I believe the
internet is encroaching onto the purposes of religion in several significant
ways. As for finding a community of like
minded people, websites like Reddit are forming a multitude of arenas for
people with shared interests in whatever field.
Thanks to the internet, people are no longer forced to be corralled into
a community group because of local practicality. In remote small towns, the church, mosque or
what have you, used to be the only place where the community got together and
talked about ideas. If you were someone
who thought differently than most people in the community, the house of worship
may have been a lonely and alienating place.
Even in very remote communities, you can no longer be intellectually
alienated in the age of the internet.
You can find a group of very like minded people in practically any
specified interest. Although I can
obviously concede that the internet community has its drawbacks. Of course the internet cuts off a huge part
of community, namely the actual physical human interaction. The internet also can be a hotbed for
fostering radicalism in any kind of ideology.
Since you can find such specific interest groups, it is much easier to
create your own sphere of influence without any of the checks and balances of
outside criticism. As a consequence you
can have a type of radical ideology festering worldwide. Such is the case with many terrorism
inciting, brands of Islam.
Personally I
have found the internet to be an indispensable resource for finding people who
are like minded as me. I have found
many niches of thought that would be rare to find in real interpersonal
communication. Also, I have found that
the internet has created several virtual Gurus for myself. A phenomenon in many eastern religious
traditions like Hinduism, a Guru is a kind teacher or guide in a Master-teacher
relationship. Now through the technology
of the internet, the free exchange of uncensored opinions and ideas can be
broadcast through podcasts, YouTube and so on.
It has allowed for eccentric and charismatic people to have to ability
to be great role models for millions of people
Through the
internet I have found People such as Penn Jillette, who has taught me the value
of celebrating the preciousness of life as an atheist. He is an incredibly open, true to himself and
honest person. Qualities I respect in
people more than any others. His weekly
podcast “Penn’s Sunday School” offers
an hour and a half exploration of a totally free expressive mind offering his
life experience, free of charge for the world to hear. He has been instrumental in being a guiding
influence on my very optimistic idealistic, political and moral
ideologies.
Comedian Joe
Rogan is another one of these virtual role models. His podcast The Joe Rogan Experience has be an incredible guide for my
Intellectual, physical, emotional and interpersonal improvement. A motivational and unconventional personality
such as his offers a form of the ideal fulfilled, happy man. A stand-up comedian such as Joe, is someone
who is also unashamedly himself in the ways he expresses himself online and
onstage. On average he produces 2-3
shows per week and each show being around 3 hours long. It would be very difficult to produce that
much conversational material without being totally true to oneself. He is someone who above all expresses
unconditional love towards his family, friends and people around him. He is someone who is uncompromisingly able to
pursue his passions in life with martial arts and comedy. He has the utmost respect for the physical
vehicle of life, the body. He has helped
me understand the incredible importance of feeding the body properly and
keeping it in peak physical shape. His
podcast demonstrates an insatiable hunger for knowledge. He continually has incredibly interesting,
ideologically varying, intelligent guests such as Sam Harris, Neil deGrasse
Tyson and Graham Hancock on the show.
Complimentary to that, he expresses total humility of knowledge to what
the possibilities of what the universe can be.
Without being tied to the very often compromising restraints of academia
he is fearlessly able to admit his responsible exploration into the nature of
consciousness through introspective meditation and mind altering
substances. By no means does he
unconditionally encourage their use, but can objectively realize the potential
of the physical, chemical realities of consciousness, positive and negative. On
my quest to find a definition of secular spirituality, I believe Joe Rogan’s
personality expressed through his podcast represents an ideal model for what I
am searching for.
Looking
introspectively, this slightly resembles cult and religious like behaviour, but
having great intellectual role models in life doesn’t mean a solid adherence to
everything that person does and believes.
My admiration of Joe Rogan or Penn isn't WWJD (what would Jillette or
Joe do?). Their personalities act as
more a guide to pursuing a happier and fulfilled life. If Muhammad, Jesus or
Buddha were alive today, would it be out of the realm of possibility for them
to have free life coaching podcasts? I think much stranger things have happened
One field
regarding the secularization of religious functions that must be investigated
further is the parallels in the stories of modern day science fiction and
fantasy and the myths of ancient religion.
The theory of the “Monomyth” presented by Joseph Campbell is one that is
fascinating and I must do more research into it.
All and all it
is looking as though the purposes of religion in western society is changing no
doubt. But into what form is definitely
yet to be seen. I believe I have
demonstrated that those who are of an atheist mindset, it
can be possible to fill the functional properties of organized religion almost
entirely. Now according to theists, the
only thing left to be fulfilled in my own life is a god and faith shaped hole
somewhere inside me.
