Eternal life

I read an item in one of the scientific web sites to the effect living forever is impossible.  The basis was a survey of the age of death of the very oldest, and while lifetimes have been getting longer, this maximum age has not.  Therefore no matter how good medical care and so on get, there is a maximum age.

While I agree living forever is impossible, this evidence draws the wrong conclusion.  We age for some unknown complex of reasons, but each species seems to have a different and evolving maximum age, and there is no reason for that not to apply to us.  There are biological reasons we age and die, and each species reflects these in accordance to its lifestyle and the normal age of death from disease or predation.  That humans overcome these would remove the biological reason for aging and dying, and we would expect maximum lifetimes to slowly increase -- but on evolutionary terms this would require thousands or millions of years, not the short time of the observations.

The important thing here is that the fact that maximum age varies from species to species tells us it is not inherent but evolved, and that therefore there ought to be ways to interfere with it.  

The reason living forever is impossible is simple -- one may never die but at the same time one has never reached infinite age.  One may be a million or billion or gazillion years old, but never infinite.

One day the earth will become uninhabitable, a little later the solar system.  Humans will of course know it is coming and we presume will have the ability to go elsewhere.  Even orbiting a red dwarf, long-lived as they are, would someday have to come to an end.

There is reason to think, though, that space-time has unlimited low-entropy energy available -- this is after all how our present universe got its energy.  Just separate the positive and the negative keeping the total at zero.  So humanity could go on.

Back to nearer to us in time, what might a society where there is no aging and presumably very few if any deaths (technology would also steadily improve safety) be like?  One can imagine frightening scenarios -- say a Stalin was in power and would live on and on -- and other messes, but one can also imagine things being pretty nice.  Remove death and you also remove a lot of human angst.

Don't worry about overpopulation.  That particular worry is trivial.  If it came to it children would stop happening, but I think more likely humanity would expand.  It's a big universe.

What is philosophy for?

As a look at my blogs shows, I'm interested in amateurish philosophizing.  The pros seem to mostly do nothing but talk about what philosophers in the canon said or didn't say, so I call what I do amateurish.  I actually think about real answers.

(I do however recommend knowing at least what a few important philosophers had to say -- keeps one from re-inventing the wheel).

By the way, I do wonder how some people, like Nietzsche or Marx or Hegel or Sartre or Ayn Rand, got into the canon.  Their ideas don't hold water, and all philosophers seem to do nowadays, is refute them.  They were maybe just good, albeit arrogant, writers, and of course Marx and Hegel are significant politically, but not as far as I can see as philosophers.

But one doesn't do things like philosophy just to be right, since these are questions one never can be sure of.  No the fact is I do it because it's fun.  Thinking about it though, maybe one way into the cannon is to be sure one is right -- it's like a religion then and one gets disciples whom others have to set straight.  Those less arrogant don't make it.

No, what philosophy is really for, is happiness.  It provides ways to see the world in less gloomy ways -- except of course if you enjoy being gloomy, since it provides that too.  One can learn to accept or maybe not care about or maybe see and avoid the two-by-fours life sometimes hits you on the head with.

Ethics is an example, and maybe the first branch of real philosophy (rather than religion or philosophy that became science).  We all want to do what is right (I would hope), and doing what is right is satisfying and provides even joy.  But that assumes we know what is right, which in turn implies there is such a thing.

Analogy to aesthetics is hard to avoid, so let us analogize.  We all want what is beautiful but we don't really know how to say what is beautiful or whether or not beauty really exists -- except in the head -- we know it exists in our heads.  Beautiful things give us joy (do they ever) but we don't know why or what it is.  All we can say for sure is that beauty changes from person to person as well as over time and from culture to culture.

Does right and wrong behave similarly?  If we say it does then the whole exercise of doing what is right becomes a farce.  Right and wrong behavior affect others and affect the world -- we can be destructive or constructive.  Now making beauty is the right thing to do, no doubt, but appreciating it is personal.  Doing right is not.  What we do and don't do have consequences far beyond what we like and don't like.

