Alright you Rush freaks, I am going to indulge in some cult music geekery and list my top 5 favorite Rush songs in 2 different categories. Instrumental music and lyrical content. Picking only 5 for each category is a cardinal sin considering how many amazing songs they have. but I will try my best to cover the few I've chosen. The first list is about my favorite rush songs in regards to the instrumental quality of music.
5. Seven cities of gold
This song is from their latest album release Clockwork Angels. It amazes me that a band that was formed in 1968 can still be putting out such heavy hitting material in 2012. I think my favorite instrument of any rock band is the bass guitar. And theres really nothing more satisfying than hearing a true master of the bass create a great jam like Seven cities of gold. That opening bass line to this song is so irresistible that you have to at least nod your head to it. The way Alex Lifeson builds it up the opening to the main riff with his distortion compliments Geddy’s noodling. It then kicks into the main riff of the song which is one of the most ass kicking and aggressive sounding things in Rush’s catalog. I think this song could almost stand on its own as an instrumental piece. Geddy Lee’s bass ingenuity seems to only improving with time. The song Headlong Flight also from Clockwork Angels shows this fact.
4. Xanadu
Psychedelic sounding lyrics aside, Xanadu is still a very weird song. Coming from their prog rock sounding album A Farewell to Kings, Xanadu’s sounds seem to inspire images of the divine. It begins with the sounds of birds chirping and a droning monotone synth sound in the background. Ringing bells and distorted guitars are heard as It slowly builds up into the complicated sounding main riff of the song. What I love about this song is just the feeling I get when I listen to it. Its a feeling of unearthliness and a feeling of transcendence. As if a great revelation of the meaning of life is about to occur.
3. The Camera Eye
Its true I’m a sucker for the sounds of the 1980s synthesizer. The Camera Eye is heavy with it. It also contains one of my favorite Alex Lifeson guitar solos. The song is from their seminal 1981 album Moving Pictures. This is perhaps their last prog rock sounding song they ever recorded. The song is about the feelings you perceive in different cities such as New York and London. What I love most about it is my own appropriate sentimentality of the song. My first Rush concert I attended was in Vancouver. As I toured around this city I had never been before, The Camera Eye was one of the songs I was listening to on my Ipod. Now whenever I play that song, I experience some of the feelings of excitement of seeing Vancouver for the first time.
2. Leave that thing alone
This has always been one of my favorites. For some reason for me this song just seems to me like sex in musical form. The groovy bass line and drumming seems to inspire a kind of sensual dance. Alex Lifeson’s guitar solo that builds into a screaming climax seals the deal as a sexual song. The song is from their 1993 album Counterparts. The whole album is themed with songs about love, sex and relationships. The name of the album and the album art is just pure innuendo. The live version of the song is even better than the album version. It includes an amazing bass solo at the end by Geddy Lee
1. La Villa Strangiato (An Exercise in Self-Indulgence)
According to wikipedia, this song was inspired by a dream that Alex Lifeson had. From their 1978 album Hemispheres, it is the very first exclusively instrumental song. I think this is the song defines Rush as a band that is concerned with pure music first and foremost. Clocking in at 9:35, it feels like a peek inside the in the collective minds of true music geniousess. Its an epic journey through uncompromised and immodest artistic indulgence. My favorite part being the incredible Alex Lifeson guitar solo at 3:35.
You have the power of telepathy. You right now are receiving my thoughts into your head. Here I am sitting in front of my computer with Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring playing in the background. You know the song. The song from from Disney’s Fantasia that accompanies the depiction of the formation of the earth, emergence of life and finally the rise and fall of the dinosaurs. Did you just flashback to that scene? I just transmitted my thoughts into yours. Through time and space, we momentarily shared the same idea. Through the power of language, you unconsciously allowed me to enter your brain. You can’t help but to continue to read on. You can’t help but continue to receiving my messages and ideas.
Remember this?
We are so ingrained into the system of language that we don’t even see squiggles of ink. We see the title of a book or a Mcdonald's logo. Only when we look at the writing of another language do we objectively see the complex symbolism of language. We can demonstrate what Chinese sounds like, (politically incorrect mind you) in gibberish but we can’t even begin to say what english sounds like. Chinese sounds to english speakers exactly how it sounds. But when english speakers hear English, we don’t hear objective squawking of apes, we hear how our roommate’s day was. To realize the real nature of language is to understand how magical it really is. When people put more “magical” meaning into language is to demean its tangible and utterly fantastic value.
