I just watched a very enjoyable TED talk about an atheist who has a proposal that atheists begin to implement some good practices from religions. You can listen to it here (20 minutes), or read some snippets I took from their transcript:

He starts off by saying:

There have been some very vocal atheists who’ve pointed out, not just that religion is wrong, but that it’s ridiculous. These people, many of whom have lived in North Oxford, have argued –they’ve argued that believing in God is akin to believing in fairies and essentially that the whole thing is a childish game. Now I think it’s too easy. I think it’s too easy to dismiss the whole of religion that way. And it’s as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.

…And for me, atheism 2.0 is about both, as I say, a respectful and an impious way of going through religions and saying, “What here could we use?” The secular world is full of holes. We have secularized badly, I would argue. And a thorough study of religion could give us all sorts of insights into areas of life that are not going too well. And I’d like to run through a few of these today.

A couple things he said that I enjoyed:

On the moon

Take the Moon. It’s really important to look at the Moon. You know, when you look at the Moon, you think, “I’m really small. What are my problems?” It sets things into perspective, etc., etc. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often. We don’t. Why don’t we? Well there’s nothing to tell us, “Look at the Moon.” But if you’re a Zen Buddhist in the middle of September, you will be ordered out of your home, made to stand on a canonical platform and made to celebrate the festival of Tsukimi, where you will be given poems to read in honor of the Moon and the passage of time and the frailty of life that it should remind us of. You’ll be handed rice cakes. And the Moon and the reflection on the Moon will have a secure place in your heart. That’s very good.

On Art

Let’s look at art now. Now art is something that in the secular world, we think very highly of. We think art is really, really important….

The two really bad ideas that are hovering in the modern world that inhibit our capacity to draw strength from art: The first idea is that art should be for art’s sake — a ridiculous idea — an idea that art should live in a hermetic bubble and should not try to do anything with this troubled world. I couldn’t disagree more. The other thing that we believe is that art shouldn’t explain itself, that artists shouldn’t say what they’re up to, because if they said it, it might destroy the spell and we might find it too easy. That’s why a very common feeling when you’re in a museum — let’s admit it — is, “I don’t know what this is about.” But if we’re serious people, we don’t admit to that. But that feeling of puzzlement is structural to contemporary art.

Now religions have a much saner attitude to art. They have no trouble telling us what art is about. Art is about two things in all the major faiths. Firstly, it’s trying to remind you of what there is to love. And secondly, it’s trying to remind you of what there is to fear and to hate. And that’s what art is. Art is a visceral encounter with the most important ideas of your faith. So as you walk around a church, or a mosque or a cathedral, what you’re trying to imbibe, what you’re imbibing is, through your eyes, through your senses, truths that have otherwise come to you through your mind.

On mystery and awe

CA: But you left out one aspect of religion that a lot of people might say your agenda could borrow from, which is this sense — that’s actually probably the most important thing to anyone who’s religious — of spiritual experience, of some kind of connectionwith something that’s bigger than you are. Is there any room for that experience in Atheism 2.0?

AB: Absolutely. I, like many of you, meet peoplewho say things like, “But isn’t there something bigger than us, something else?” And I say, “Of course.” And they say, “So aren’t you sort of religious?” And I go, “No.” Why does that sense of mystery, that sense of the dizzying scale of the universe, need to be accompanied by a mystical feeling? Science and just observation gives us that feeling without it, so I don’t feel the need. The universe is large and we are tiny, without the need for further religious superstructure. So one can have so-called spiritual moments without belief in the spirit.

Words. Definitely one of my favorite radiolab podcasts. They shared a crazy story of this deaf guy who grew up without any language. When he knew no words, he couldn’t really think… about much of anything. He said that was the “dark time” of his life. Without words he couldn’t formulate any real elaborate thoughts. He grew up with others like him who couldn’t hear or speak. This woman who spoke about the him and his other languageless friends said, “it would take them maybe 45 minutes to say, ‘Do you remember the time when we were at the bullfight and this woman did such and such?’”

Here’s when she first met him (in a sign language class) (a bit long.. you can skip to the bottom if you’d like):

SUSAN SCHALLER: He was studying mouths and I walked up to him and said, “Hello my name is Susan.”

JAD ABUMRAD: And this is where things start to get a little weird. He looks at her. And instead of signing his name whatever it was.