Here's an interesting video demonstrating the networking power of podcasts
(This contains sexual subjecr matter, anyone squeamish about that stuff should probably not read this)
Imagine you are not from earth. You are an extraterrestrial being,
viewing the earthlings and observing their behavior since prehistoric times.
If you observe the beginning of an individual life,
you would notice some of these curious creatures are very insistent about
surgically removing a piece of the reproductive organ of their newborn male
infants. Why is this? Is the organ inherently defective and needs
to be fixed immediately after birth for the sake of the child’s health?
No, the health of the child is normally unaffected when the organ is kept
intact. As with the other humans you have been observing for hundreds of
thousands of years, the organ functions as the organ is evolutionarily supposed
to without the operation being performed. So the infant is not being operated
on for any sort of immediate medical reason. To you, this action is beginning
to look more and more bizarre and morbid. What reasons do the humans give
for this kind of mutilating behaviour? The proponents of this infant
surgery will give some preventative medical reasons for its practice. But
the medical reasons for it never stand alone. The major reasons for the
macabre mutilation of infants are almost always religious traditions and social
conformity. Herein resides the ultimate reason for circumcision.
Social norms and ancient traditions trump logic and medical science as so
often the case in the complicated world of humanity. Why does this
archaic ritual still remain in common practice in the 21st century?
Many of think of circumcision as the prototypical Jewish tradition and
it very well is. The reasons for the removal of the foreskin of the penis
are given as a supposed covenant between the biblical patriarch, Abraham and
God. The Hebrew bible gives several references for the divine commandment
of circumcision as an order to be followed for all of those believed to be
Abraham’s descendants. Muslims, who follow the Hebrew texts as
official cannon, also perform this birth rite.
Here we have the clear use of body modifications to indicate insiders
and outsiders to Judaism and Islam. But the particular religion of Judaism
is not believed to be originator of the practice. In some more primitive
tribal societies, circumcision is also an apparent phenomenon. The
Agikuyu people of Kenya use both male and female genital mutilation as a rite
of passage from childhood into adulthood. As a consequence,
the practice of circumcision creates a social norm of the image of the ideal
adult for that particular tribe. It creates a closer sense of community
and commonality among the Agikuyu people. The surrounding tribes likely
don’t follow the same rites of passage as the others, so this creates a sense
of xenophobia to people who don’t look as you do. The Jewish tradition
also has the same effect, with a more authoritative reason. In more
primitive groups, the line between religious traditions and practiced social
norms are almost non-existent. So in tribal societies, traditions like
circumcision are most likely practiced without much authority behind them with any
more than the traditional practices and the teachings of the elder members.
In societies with the use of written language at their disposal, reasons
for traditional practice become more concrete and appear to have better
authority to back them up. So when the more sedentary agricultural
societies of the Middle East began to write down their stories, beliefs and
traditions, the concept of foreskin removal began to appear in writing as a
commandment from a deity. This concept of written script gave the social
norm a much more strong foundation to lay its roots. The idea no longer
has to fester in people’s plastic memories, only to be transmitted orally.
This is easily susceptible to be forgotten or misinterpreted in a very
short period of time. Script allowed ideas and traditions to be copied
and performed accurately and reliably for a relatively long time.
I’m fascinated with the concept of “memes”, and the way my analysis of
the prevalence of circumcision is breaking down, is beginning to look like its
influence is starting to seep into my writing. Oxford biologist and
(in)famed atheist Richard Dawkins coined the idea of a “meme” in his book the
selfish gene and expanded upon it as a possible reason for religious
beliefs in The God Delusion. A meme is the idea that human created
concepts can be passed from person to person, very similar to the way genes
behave in evolutionary biology. The idea
of memes is also explained very well in Daniel Dennett’s book Breaking The Spell. Although
Dennett concedes that; “...no one should
anticipate that a new science of memetics would overturn or replace all
existing models and explanations of cultural phenomena developed by the social
sciences”. Nevertheless, the idea is very fun to play
with as a tool to analyze the appearance of irrational practices in society
The Jewish and Muslim tradition is not the only way that circumcision
has been carried on by a religious notion.
