TED published a video today by Alain de Botton, suggesting a “religion for atheists”. Basically, atheism that “incorporates religious forms and traditions to satisfy our human need for connection, ritual and transcendence”.

I must thank Alain for thinking of us atheists, but his views are myopic. Bollocks, even.

He goes on to say that education does not provide true guidance and that humans need (spiritual?) “help” all the time. Weird, because I don’t really need any of that kind of help — not any more than my normal relationship with my partner, family, or friends provide. I’m glad that I live in one of the most progressive places in the world, so people here are smart & intelligent to provide me with tangible, objective, no-bullshit advice should I need one.

I practice love, generosity, and forgiveness on any chance I get. I’m not trying to boast, but now that my major health adventure is over, I do try to help out my community (I teach free filmmaking classes for kids, and I have other plans too). But I need no God, or church, or priest, or doctrine of any kind to tell me to do these things. I know them in my head to be right because they make perfect sense, not because a deity said so. When I left Christianity back (I used to be religious in the ’90s), my opinions about love and forgiveness didn’t change. Becoming an atheist did not make me unethical. It made me more objective, and more analytical instead. But the compassion remains, I did not become empty. In fact, I see more inhumanity within religious groups today than I see between atheists.

Alain de Botton makes the mistake of thinking that atheists need extra guidance, that their education is dry and sterile, but this is not the case. While there are certainly atheists that are assholes, at least the kinds of atheists that I know are extremely smart, humane, understanding, and true freedom/liberty fighters. Societal progress is one of our major objectives of course, be it via fighting for universal healthcare, anti-corruption, environmental etc. If our society becomes more free, humane and open-minded, the citizens will be happier, that’s the idea behind our “movement” (personally I don’t see us as a movement at all, but some do). We must endlessly continue moving towards a society that’s for each-other rather than against each-other. In other words, true love. Not love instigated by a deity, or fear, but true human love.

Regarding “transcendence”: You want to transcend? Listen to music, take LSD. Or wait for future technologies. But I don’t see how trying to reach a mythical being transcend us anywhere other than the abyss. It’s just a state of mind, and in our current situation, I find it not helpful. Maybe in the future we find a technological way to save our conscious forever, or able to communicate with a higher being (e.g. a Type III civilization alien) or something like it, but today we don’t have this technology, so it’s counter-productive trying to get “high” (basically that’s what it is), instead of actively helping one-another.

Regarding “ritual”: Not only I don’t need rituals, I in fact hate rituals. It is stupid play-acting bullshit. From all his arguments, this was the dumbest one.

Regarding “connection”, it’s the only legitimate point Alain has. But I don’t need to have calendar days (as he suggests) where I join others to do specific useless things (“staring at the moon”, really?). True connection comes when people come together to solve problems, or to help one-another. Not at certain dates, but all the time. When the one becomes many, but is still singular and free. But again, I need no God to do all that. What I need is a goal (== problem that needs fixing), and a few other people who would join in the effort.

“The Tree of Life” is hailed as one of the masterpieces of filmmaking, and it’ll probably be a contender at the upcoming Oscars. The cinematography is amazing, the editing even more so, and the impressionistic “hidden” puzzle messages is found throughout the 140 minute movie’s scenes or scarce dialog.

The movie tells the story of Jack, a successful architect. Through his flashbacks we see how his early life in the ’50s and ’60s made him the person he’s today: an unbalanced, confused and rather sad person. But that’s where the norms stop. A lot of viewers were put off by the way the story is told: in a very fragmented way (“Memento” is traditionally narrative compared to this movie). On top of that we get some seemingly off-topic imagery of the birth of the universe (a 10 minute non-speaking sequence).

Personally, I didn’t mind the way the story was told. I’m used to experimental cinema (I spend quite some time watching experimental short films on REDUX via the GoogleTV, or on Vimeo via the Roku), so I actually like the impressionistic approach to editing and filmmaking. Without such efforts, there’s no progress. Apparently, a lot of filmmaking students use this movie as their main study, same way Kubrick’s “2001″ used to be in the ’70s & ’80s.

Where I hang up with “The Tree of Life” though is on some of the message(s). There are many messages on this deeply philosophical movie: grace & mercy vs nature & violence (and how we should achieve balance between the two), how small & insignificant we are compared to the universe, how everything dies but something new is born from it, how much glory there’s around us to keep up move on even after something traumatic happens to us, our need to heal, how we are all finite and so we must make the most out of our relationships — since that’s all we have.

