In 2005, David Foster Wallace gave a speech for commencement at Kenyon College that started with this joke:

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way who nods at them and says, 'Morning, boys. How's the water?' The two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, 'What the hell is water?'

Talking about gods often feels like this to me. Either you're born into a family and community where God (capital G) is everywhere and you take His presence for granted (What's atheism?), or you've somehow managed by birth or by thought to come up for air and see a world with no evidence of any god (small g) and you wonder why believers sound so collectively insane. If it was 10 people talking about faeries, you'd just ignore them, but when it's a billion people who believe in Yahweh or Allah or Vishnu, you have to pay attention. The gulf between these religious and non-religious worldviews often feels so unbridgeable though - like the one between the fishes who cannot understand what the other one sees or does not see - that I often despair I'm just shouting into the abyss that lies between whenever I try to rationally or emotionally discuss this topic.

Nonetheless, the decision to accept or reject the 'a' in atheism is one of the fundamental choices that must be made to know thyself and define your philosophy about the universe and how you should act within it. And so, even with little hope of using a blog essay to convince anyone to actually change their beliefs (I have other ideas to work on that), I would like to note the facts I have come to accept on this point in question during the research I've conducted for my own personal Evolutionary Philosophy. Concerning God and Religion, I wrote these three points:

There is no conclusive evidence that a god exists. An examination of the evolution of religion clearly shows its origin and development by man. The first gods were invented and worshiped for their power to explain natural phenomena - primarily the sun, the moon, day and night, the seasons, and fertility. As science has explained more and more natural phenomena, the gods have grown less and less powerful.

There once were many European and Middle Eastern fertility goddesses and savior gods born of virgin births. (Roman pagan god Attis born of the virgin Nana, Greek pagan god Dionysus, Egyptian pagan god Osiris, Persian pagan god Mithra, Saxon mother goddess Eostre, Aphrodite from ancient Cyprus, Ashtoreth from ancient Israel, Astarte from ancient Greece, Demeter from Mycenae, Hathor from ancient Egypt, Ishtar from Assyria, Kali from India, Ostara a Norse Goddess of fertility. See here and here.) These beliefs are a natural reaction to ignorance about the flowering of life season after season and generation after generation. They were consolidated by Rome into Christianity under the worship of Jesus and Mary. Ancient polytheistic mythologies evolved to monotheism because of the human quest for power and solidarity. The need to control one’s flock in order to get money and membership for survival means that other gods and priests cannot also be right. This is why early Christianity survived while the Gnostics went extinct. Christianity branched off into Islamism when Mohammed did not accept the word of Jesus as final, and splintered into other orthodox or protestant factions based on the strength of empires and fervor of heretics. Remaining pockets of paganism were swept up by Christianity and its descendants as Rome conquered Europe and Europe conquered the globe. Religion may have supported empires, but empires stamped religion for their purpose as well.

Eastern philosophies of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Shintoism are separate from this evolution but have become non-theistic explorations into the best way to live. Unfortunately, “the way” that Eastern philosophies recommend leans too heavily towards detachment from desire, pain, suffering, and the world. Followed unerringly, this leads to stagnation for the person and the human race. Modern science and psychology teach us a better way. Flexible detachment, mature defense mechanisms, balanced goals, motivation, and progress; these are what make for the better way.

That's a brief overview of the history and evolution of the belief in gods that I have examined and used to confidently place my beliefs on the side of atheism. Next week, in the spirit of always cross-examining one's beliefs, I'll take a look at the historical arguments that have tried to persuade us all to join the camp of theism. In the meantime though, I'd love to hear what your thoughts on this are. Is any of this history new to you? What has persuaded you one way or the other as to the existence or non-existence of god? Is it even something rational, or is it just an emotional feeling?

In one of the recent and ever-popular articles about The World's Best Cities To Live In, half of the top ten were in Australia and New Zealand. Having just spent six months in that part of the world though, I would be very hard pressed to consider living in any one of these places. Why is that? I've been quite a nomad in my life, having spent six months or more in nine different cities in four different countries since I graduated from college 20 years ago. I don't have any deep attachments to any one place. I feel like I'm still searching for the perfect place to live. But whatever metrics the Economist (in this case) used to compile their list, they sure don't fit with my sense of what makes a place great.

Looking further into the details of this list, I suppose it's unsurprising that the criteria the Economist used to judge cities around the world were aimed ultimately at measuring how good it would be for businesses to locate there. The Economist wanted to provide a list for business leaders who needed to know "whether or not companies should pay staff a hardship allowance if they make employees relocate to a different country. Its researchers look at how 'tolerable' it is to live in a particular place given its crime levels, threat of conflict, quality of medical care, levels of censorship, temperature, schools and transport links." In other words, they were measuring how productive a place is for workers to toil away their lives. So that explains it. That explains the difference between the Economist's rankings and my own experience of these places. I'm not looking for a place to "tolerate." I'm looking for a place to thrive. Places where the architecture inspires me, the history motivates me, the people want to cooperate with me, the cuisine nourishes me, and the values ennoble me. I'm looking for places where people who want to know themselves will have opportunities to do so and then be able to live lives in harmony with what they find.  Australia - a wealthy country with strict immigration and tons of natural resources - may be able to provide a stable place for its workers, but its history and people provide almost none of the thriving culture that I myself am looking for.