It might be that what is beautiful is not so variable as I think but exists in an absolute way, inferred from fundamental principles, but I doubt that very much.  On the other hand I am forced to think that is the case with good and evil.  What is evil, at least, can be reasoned out from principles, such as more sophisticated versions of the Golden Rule (the actual rule as we have it is easy to criticize, but the criticisms can be handled with rephrasing).  Kant I think did a decent job of that.

The point is that the views of people (derived from their culture and personality), even majorities and universals, about ethics, are historical and personality accidents, to be disregarded (maybe evidence as to what is bad but not as proof).  That is why the common test of an ethical rule, namely to think of a scenario where the rule when applied to the scenario has results we think violate our conscience, is not a valid test.

So when I do ethics I do philosophy in trying to deduce right and wrong using what I suppose is another branch of philosophy, logic and reasoning.  In the end I do this in order to be happy and to have fun working it out.  Kinda funny if you have that sort of sense of humor.  It's not as funny though as trying to work out the nature of existence or whether non-existence could exist, or how we might know or not know something.

Hamas lobbing its missiles

Maybe somebody will tell me why on earth Hamas persists in lobbing missiles into Israel when they achieve nothing except occasionally kill a toddler.  Israel will never stop what it's doing, and the rest of the world will not apply enough pressure to Israel to stop, so long as this is going on.  Hamas should know by now it achieves nothing, so why not try a different tactic?

As things are, Israel knows and gets daily proof, that if they let up they are to be destroyed.  So Hamas has condemned and continues to condemn Gaza and maybe all the Palestinians to miserable hovel lives of poverty and deprivation and danger.  Is this what they want?  Sheesh!  Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. 

Putting my nose even deeper in the abortion issue

The west is I think burdened by the idea of sin -- that any deviation from what is right is equally wrong with every other deviation.  That this is nonsense is even revealed by the penances handed out by priests at confession -- minor sins require minor penances.

As I posted earlier, is an abortion wrong?  I don't think so, but the issue comes up of late term abortions.  By then, by traditional Buddhist thinking, the fetus is inhabited by a human spirit, but it is still pretty plain that the fetus is not sentient, at least to any important extent.  That spirit will just have to deal with it and find another host.

So there is still no rational way to say it is wrong.  I would say, however, that these abortions, being more dangerous to the mother, are to be avoided if possible by doing the procedure earlier in the term.  Also legal regulation for medical standards would I think be more in order. 

Because something is not immoral doesn't mean the state may not have an interest in regulating it.  The two are different questions entirely and should not be conflated.

Vietnam driving

Most people in Vietnam get around on motorbikes or motorcycles and similar things.  Foreigners are well advised to stick to taxis, and at the airport go with the authorities there who will put you into a cab rather than taking a freelancer.  Elsewhere, call the cab, don't hail it.

If one is traveling by road between cities, a car or van is recommended.  The dangers of going by motorbike are obvious enough.  Vietnamese roads are not up to U.S. standards, as one would expect, and seem to be continually under construction and in many places are jammed with trucks (the economy is growing much faster than the road system).  One also has to keep a close watch for insane bus drivers.

Going by sleeper-bus if one is going a good distance is an experience only for the young (I'm 71 and manage to survive, but I think maybe I'm a little different and I have help).  Bring blinders and either earplugs or a way to block the noise with earphones.  Be prepared to take off your shoes and to relieve your bladder alongside the road.  A couple small pillows will also help.  Be sure you are on an "express."

I mentioned insane bus drivers.  Once on a two lane mountain pass alongside the ocean (a several hundred meter drop to the beach) I am passed to my left by a truck and to my right by a honking bus (on the shoulder).  Well a car comes around the curve so the truck has to get over and the shoulder ends so the bus has to get over, and I'm stuck between them.  Somehow it happened but I sat there for awhile putting my thoughts together.