Obviously I don’t disagree with many of the messages in the film. But the movie tries a bit too hard to show us that “we are nothing in the cosmic time”. On a personal level this is of course right. We’re all going to die, we are all less than nothing in the sea of everything.

But on a grander scheme of things, as a species, or as a collective consciousness (for when species won’t matter anymore), I refuse to believe that there’s nothing we can do to stop the end of our existence when our universe dies. I refuse to believe that we live in this universe (“we” as in a collective consciousness of all sentient beings in the universe) only as long as our universe is also alive. This does not resonate with me, because it’s a very Christian approach to life, the universe, and everything. It’s very limiting, very mold-y, very dogmatic, very restrictive. The Church has tried for centuries to mold us and remind us of what we aren’t or what we can’t be (God), and how we should strive to find happiness in our little, insignificant existence. Maybe out of just plain revolting, or maybe because I don’t believe in limits, I can’t give up easily to strive to be more than I am.

I always thought of myself as a pessimist, but in this case I feel I’m more optimistic than Malick, the writer/director of the film. Like Stephen Hawking, I also believe that there is an ultimate prize for having a chance in living, and that prize is to evolve and become so advanced, that the Universe, its laws, and its limitations and dangers won’t matter anymore. In that scenario, we could out-survive it. Maybe by creating the means to move to another, younger universe, or maybe by controlling our existing one from tearing apart. I don’t know how, and surely we won’t know how for a few more millions or billions of years yet (“we” as any species or collective consciousness with the capability to reach that state, might not be humans who get that ultimate prize). But one thing is certain, I won’t give up our fate to universe’s laws and rules. I will do my best to overthrow these laws, and rules, if they get in our way “to live”. Because as I mentioned in the beginning of this article, without such bending of the norm, there’s no progress. Progress is vital to me.

So overall, I just have trouble with the deeper meaning of the film when taken in a grander context (the film invited discussions such as this after its Creation sequence, which was in itself grand). The film works on a personal level, but I have the feeling that Malick has either a bit too much of a Christian influence in his philosophical and existential opinions, or he doesn’t see all the possibilities. The funny thing is that many Christians hated the film, just because the Creation sequence featured evolution & big-bang, and not a God Creator. Malick obviously tried to get both atheists and Christians to like his film (evolution/creation scenes and existential questions for atheists, and God, prayers and overall deeper meaning of the film was meant for Christians). But the movie’s dinosaurs & CGI won’t fool me.

Overall the rest of the deep meanings of the movie are great though (if only when applied at a personal level), and filmmaking-wise the movie is revolutionary. It’s funny that most people who hated the movie, hated it for its “incoherent” editing and “pretentious” feel. Personally, I found these elements amazing on the movie. Where I have a problem with the movie is in a few of its deeper meanings instead.

Rating: 8/10

I had a very weird dream this morning. More intense and cooler than usual.

So, Earth was dying, and a few select people were put on an auto-pilot spaceship, on a way to another habitable planet. The ship’s interior was emulating Earth’s natural look (mountains, rivers, etc), and there was a bright sun too. Kind of like a mini Dyson Sphere.

A few hundreds of years later, there were a few thousands of us. Resources were scarce, so we were teamed-up in small groups, to protect them. Violence would erupt if someone from another group would try to steal our stuff.

On top of all that, some technology from the “old world” would survive. There was this guy, who had acquired 4-5 fembots, and he was addicted to them. Basically, having sex with them would trigger a feeling similar to recreational drugs + orgasm (fembots could release some chemicals that would enter the bloodstream fast), and that made them irresistible and addictive. The ultimate “high,” I suppose.

Anyways, at the end, I dreamed of this huge tsunami-like “solid water” that the rivers suddenly changed into. The people taken away from it were screaming. My mom said, “put something on your head, we’ll be dragged out, in the sun, for a while”. I couldn’t find a hat, so I just put on my head… some underpants. Soon later, the “solid water” had moved up to our apartment, and it took us away too. Some quick thinking on my part was “if I could take one thing with me, what should it be?”. So I grabbed a knife (if anything, “Survivorman” on TV has shown that all you need is a knife. The rest is just skill and knowledge).

Soon enough we were dragged away by the solid water. I asked my mom, who was dragged away along my aunt, if she knew what was happening, and she replied “yes”. Apparently, the knowledge that we lived on a ship, has survived among a few of us (not everyone knew it/believed it). I started crying in my sleep, thinking “we’ve arrived, we’ve arrived!”. To top my melodramatic dream, there was actually a music score accompanying the whole thing! I guess the filmmaking “audio is as important” moniker, has been engraved deep in my subconscious, enough to make me have a soundtrack in my dreams!

