The only effective atonement

**Harry Cook has done it again: expressed my long-ago realization that Easter is a big fat lie. His latest essay, "The Season of Blood,"

I thought Christian Scientists had a way around the obvious irrationality about which Harry speaks. That version involves a mind-meld with a deity, expressed by the play on words: at-ONE-ment. To be "at one" with a god is to have the same qualities as the god, rendering all our human troubles and limitations meaningless. And the best part is to realize that you are ALREADY one with that deity —  and here's the Easter part —  because Jesus already "proved" that he, a human," was godlike enough not to stay dead. And so the point is actually moot. Of course, the only way to accomplish that is to bend reason completely out of shape and to engage in la-la-la about the very real problems that make life so difficult. All religions play some form of this mind game but Christian Scientists, especially the most "devout," are the best at it, and therefore worse at human interactions with "nons."

I am moving on

** I know its been a long time since I put anything here but I've been busy changing my life all over again, again. In In October I quit my job at Apple after exactly seven years of service. That job had been a lifesaver for me, rescuing me from the doldrums of a forced retirement after being booted out of my comfy job at the headquarters the Christian Science church in Boston. It took a couple of years to get over the anger at being ousted by an ultra conservative faction that wanted to return the church to the silent good old days, a place that my tenure there had been designed to overturn. So with the tables turned and a bitterness that surprised even me I set out to establish a new life. Very quickly I found that everything I had previously based on my life on was bogus.

Freddie's in love! (+playlist)

**

#6 in 17-song cycle.

The Hard Board

**BW was one of the most intelligent, well-read and astute thinkers I have ever known. A couple or three years ago he graciously invited me to play Words with Friends on our phones. At first he would win handily, of course. Still, I enjoyed his companionship, virtual and actual, especially when he and his wife got a place nearby in the City. Gradually, after I'd gained some experience, learning much by playing him, the results weren't always so lopsided. In the past year it was getting closer to 50-50.

Too hard

On occasion, he'd explain his low score by stating that this particular game had a hard board, meaning that the tiles he'd drawn were difficult to turn into high-scoring words. It was an acknowledgement that regardless of the innate intelligence or expertise of a player, the game — like life — is subject to the luck of the draw.

The hardest board

Our last game

About a year ago BW's body was dealt a hard board: Cancer. Despite a generally healthful lifestyle and the best medical treatment money could buy, bad genes also had a place at the table. He played all-out to win, with many ups and downs along the way. But the last move of that game was a few days ago, on March 1 (WWF informed me that "It's been 10 days" since we'd exchanged plays). And it's a down

Not an immortalist
One of several books he'd recommended to me, a book I could actually follow, was one he'd recently re-read: Immortality: the Quest to Live Forever and How it Drives Civilization. We discussed and agreed with the conclusion of that book: though there is no way —  here or hereafter —  to gain immortality, the best policy is to live here kindly, seek the welfare of others and be rid of as much illusion as possible. Qualities BW exemplified amply, gently.

While expected and prepared for, his death still pains me. I will miss the companionship of this formidable opponent and virtual/actual friend.

But, wait —  sadly, there's more.
Just a couple hours after being informed of BW's grim prognosis I got this distressing tweet from my former colleague and friend, CG:

She's a brilliant writer, specializing in food. Her restaurant reviews, descriptions of food, travelogues and the like were always fascinating, even if one didn't care for her subject (my favorite is an entry, with video, about dining on a pig's head.) After leaving our religious citadel, where she was employed as a rare "non," she got a job at a cancer hospital.

And then got cancer.

In the mouth.

In the mouth.

Hard board, indeed.

A couple years of chemo, some ups and downs, and now: "end of the line." What makes it more appalling is that she's supposed to be in the prime of life — arguably unlike BW and, certainly, me. She's supposed to get a better deal. Life is supposed to be a lot easier. And longer lasting.

How tweet it isn't
Adding to the weirdness of this experience is the fact that she's sharing her death process ON THE INTERNET! Now, I accept that we're in a connected age, but this is bizarre. Maybe outrageous. Yet, strangely, in her case, it's also inspiring. She can pull it off because her good cheer, humor and eloquence take the edge off.

But beyond the edge is the rest of the blade: She'll be gone soon. Too soon.

Why me?
I don't know if I have better or worse genes than these two hapless friends. If better genes, I'm sure I've compromised their ability to help me. I smoked for twenty years — two+ packs a day and drank heavily during several periods in my life, including the most recent seven years. High salt. High fat. High alcohol. High tension. High risk.

But easier boards:

As I've blogged about before, last October, when an echocardiogram showed that my heart was delivering only a 37% ejection fraction (40%-50% is considered below normal), it was decided that I needed an angiogram to determine the cause and treatment. This involves slipping a very thin tube into a coronary artery (don’t ask how) and taking a look around. What they saw was a vessel 99% blocked by plaque — a sign of hard living, and maybe hard genetics. As I understand my cardiologist's explanation, when this thin tube (catheter) was inserted into that coronary artery it made the blockage go from 99% to 100%. This essentially induced a "heart attack" right there on the cath lab table. Emergency measures ensued and the medical team was able to bring me back and complete the mission. I left the hospital a couple days later with three stents in that artery.  