SUSAN SCHALLER: He brings up his hands…

JAD ABUMRAD: Signs right back to her,

SUSAN SCHALLER: “Hello my name is Susan.”

ROBERT KRULWICH: Susan like shakes her head and says, “No, no, I’m Susan.”

JAD ABUMRAD: And he responds, “No, no I’m Susan.”

ROBERT KRULWICH: Everything you said, he tried to say.

….

ROBERT KRULWICH: So she thinks well let me see if I can teach him some just basic sign language. In an interesting case she takes out a book and makes the sign book.

SUSAN SCHALLER: But the sign for book looks like opening up a book. So he thought I was ordering him to open a book.

ROBERT KRULWICH: So he grabs the book and he opens it.

SUSAN SCHALLER: Cuz he thought I was asking him to do something. It was very difficult. If I gave him the sign for standing up he thought I wanted him to stand up. And so I couldn’t, I couldn’t have a conversation with him. And it was the most frustrating thing I have ever done in my life.

JAD ABUMRAD: Wait a second, how long did this go on for?

SUSAN SCHALLER: Well uh weeks, it was weeks.

…

SUSAN SCHALLER: I taught an invisible student. I stopped talking to him and I stopped having eye contact. And I set up an empty chair

JAD ABUMRAD: And then she says she would hold up to this empty chair a picture of a cat.

SUSAN SCHALLER: and I was trying to explain to this invisible student that this creature, a cat—so I’d be miming a cat and petting a cat—and then I’d sign the sign for cat.

JAD ABUMRAD: Then she would hop to the other seat, the invisible student’s seat, and pretend to get it.

SUSAN SCHALLER: “Oh I know,” you know with my facial expression, “Oh, I get it!”

ROBERT KRULWICH: So you’re playing all the parts. You’re both the teacher and the invisible student.

SUSAN SCHALLER: That’s right, that’s right.

JAD ABUMRAD: Wow.

SUSAN SCHALLER: Doing all these crazy things and he’d just watch me.

JAD ABUMRAD: He stopped copying her which was good…

SUSAN SCHALLER: But. I’d do this over and over and over for days and days and days…

ROBERT KRULWICH: And she says he just didn’t get it.

SUSAN SCHALLER: He looked bored a lot of times.

ROBERT KRULWICH: But one day in the middle of one of these endless pretend student exercises…

SUSAN SCHALLER: Something happened.

ROBERT KRULWICH: Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him shift his body.

SUSAN SCHALLER: And he looked—It’s interesting how his body was upright and he looked like something was about to happen.

He looked around the room—this is a 27 year old man— and he looks around the room as if he had just landed from Mars and it was the first time he had ever saw anything. Something was about to happen.

JAD ABUMRAD: His eyes grew wider, she says, and then wider. And then—

SUSAN SCHALLER: He slaps his hands on the table. “Oh! Everything has a name!”

SUSAN SCHALLER: And he looks at me in this demanding way and I sign table. And he points to the door and I sign door. And he points to the clock and he points to me, and I sign “Susan.” And then, he started crying. He just collapsed and he started crying.

SUSAN SCHALLER: What is it that happens in human beings when we get symbols and we start trading symbols? It changes our thinking. It changes our ideas of—it is no longer the thing, a table that we eat on but there’s something about symbol table that makes the table look different. Ildefonso was in love. He was in love. He was like, everything has a name. And for the first couple weeks he had this list of names that kept growing and growing.

That is nuts. I don’t know why but that gives me the chills. It’s strange how fragile and moldable even our minds our… that I could exist and not understand.. really anything. Not only that our brains can go from understanding nothing to understanding all sorts of things.. but we can even lose our minds.

Sometimes I vaguely fear that when I grow older, before I die, I am going to lose my mind and memory.

I started keeping quotes I like in an evernote notebook a few months ago. I decided it would be awesome if I could just look up inspiring life-changing quotes I’ve liked whenever I want, instead of having to dig through books to look for them, or forget them and not be as inspired of a person. Because evernote is the greatest, you can share certain notebooks publicly and even share via RSS (and connect to cool things like Google Reader).

As of now, it’s pretty much all GK Chesterton quotes. I’ll start adding some variety soon but for now if you’d like to see them:

Shared Quotes notebook: http://www.evernote.com/pub/wejrowski/bw-quotes

RSS: http://www.evernote.com/shard/s10/pub/1182494/wejrowski/bw-quotes/rss.jsp?max=50&sort=2&search=

I added asterisks to the quotes I especially like.