Swear words for example. People who get offended by swear words are under the control of the operating system of culture and language. To them words are no longer symbolic transfers of ideas and information, they contain some sort of intrinsic power within them. They are so contained within the constructed system of cultural reality, that words are agents within the system. Symbols have become entities with agency. The orally produced sound wave that sounds like “Fuck” has a negative energy that should not be uttered. As children, in school we are taught that particular sounds made with our mouths are inherently bad no matter the context. We are taught to buy into culture as a part of our identity, and with that purchase comes it’s language.
The paradox of being taught to take language so seriously is that it handicaps the ability to holistically understand the wonderful tool that it is. If we learn that language is just the ability to exchange symbolic noises, we can learn to take control of it and get rid of the power it has over us. If we can understand the underlying code of how language functions, we can hack it to use it to its full potential. I don’t understand any language other than english, but I could theorize that learning to look objectively at your own language would be a key at understanding another.
But we can also use people’s submission to the program of language to our advantage. I love swear words, but only because their reactionary qualities on people. Since swear words have so much of an emotional effect on people, they can be used to catch people’s attention. Fuck is possibly the most versatile word in the english language. It is a verbal swiss army knife. Stand up comedians are examples of people who have perfected the art of swearing. Many methodically insert a “Fuck” here or there, only to keep the attention of the audience. Because people don’t usually use those kind of words in a public speech, it keeps shocking the audience into listening. But overused, the jig is up and people realize that you’re only using it for shock value.
Its almost as if people are harmed emotionally by a verbal symbol just like a vampire is physically harmed by the symbol of a crucifix. When someone puts a magical power on the word “fuck” in itself, it automatically devalues the meaning of other words such as “cat”. When we should realize that “Fuck” and “Cat” are on a level playing field of value.
Cat
I just telepathically transferred an imagine of a small furry creature into your mind. That fact in itself should inspire awe
I believe the feeling of being offended by language is the feeling of being in existential crisis. We all live inside the ideas of humanity. And so, It is a very bad idea to build an identity on the ideas of other people. An Identity composed of your gender, race, nationality, religion, wealth, tribe ect, is a house of cards. Because people get offended by language when a person’s identity is based on cultural ideas. And so, some people are willing to kill for these ideas when they get offended. Why is this? Why is it that people act physically hurt when they are offended by language?
I speculate the willingness to end the physical life of other people for the sake of ideas is because contradicting ideas literally threaten their existence. Let me demonstrate this by using an example objective to us “westerners”. A Tutsi is willing to kill a Hutu because a Tutsi has been raised in a tribal environment. From birth, the Tutsi has built a great deal of his identity on the idea that he is a Tutsi. It has been communicated to him by other people that he is to identify himself with the cultural label “Tutsi”. If I were to ask a Tutsi in 1994 to write a paragraph of who he is, I would guess that he would write the word “Tutsi” somewhere in the first two sentences. The problem is that there is a neighboring group of people who similarly identify as “Hutu”. When a Tutsi looks at a Hutu, he sees an entity that existentially threatens everything that makes him feel alive. Because a Hutu is a being that claims to be in existence, alive and conscious. Well then, what the hell does it mean to exist? This other being must be a liar and an imposter. He is a thing that isn’t like you at all. It makes him much easier to destroy in an act of genocide doesn't it?
I am obviously ignoring the history of drawn out conflict in Rwanda but the point is that the tribal identity is extremely fragile. The reason is because the identity is based on essentially a name alone. A group name identity is defined by an arbitrary string of letters or mouth noises. The only thing needed to contradict that group’s existence is the the appearance of another group of beings who are defined by another arbitrary word or mouth noise. Tribal identities are built on simple ideas, and so when you cause a contradiction to an idea, you are deleting a part of their perceived sense of self.
Religion will exist as long as people are terrified of their own consciousness. Organized religion provides an easy solution to that existential crisis that all humans must experience. In religion the reasons for your existence are provided as well as a great sense of belonging When a religion based on ideas regarding the universe meets another, a huge existential contradiction appears. The religions are based on dogmas and scriptures and so the only way to solve the crisis of existence is to wipe out the idea that nullifies the idea that defines the religion. Sometimes the only way to do this is to kill the person that defines himself by the contradicting idea.
