Be Good for Heaven's Sake?

Nearly half of Americans surveyed in a recent Pew study, Charles Blow reports, said that "atheists could go to heaven — dragged there kicking and screaming, no doubt — and most thought that people with no religious faith also could go." They thought "you could achieve eternal life by just being a good person," no specific faith-based dogmas required.

Wow. I'm guessing respondents from my region were not proportionately represented in this survey, but still... I won't kick and scream, as long as the door to heaven opens both ways. I'd love to go and investigate Mark Twain's observation that hell must be lots more fun.

Is this a testament to the tolerant pluralism of average believing Americans? Or just another way of misrepresenting the moral life and making goodness instrumental to the gain of eternal reward? No. Be good for goodness' sake.

Merry Christmas

I just listened to an annoying radio interview with Jose Feliciano, who was asked if he worried that anyone in the world might ever tire of hearing "Feliz Navidad." The gist of his reply: only the atheists are likely to tire of this tune and its simple message ("I want to wish you a merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart" etc. etc. ad infinitum) - and atheists don't like anything anyway.

Well, Jose, we like plenty - thank you very much. And I do want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I don't believe a virgin ever birthed a savior, but I'm happy to celebrate the birth of anyone who brought or brings tidings of peace, love, and understanding. I'm sure Jose is not alone in thinking that atheists are only nattering nabobs of negativism. That's a misconception, and I'll be doing my best to correct it when I teach a course next Fall I'm tentatively calling "Atheism: Old and New." My mission: make it clear to students that renouncing belief in God is not tantamout to renouncing life and spirit and meaning and hope.

This is my first post in this forum since July - and that was itself a cameo appearance. I'll probably blog again, but never again (I think) on a self-imposed schedule. I have a cartoon on my office wall: "Thank goodness you're here," says the desk-bound Everyman to Mr. Death, "I never get anything done without a deadline."

In fact, deadlines per se don't motivate me, except negatively: I resist and defy and recoil. But perhaps thinking about death, in some strange way, does inspire. My last post concerned the very public death of Randy Pausch. What was much on my mind then, but unacknowledged, was my Dad's leukemia-induced decline. He passed in September, after nearly eight decades of a salutary life. That loss feels heavier today than it has most days since.

I've not consoled myself at all with thoughts of eternity or reunion in heaven, and cannot. In one of our last significant conversations, I shared with Dad an exchange between William James and his own fatally-ill father, in 1882:

"As for the other side, and Mother, and our all possibly meeting, I can't say anything..."

Well, I can say of such a reunion that I don't expect it and - if faith is a condition - don't deserve it. But my disbelief is not simply a negation, it is an affirmation of the life he lived on Earth, and the example he set for those of us who attended and will follow. It is a commitment to pass the torch he handed me and my siblings to my own children, to the best of my ability. I'm not looking for a transcendental bailout. I don't think he was either.

Randy Pausch

Professor Randy Pausch, whose "last lecture" and high-profile struggle with pancreatic cancer won wide admiration and sympathy, died yesterday.

I passed my copy of Randy’s book along to my Dad, recently diagnosed with leukemia. He was moved and inspired by it, as was I. We agreed that for a young man with small children to muster such a courageous response to a terminal diagnosis - stoical but also joyous and celebratory - is truly heroic. I’m so grateful that Randy was willing to share his story and his example with the world.

Still here...

...and still trying to decide whether to blog or not to blog, after a five month hiatus. Life has been eventful and full without it, can't say I've missed this forum much. In fact, I probably wouldn't be posting at all if I (1) were teaching summer school and (2) didn't have projects and deadlines to procrastinate about.

But for the record, I am still living and breathing and attempting, sporadically, to think. Maybe I'll yet decide to share some of the results with the wide, distracted world.

Changing minds

Edge.org begins every year by posting a question and a diverse array of responses. This year the big question is: WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?

When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy.When God changes your mind, that's faith.When facts change your mind, that's science. Science is based on evidence. What happens when the data change? How have scientific findings or arguments changed your mind?"
http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_index.html

Lots of fascinating and provocative responses have already been submitted. Willingness to change - not for the sake of change alone, but for solid reasons - is a huge step forward for our species. I'm for it. Happy New Year!