loyal like Abraham, who didn't complain but just followed orders.
Cousin, the lesson to be learned from Abraham is that it sucks to have mean people in control of your life. Don't let them! If your life sucks, get out and make it better. If something is wrong, fix it. If someone is trying to manipulate your life, tell them to take a hike. If you're unhappy, find out why, and start making your life better.
And in addition to rejecting this slave mentality, we should also help our friends and family to become better people. We need to teach them to reject oppresion, to reject unhappiness, and to always fight to make things better.
Blind obedience is for the timid, the unhappy. To be genuinely fulfilled in life, you have to make it happen yourself.
You made a good start at the memorial service. Keep it up.
I disagree – Abraham has no lessons for us.
In times of trouble, Christians and Jews point to the stories of Abraham, Jonah, and other men who were severely tested by God, and draw parallels to our own troubles. God, it is said, has a plan for us, and sometimes our loving God knows that we need to suffer in order to be better people, or in the service of some greater good.
Abraham was ordered to kill his own son Isaac, surely the most precious thing a man has. What task could ever be harder than that? Abraham was surely as unhappy as a man could be, yet he knew that one must serve God's purpose, no matter what.
The modern interpretation tells us we should take comfort from this during our own times of trouble. We should obey God's will no matter what, and accept fate just as Abraham did. God has a plan for us, our unhappiness has a purpose, even if we can't fathom it.
That's the modern interpretation, but it's wrong.
The first mistake in this interpretation is that most modern Christians think that Abraham's God (or rather the God who was worshipped by the author of Genesis) is the same God that we worship today – all powerful, full of love, fatherly, and wise. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The ancients who told this story, and the biblical author who first wrote this story down, worshipped a completely different idea of God. They thought their god was a flesh-and-blood god, made of the same stuff as you and me, but with god-like powers. He was the God of Armies, not our Almighty god. Abraham's God was not a nice guy. Back in Abraham's time, warriors were brutal, death was commonplace, and God was believed to be sort of a super-warrior.
So the correct interpretation of Abraham and Isaac is that God was deliberately being cruel to Abraham, putting him to a very harsh test, just to prove to himself that Abraham was reliable. It was hardly more than a modern hazing or gang initiation rite. There was no kindness in God's actions, no great lesson for Abraham to learn.
The second mistake in the modern interpretation of Abraham is that it is part of the "slave mentality" of Christianity, a way to keep Christians in slave-like servitude to the church and the monarchies of the middle ages. People were taught that when your life is miserable, rather than rising up to change things, rather than fighting to make things better, we should accept our fate. It's God's will – after all, look at Abraham and the test God put him through. Whatever is wrong in our lives, just accept it as your fate, and be strong and loyal like Abraham, who didn't complain but just followed orders.
Cousin, the lesson to be learned from Abraham is that it sucks to have mean people in control of your life. Don't let them! If your life sucks, get out and make it better. If something is wrong, fix it. If someone is trying to manipulate your life, tell them to take a hike. If you're unhappy, find out why, and start making your life better.
And in addition to rejecting this slave mentality, we should also help our friends and family to become better people. We need to teach them to reject oppresion, to reject unhappiness, and to always fight to make things better.
Blind obedience is for the timid, the unhappy. To be genuinely fulfilled in life, you have to make it happen yourself.
You made a good start at the memorial service. Keep it up.
The Scandal of Creationism
There is a scandal at the heart of Creationism.
In my blog about Ben Stein's embarrassing "documentary", Expelled, I hit on something that I want to expand on:
One of the core, most crucial, arguments for creationism is "irreducible complexity," the idea that living systems are so complex that they couldn't possibly have evolved. And the key to this argument is convincing your audience that something is "complex," without defining the term. Since most creationists don't have the opportunity to study physics, chemistry and biochemistry, not to mention sub-topics like entropy and information theory, virtually all of the details of biology will seem magically complex.
If I could build a time machine and take any one of dozens of modern devices back two hundred years, I easily could have convinced 99% of the world's population that I was a genuine magician, simply by relying on their ignorance. Even something as simple as a pocket laser pointer would seem magical. When I came back to modern times and bragged about my exploits, and belittled the people of the 1800's for their foolishness, would you be impressed by how clever I was? Would you compliment me for fooling intelligent people with my magic? Of course not, you'd be disgusted by my arrogance.