The thing that makes scriptural religion so incredibly confounding to me is the incredible misunderstanding of what the purpose of language actually is. The religious may not understand what a fragile dance language and communication is. The Christian religion uses texts that have been written by an unknown amount of people, translated from a number of different languages from linguistic eras long past. When people have trouble even truly understanding each other in face to face conversation, how can we even begin to pretend to understand what scripture is attempting to convey? Can anyone from the 21st century pick up a raw copy of Hamlet and truly understand what Shakespeare was trying to say? Shakespeare wrote in ENGLISH not Hebrew. Shakespeare has not been translated into other languages and still the text is barely understandable to me. Christianity teaches that The Bible is all that is needed for understanding the total truth of the universe. The only thing modern Christians can do is interpret the scripture which has been interpreted by other people which has been interpreted by other people, hence the wide variety of interpretations. Modern Christianity is nothing but the result of a centuries long game of telephone.
Perhaps the reason many intellectuals are considered typically shy and stumble over their words, is because they better understand the real value of language. To the intellectual, Saying something unintended is a cardinal sin. To have someone else interpret exactly as intended is something that is of great importance. Personally I detest forms of interpersonal communication that is text only. So much of our meaning, context and emotion is locked inside the codes of conscious and unconscious visual body language. Looking introspectively, probably the things that have ever caused me the most stressful anxiety is the feeling of not being able to express myself properly. Times when I have felt the most heartbroken or guilty are times when people have failed to expect or express the correct response to very powerful emotions. When people have opened their hearts to me, I have miscommunicated by not giving clear indications of not being romantically interested. I consider “leading someone on” possibly one of the worst things someone can do in a relationship. The reason simply being that it causes a kind of existential crisis. If I ask someone out and I get rejected, it makes me feel alone in a sea of emotions. The only reason I thought to ask them out was because I thought the feelings were mutual. Its not the rejection that hurts. What hurts is the fact that emotions have been miscommunicated. Deliberate miscommunication is obviously more egregious than unconsciously doing so. But even when accidental, it demonstrates a lack of understanding of the fragility and importance of honest communication.
If I am to follow the life philosophy of the “Coded Universe” or “life as a video game”, language is a system to be hacked. I am going to make it one of my immediate life objectives to master of the code of language. Perhaps those with the phenomena of charisma are people who have been naturally gifted with the communication hacker ability. But certainly unless you have an intellectual disability, it can be mastered to a certain extent. If I am to believe that we are approaching a future that is made of human language and imagination, I must master this ability. If we are going to live inside each other’s imaginations, I must get used to having my mind wide open. I have to let go of whatever my ego is attempting to protect. How can I progress into the future without giving up what will be inevitably public information? Keeping secrets is useless if everyone is being honest and has good intentions.
“To belong” means the feeling of shared experience between a group of people. To belong to a group is to be linked by strings of easily flowing and open language. The more emotional the communication, the deeper the connection. Emotion being possibly the most important part of the human experience. The reason you feel like you’re the most yourself when you’re with your best friends, lover, or family is because there are no barriers in the flow of information. You are able to easily express the deepest feelings of being alive in very specific language. We are able to express the experience of life with each other. If we don’t belong, we live on an island of existence. This is what I consider to be what we call love. The existence of an unfettered torrent of communication flowing between conscious beings.
The beautiful thing about being alive is that nothing other than death can contradict the existence of your experience. Nothing can cause you an existential crisis if you chose to live moment to moment. Soak in the present moment, because it is really the only thing that you can prove 100% to exist. Cultural existences are based only on ideas and words. Ideas and words can, by definition be contradicted. Every fact that science can prove can be conceivably contradicted. The essence of science is the principle that ideas that build a blueprint of the universe are contradicted and rewritten Things such as the theory of evolution can be conceivably contradicted and disproven. By the definition of science the theory of evolution can never be 100% proven. So even if you base your existence on science, you are only basing it on an incomplete sketch of reality. If you don’t include the mindfulness of experience, there remains a possibility for a crisis of existence. Try not to base your identity on the truth of what you experience. Instead base your sense of existence and identity on the fact that you experience something at all.
If you are a reader of my blog. Thank You. Just one person interested gets me motivated to write more. If you enjoy the kind of material I cover, you should also check out my friend James' recently started blog. The difference is, he covers things from a Christian perspective. Although we differ in our religious worldviews, we tend to share more in common than you may expect an atheist and a Christian to.