I don’t get it sometimes. It will make you go crazy thinking about it. I’m not thinking of anything in particular here.. just everything, and anything… which makes me think of these:

Many of us (Christian, or not) have heard many times people say things like, “There is a reason and purpose behind everything.” Or, especially in hard times, people may say that there is a purpose behind it, though maybe we just don’t see it. You will grow/learn from it…. There must be a reason behind this…. I just need to trust that there is a bigger purpose here. I just talked to a friend, who was going to marriage counseling. They told him,

That’s a pretty satisfying statement right there. But if God chose that… what else did he choose? Where do you draw the line between what we choose and what God chooses/purposes? Why am married to this woman? Why did this person die? Why did I get into this car accident? Why did I go to this university? Why am I sitting next to this polka dotted pillow at the Coffee Plantation? A lot of Christians would explain many of these situations (ok maybe not the polka dotted pillow one) as being something purposed by God, that he has a plan it it that we just may not see at the time. While I would never say this is not ever the case, I definitely don’t think it is always the case that God purposes all these things in our lives, and think that it even can be detrimental to do this.

Where the idea may come from

I think this idea comes from (for Christians) the idea that God is all powerful, sovereign, and from various passages like these:

If you know elsewhere where this idea may come from post below!

It is definitely true that there were a lot of instances in the Bible where things happen for a reason and where, even, Biblical people labeled things as being from God. Now, to a certain extent, if God is all powerful and does sustain ALL, then in a certain sense, he is the cause of… everything. But did he purpose everything? I don’t think so. I think it is skewed to say everything has a purpose; and possibly even detrimental to have that view. Why?

(1) It’s not Biblical

For starters, a good reason not to believe something is if it’s simply not true. While God does have much purpose and say in many instances in the Bible, I think, overwhelmingly, God gives man the ability and even responsibility to make choices, and take chances. One of the first charges to man is to “rule and subdue the earth.” And throughout the Biblical story, humanity makes decisions that have drastic implications. People kill one another, rape others, have affairs and children that completely change the course of humanity. In many instances God makes a decision to do something, and because people simply ask him to do something different… he does. He changes his mind and actions because of our choice. Yes there are some arguments on the other side to say that God does intricately involve himself in our lives. I won’t say nothing happens for a reason. That wouldn’t be biblical. But I at least don’t see Biblical advocacy to have and hold this perspective on a daily and practical basis.. to look for God to say something. To wait until he does. Yes to seek him, but not to continually search for some whisper in the breeze or a feeling. More could be said on that but I’ll leave it there. St. John of the Cross has some great sayings about this too.

(2) It Can Cause Disappointment and False Hope

If one is to assume that God has a purpose behind everything this idea is very optimistic and can cheer one up. But over time what could happen? One could try to figure out what the purpose in something was, and be left extremely disappointed and frustrated when they don’t find one.

(3) It Provokes Laziness

If we assume (and pretty selfishly so) that God has a purpose for us in everything, and has a specific direction for every choice we make, we limit our choice and responsibility. We can start looking for answers, and wait in fear that we may make the wrong decision, until God gives us one. Get into that habit of thinking and you could become a pretty lethargic person.

Side note

Not to say that we should start making decisions right and left without seeking guidance. If we believe in the God of the Bible, than we should be people who do seek his guidance before all else. I always think of Isaiah when I think of this. God often says in the prophets things like, “If only you would have sought my counsel!”

I think there is a definite balance between taking responsibility, being a human, and making choices, and (as Christians) asking God for direction.

(4) It’s Self Centered

I think that’s self explanatory…

Free will in the Bible

I don’t think everything has a specific purpose, because God throughout the Bible gives humanity choices, and he even changes his actions depending on their choice. He charges them to fill the earth and subdue it. He changes his mind because of the plead of the people. He gives the people conditional consequences… dependent on their action. I also think it just is not logical to say that everything has a purpose. In a certain sense, I think, you could say that everything has a purpose in that it points to God (or something like that). Or that God can work everything for the good. But that is very different than saying that everything has a purpose.

Liberation and Freedom

So what’s the purpose in saying all this? It is unbelievably liberating to understand that God made people to make choices, and not get hung up on either sides—that either we should make all our decisions on our own on a whim, or that we should just sit and wait for God to direct every single step. I think there’s something good in the idea that all (every single thing) things don’t have a purpose; that we decide our destiny.