Anyways, amidst all the excitement of “arriving”, I woke up.

This dream today reminded me the 4-5 “past life” regression sessions I had in the late ’90s (I wrote about these here before). While all of these regressions featured different “life stories” in different times/places (and in one occasion a different planet), the ending was always the same. Supposedly, after we die, when we’re ready to leave, we go through a vortex that hangs above our dead heads, and we go through it. Soon, we see the Earth becoming smaller and smaller. Eventually, we reach a waiting place, that some weird lifeforms are running it. Religious people would call these “angels”, I suppose, but I’m not religious.

When your turn has come, you appear before a judging panel, and you answer for yourself “how well you did in your life”. After you gave your opinion to them, you become your own judge, as you re-play your whole life in front of you. Then, you break down and cry, for all the bad things you did while alive. Supposedly, each individual also has 1-2 very specific goals in their life. These goals must be achieved. Being “good” is only half of the story.

So you choose your next life, based on what you must learn, or repeat your goals if you didn’t achieve them in the previous life. You can choose the sex, place, major events that must happen to you (good or bad), so you can learn via them. And this repeats many times, until you “graduate” (I guess some religious people would call this “nirvana,” but I’m not religious). In each life, you only take with you the “juice” of your previous experiences, not the memories. And you’re usually spending your life with the same key people over and over. For example, your father in one life, can be your wife in another. Role-switching is common.

I don’t believe in any of that of course (neither I believed in it back then), although it was fun to be part of such an “experiment.” I mean, why not, since there was no harm done. It’s interesting to think though that if there’s a shred of truth in it, then it would make sense as to what a Type III Civilization would do to educate their children. Think about it.

Instead of educating them via traditional methods, or via pre-conditioning their brains, they educate them via real life lessons. Each consciousness (aka “soul” for the religious, but I’m not religious) is transferred into the body of a primitive species, and let them live whole lives as such. In their terms of time, this whole life experience might only take a few minutes. So they might be able to “graduate” from this life school, within a few days or weeks of enrolling, but having acquired hundreds of life experiences as different species, learning all that you must learn to be a trustworthy member of a Type-III Civilization, in regards to your peers, and the other not-so-fortunate species in the universe.

It’s like virtual reality, but designed to teach youngsters how to become adult beings, fast. Some religious people would call this a process of “becoming God”, but I’m not religious. I would see it more like a school, where you can’t cheat your way around.

I mean, the last thing we want in our galaxy is a little brat, with super-advanced technology, blowing up whole planets just for fun. Right? Right??

I was just viewing an image online from a devoted “Christian” car. He/she had written on the car “First God, then people…”.

I don’t know about other religions, but I have a good understanding of Christianity, since I studied it both in school and church, like any other good Greek would do early in life. And at least for Orthodox Christians (and for most Catholics too), the New Testament is the *main* book of Christianity. Meaning, that while both the Old and the New Testament are accepted, the New Testament is exactly that: “a new deal between God and Man”. And as every new deal and contract, it has new rules. New rules that Jesus put forth for his believers that overwrote the old rules that were put forth by a jealous, revengeful, self-centric God. That’s why Jesus’ cult became so popular in the first place: because the new rules made more sense to people who have been asking for a humanitarian-based religion, in a world ravaged by war.

The new rules are these: love, forgiveness, love your neighbor as you love yourself, etc etc. Christianity aims to make the living world a better place. And this can only be done if you put people first, not God. If you put God first you end up being a mujahid, not a true Christian. If you put God first, you are missing the whole point of Christianity. This is no different than idolizing the never-present school board for giving out the rules on how to behave in the school playground, instead of actually enjoy playing with the other kids, and be nice to them in the process. Putting God first makes no freaking sense.

As I have written in the past, I am not a believer anymore, but I do consider myself an “atheist humanist”. The way I live my life is not different than what I was taught by the Church. If I can help a fellow man, I will. It’s just that I don’t believe in the supernatural, and I don’t do things because of fear of a being called “God”. When I’ll die (and I feel it might be sooner rather than later), I will just die. The end. This blog will be the only thing that’s left of me for those who choose to remember me. This is why I get so personal some times in public.

But one thing is for sure, even in my deathbed, when I will probably start praying despite being an atheist (part of the human nature, I guess), I will still not put God first. If he exists, he should feel free to put my praying requests at the bottom of his queue if I am on the wrong about my priorities.