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
As the mystics
of any of the traditions will attest to, the manipulation of the conscious mind
can produce effects that would be called mystical experiences. But these experiences certainly are not
exclusive to those who are pious. Most
practices of mysticism involve the manipulation of thought through physical
actions and mental concentration in order to achieve blissful states of inner
peace. Most religious practitioners of
this kind of mysticism to would attribute these altered states of consciousness
to the ethereal realm. Practices of
Buddhist meditation are exercises in achieving states approaching Nirvana. Sufi dervishes practice rituals of physical
asceticism in order to experience closeness to Allah. The whirling dervishes of the Sufis spin in
around in circles attempting to achieve a kind of pre-mature death in order to
achieve ecstatic states that they would attribute to a close approximation to
God. Hindu ascetics will starve
themselves and disown any worldly possessions and achieve states that we might
call “happiness”.
Feelings of
happiness and ecstasy are attributes of certain periods in our consciousness. We all have to admit that the thing that we
call consciousness is extremely plastic, and can easily change to experience a
plethora of alternate realities. On a daily
basis we experience reality in totally different ways which are clearly caused
by physical things. Many of us alter
our reality with coffee every morning by making us more alert. What we consume for our meals have an effect
of our mood and how our bodies feel.
Some of us suffer from diseases like Schizophrenia which vastly alter
the realities we experience.
Consequently, some of us take pharmaceutical drugs to alter our altered
behaviour. Anti-depressants have a clear
effect on the way an individual views the world. Most of us spend a sizable chunk of the time
we are alive in a state called sleep. It
is a state of semi-consciousness where our bodies are at rest but our minds
experience something different. The
thing we call “me” drifts in and out of consciousness in a totally hallucinated
realm. Time is often experienced
differently as it is very difficult to discern when a dream begins or
ends. Happenings that would seem bizarre
in a waking state often seem commonplace in a dream. Dreams are demonstrably a physical occurrence
in the brain, but it doesn't make dreaming any less worthwhile. Dreams can cause people to have inspirations
and epiphanies regarding their physical life.
They can be greatly entertaining and emotionally powerful. Could this not also be the case with
practices of traditional mystical experiences?
The fact that all forms of mysticism are practiced with physical actions
shows that these experiences can be achievable without any kind of belief in
dogmas or unproven superstitions. Some
can even be experienced without any kind of mental concentration or physical
asceticism. Psychoactive substances such
as psilocybin, LSD and DMT have the ability produce incredibly unique
experiences comparable to any religious mystical experiences.
Sam Harris is
one of the few of the “new atheists” who speak highly of the practices of the
eastern religions. In the book The End of Faith, Harris outlines why
concentration of thought on the experience of consciousness, is monumental in
achieving truly content states of mind.
He compliments the eastern religions for having the wisdom of these
practices. He suggests the use of these
meditative tools for anyone religious or not, wanting to find inner peace and
happiness. He regards mysticism as a rational
enterprise but religion is not.
“A kernel of truth lurks at the heart of religion,
because spiritual experience, ethical behaviour, and strong communities are
essential for human happiness. And yet
our religious traditions are intellectually defunct and politically ruinous.
While spiritual experience is clearly a natural propensity of the human mind,
we need not believe anything on insufficient evidence to actualize it.”
Possibly the most important and essential part of religion is the sense
of a community and group commonality it provides. We are tribal animals by nature, we feel at
home and fulfilled when we feel like we are accepted as a part of a group. Religions have arguably created a sense of
community better than any other institution in human history. But since the emergence of large cities, air
travel and mass media, something else is emerging as a form of human community. The phenomenon of professional sports is a
very fascinating institution when studying it as something that resembles
religion. The popularity of professional
Sports in the modern world represents a part of primeval human behaviour that
also has very striking parallels with religion.
Not only is it occurring in the modern world but ancient Rome and Greece
had spectacles very similar to the modern phenomena. Rome had its combatant gladiator events(how
much similar is that to the popularity of UFC and MMA currently?). In Greece, the
Olympics were originally overtly religious competitions between the city states
of Greece held in honor of the gods.
If anyone has been a spectator at a pro-sporting event, one will easily
recognize the sense of grandeur and awe that it intends to provoke. A stadium, arena or ballpark filled with
thousands of cheering people and intense music and light to excite the
senses. The sense of something important
happening is in the air. This is what is
described by famous sociologist Emile Durkheim has collective effervescence. The perceived form of energy that is felt in
large groups of people concentrating on one subject, Durkheim explained, may be
an explanation for the emergence of primitive religion. Of course this phenomenon is not restricted
to the realm of pro-sports. We can
easily demonstrate the same effects at rock concerts, music festivals and of
course large scale religious events.