The practice as it exists today in North America has more to do with the
dogmas of Christianity than of Judaism or Islam. In the days of Victorian England,
urbanization was a novel concept and the once rural populations poured into
newly developing cities. The fast
expanding cities had no infrastructure to deal with sewage or waste. The cities soon became dirty and disease
ridden places. Medical science was still
largely unaware of viruses or bacteria, and practiced misguided techniques to
deal with illnesses. Unsurprisingly the
main culprit for ailments was just general filth. Daily bathing was not a common hygienic
practice in those days so parts of the body susceptible to harboring “filth”
were considered very unclean. The
foreskin of the penis is a place where filth can accumulate without regular
cleaning. Thus, medical science began
considering removal of the foreskin as an option for better hygiene. Couple the consequences of living in a dirty,
urban area with a Christian hysteria over masturbation and you have the perfect
“host” for the meme of circumcision to thrive.
So rampant was the fear of masturbation, that many diseases were
attributed to its practice. Robert Darby
points out in A Surgical Temptation
that in Britain, diseases were literally invented and attributed to people
masturbating. Spermarorrhea was one such invented illness which caused men to
ejaculate “too much” and the cure for this disease was to practice chastity and
abstain from masturbation[4]. Unsubstantiated claims of blindness and other
sicknesses being caused by masturbation spread for generations. Even when I was growing up, rumors on the
playground were that masturbation caused hairy palms.
It is demonstrably much easier for an uncircumcised male to masturbate
whenever he wants than one who does not have a foreskin. The foreskin is naturally in its place to
have the penis ready for intercourse or manual stimulation at a moment’s
notice. The foreskin is also the home of
a huge percentage of sexual stimulation nerve endings. The removal of it causes a decrease in sexual
pleasure for both men and women.(A circumcised penis has less skin and less
surface area to interact with a woman’s vagina than an intact penis.) With the
emergence of circumcision as a practice no longer that was just a ritual of
Judaism or Islam, it was soon looked upon as a possible solution to deterring
boys of Christian parents from masturbating.
In the mid-late 1800s, a man named John Harvey Kellogg was one of the major influences on the current
practices of circumcision in North America (If the name Kellogg looks familiar
to you, it’s probably because it is. You
might have eaten a bowl of his flakey, corn based invention for breakfast this
morning.) He was a promoter of
circumcision as a measure to deter masturbation as well as to discourage
pre-marital sex. He wasn’t a fan of
sexuality in general because he also encouraged the application of acid to a
woman’s clitoris to decrease her sexual pleasure.
As history rolled on
into the 20th century, science made great leaps and bounds towards
better medical practices, but circumcision remained as a common practice in
America. The virus/meme of circumcision
had piggybacked from oral transmission to written texts to religious dogma’s
and now to medical science. Anti-septic
technology and safe anesthesia decimated the need for necessary amputation
other body parts in medical practice. We
now have excellent hygiene practices like daily (perhaps ritualistic?) bathing
and showering. It eliminates any concern
of foreskin being something unclean. Only in rare cases of serious infection is
circumcision administered as a necessary surgery. Still, circumcision persists as something
some doctors recommend for newborn baby boys.
The only modern rhetoric for medically based circumcision is for the
decreased chance of contracting STIs later in sexually mature life. It is even being promoted as a tool to cut
the spread of AIDS in Africa. This may
have a worse effect on health than it helps it.
Most AIDS ridden places in Africa already have very poor medical
facilities and would have a greater chance of botching the circumcision or the
child contracting an infection afterwards.
But the data used for
supporting this recommendation is barely even statistically significant, in
fact the 1999 statement of circumcision policy by the American Academy of
Pediatrics say “these data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal
circumcision.” Even though in the USA, numbers of circumcised
newborns have fallen to record low rates (54.5% in 2009),
the numbers are still shockingly high for the scant amount of science backing
up the procedure. Plus, the amputation
of a part of the body for the sake of slightly higher rates of disease
prevention would be a ludicrous idea if it were any other part of the body. Would anyone recommend removing woman’s
perfectly healthy breasts in order to decrease her chances of breast cancer? The obvious fact of the matter is that a
circumcision is not a replacement for a condom for stopping AIDS and other
STIs.
As far as the current
religious practice of circumcision, there are political battles in some places
in the US to ban even its religious practice for health reasons. This resulting partially from the
consequences of the traditional procedure of Jewish circumcision (A rabbi will
suck the blood off of a freshly cut penis with his mouth). Incidents have occurred where the rabbi
infected the infants with herpes and caused their deaths.
The fact that sexuality is such as huge part of people’s lives is
probably why circumcision still remains as a cultural norm in the western
world. Any other discredited medical
idea are usually discarded and replaced without any controversy. But men are very emotionally sensitive about
the looks and size of their penises. A
social trend that has every other man with a different looking penis would be
very hard to buck. I know personally
that as a kid I was in the visible minority in school gym change rooms and I
really did feel like a freak for many years.
