What is the “profound mystery of existence”?

January 17, 2016 • 9:30 am

Once again, while doing my early-morning grocery shopping, I listened to Krista Tippett’s “On Being” show on National Public Radio. If you ask why I listen to a show I dislike so much (Tippett, whose words are what cotton candy would sound like if it could speak, has never met a brand of religion or “spirituality” she doesn’t love), it’s for the same reason we sniff the milk when we already know it’s gone sour.

Today’s show wasn’t as bad as usual, as it featured a secular Buddhist, Stephen Batchelor (listen here if you must). Batchelor is a non-deist, but sees some value in Buddhist practice (I partly agree, especially vis-à-vis meditation), and he was quite eloquent. Tippett, on the other hand, was her usual unctuous self, punctuating Batchelor’s words with “uh-huh”s, up-talking, and agreeing with him even when what he said was unclear.

But leaving the oleaginousness aside; what I want to discuss is the idea of the “profound mystery of life”—something repeatedly mentioned and extolled by both Batchelor and Tippett. As the program proceeded and the pains in my lower mesentery increased, I noticed that neither of them specified exactly what those mysteries were. As far as I could discern, one was our existence and the other was our death.

Those, of course, are explained by science, especially evolution. The other “profound mysteries” remained mysterious.

We hear all the time from the spiritual folk about these “mysteries”, but I wonder what they mean. To me, a “mystery” is our lack of understanding of some phenomenon, like consciousness or our sensation of having free will. Or whether there are multiverses, and what is dark matter, anyway? Or even our feeling of joy or beauty when we encounter love, a beautiful landscape, or great music.  We already understand why we live, and largely understand why we die.

But those are scientific mysteries: things that can, at least in principle, be explained by research. And I have a feeling they are not what people like Batchelor and Tippett mean. What they seem to mean is either “amazement” or “emotionality” (I don’t use the word “wonder,” since that can be equivalent to inquisitiveness about the origin of a phenomenon). Amazement that a woodpecker doesn’t beat its brains out when it hammers a tree; “emotionality” of the sort that you feel when you hear music (I remember how I wept the first time I heard Beethoven’s Fifth); amazement that complex living beings evolved from inert chemicals derived from stars, and by a simple process of differential survival of replicators.

I’m probably going to be accused of scientism here, but every time I think of the “profound mysteries” of life, they turn out to be phenomena susceptible to scientific inquiry. And that even goes for our emotions, and why we react to some music with tears and other music with disdain. Many times I don’t know why I am moved or baffled or amazed by something I see or hear, but I don’t see that as a profound mystery that somehow transcends naturalism or materialism.

So, dear readers, perhaps you can explain to me what people consider to be the “profound mysteries” of life. Are do they really comprise wonderment about empirical phenomena, or is there something more? It it all numinous?

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It’s a profound mystery why Tippett gets an hour each week to blather about spirituality on NPR, and is paid a lot of money for it.

Readers’ wildlife photographs

January 17, 2016 • 7:30 am

From the tropical forest of Ecuador, we get a chilling report from Lou Jost, who can’t even go to the bathroom in peace! His notes include a classic line: “I pulled up my pants and ran for my camera.”

Arachnid-on-arachnid violence in my bathroom!

As I sat down on my toilet recently I saw a jumping spider hanging in the web of a regular spider, with the regular spider in the saltacid’s mouth! The jumping spider had leaped into the web to nom the regularspider. I pulled up my pants and ran for my camera, but by the time I returned to the bathroom the jumping spider was on my wall with his prey.

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This must be a dangerous way to get food, since the regular spider is also a good predator. A few days later when I sat down on my toilet I found a jumping spider (perhaps the same one) in another web, but this one had been killed by the web owner.
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Some may wonder why I tolerate spiders everywhere in my house. Here’s why: a few days after I took the preceding pics, I again sat down on my toilet only to find this scorpion dangling in my face, still alive and struggling in the web of a regular spider (the same species that is in the other pictures). I really hate scorpions in the house. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
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I do draw the line at any spider that I can hear when it walks. I don’t like to be kept awake at night by spider footsteps or spiders rustling papers in my bedroom. Big fat funnel-web spiders are the worst. As I was working on the above spider pictures in my computer, one such big nasty spider walked between my feet. There was no time to get the camera….All that is left of him now is a big skid mark where I plastered him under my shoe.