Judgmentalism strikes twice -- obeisity and grammar

Well I'm working on disagreements -- some pretty strong -- with two of my positions -- that we don't really control our weight no matter how much will power we have and that English grammar rules should for the most part be gotten away with.

Interesting but what I see in both cases is a symptom of the same disease -- judgmentalism, and in both cases doing harm.

I remember my mom when I was a kid after some relatives had left, remarking about one of them who was fat -- she said, "She tells me she has a hormone problem, but I don't believe it -- she just eats too much and is lazy."

That's judgmentalism and bigotry -- you look at someone, they are fat, ergo they stuff themselves all the time and are lazy.  Clearly overweight people are discriminated against in society in many ways, and it is just as bad as discriminating against someone because they are short or very tall.  Besides what they eat and whether or not they are lazy may be marginally relevant to what they are as a person, but probably not.

The other problem is the condemning people do of others who don't speak English according to the rule book.  The purpose of a language is communication.  Therefore if you successfully communicate with a minimum of effort from the reader or hearer, you are fine, and it is only when you are not understood or are ambiguous and could be misunderstood is it that you have made a mistake.

Rules are not even needed to avoid ambiguity.  Then you don't use rules to correct it but attack the ambiguity directly.

There are however two other reasons to know and follow the rules.  First is that often they are esthetically more pleasing to the reader.  It is much more pleasant to read well constructed paragraphs filled with complete sentences and well punctuated than it is to read other stuff.

The other thing is, right or not, there are those who will make prejudicial judgments about your writing or maybe dismiss or not pay attention to what you say because of the grammatical distraction.

This last is for our own behavior.  We need to train ourselves to not get upset or anything when others make "mistakes."  One may recall that revulsion is the second cause of our personal unhappiness, and this is a revulsion.

Judgmentalism is negativity.  When we think bad of someone we harm ourselves by having ugly thoughts.

How do we know if something is right or wrong?

Yesterday the post about abortion pointed out that there is nothing immoral about a pregnant woman getting an abortion.  How can we know?  How do we know if anything is right or wrong?

The usual ways, such as how we feel about it, or what we've been taught by our religion, or what is legal, or what our conscience says, or what is traditional, while they all usually get it right and should therefore be thought about, in the end just do not work.  I don't know that it's necessary for me to go into all that -- they just don't work.  We need to have a rational basis for saying something is wrong, immoral.

Of course anything that happens has both right and wrong about it.  A volcano killing people is wrong, a volcano letting off pressure and fertilizing the soil and building land is doing right.  A lion killing its prey brutally and causing it a suffering, fearful death is doing wrong, a lion culling the herd and keeping it from ruining the environment and so on is doing right.

We don't make moral judgments in such situations because we argue doing good or causing suffering are not at issue -- volcanoes and lions cannot make right and wrong assessments and hence are not held to account.

Actually the same applies to people.  We may think we make our own decisions, but this is rarely really the case.  Most people act automatically according to instincts and personality and other factors and never really make a moral decision, although they could and in many cases where the decision is truly difficult they are forced to.

Therefore we can judge what others do no more than we can judge a volcano or a lion.  We don't know that they have actually made a conscious decision to be immoral, and if we think about it we know that is unlikely (although of course definitely possible).  We don't know the whole story and therefore cannot judge.

But we can judge ourselves.

Most of the time, presented with a moral question (a real one, not a hypothetical), we can see pluses and minus and have to decide whether the good outweighs the bad.  It turns out that some things are more wrong than others, even though both are wrong.  It depends on the suffering and harm we cause.  Lying to the Gestapo strikes me as harming the Gestapo, but almost certainly by making their job more difficult, and so is the thing to do, and rationally in that case telling the truth is morally wrong.