I think this can also be applied to things like bad habits, sin, struggles etc. It seems like a lot of us act as though our struggles are something we can do nothing about, as if God is plaguing us with it to teach us something. And hey, that may be the case; I suppose it did happen in the Bible. But on the other hand, it seems as though God more so tells the people to… do something, to change things, to stop sitting in their sin and listen to him, to remove the bad influences of others, to burn idols.

Much more thought to be done on this. I’m sure I’ll post some recaps/updates later. Also.. I did write this a couple months ago, and since then found this interesting related post by Donald Miller (read here). In the meantime here are some quotes from GK:

I was pretty excited when I bought a Palm Pre last summer because of the endless possibilities of neat things you can do with it. Including:

• Looking up words on dictionary.com
• Easily search Wikipedia
• Google Calendar
• Easy email access
• digital sticky notes
• about a million other cool features..

Sticky Notes & Memory

The Pre has a nifty sticky notes application to write anything you would like down. I also found a very cool application called Evernote which is a much more sophisticated, internet based, note taking application. Lately when I think of something, whatever it be (a random thought, idea, reminder etc.) I’ll write it down in there. No longer do I think of a great idea and then completely forget it 5 minutes later.

Lists & Character Growth

One thing I have tried in various forms of doing over the last couple years but it never quite worked out this well is: making a list of personal habits or character traits I want to improve on (e.g. Generosity, being selfless, be intentional, etc. etc.). So over the last 6 months or so I’ve kept a list of these things on my phone, and I’ll check them every so often (1-4 days ideally) and see how I’ve been doing. Most of these I am still terrible at, and will probably have to remind myself for a long time (or forever). It’s a process. But, there are a couple items on there which I’m happy to say I have improved on quite a bit over the last 6 months because of doing this. Character traits, is just one of many applications of this.

Other examples:

• Books you’d like to read
• Intriguing questions to ask people
• Interesting topics to think about when you smoke your next cigar
• Subjects or ideas you don’t understand, then add thoughts to them as they come.
• Blog post ideas
• Food/snack ideas
• Any other miscellaneous or private subject matter
• Todo lists (though maybe this would be better saved for a more sophisticated application than sticky notes—like Things, or Remember the Milk).

Some Deuteronomy 11 Inspiration

Deuteronomy 11 speaks about the importance of reminding ourselves about what God has done in our lives—a concept which is found all throughout the Bible, one which we often forget (ironically, most likely because we don’t follow it). And this idea I think can definitely apply to pretty much anything else… because it works.

If you have any other cool ideas that work for you, share below!

Hello world! Here is a brief intro to this blog:

In the past

Some may find this strange, but I enjoy studying and.. writing essays. I am not a very good writer, but it seems to satisfy me to at least attempt to wrap my brain around things through writing. God, the Bible, and Theology have always intrigued me (as I would assume they should intrigue everyone!). God and the Bible are a big mystery when you don’t know much about them (or, I suppose, even when you do!). I never thought of myself as one with coherent thoughts, and much less one who is very smart. But, I am happy to say that through knowing that and struggling to know more, I’ve been able to wrap my mind around a lot and become a much different, better, more content (and even happier) person because of that.

An Attempt to Remember

I try to keep note of the things I learn and study, and lately have wanted to start writing more to help myself process things. Too often we learn things, or read, and forget them a month later because we never wrote them down, or never fully processed them. So this is my attempt to remember… to help myself process things. Because really I know nothing in the scheme of things, and it’s only through struggling through these things that one learns more. I really think I can say that I’ve learned and grown the most when I sit and think about life and God. And by putting this up publicly, I’m opening myself up to the criticism of others.. and I would enjoy to hear yours.. and your feedback (for those few that may actually read this). I may be wrong about a lot, and you can tell me if I am (just don’t be a jerk about it).

So hopefully these writings will be of some interest to at least a few. And if not it will at least amuse myself and a few of my friends.

I’ve decided finally, after contemplating this over the last 3-5 months, to start a blog. It will be my attempt to remember things, process my thoughts, and share with the world a small part of my life. What will it be about? I’m assuming I’ll write for the most part about God, and this strange life we all live… since that’s what my brain tends to think about quite often. Hopefully you will enjoy. Not sure when this thing will be up and running. We’ll see… stay tuned.