Creationists are no different. They're just like the time-traveling charlatan, preying on ignorance and superstition. It's no surprise that belief in creationism is inversely correlated with education: Knowledge exposes their tricks.
It's also no surprise that creationists are the ones opposing the spread of scientific knowledge by trying to block the teaching of evolution. They know all too well that creationism can't survive in the light of real knowledge.
But the real scandal of creationism is that its main proponents knowingly rely on the ignorance of their constituents, and that they actively work to maintain that ignorance.
In my blog about Ben Stein's embarrassing "documentary", Expelled, I hit on something that I want to expand on:
Creationists insult their own constituency by relying on their ignorance.In other words, creationists know that their followers are largely uneducated in the sciences, mathematics, formal logic, and philosophy, and they take advantage of this mercilessly.
One of the core, most crucial, arguments for creationism is "irreducible complexity," the idea that living systems are so complex that they couldn't possibly have evolved. And the key to this argument is convincing your audience that something is "complex," without defining the term. Since most creationists don't have the opportunity to study physics, chemistry and biochemistry, not to mention sub-topics like entropy and information theory, virtually all of the details of biology will seem magically complex.
If I could build a time machine and take any one of dozens of modern devices back two hundred years, I easily could have convinced 99% of the world's population that I was a genuine magician, simply by relying on their ignorance. Even something as simple as a pocket laser pointer would seem magical. When I came back to modern times and bragged about my exploits, and belittled the people of the 1800's for their foolishness, would you be impressed by how clever I was? Would you compliment me for fooling intelligent people with my magic? Of course not, you'd be disgusted by my arrogance.
Creationists are no different. They're just like the time-traveling charlatan, preying on ignorance and superstition. It's no surprise that belief in creationism is inversely correlated with education: Knowledge exposes their tricks.
It's also no surprise that creationists are the ones opposing the spread of scientific knowledge by trying to block the teaching of evolution. They know all too well that creationism can't survive in the light of real knowledge.
But the real scandal of creationism is that its main proponents knowingly rely on the ignorance of their constituents, and that they actively work to maintain that ignorance.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Expelled: Ben Stein's Big Embarrassment
I may be the last Atheist blogger in the world to see Ben Stein's Expelled, but I think I have something new to say: This movie is so bad, we should have ignored it completely.
Expelled was embarrassing to watch, nothing more than a glaring piece of hack propaganda. I used to really admire Stein, and when I heard about Expelled, I was genuinely worried. A man of his intelligence and wit could, in theory, deal a real blow to science and to the rational view of the universe.
Instead, I was shocked at the amateurish propaganda techniques, the laughable conspiracy theories, and the discredited "scientists" he picked as his "victims." I thought Ben was better than that. I thought he'd present a well-reasoned, articulate, balanced documentary, one that really challenged the scientific community.
Instead, he wrote and narrated a piece of trash. The only people who will be influenced by this garbage are creationists, people who are already in his camp.
In fact, the most embarrassing part is that Ben Stein insults the very people he is trying to defend. Ben Stein counts on his audience's ignorance of science and the scientific method. For example, he has a long sequence showing the incredible complexity of cellular biology, which is mostly intended to baffle an uneducated audience, and then basically says, You're too dumb to understand this, so God must have created it.
Next he tries to bamboozle everyone with the tired old information-theory (aka entropy) approach, another subject that requires an advanced college degree and years of study to fully appreciate. He presents just enough to fool an uneducated audience, then repeats the argument that because we're too dumb to understand this, God must have designed it.
This appeal to the ignorance of his audience is insulting, even to creationists who agree with Stein. To real scientists, it's nothing short of fraud.
When he got to the picture of Joseph Stalin, and started associating Atheism with Communism and the Holocaust, I couldn't stand it any more. That sort of guilt-by-association is beneath the dignity of a well-educated man like Ben Stein. The Nazis got the trains to run on time; should we persecute Amtrak's management and call them Nazis if they manage to get Amtrak trains on schedule? The Nazis believed in Einstein's Theory of Relativity and were using it to design nuclear bombs; should we put all of our Los Alamos and Berkeley nuclear physicists and engineers in prison as Nazi sympathizers? The Nazis believed that fresh air and exercise are healthy, should we incarcerate Jack LaLane?
