The Haunted History Of Halloween

Divine Impulses: Christopher Hitchens on preparing for life, and death

Via atheistplanet.blogspot.com

The author and atheist Christopher Hitchens talks to On Faith's Sally Quinn about coping with his diagnosis.

The Language of Science

This is the first installment of the original series "Discovering Religion." In this episode Discovering Religion discusses the apparent conflicts that exist with our present observable reality and our past archaic religious traditions that not only seem to contradict one another, but all that we have discovered through the scientific method.

Are You Ambiguity Tolerant?

Ambiguity tolerance is the ability to perceive ambiguity in information and behavior in a neutral and open way. Ambiguity tolerance is an important issue in personality development and education.

In psychology and in management, levels of tolerance of ambiguity are correlated with creativity, risk aversion, psychological resilience, lifestyle, orientation towards diversity (cross-cultural communication, intercultural competence), and leadership style.

Wilkinson's Modes of Leadership is largely based on ambiguity tolerance. Mode one leaders have the least tolerance to ambiguity with mode four leaders enjoying and preferring to work in ambiguous situations. In part this is due to what Wilkinson calls 'emotional resilience.'

The converse, ambiguity intolerance, which was introduced in The Authoritarian Personality in 1950, was defined in 1975 as a “tendency to perceive or interpret information marked by vague, incomplete, fragmented, multiple, probable, unstructured, uncertain, inconsistent, contrary, contradictory, or unclear meanings as as actual or potential sources of psychological discomfort or threat."

-- to oversimplify for the education of the concrete and narrow minded: this is why progressive people have open minds and reactionary people have closed minds.

One type embraces new ideas and change while the other type cowers in fear and terror.

This is also why the ambiguity intolerant views a person who examines new evidence and changes their mind as a "flip flopper."

This is why the ambiguity intolerant desire a return to some fantasy past and can only endorse simplistic slogans that don't tax their brains and confuse them.

This is why the ambiguity intolerant HATE, yes HATE, different cultures and lifestyles, intellectuals, artists, higher education, and any form of abstract thought.

Just recently I was in a debate with an ambiguity intolerant person who defended their position by confessing that my communication was making them dizzy. This "keep it simple, stupid" person thought that the mere complexity of my conversation proved me wrong.

First of all, my communication wasn't that complex. Secondly, this person was admitting that it hurt for them to think. This person earnestly believed that their inability or lack of desire to think beyond the concrete and simple was a proof that my ideas were wrong.

I cannot tell you how many ambiguity intolerant people I have met in my life, particularly in my youthful religious years. Even in my religious youth, I didn't believe in the voodoo of religion. I didn't believe in creationism or Noah's Ark or the superiority of my religion over others. I was drawn to the ideals of social justice I saw in the "sacred texts."

As I grew in age, education, and experience I saw that the ideals of social justice in my religion were merely MASKS most (not all) followers wear to hide their petty, small-minded, selfish, greedy, control freak, backwards thinking minds. Once I found myself on the wrong side of history, I washed the dirt of ignorance off my feet and have never looked back.

We Humans Can't Handle the Truth

"What you represent to them...is freedom. But talking about it and being it...that's two different things. lt's real hard to be free...when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Don't tell anybody that they're not free, because they'll get busy...killing and maiming to prove to you that they are. They're going to talk to you and talk to you...about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it's going to scare them. Well, it don't make them running scared. lt makes them dangerous."

-- Easy Rider (1969)

We human beings can't tolerate anyone messing with our illusions. Apparently, we need fairy tales, rationalizations, and the Boogey-Man to keep us from killing one another. However, whenever one human challenges the myths of another human, the challenged human, however pious on their holy days, becomes an enraged beast ready to destroy the human who spoke outside the parameters of their illusions. At this point, the furious human will use heaven and hell to stamp you out, ignore your insights, and even kill you if necessary.

In my early religious period, I spent time with a group who I thought was concerned with humanitarian ideals, but they turned out to be more interested in having "meetings," spying and gossiping on one another, and group control than helping the poor and lonely.

When I began to share my doubts about the group, they couldn't hear it. They wouldn't even listen to me and silenced me. They had always pleased themselves by saying their group wasn't a democracy and they showed how totalitarian groups like this can be. Someone even claimed I was literally the devil incarnate come to destroy them. They increased their spying and gossiping about me. They looked for ways to negate my opinions and disregard any doubts. They were really angry that someone dared not to happily conform to their myths and even their bourgeois practices. If they could have gotten away with it, these religious people would have stoned me to death.

I didn't stay where I wasn't wanted and free thought couldn't exist. So, I left and I've never looked back. I washed their dirt off my feet.

I continue to evolve as a human being, searching for truth, eliminating meta-narratives, and constantly questioning myself.

 

Of course, the macho among us would consider this a weakness, preferring blind conformity rather than chance a change of mind. Gosh, some fascist might even call you a "waffler" for allowing your mind to evolve.