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To make up for that carnage, here are two new photos from Stephen Barnard in Idaho:

This is why they call it Sun Valley. It will be cloudy here all day–so annoying.

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Sunday: Hili dialogue

January 17, 2016 • 6:00 am

It’s Sunday, and tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day in the U.S., so we get a “bank holiday.”And the brutally cold weather will begin tomorrow: the onset of a real Chicago winter. My book discussion went well yesterday: a full house with standing room only (about 50, I’d say), and lots of books sold. The people were interested, smart, and asked good questions, and the event, scheduled for an hour, went 2.5. Now I’m hoarse (at least I don’t have a slight colt). Many were Communists (American Communist Party) and it was strange to hear well-dressed people talking about the coming revolution (which I strongly doubt will come).  On this day in 1977, Gary Gimore (subject of Normal Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song) was executed by firing squad in Utah (I remember it well), and, in 1991, Operation Desert Storm began the Gulf War. In 1998 the Lewinsky scandal broke (“I did not have sex with that woman”). On January 17, 1922, Betty White was born, as was Jim Carrey in 1962. In 2001, Gregory Corso, the beat poet, died—one of three Beats I actually encountered (the other two were Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsburg). And, in 2008, Bobby Fischer, chess whiz and weirdo, died at the age of 65.  Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is still interested in living noms, though I wonder if she means “the wintertime eating of birds.”

Hili: We are living in interesting times.
A: A penny for your thoughts.
Hili: I adore the wintertime feeding of birds.

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In Polish:
Hili: Żyjemy w ciekawych czasach.
Ja: Co masz na myśli?
Hili: Uwielbiam to zimowe dokarmianie ptaków.

Pakistani legislature defeats bill to end child marriage, calls it “anti-Islamic” and “blasphemous”

January 16, 2016 • 12:30 pm

I don’t want to harp on this issue too long, but I’m more or less forced to because of those who keep blaming every bad action of Muslims on the West or on “colonialism,” rather than features inherent in the faith itself.

One of those actions is child marriage, practiced by Muhammad himself, reputed to have deflowered his wife Aisha, whom he married at the age of six, at the ripe old age of nine. The practice does have a lot of cultural rather than religious background, and occurs in non-Muslim countries like India and Nicaragua, but is also officially endorsed by some schools of Islam.

The age of marriage and of sex varies among those schools, with some maintaining that one should not have intercourse with a woman (even if married younger) until she reaches puberty. That, of course, could be as young as 10 or 12. Other schools maintain that even pre-puberty intercourse is okay if it’s not “injurious to health.”

At present, the minimum age for marriage in Pakistan is 18 for men and 16 for women. The Wikipedia article on child marriage in Pakistan is very strange, avoiding nearly all mention of religion, though it does say that it’s sometimes “justified” by religion but in fact blaming it on foreigners:

The problem of child marriage is at times justified on the basis of religious foundations. Historically, it can be explained as a reaction to invasions by foreigners; desire to perpetuate the cult of the family by marrying the son early; by marrying the daughter early to escape the discredit caused to the family by the presence of grown-up maiden; or by desire of mother to marry her son early so that she may sooner obtain the possession of a daughter-in-law in whom the mother could inculcate her habits of obedience and who could share the domestic chores with the mother. In the case of parents, sometimes it is due to their keenness to relieve themselves of the responsibility of marrying their daughter. They are also considered socially acceptable for reasons of responsibility and economically desirable for saving marriage expenses, bride price\dowry.

Despite moves to raise the marriage age of women in Pakistan to 18, comporting with the age for males, those measures have been rejected, and a sizable proportion of women (20%) are married before 18, while 3% are married at 15 in violation of the law. In some provinces the proportion of illegal marriages is much higher. There’s clearly a reporting problem in getting good statistics.