Of course this is a simple, if not simplistic, theory of ethics, but it has something to say for it that the traditional ethics don't have -- it is rational.  Do the good aspects outweigh the bad?  Most of the hypothetical situations people use to object to this depend on our gut feeling or one of the traditional tests to raise questions.  I think that is the wrong way to proceed.  That we don't like an outcome is not a rational basis for a decision.

There are however a couple of serious problems with it.  The first is the ability we have to fool ourselves and rationalize the goods as exceeding the harms when in fact this is not so.  The other is how do we know we have all the facts when in fact we know we surely don't?  Ain't easy, but if one is serious about being an ethical person the effort must be made and a decision must be reached.

Sticking my nose in the abortion debate

My "official" view use to be that abortions are morally wrong but not a serious enough "sin" to cause one much harm (karmically speaking if one thinks that way) except late term, and that the practical problems trying to make them illegal, along with the worse harms this can cause, is enough to say that the government should not involve itself.  For the most part government should not involve itself in personal moral decisions absent damn good reason to do so and then only if making the act illegal doesn't itself cause harm.  Abortion fails on both points.

I have changed my mind.  I no longer think an abortion immoral.  There is no logical basis for such a conclusion that bears scrutiny.  To be sure sentient beings must be accorded all possible compassion, but that does not go so far as to say one should never eat meat, and, besides, a fetus is barely if at all sentient.  A human being does not become sentient for quite a while even after birth.

Of course this opens one up to the question of whether infanticide should be legal, and for the most part, with a few exceptions, the answer has to be no, for the legal issue of defining murder, not for moral reasons.

Pregnant women who, for whatever reason, do not want the child are under no moral obligation, in my view, to carry it, and should not be told otherwise.  Part of the psychological harm done to girls who do have abortions are people's judgmentalism, which is misplaced and harmful.

In fact, I think girls having abortions, if they are to receive counseling, should not be to try to change their minds.  Such things should be illegal and open the person doing them to tort liability.  Instead, any counseling should be to the effect that it is not immoral, along with perhaps some training in contraception techniques.

Mistakes in my grammar

I was reading the comments on a web story and in one the person posting the post used the word "ain't."  The next post criticized that -- to the effect of learn good English.

Now we all know that "ain't" is tabu to some, although those who make a deal of it are only showing their own ignorance, as the word has excellent credentials in the language for several hundred years.

Still, nowadays it is usually used only for humor or for special attention, no doubt as a result of the complaints of blue-noses.

I make a lot of "mistakes" in my own posts, and usually they are on purpose.  "I is happy with that" says things that "I am happy with that" can't, depending on context.  However, it is probably best most of the time to stick with convention -- there are judgmental people out there who just do not understand because of their eagerness to condemn.  It irritates me that this is necessary because some people have such tight asses.

I think of such errors as the equivalent of musical discords.  They hit the ear as wrong, but sometimes wrong is good.

Still, some errors, while they should be ignored when others make them, should be watched for in one's own writing.  Pronoun disagreement is trivial, but using "it's" for "its" or "effect" for "affect" and other often-confused spellings is that sort of error.

One final thing -- one of the beauties of English and other agglutinative languages (English is not really "agglutinative," but it does have some of the characteristics -- the ability to build words with prefixes and suffixes) is that this means we can coin words even when alternative words are already in the dictionary, and when the dictionary lacks the word wanted, we especially should do so.  Packaging a lot of meaning into a single word is sometimes much, much better than some dependent clause or whatever.

Causes of unhappiness

It is widely thought that a core Buddhist insight is that our desires cause our unhappiness.  This is because nothing is permanent, so we are either frustrated by our inability to satisfy our desires or, if they are satisfied, by our inability to keep them satisfied.

Desires, or "clinging," is actually one one of three things Buddhism defines as causing unhappiness.  The other two are revulsion and delusion.  A revulsion is a negative desire -- something we want to avoid, like a stinky outdoor toilet or a bee sting or growing old and seeing death ahead.  Yea, they do cause unhappiness.