Here’s what I don’t get.

Remember that douchebag who said that the Holocaust never happened? He was jailed for expressing his opinion — albeit an admittedly misguided and wrong opinion. He was jailed for disrespecting a powerful slice of the western society, for something that happened 70 years ago and doesn’t directly affect the everyday lives of their descendants today.

And then, there’s the Pope. Who went to Africa and told people to not use condoms! He also expressed his opinion that people should only have sex with their exclusive partners, and as such they don’t need condoms. Thing is, life ain’t like that, people have sex all the time — married or not. By instructing the much-struck by AIDS African people to not use condoms, he instigates a major violation of public health, given that the Pope is a person of authority and has millions of followers.

So the crazy guy who simply professed that a HISTORICAL event didn’t happen, but didn’t really hurt anyone (except possibly some feelings), gets jail time and death threats. The guy who puts the lives of millions in danger TODAY, gets to go about his business.

Sign o’ the times my friends, sign o’ the times.

Update: The Pope comes around about condoms and AIDS, 1.5 years later.

“A United Nations forum on Thursday passed a resolution condemning “defamation of religion” as a human rights violation, despite wide concerns that it could be used to justify curbs on free speech in Muslim countries,” says Reuters.

Sad, just sad. A step backwards for freedom of speech. I don’t understand how the western countries allowed the fundamentalists win this one. A disgrace of a law.

I am not religious at the slightest, but my brother’s family is. They were fasting during the first 15 days of August (Orthodox Christians usually fast before Christmas, Easter and leading to Mother Mary’s day). Greek Orthodox fasting disallows all blood animal products, meaning that eggs, dairy and meat from fish/birds/mammals are disallowed, but shellfish are allowed (because they have nothing that resembles red blood — obviously a convenient technicality even if the Bible mentions pork and shellfish as unclean in general). On Good Friday, olive oil is disallowed too.

As a kid I was forced to fast for Easter (usually just the week before), and I hated every minute of it (even if I loved the Easter time in general). Truth is, while my mother is an excellent cook, she has a limited repertoire when it comes to recipes and ingredients. She only wants to eat and cook the recipes passed to her by her mother. She is extremely closed-minded regarding new ingredients and tastes (I can easily picture her face of disgust when I mention mushrooms or shellfish, for example). This severely limited our tastes during the Holy Week, making it almost as unbearable (on purpose, I suppose) as the tortures Christ had to undergo for the week.

So here are some very nice recipes I have gathered that could really make the fasting time pleasant. They are all Mediterranean-inspired, and delicious, all carefully cooked by Kalofagas — a Canadian Greek cooking blogger. Some of the recipes might include some dairy elements, but these can easily be omitted without diminishing the taste of the dish.

- Mussels Saganaki With Mustard. Omit the feta cheese. Great with mushroom wild rice.
- Vegetarian pizza, with non-dairy (fasting) cheese (sold in some places in Greece). I did this twice for my brother and his wife in August. I used non-dairy hard cheese, bell peppers, chili peppers, tomatoes, olives, onions. Mushrooms are equally nice but unfortunately in my home area, Epirus, very few people trust mushrooms so I didn’t use them.
- Prawns saganaki. I cooked this last night! It was delicious. Omit cream cheese.
- Prawns Tourkolimano. Again, omit feta cheese.
- Grilled Sesame Scallops. Great when served with some pasta or fries.
- Tomato Fritters (omit the egg) and Kolokithokeftedes (again, use fasting cheese). Serve with a fasting dip, like the Macedonian Makalo (which is the Greek version of ketchup), or Hummus.
- Tagliatelle With Zucchini, Tomato and Fresh Herbs. Add some stir-fried shellfish or mushrooms to make this recipe even better.
- Potato Salad for Good Friday (no olive oil). And another potato salad too.
- Vegetable soup.
- Briam Florinis.
- Thai Green Curry With Scallops & Shrimp. Might be a bit difficult to get all the ingredients in Greece.
- Soup With Mussels and Ginger. Omit the heavy cream.
- Greek Chickpea Soup. Substitute chicken stock with vegetable stock (note: not all vegetable stocks in the market are vegetarian).
- Scallops Provencal.
- Shrimp With Capers and Dill
- Octopus and Pasta Bake
- Cuttlefish Lemonato, and Artichokes a la Polita
- Dolmades Gialantzi
- Black-Eyed Pea Salad, and Octopus With Vinegar
- Ladenia (Greek pizza)
- Kampanoules With Peppers and Basil (omit the cheese)
- Seafood Pasta
- Shrimp With Mastiha liquer
- Cuttlefish With Saffron and Potatoes
- Melitzanosalata (Eggplant Salad)
- Spanakorizo. Another local variety asks for more spinach, and some lemon too.
- Rice salad
- Shrimp Salad With Avocado and Pasta Shells
- Roasted Red Pepper Dip
- Imam Baildi
- Rice Salad
- Leonidio, Tsakones and Eggplant (replace feta cheese with tofu)
- Fassoulotavas Makedonikos
- Shrimp and Pasta