Ben Stein claims to be in favor of science, yet he ignores its most important lesson: Science searches for the truth, no matter how unpleasant! If the Theory of Evolution was responsible for Nazism and Communism, that doesn't make it false. It just means that as moral humans, we have to learn to rise above our natural, animal instincts.
I think the Atheist community made far too big of a stink about Expelled. It is an unimportant movie. By raising such a furor over it, we've given it far more credibility than it deserves. Dawkins refuses to debate creationists for this very reason – it's a stupid debate, you won't win any converts, but by debating them you imply that they are in the same league as real science.
They're not. And neither is Ben Stein. With Expelled, he reduced himself from the ranks of important intellectuals, down to the rank of amateur propagandist.
Expelled was embarrassing to watch, nothing more than a glaring piece of hack propaganda. I used to really admire Stein, and when I heard about Expelled, I was genuinely worried. A man of his intelligence and wit could, in theory, deal a real blow to science and to the rational view of the universe.
Instead, I was shocked at the amateurish propaganda techniques, the laughable conspiracy theories, and the discredited "scientists" he picked as his "victims." I thought Ben was better than that. I thought he'd present a well-reasoned, articulate, balanced documentary, one that really challenged the scientific community.
Instead, he wrote and narrated a piece of trash. The only people who will be influenced by this garbage are creationists, people who are already in his camp.
In fact, the most embarrassing part is that Ben Stein insults the very people he is trying to defend. Ben Stein counts on his audience's ignorance of science and the scientific method. For example, he has a long sequence showing the incredible complexity of cellular biology, which is mostly intended to baffle an uneducated audience, and then basically says, You're too dumb to understand this, so God must have created it.
Next he tries to bamboozle everyone with the tired old information-theory (aka entropy) approach, another subject that requires an advanced college degree and years of study to fully appreciate. He presents just enough to fool an uneducated audience, then repeats the argument that because we're too dumb to understand this, God must have designed it.
This appeal to the ignorance of his audience is insulting, even to creationists who agree with Stein. To real scientists, it's nothing short of fraud.
When he got to the picture of Joseph Stalin, and started associating Atheism with Communism and the Holocaust, I couldn't stand it any more. That sort of guilt-by-association is beneath the dignity of a well-educated man like Ben Stein. The Nazis got the trains to run on time; should we persecute Amtrak's management and call them Nazis if they manage to get Amtrak trains on schedule? The Nazis believed in Einstein's Theory of Relativity and were using it to design nuclear bombs; should we put all of our Los Alamos and Berkeley nuclear physicists and engineers in prison as Nazi sympathizers? The Nazis believed that fresh air and exercise are healthy, should we incarcerate Jack LaLane?
Ben Stein claims to be in favor of science, yet he ignores its most important lesson: Science searches for the truth, no matter how unpleasant! If the Theory of Evolution was responsible for Nazism and Communism, that doesn't make it false. It just means that as moral humans, we have to learn to rise above our natural, animal instincts.
I think the Atheist community made far too big of a stink about Expelled. It is an unimportant movie. By raising such a furor over it, we've given it far more credibility than it deserves. Dawkins refuses to debate creationists for this very reason – it's a stupid debate, you won't win any converts, but by debating them you imply that they are in the same league as real science.
They're not. And neither is Ben Stein. With Expelled, he reduced himself from the ranks of important intellectuals, down to the rank of amateur propagandist.
Courageous Texas Legislators Call Creationism Anti-Scientific
Kudos to two courageous Texas politicians who had the guts to criticize the Texas Board of Education for its regressive anti-evolution, pro-creationism policies. State Senator Rodney Ellis and State Representative Patrick M. Rose wrote an excellent op-ed column in the Houston Chronicle pointing out that if Texas is serious about becoming a center for cancer research, it can't also embrace creationism.
But Ellis and Rose are far too polite. I suppose that's how you get elected.
Imagine this: The Texas Board of Education invites a crystal-ball gazer to its meetings to divine for them which science textbooks to use. The next day, two Texas politicians write an Op-Ed column, in which they ridicule the Board of Education, calling them an embarrassment to the State of Texas, and and demanding the Board member's immediate resignation.
How is this fictional story any different than the Board of Education consulting creationists about science texts? Creationism has no more foundation than crystal-ball gazing. Both are utterly false, disproved by science hundreds of years ago, and have failed every challenge by believers ever since. So why does creationism get respect?