As boards go, this was "hard." But not "too hard," thanks to medical expertise.

And a stroke of good luck 

It affirms where I stand now: soberly atheistic after decades of believing in, teaching about and advocating for a supreme benevolent force for good in the universe. I am not naïve and unschooled. I've studied the Bible, theology and metaphysics; studied and unsuccessfully practiced an unrealistic 19th century healing system based on that premise; taught it; written about it; and carefully observed my life and the lives of others (including those of my atheist friends BW and CG, as well as my believing family and other friends). I have studied and tried several different belief systems including the no less loony one I was brought up with. 

And my conclusions: We live in a material universe that has originated, evolved and is run by chance. "Spirituality" has more to do with insight into human consciousness than with any tangible substance. In sum: There is no "God."

Why not?
By far a most convincing argument against a theological ground of existence is expressed by the website: Why won't God Heal amputees? It's based on the fact that there has never been a credibly documented case where an amputated limb was restored to normality through "spiritual" means. If a god can't do that, the rest is bullshit. The "goodness" in our experience has nothing to do with any "Principle" of goodness. It's just optimal human practice.

As a blog pal and also former religionist, Liz Heywood, has expressed it: "I'm happier with Chance instead of fate." Well, I wouldn't exactly say I'm happy with chance — I'm not happy with anything that determines my destruction. But it's certainly more intellectually honest and satisfying than believing in an imaginary but impotent Friend.

I'll leave it there for now.

Farewell, precious fellow players. 
Sooner or later I'll be joining you in oblivion, if not renown.

And to my still-playing companions in this perilous and doomed game, for as long as possible, may the boards be with us.

Concise summary of Christian teaching

**Got this from Urban Dictionary, but it is pretty common all over the Web:

The belief that a cosmic Jewish zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

A Pope of hope

**As a born again atheist, I have less than little regard for the theology of the Catholic - or any - church. A church can do good without having any theology because doing good is an end in itself. It's what people do, not what they profess, that matters.

That's why I am impressed with the the Catholic Church's latest Pope. When I saw this report, cited in my Twitter feed from ThinkProgress.org, I knew I had to say something about it. The story is about how Pope Francis "Sneaks out of the Vatican at Night to Serve the Homeless." He is accompanied by his "almoner," the guy who hands out the papal charity. And he doesn't do this with a press release and a gaggle of media. Instead he goes out dressed as an ordinary priest and just walks the Christian walk.

Can it be that the Catholic church will finally do what no leader of any institution has done: show the world by example what it means to be a caring human being? Will the power of the huge institution of the Church force the hands of those hypocrites who profess to be followers of Jesus while rejoicing in the their worldly accomplishments. Tellingly, Francis has said:

How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?

The answer is that the Christian Right, and the Right in general in this country, makes up the obstructionist faction known as the Republican party. The "party of business" is also the party of religious hypocrisy, the lapdog of the 1%, enemies of women and the largest constituent of Faux News' audience. This is not to say that some on the Left are not like them - many are liberals in name only. But at least the Left aspires to the the ideals that the Pope demonstrates in daily life. The Right, on the other hand, screams about "small government," while insisting that government stick its nose and other probes into the bodies of women; that jails pot smokers for years while letting politicians off for smoking crack; that cuts off aid to poor people while awarding bonuses and tax breaks to the very institutions whose greed oppresses poor people and wrecks the economy.

For over 30 years I was a loyal member of the Christian Science church, a bastion of the kind of hypocrisy that Pope Francis repudiates. Though I never acquired the Republican attitude, I and a few other Liberals had to sneak out of the church to do what seemed the Christian thing to do in the style of this Pope. If not always overtly political, the leaders of the church at that time were mostly of the Republican mind set. They were fond of describing their form of charity as above the messy materialism of ordinary do-gooders because they worked in the realm of thought where "knowing the truth" meant convincing yourself that nobody was really poor, or sick or oppressed. This easy cop-out enabled them to appear charitable because they doled out some of their money to charitable causes. But you would never find them at a homeless shelter or in a soup kitchen or in a hospital or jail. And more than a few church members adopted the attitude that they needn't contribute filthy lucre because they gave all their charity to their own church.

For the sake of the world I do hope this Pope manages to stay alive long enough to turn Catholics - and especially my right-wing-nut relatives - into more genuine Christians who will join a revolution that restores democracy in the world. It will take a long time, but I hope the transformation has enough time to develop into a potent force. This is not merely a tentative hope on my part, but a reasonable doubt, especially if the Church starts to lose lots of members because of him. The last Pope who tried to restore humanity to the Church, John Paul 1, managed to die mysteriously, to be replaced with more typical leaders.

Moosical - the beginning

**

Here's the first installment of the video version of the previously mentioned musical in defense of a free and open Internet. Get the whole story and 17 songs at www.themoosical.com