And of course, there are all the “normal” Greek fasting foods, ranging from bean soups to lentils (in this lentils recipe omit the sausage, and use olive oil), and from yemista (use some olive oil) to green beans (use some olive oil).

A 17-year-old Iraqi girl was murdered by her father in an honour killing after falling in love (no sex) with a British soldier she met while working on an aid programme in Basra, it has been claimed.

This is why I don’t even wanna hear some shit that some westerners are writing about muslims that “they are not all like that” etc etc. Well, here’s the thing: 80% of them are, in the most fanatical countries. Yes, I pulled this number out of my ass, but I can very well imagine how life is for women in most of these countries, while the rest of the westerner who surprisingly try to excuse the muslim culture can’t.

I have a father, who while he is a Christian in a European Community country, has more in common with the muslim way of looking at women and their rights (or lack thereof), than with the rest of the westerners. And the rural place I am coming from, it’s full of such men like my father. Greece is in the crossover between Middle East and Europe, and so older people in rural places are still very old fashioned. Things are turning of course, but I’ve already lost something there.

So, don’t give me that shit about how the muslim world is misunderstood. Between the forcing of women in marriage, genital mutilation, honor killings and daily beatings, I dislike that culture more than anything in the world (and ANY culture that doesn’t respect women’s lives), and I hope these men who engage in these actions die a horrible, slow death. Yeah, go ahead and call this blog post a “hate post”. But I’ve been the victim more than once of such behavior in my life, and not only I can’t condone it, but I have no choice but to fight it any way that I can.

Update: To explain this blog post: I certainly don’t mean disrespect to people who live in these countries but are NOT abusive. But what I write here is NOT just about the death of this girl and other honor killings. So please stop emailing me about “how can you criticize 1 billion people when only 1000 can do these things”. You see, what I am criticizing here is the WHOLE women rights problem, and that doesn’t adhere to just 1000 abusive patriarchs, but to about what, 100, 200, 300 million men? That’s a BIG number to simply ignore. You don’t have to kill your daughter for me to dislike you. A simple beating of your wife is enough to put you on the same bag with people I don’t like (this INCLUDES westerners btw). And especially when the government does not recognize equality between males and females, then the whole establishment is wrong, not just “a few people going bad”. And as I said above, I have no choice but to fight that, because I am a woman, and I’ve been there myself.

“Austrians are locked in a nationwide debate touched off by the brief display in a prestigious Roman Catholic museum of an etching that depicts Jesus Christ and his disciples having a [gay] orgy during the biblical Last Supper”, reports CNN.

Austrians and who ever else is offended by this, should shut up. This is no different than the Muhammad cartoons in Denmark. Depicting someone having sex, or actually depicting someone at all, are all wrong reasons to get angry about. We westerners made fun of the Muslims about the cartoons, but many westerners are not as open minded as they think they are either.

It’s the Church’s right to remove the artwork of course, but don’t go against the artist. If this artist is actually gay, his artwork is nothing more of how he sees Jesus in his eyes. Kind of like the black Jesus and black Madonna that you see in Africa. People CHANGE the way they see God, in order to fit better with their own lifestyle and beliefs. It’s their right to do so, just like it’s the church’s right to remove the artwork. But don’t crucify the artist for seeing the same God in a different light than you do.

Besides, God is a fictional entity (in my opinion), so envisioning him one way or another, is always acceptable. Now, Jesus is quite possibly a historical person, but still, we haven’t really seen him for real, we never saw him on TV or heard him on the radio either. So envisioning him differently than anyone else, is cool too. People should just grow some skin.

So, this is the next big thing for those who can’t give up religion: “I see God’s hand at work through the mechanism of evolution”, says Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute. So basically, if you are religious and you can’t give it up, and at the same time you can’t refute evolution anymore, that’s the next big argument: God chose evolution.

I guess now Jews didn’t plant the fossils in the 1920s for the scientists to find, and the world is indeed older than 4,000 years? Wow.