There are many religious questions where I can respect my friends, family and colleague's theistic beliefs. The origin of the universe, the origin of morals, the nature of the human soul, the afterlife – these are questions for which science has good answers, but I can understand why others disagree.
But creationism is idiotic. I'm sorry, but there is no other word for it. I try to be tolerant and respectful, but when someone deliberately ignores tonnes of evidence, and denies the best-proved scientific theory in the history of the world, I just can't respect that.
I hope I live to see a day when a politician in Texas can openly deride and ridicule creationism for what it is, a fraud, the same way he/she might ridicule a crystal-ball gazer, without fear of losing his seat in government.
But Ellis and Rose are far too polite. I suppose that's how you get elected.
Imagine this: The Texas Board of Education invites a crystal-ball gazer to its meetings to divine for them which science textbooks to use. The next day, two Texas politicians write an Op-Ed column, in which they ridicule the Board of Education, calling them an embarrassment to the State of Texas, and and demanding the Board member's immediate resignation.
How is this fictional story any different than the Board of Education consulting creationists about science texts? Creationism has no more foundation than crystal-ball gazing. Both are utterly false, disproved by science hundreds of years ago, and have failed every challenge by believers ever since. So why does creationism get respect?
There are many religious questions where I can respect my friends, family and colleague's theistic beliefs. The origin of the universe, the origin of morals, the nature of the human soul, the afterlife – these are questions for which science has good answers, but I can understand why others disagree.
But creationism is idiotic. I'm sorry, but there is no other word for it. I try to be tolerant and respectful, but when someone deliberately ignores tonnes of evidence, and denies the best-proved scientific theory in the history of the world, I just can't respect that.
I hope I live to see a day when a politician in Texas can openly deride and ridicule creationism for what it is, a fraud, the same way he/she might ridicule a crystal-ball gazer, without fear of losing his seat in government.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Criminals at the Heart of Mormonism: Under the Banner of Heaven
I'm only three disks into the five-disk audio book, Under the Banner of Heaven, about the Mormon Church, and already I'm shocked beyond belief at the sordid history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS Church, aka Mormons). The crimes committed by the LDS church founders are horrifying, and well documented. Forget, for a moment, about Joseph Smith's obvious fraud that became the Book of Mormon. Even if you can swallow that unbelievable bit of hocus pocus, the crimes committed by the Mormon "prophets" are beyond what any decent person can accept.
Polygamous marriages don't bother me, if it's all between consenting adults, who cares? But that's not what the "apostles" of the church did. No, they received "revelations" from God that they should rape girls as young as twelve, under the guise of "marriage." Except that these marriages were not voluntary, and were not between adults.
The crime that practically knocked my off my chair was the Mountain Meadow Massacre, in which a wagon train of pioneers – roughly 120 men, women and children – were mercilessly slaughtered by the Mormons. Only children under the age of eight, "two young to be reliable witnesses," were spared. The story is complex and accounts vary, but there is no doubt that Brigham Young was directly involved and at least partly responsible for the massacre.
Whether Young directly ordered the attack (which would make him a mass murdered) or not is in dispute. But his actions after the fact are still despicable: He desecrated the grave site of the dead. When he visited the Mountain Meadow and saw the stone monument that covered the grave of the victims, Brigham Young had the monument destroyed, saying, "Vengeance is mine, and I have had a little."
These were not evil people, or even enemies of the Mormon Church. They were simply Arkansas people passing through Utah at an unfortunate time, who happened to have a lot of money, valuable cattle, and a top racehorse, in their possession. The Mormons were nothing more than murders and thieves.
How anyone can worship at a church that has this criminal, evil man as one of its prophets is beyond understanding.
Polygamous marriages don't bother me, if it's all between consenting adults, who cares? But that's not what the "apostles" of the church did. No, they received "revelations" from God that they should rape girls as young as twelve, under the guise of "marriage." Except that these marriages were not voluntary, and were not between adults.
The crime that practically knocked my off my chair was the Mountain Meadow Massacre, in which a wagon train of pioneers – roughly 120 men, women and children – were mercilessly slaughtered by the Mormons. Only children under the age of eight, "two young to be reliable witnesses," were spared. The story is complex and accounts vary, but there is no doubt that Brigham Young was directly involved and at least partly responsible for the massacre.