Rumors of what a female’s preferences are only worsened that
feeling. But we know that parents always
want what is best for their children, and wanting their sons to feel accepted
with their peers and their sexual partners later in life is a major
factor. As well as fathers wanting their
son’s penises to resemble their own.
This social trend of sexual identity is self-re-enforced, generation
after generation. Well- meaning and
non-religious parents will circumcise their baby boys strictly for social
reasons.
I had mentioned before that
in tribal societies, where many of these memes are born, circumcision creates a
sense of commonality among the tribe that differentiate them from other tribes. I think it still has the same effect. In order for all of us humans to get along,
we need to stop associating feelings of shame or pride with circumstances of
birth. Labels like race sexual
orientation and gender are things we were born with by chance and had no say in
the matter. Circumcision is also the
same issue. Men and boys who are had
their penises mutilated had no say in their parents misguided decision, so no
feelings of resentment or embarrassment should have to be associated with their
penises. Problems that arise due to
fitting in with society can be solved much easier with complete education on
the issue of the practice. Men who were
circumcised as infants should not have to justify the practice just because it
was done to them. As North Americans, we
denounce any surgical mutilations of the female genitalia in tribal societies
as misogynistic, horrific and barbaric rituals.
Is this not a case of the pot calling the kettle black?
That’s right, I’m one of those nutrition snobs now. Until the last few months, I really never
gave much thought to my diet. I figured
that since I was not fat and I got exercise often, I could shovel whatever I wanted
into in my body and assume that I was a relatively healthy person. As I come into my own as a maturing human
being, one of the things I realize more and more is the way I treat my
body. Your body is a meat vehicle that physically
drives you through life, and you only get one.
This summer I had done a lot of thinking about what I actually eat. My unexpected good results in the Calgary
half-marathon last May prompted me to consider a serious venture into a running
career. One of the major aspects of this
project that I had to consider, that I had previously neglected was what kinds
of food I was using to fuel my body.
One the things that attracted me to long distance running is
that it’s the original human exercise. Our
slender, bipedal bodies are designed to run very long distances. For hundreds of thousands of years our human ancestors
hunted large game animals on the plains of Africa by running them to the point
of exhaustion. Humans are the only
animal in the world able to run long distances at such high speeds. It’s likely the reason for many of our uniquely
human body features compared to other great apes such as the Achilles tendon
and our bald and sweat gland covered skin.
My fascination and emulation with our evolutionary ancestors did not
stop at long distance running.
This July, I listened to an episode of The Joe Rogan
Experience podcast featuring Robb Wolf who is the author of the book The Paleo
Solution. I was not actively looking for
a particular diet but I was immediately drawn to Wolf’s Paleo diet because of
the simplicity of its philosophy. Eat
what our bodies are evolved to eat. Cut
out grains, legumes, processed sugar and dairy and eat as much meat, fruit and vegetables
as you want. What really got me intrigued
with the diet was his claim that a breakfast of bacon, eggs, fruit and coffee
is a healthy way to start the day. What
was really eye opening for me was the science behind Wolf’s ideas. Many of the things he talked about were things
I had not previously thought about like the co-relation of increased corn
consumption and increased obesity rates and how nutritionally empty wheat and
other grains are for our bodies. If you
think about it, grains, dairy and legumes are a very new addition to our diet,
dating only back to the advent of agriculture.
In an evolutionary time scale, that is a tiny fraction for how long anatomically
modern humans have existed. It seems our
ability to be extraordinarily clever (and lazy) has come back to bite us on our
collective fat asses. Our bodies are
designed to process mainly animal protein, fruits, nuts and vegetables. There’s a reason that so many people you know
have gluten and lactose intolerances. It’s
because our bodies have really no idea what to do with these substances. Most grains such as wheat need a very high
amount of processing in order for them to be even palatable for our stomachs.
I have now followed the paleo-diet more or less (with the
exception of beer) for about a month now.
I admit I feel better both mentally and physically than I was the months
prior to starting. My mood has
considerably improved, even though my daily routine, environment and living
conditions have not changed. Although I
really miss cheese, cookies and a few other things, cutting out the bad stuff in my diet that were staples for me before, was much
easier than I thought it would be.
Anyone who is looking to eat healthier, I highly recommend giving
the Paleo diet a look. The Paleo Solution by Robb wolf is a fascinating
read and his appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience is definitely worth a
listen.