At any rate, according to the Express Tribune, a measure to eliminate child marriages in Pakistan has been turned back as violating religious dictates:

Another move to ban child marriages in Pakistan has fallen at the first hurdle. The bill to prohibit underage marriages has been withdrawn after the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) declared it un-Islamic.

The ruling party lawmaker, who moved the bill, withdrew her proposal on Thursday following staunch resistance from the council, which advises the legislature whether or not a certain law is Sharia-compliant.

The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony rejected the Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Bill 2014 after the CII dubbed it ‘anti-Islamic’ and ‘blasphemous’.

Last week, lawmakers in the Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly had also blocked a bill seeking ban on child marriages over similar concerns.

It’s hard to find solid information on this bill. Apparently many Pakistani girls are already being married in violation of the law, but these marriages are not reported. I gather the new bill would bring all marriages into compliance with the official law (also raising the age for women to 18), with stringent punishments for violation. The problem is that Pakistani law does not comport with the Islamic “law” that allows marriage at puberty (my emphasis):

The CII has already ruled the minimum age stipulated for marriage in the Child Marriages Restriction Act of 1929 does not comply with Islamic laws.

In May 2014, amid severe criticism from various quarters, the council had endorsed its earlier ruling that girls as young as nine years old were eligible to be married “if the signs of puberty are visible”.

From rt.com:

The rejected bill would have introduced tougher punishments for those entering into marriage with minors, including prison terms for up to two years. It also proposed raising the minimum age for marriage up to 18.

Current legislation is already in violation of Islamic law, according to CII, since it requires a minimum age of 16 for girls to marry.

In contrast, the CII believes that girls as young as nine could be married off, “if the signs of puberty are visible,” according to a May 2014 statement.

If this has nothing at all to do with religion, why are Muslims citing Islamic law when fighting this bill?

Trump rally features cringe-making “Freedom Kids”

January 16, 2016 • 11:15 am

Just to show you how low American politics have fallen, here’s a video of the “entertainment” during a Donald Tump Rally in Pensacola, Florida three days ago.

Read a bit more about the “Freedom Kids” at Mother Jones.

The tune, if you don’t recognize it, is “Over There” by American showman George M. Cohan, written to whip up patriotism during World War I. The words of the Trump version, however, are by sone right wingnut.

For an immeasurably better rendition of the song (with the original words), here’s a scene from the fantastic 1942 movie “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” in which James Cagney played George M. Cohan. Cohan is shown writing the song, performing it during WWI, and then, years later, during the Second World War, visiting Roosevelt in the White House. Afterwards, he falls in line with some soldiers heading Over There, unrecognized but joining in as everyone sings his song. The bit when he dances down the White House stairs is fantastic.

It’s schlocky but I love it. The movie won a passel of Oscars, including a Best Actor award for Cagney. See it if you can. I used to watch it every Fourth of July when I was a kid. Do they even show it any more?

Another great scene, showing off Cagney’s dancing talents, is here. He plays Johnny Jones, a jockey who loses a big race. The end of this clip also features Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney doing the same song in “Babes on Broadway.“

Whooping crane flight cam

January 16, 2016 • 9:31 am

As usual, the good people at Operation Migration are helping the captive-born whooping cranes (Grus americana) fly south to their wintering grounds in Florida. To give you an idea of how hard this is, the whole megillah starts in Wisconsin where the cranes breed, and then it moves south in hops, with the ultralight plane taking off daily as the whoopers follow. Today’s departure is delayed because of fog, but you can see it by clicking on the screenshot below. Keep an eye on it to see if the fog lifts.

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If they don’t fly today, they’ll take off Monday, but reader Tara Tanaka promises to be there when they fly near her home in a few days. Let’s hope she’ll give us some good video!

Meanwhile, here’s a YouTube video of the operation; the action starts at about 7 minutes in. Note that the pilot is wearing a whooping crane suit:

Yes, sometimes people can be good, like those who dedicate so much of their time to saving a single species of bird.