Whether Young directly ordered the attack (which would make him a mass murdered) or not is in dispute. But his actions after the fact are still despicable: He desecrated the grave site of the dead. When he visited the Mountain Meadow and saw the stone monument that covered the grave of the victims, Brigham Young had the monument destroyed, saying, "Vengeance is mine, and I have had a little."
These were not evil people, or even enemies of the Mormon Church. They were simply Arkansas people passing through Utah at an unfortunate time, who happened to have a lot of money, valuable cattle, and a top racehorse, in their possession. The Mormons were nothing more than murders and thieves.
How anyone can worship at a church that has this criminal, evil man as one of its prophets is beyond understanding.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Why Death is Good for Religion
Saturday I had the honor to attend my uncle's funeral in Arizona, to remember his life and mourn his death. He was a good man: an artist, musician, corporate executive, father, husband, and so much more.
Uncle Ted was also a devout Christian, of the sort that I respect. His religion was personal and simple: When he needed help, he prayed for guidance, when things went well, he gave thanks. He didn't push his beliefs on others, but if you asked him about it, he'd tell you. I don't share his beliefs, but I respect Uncle Ted's honest, straight-ahead approach. Uncle Ted's religion was moral, honest, and light-years ahead of the destructive, dishonest, aggressive tactics of the evangelical ultra-conservative groups that dominate the news and politics.
His memorial service was conducted by a Christian minister, a very sweet woman and good friend of Uncle Ted. Listening to her prayers, at that emotional, sad time, I got a deep understanding of the appeal, of why religion makes so much sense to so many people. I wrote about this extensively in my book, in fact it's the core thesis: Religion is an evolving species that has had thousands of years to adapt to fit the human psyche perfectly, to be incredibly appealing (irrespective of whether it is true or made up).
Listening to The Lord's Prayer at Uncle Ted's memorial, I finally understood emotionally what I knew intellectually. We just don't want to say goodbye, forever, to Uncle Ted. The thought that his life, and everything he ever had, is gone, is sometimes too hard to bear. All those wonderful cowboy songs, his beautiful voice, the way he strummed his guitar, his talent with a paintbrush, his gentle but mischievous smile, his generosity (unless you were playing cards against him!), his charity work, his wise advice ... all gone forever. How can this be? Isn't there another answer, a way that, even though he is gone from us, that somehow he's not really gone? Can't we see Uncle Ted again someday?
Alas, no. He's really gone, and all that's left of him is the good memories, and the lessons he taught those of us who were lucky enough to have him in our lives.
And I now have a deeper understanding now of just how appealing religion is.
Uncle Ted was also a devout Christian, of the sort that I respect. His religion was personal and simple: When he needed help, he prayed for guidance, when things went well, he gave thanks. He didn't push his beliefs on others, but if you asked him about it, he'd tell you. I don't share his beliefs, but I respect Uncle Ted's honest, straight-ahead approach. Uncle Ted's religion was moral, honest, and light-years ahead of the destructive, dishonest, aggressive tactics of the evangelical ultra-conservative groups that dominate the news and politics.
His memorial service was conducted by a Christian minister, a very sweet woman and good friend of Uncle Ted. Listening to her prayers, at that emotional, sad time, I got a deep understanding of the appeal, of why religion makes so much sense to so many people. I wrote about this extensively in my book, in fact it's the core thesis: Religion is an evolving species that has had thousands of years to adapt to fit the human psyche perfectly, to be incredibly appealing (irrespective of whether it is true or made up).
Listening to The Lord's Prayer at Uncle Ted's memorial, I finally understood emotionally what I knew intellectually. We just don't want to say goodbye, forever, to Uncle Ted. The thought that his life, and everything he ever had, is gone, is sometimes too hard to bear. All those wonderful cowboy songs, his beautiful voice, the way he strummed his guitar, his talent with a paintbrush, his gentle but mischievous smile, his generosity (unless you were playing cards against him!), his charity work, his wise advice ... all gone forever. How can this be? Isn't there another answer, a way that, even though he is gone from us, that somehow he's not really gone? Can't we see Uncle Ted again someday?
Alas, no. He's really gone, and all that's left of him is the good memories, and the lessons he taught those of us who were lucky enough to have him in our lives.
And I now have a deeper understanding now of just how appealing religion is.
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