Instead of the sporting events
being held in honor of the gods, they are now held in honor of
nationality. Pro sports events held in
Canada and the US begin with the national anthems of one or both of the
nations. The modern incarnation of the
Olympics is now a nationalistic and political event. The annual sporting events such as The
Superbowl, World Series or even Wrestlemania are treated similarly to religious
holidays. The Superbowl is an American
television occasion to get together with friends and family and imbibe on
American culture. Those who attend the
events in person could be considered to be on a pilgrimage. Wouldn’t every football fan like to attend at
least one Superbowl? Much like every
Muslim would like to participate in the Hajj to Mecca at least once.
As someone who follows NHL hockey closely, I have noticed many familiar
religious behaviors in the teams I cheer for.
The Calgary Flames are my favorite team. I am quite interested in the
way they alter their uniforms and logos over the years. They were originally formed in the mid-1970s
as the red, gold and white coloured Atlanta Flames and kept the same team
colours and name of the team when the franchise was moved to Calgary. The team found success in the late 80s by
winning the sacred trophy, the Stanley Cup.
As the 1990’s progressed, the team began altering its look slightly by
adding black as one of the official colours and changing the look of the
uniforms. But they have not found much
success since the late 80s. A very
interesting thing to notice about the latest trend in their uniforms is the
feeling of nostalgia. They are now
moving to a look that represents the classic image of their glory years of the
80s. A very similar thing is occurring
in a good number of other NHL teams.
Not
only is this a hockey phenomenon but a trend in many pro sports. The Toronto Blue Jays have changed their
uniforms to resemble the look of when the team used to win championships and
make the post season.
I feel this seems to parallel religion because in many traditions, there
is a feeling of wanting to return to the glory days of the past. In many forms of Christianity, there is a yearning
for kingdom of heaven to return to earth.
Jews wait for the return of Zion and the reconstruction of Solomon’s
Temple. Many Islamist organizations
would like to resurrect a political caliphate resembling the great caliphates
of the past.
Pro-sport also has its saintly figures, demigods and hero worship. Couldn’t Jackie Robinson be considered
baseball’s Martin Luther? Could Don Cherry
be hockey’s Pat Robertson? Doesn’t O.J
Simpson resemble football’s Osama Bin Laden?
The uniform numbers of revered players are “retired” by teams and even
leagues. The retired numbers of heroes
and championships years hang in the stadiums much like saints adorn the stained
glass windows of cathedrals. Flags of
Islamic countries wear the favored colour green of the prophet Muhammad
similarly as the citizens of Rider Nation, Saskatchewan. Jesus fish sit on bumpers of cars, where Miami
Dolphins stickers sit on others. Crosses
hang from necks of some, while Manchester United scarves wrap others. Yamakahs sit on the heads of many New
Yorkers, while Yankees caps cover others.
Sports can
function as a better outlet for our tribal selves than religion can for a
variety of reasons. The first reason is
that allegiance to sports teams are chosen more arbitrarily than
religions. People choose their favorite
teams for a variety of seemingly petty reasons like the uniforms or logos. At the moment, the NHL team I currently
follow is the Pittsburgh Penguins. Not
for any other reason than my favorite player, Jarome Iginla is currently playing
for them. Because of the arbitrarily
chosen nature of some teams, there is less of a reason to invest an overly
amount of money or emotion into something that I can’t afford to at the time
being. Unlike religion, Sports can unite
a city in an extremely short amount of time.
A few weeks of a playoff run and the entire city is in a friendly,
celebratory mood. Being nicer to the
people who live together in an area is extremely important for the health of
the community. No matter someone’s
social status, people unite around sports teams with an equal sense of
community. Even fans of rival teams will
acknowledge the shared commonality for the love of the sport. For example if a Flames fan and an Oilers fan
met each other in Europe, they would have much more in common to be friendly
about than differences to dislike each other.
Different religions can isolate people in a foreign community and it is
very hard to change religions just to fit in to the community.
I think sports are
perfect combination of physical activity as an expression of animal nature and
team spirit as an expression of the tribalism of our ancestors. We no longer have to be physically fit to
survive but we still need to practice physical fitness to relieve stress and be
happier people. Games like sports also
allow us to fulfill reward centers in our brain when we achieve goals and
objectives that are artificially set up.