But it's that third one -- delusion -- that is the real hard one to deal with.  It is not something we can deal with meditating or adapting or disengaging.  It comes on us -- a mental illness is mainly it -- being unable to see any hope in the world, being convinced one is possessed by demons, being convinced we are being persecuted, hearing voices that tell us to do horrible things.

Mainly it is the diseases of depression and of schizophrenia.  They put us out of touch with reality and remove our ability to understand this -- that last part is what makes them so intractable.  Nowadays medications that can help (and generally do) are available and people should not discourage them or be afraid of them, as long as professional advice (not just an ordinary doctor, who may be as prejudiced on the subject as many people) is where the drugs come from.

Recognizing the delusion for what it is, is not usually going to happen, but it should be tried and tried again and again.  "This too will pass" applies mainly to depressives who have the condition on an intermittent basis, who have to learn to wait.  Others have it even more difficult and dangerous.

China and Vietnam in context

A large country next to a smaller one cannot help but be patronizing and exercise at least some hegemony.  This is always resented in the smaller country, even when the interference helped the country and was needed and the larger country was the only nation that could do anything.  We see this in the Americas regarding the States, in parts of Europe regarding Germany, and in East Europe regarding Russia.

As with most of SE Asia, there are large numbers of Chinese ethnics in Vietnam, mainly in the cities in enclaves somewhat removed from the rest of the population, such as the Cholon area of HCMC.  They tend to hold onto their South Chinese language and Chinese names more than perhaps they should.  These populations are entrepreneurial and generally successful, and as one might expect this can generate resentment.

While the Vietnamese language seems Sinitic today, scholars tell us that it is not at all related to the Sino-Tibetan family of languages.  Of course nowadays over half the vocabulary is from Chinese borrowings, but borrowing is one thing, it is not descent.  Even the Vietnamese tonal system that causes American learners so much difficulty apparently was borrowed from Chinese in the first millennium and Vietnamese had previously been atonal.

Vietnamese religion is Chinese in many ways, with the major Taoist deities and Confucian notions of the universe widely accepted.  Most important, the Buddhism is Mahayana out of China, not at all like the nearby Theravada Buddhism of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.  Vietnam does have its own local twists on things and several native religious groups.  Of course there is a significant Roman Catholic population in Vietnam, much larger proportionately than in China.

The Communist Parties in Vietnam and China have followed similar paths, both opening to the rest of the world and creating institutions designed to prevent "Cult of Personality" figures and dictatorship by one man.  These include limited terms and mandatory retirements.  They are in this way distinct from the other two remaining Communist states, Cuba and North Korea.

They have also both had considerable success economically, unlike Cuba and North Korea, which remain poor and seem to be getting poorer, although there are signs of light in Cuba nothing much will happen until the Castro's are gone.

One hopeful thing that is happening in China and Vietnam is that they are evolving toward meritocracy, both in who becomes a party member (family still counts but less and less) and who rises in the party.  Both also have their problems with corruption, but not really any more than practically any other country on this planet -- although the Western press tends to give it more attention, for its own reasons.

Still, the Chinese, like all ethnic groups, have their tendency to nationalism and the population has its share of anti-foreign bigots who think only Chinese institutions are valid.  Americans, Russians, Germans, Japanese, and so on, all suffer from bad reps because of similar attitudes found in those countries.  Such nationalism is often used by politicians to gain unfair and irrational advantage.

Right now China has its hands full in the western autonomous regions, where it is obvious they are not welcome, and should look to removing itself from them, but this might be impossible because of this nationalism found in the Chinese party.  As long as China practices trying to rule over other peoples or nations, their claims to any sort of moral standing or legitimacy will remain hanging.  It is seen as nothing more than old-fashioned imperialism.

Expansionist adventurism elsewhere, even for essential materials, is bound to hurt China in the short run, and won't ever help.

Stupid remarks about suicide

I think maybe a certain rather spoiled rotten rock star doesn't understand is that depressed people should not be given sympathy, but should be understood as having a disease that needs treatment.