In taking the time on this website to express my own philosophy, I wasn't going after writing specifics that were specific to me alone. This evolutionary philosophy I'm trying to share is based on the idea that we all share a common evolutionary history so there are common truths to the philosophical questions we all ask as well. When it comes to our questions about place, my answers have led me to a quiet seaside village in North East England, a short metro ride from the downtown of a historical and vibrant city. Not everyone will come up with this same answer - thank goodness! - but everyone should be searching for their own individual answer rather than simply accepting the situation they were born in, or the rankings of a commercial magazine whose profit motives they do not share. As you search to know thyself and find your own place in this world, here are some considerations:

Concerning Places

Where You Live
Given that your personality is an expression of your genes and your environment, the place you live will have a profound effect on who you are. Be aware of the influence of your place. Be unafraid to move if you have to improve. Wherever you do live, you are a social animal in need of social relations. Sink in roots. Get to know and help your community. Invest for the long-term.

When ecosystems are stable, species remaining in the same place learn to thrive. When resource availability or threat presences change, a species must adapt. If such a change takes place faster than adaptation can occur, the species must be able to move. This is why all species evolve a spectrum of personalities that range from wanting to stay put or preferring to roam. The species needs both personalities. Respect this. Play your part. Encourage others to play their part. The need to “burrow in” builds resources. The need to “see over the next hill” extends from your neighborhood to the entire universe.

Analysis is dependent on comparison. Without dark there is no light, without hot there is no cold, etc. To properly know yourself and your environment, you need to understand other places. Living somewhere provides more information than merely traveling through does.

Where You Travel
Travel bombards your mind with opportunities for learning. Culture, customs, food, architecture, fashion, geography, zoology, weather, history, art - everything that humans touch or are touched by can be different when you travel. Stretch your mind when you travel. Gather ideas for your own environment. Gain understanding and love for all the world and its history. If you want to turn your mind off, stay at home and learn stillness. If you want hedonistic short-term pleasure, keep it short.

Last week I came home from six months in Australia and unpacked my things from storage. It was the second time in my life I had returned from an extended period living out of two suitcases (the first was the Peace Corps) and I was getting good at it. I liked the simple state my empty house was in and I didn't want to clutter it up again. I was in a mood to purge.

Some of the items I unpacked had only recently (it felt like) been packed up to ship to England, where they were unpacked and sat on a shelf for two-and-a-half years then repacked and put into a box in the attic while our sabbatical sub-tenant occupied the rest of the home. Never once was the item touched or used during my time in England. Why was I carrying these things around? I had seen the TED Talk by Graham Hill: Less stuff, More Happiness. I know about the High Costs of Cheap Fashion. I was prepared to defend my recent addition of the cheap didgeridoo pictured here on the grounds that it would satisfy one of my highest Maslow needs for creativity. But what needs were these other items satisfying? None, I deemed. Out they went. The saddest of these - and by far the worst thing I've ever bought - was a digital camcorder I purchased in 2002 for about $850. I carted that thing all over the world. Literally. It went with me from California to graduate school in Michigan, to the Peace Corps in Ukraine, to my job in DC, and finally here to England. It's gone around the world one and a half times - further than almost everyone else I know. Yet I've used it to record one Ukrainian music concert, a couple of golf swings at a driving range, some cats wrestling once, and a herd of bison crossing a river in Yellowstone. That's all I remember using it for, none of those videos are worth looking at now (even if I could now that the tapes got tangled in the recorder when I tried to play them), and all our phones take better video now, too.

Oh well, we all make mistakes about our ambitions and goals and desires and if that's the worst one I make in my life, I'll be incredibly lucky. Still, this has all been on my mind as it came time to hop back into the blog. In the quest to Know Thyself, I've written about my philosophies Concerning Me and Concerning Others. Now it's time to consider things. Here's what I briefly wrote about them:

Concerning Things

Things have use and meaning. Buy or use things that are useful, especially if they are useful for furthering your personality and life happiness. Things that signal status are useful only in a competitive society. The emotional rush we receive from buying things of status is a short-term benefit left over from the need to win in a competitive primitive environment. Actions focused on feeling these short-term rushes (retail therapy, indulgence in luxury goods, piling up of debt to keep up appearances, etc.), must be recognized for what they are, considered wasteful, and mastered. In a cooperative civilized society focused on the long-term, status and hierarchy have no meaning. Attempting to maintain high status and create a hierarchy among 7 billion individuals in a finite world leads to runaway competition and unstable societies.

So what's the worst thing you ever bought? An expensive car that looked good but cost a fortune to repair? A piece of jewelry that looked dazzling on its own but never fit with any outfit you would actually wear anywhere? Maybe it was a home you thought would make you happy only the commute and heating bills kept you miserable all year long? Share your warning for the rest of us. Thanks. That's the thing to do.