If life is a game, then the goals and objectives are extremely difficult
to discern and are very convoluted. We
cannot tell if the big decisions in our life were the correct ones for quite
some time or even ever. Games simplify
objectives to a point where we can tell if our decisions were the correct ones
in a much shorter time. Just by watching
a sport, we can bask in the reflected glory of the achievements of the players
of our favorite teams achieving easy to understand objectives.
In many ways
religion is a game. It turns life into a
much easier to understand place. The
decisions religious people make are much more guided by a framework of laid out
objectives. Knowing what the game designer
intended for you, makes the game of life much easier to understand and makes
the rewards much more immediately tangible.
The Ten Commandments are a perfect example of a religion laying out the
rules of the game to follow. Follow these
simple rules and you will beat the game.
The reward for beating the game being, you get to live in Heaven after
you die. If you fail at following the
rules of the game, you lose and go to Hell.
In Buddhism, the objective of the game is to end your suffering, level
up and become a Buddha. But if you don’t
beat the game before you die, don’t worry.
You have an infinite amount of lives to try again.
If I look at
religion as a kind of game, my atheist quest to outsource religion is starting
to shape into how I can successfully achieve goals and objectives in this very
complicated life, without having to simplify life into the easier and simpler
game of religion. So what are those
goals and objectives? American
Psychologist Abraham Maslow outlined a list of human needs in a hierarchical
system of five levels. The lowest level
of needs are the most immediate and most vital to physical survival such as
water, food and air. These needs are
where the objectives are clear and rewards are most immediate. The highest levels of needs are where the
objectives are most uncertain and the rewards are undefined and much less
immediate. According to this theory, an
individual cannot begin to pursue the next level of needs until all the needs
of the current level are being met. As
we live in a very wealthy and complex time in human history, we live at a
higher level of our needs being met. I
don’t live in a place where my basic survival needs are much of a concern of
mine. The goals and objectives in my
life are uncertain and not as clear as a man living 200,000 years ago, where
the game of life had very simple objectives and immediate rewards. My needs and those of my peers have to do
with satisfying the faculties of love, belonging, self-esteem, self-actualization
and creativity. These objectives are
extremely complicated and are satisficed differently for every individual.
Many people
become overly absorbed into the smaller games in life. There are countless situations where people
get stuck in addictive patterns such as online video games, gambling, sex,
drugs, alcohol, eating and body building.
All of these can be considered examples of games with easy to define
goals and immediate rewards. As society
gets more and more complex, people can get lost easier on the struggle for life
fulfillment. People get stuck in smaller
life games because they may be unsure and insecure of their goals for the more
difficult and complex life games.
A possible
explanation for religious fundamentalism is the objectives of the larger game
of life for people in those circumstances are very uncertain. Religious fundamentalism gives frustrated,
uncertain and insecure people a simple set of rules to follow in life. Take the religious violence that is currently
being expressed through Islam for example.
These people are living in situations where war and ideology is
compromising their ability to fulfill many of their needs. The strict religious rules of Islamism, is a
way to simplify the goals and rewards of their lives. If the end goal is to reach paradise, and the
Quran can be used to justify being a martyr for the faith, suicide bombing
could be the answer for the naïve and destitute.
The religiosity
of prisons could also be a very interesting case study. The future for inmates spending extended
periods of their lives in prisons is incredibly dreary. They know what the potential for a good life
outside the walls are, but they know they would never be able to achieve
it. They live in a relatively simple
framework of life already in a penitentiary, what better way than religion to
simplify the game of life?
Secular society
has also developed other ways of creating life simplifying games. Capitalism and “The American Dream” is
another example of how goals in life can be simplified. If we can quantify who is winning at the game
of life with a number, it makes the objectives much simpler. Bill Gates is a successful player at the game
of life and a poor person is a loser.
The success of an American life is measured by how much wealth it
creates for the economy.
Even in pro sports, games can be taken
more seriously than they should be.
Football hooliganism was a serious problem in England in the 1980s. The consequences of a failing British economy
during that time led to young men feeling frustrated and unfulfilled. These young male fans began to live
vicariously through their Football club and violence between rival fans was a
common occurrence before, during and after matches. The 2011 Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver is
also an unfortunate consequence of the combination of large crowds,
disappointment and drunken young men.
(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?