Yes the world is a rough place, or at least often is, but that is beside the point.  Depression is a fatal disorder of brain chemistry not really well understood, for which some treatments do work.  They need to get them.

About all an ordinary person can do when dealing with a depressed person who may well resist getting treatment because sometimes the disease works that way is physically interfere with suicide attempts, pay attention, and get legal hospitalization if possible if suicide is actually attempted.

I don't think sympathy or lack of sympathy do much either way, although a "get it over with, I'm tired of hearing you" is an immoral and probably criminal thing to say and may well be the thing that pushes  over the edge.

Suicides that are not successful in an attempt are almost always glad they didn't succeed, even though in awhile they may try again.  

Ferguson Police

I lived in Kansas City many years, on the other side of Missouri from St. Louis, and visited St. Louis several times, and was not aware that a good-size town of Ferguson was nearby.  Now I am aware.  It is probably a nice enough place, but I don't think you could get me to go there.  Sad though.

Why does someone decide to become a police officer?  There are no doubt many reasons, but you have to wonder if maybe those who go through the process and apply don't have subtle reasons that have to do with authority and guns and uniforms and power more than serving the community.

Personally I would find the job demeaning and boring most of the time and a drudge.  "A policeman's lot is not a happy one," although that song is about the policeman's sad duty to put an end to the criminal's freedom, that is I am very sure not one of the ordinary cop's concerns.

Some people though want to do it, and again I have to wonder.  Especially why one would want to be a white cop in a largely black town.

Rossini's "William Tell Overture"

Many serious music lovers would probably prefer that Rossini in general and in particular his "William Tell Overture" would just go away.

As programmatic music (music that either kinda tells a story or at least sets a scene -- as this one does separately in each of its four sections), it ain't too bad.  Pleasant, even.

Maybe I like it because we played it in high school, and I remember the fight between the conductor (teacher) and our cornet player (we only had one) about Rossini's volume indications in the last section.  He felt it should be played as his solo, sort-of, very loud.

Maybe, at least in a high school setting, it should be.  Orchestras follow Rossini, even though it is not in the spirit of the Lone Ranger, and try to keep it musical, even though I think secretly we all wish they wouldn't.  Of course they have to keep their dignity.

By the way, in the end the teacher lost that one.  The kid did as told in rehearsal, but in concert he let rip.  She about fell off the podium with her efforts to quiet him down, without effect.

Interestingly, afterward she didn't say a thing.  I don't know what his grade that term was.

More on being fat

I can see how my last post is subject to less-than-favorable interpretation.  I say fat people are lazy.  What an unfortunate way to put it!

The problem is the connotation (or implication or loading) of the word "lazy."  It is a negative judgmental call about someone, and I oppose judging people.

We do, however, have to understand them and not be naive.  What I mean here is that fat people don't like physical exertion.  They just don't like it, and avoid it, even when they are out "exercising."  It and other personality traits having to do with one's relationship to food, lead to obesity, in spite of medical warnings and efforts and strong desires to have a different outcome.

In other ways a "lazy" person is not lazy -- they may be hard workers, great students, accomplished artists, whatever, but they do not like labor and hate breaking a sweat.

It's not their fault -- it is what they are, part of their personality.  Our society is in denial about "nature" in the nature-nurture spectrum -- we want to say we can do things and often we cannot.  We cannot for the most part change what we are, and we need to be wise about that and change what we can but accept and not judge what we cannot.

It's like being gay or straight -- most people are mainly straight with an occasional gay impulse, most gays also have occasional straight impulses -- so the impression can be gotten that what we are can be changed.  One can change one's behavior if one is truly bi-sexual to ignore one side of our sexuality, but if one is not, then one is mainly gay or straight and no amount of cruel therapy is going to alter it.

The fact is most of what we are, we are born destined to be.  Good upbringing and nutrition and so on help a lot, but there are personality types that persist -- on the unhelpful side there are always bigots, criminals, airheads, addictive personalities, judgmental people.  I will someday have to do a blog on the personality attributes that make for criminal behavior and on the consistent failure of well-meaning people to rehabilitate them and how to really do it (clue -- let the criminal get older).

On being fat

You can tell from my picture on this blog that I am obese, the medical word for fat.  I also have the health problems that go with that -- sore feet, periodic sciatica, gallstones, fatty liver, what is now called "pre-diabetes" and of course incipient heart disease.  Sheesh.

Still, I feel healthy and take my pills and the problems come and go, mostly go.

I think maybe I've lost my body weight half a dozen times over the course of my life dieting.  Sometimes "eating sensibly," other times fasting -- whatever.  The weight goes off and comes back on.  I have to imagine that yo-yo is worse than the weight, so now I just try to be happy with myself as I am, although of course one never really is.

I was chubby as a kid and big as a teenager, so I did okay even though I was nerdy and a touch effeminate (a trait I learned to suppress).  I look back and realize that the idea that fat people are lazy is true -- we are born lazy, not fat.  We are efficient in our motions and avoid physical work and athletics.  I always prided myself on working smart, not hard.  Well there are trade-offs and every decade five or ten pounds went on, and it added up (although my weight has been steady since I stopped fighting it fifteen years ago).

That is the thing.  We have free will and when determined we can override our bodies, but our bodies have their tricks.  You can override the body's determination that we will breathe for maybe a few minutes, and then it wins.  The same applies to taking in food to maintain a certain weight, although we don't see it as clearly because it works over a longer period of time and doesn't need to take such drastic measures.

Dieting is artificial famine, but the body doesn't know that, and reacts to the real famine, slowing metabolism and reducing available energy and so on.  When the famine is over it goes back to where it had been as soon as possible and then adds on a little as a safety measure.  We are guaranteed to lose, although I understand a few are able to stay down for long periods.  They are to be admired, but I have my doubts.

We are largely what we are for reasons out of our control, at least long term, and we need to learn to accept what we are as we are, and not judge ourselves (or others, for that matter) about such things.  

I a spiritual person, of sorts

I think maybe I'm kinda spiritual.  I can feel awe at all sorts of things and have learned to meditate into a self-hypnotic state, and really like most religious music and well-written non-dogmatic sermons.  I can also get into various rituals so that they have a limited reality to me.  Finally, for the most part religions don't bother me, although I must admit I like the philosophy and attitudes of Buddhists more than others, and I see no point in worrying about what others believe or don't believe.

Still, I have to say I'm an atheist.  I don't have any God or gods, and think they are human inventions.  The one exception might be the Tao, but that really isn't a god anyway.  I don't deny or reject God or anything of that sort, it is just that from what I know of history and science I see no reason to think He exists.

Where my mysticism or spirituality comes from is inside -- the wonder of "me-ness," that there is a something "there" thinking and experiencing the world, for which I can see no possible physical approach -- no causative mechanism.  In other words, there are aspects of my existence, and I presume everyone else's, that leave me speechless, uncomprehending,  bewildered, awestruck.  The immense if not infinite size of the universe and all those stars out there are nothing in terms of awe inspiration compared to the fact of personal existence and experience.  (I experience the world via qualia -- sensations, emotions, that I know have chemicals bubbling around in my skull associated with them, but how?).

That I don't know doesn't mean I have to invent God to explain it.  That is no explanation, just a cop-out. 

I suspect there are aspects of existence that are beyond us -- totally beyond us -- and the mystery of our mental existence is largely one of these.  Of course how the brain works will, over time, be worked out in detail, but we still won't know how it does what it does, if it is the brain doing it and not just being used.  The only thing I can figure is that there is a self-perpetuating process (chain of thought) that dies and is reborn from moment to moment much as an electromagnetic wave perpetuates in space.  It dies when I am asleep and is reborn when I awaken, and it constantly changes as I learn and have experiences and make decisions.