Well imagine my dismay at learning, on my arrival, that there was an "Introductory Session" last week entitled "Is There More To Life Than This?" It turns out, I'm a week late.
Ah fuck it, I'm here for the meat of it, so let's see what it has to offer.
Sitting in my parked car outside the church, I felt very nervous. If I was going to be intellectually honest here, I would be sure to rock the boat and, while it's no secret that I have a... hmm... I don't think 'contempt' would be too strong a word... for religion, I do have a very strong sense of love for people. I empathise very easily and I know that when my turn comes to ask questions, I may offend people or not be true to myself. The latter of those two choices was, to be honest, simply not an option. So in we go.
It almost makes matters worse when you step through the door and are instantly greeted by overwhelming friendliness from the course coordinaters A very enthusiastic man writes "Blake" on a sticky label for me to attach to the front of my shirt, and the next person I meet instantly refers to me by name as though we've been old friends for years. We've never spoken before.
It's kinda nice, but I feel undeniably awkward. I'm then shown into the "dining area" where food will be served shortly, and we're sat at tables amongst a group of people we've never met, though we all have name badges. Conversation flows relatively easily and the food is delicious. My personal sense of uneasiness comes from my unwillingness to ask the question of others around me "So why are you here for the Alpha Course?" I don't want to find out just yet who is a skeptic like me, and who leans more towards belief. I'm also somewhat unwilling to reveal my own personal motive for taking part. We'll let that reveal itself as the course progresses.
After dinner we move to a room where all the seats are in rows, very much like a church set-up. The first speaker begins with his talk entitled "Who Is Jesus?" I'm instantly struck by the framing of the question: present tense. Who is Jesus? Is? Don't you mean was? I have no problem accepting the possibility that Jesus really lived about 2,000 years ago. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. But by placing the word "is" in the sentence implies an unquestioned underlying assumption that has yet to be proved: Jesus is still alive. This course, as far as I understand it, is designed to bring agnostics to faith. You can't, therefore expect the people you are preaching to to begin with the assumption that what you're trying to demonstrate is true. I let that slide, because the first word that the speaker says that catches my ear is "evidence". OK, now we're getting somewhere... what is this evidence? He reads a quote from Josephus, a Jewish historian from the time, who spoke of Jesus living and being "The Christ". OK, that's fine. I'm not quite sure what that means, but OK. This doesn't cement it for me, there are too many questions about the reliability of the writings that go unanswered for a start, but even if we accept that Jesus did exist, it goes no way towards evidence for his divinity.
Am I getting tedious?
I certainly wasn't being tedious at the time. As he spoke, I sat and listened with the rest of the people gathered. Occasionally, I was a little bugged by the inanity of the statements he made, drifting off every now and then, but I went along with it. Give the man a chance to speak.
Now, he asks... how reliable are the written accounts of what happened at the time? One inappropriate method of demonstrating the readiness of historians to believe the accounts of some historical documents and not others was by comparing the written accounts of the life of Jesus with written accounts of other historical events, such as Caesar's Gallic War from around 60-50BCE. The earliest known copy we have of original documents dates to around 900CE - a time lapse of nearly 1,000 years! Yet the earliest copies we have of the New Testament date from around 130CE, less than 100 years after they were originally written. This, he suggests, implies that these accounts are probably more accurate since there has been less time for them to be distorted.
If we ignore the fact that, in the modern world, we see every single day examples of the details of events being drastically distorted by the media within minutes of the events actually happening, there is a more important distinction between the subject matter of the reported events. Wars, as we know, happen. There is a great deal of corroborating physical evidence supporting the theory that Caesar's Gallic War took place. We don't claim to know much detail about it, but it's certainly feasible. What we don't see on a daily basis, around the world, is virgins giving birth, people turning water into wine, people coming back from the dead etc. Are we supposed to just accept it because a book says so? Josephus, as it happens, doesn't speak of Jesus the son of a virgin, or Jesus the miracle healer of the sick, but of Jesus the person. Probably just a person who lived and died like the rest of us.
I'm ranting now. Moving on.
Then came our first "group session". We separated into small groups containing about eight Alpha Course attendees and one coordinater and helper to further discuss the question "Who is Jesus?" (Oh boy!)
Introductions are made and we go through a short ice-breaker (What would you save from your house if it was on fire?) question session. Next, we're asked about any experiences we may have had that might have led us to look into joining the Alpha Course. One woman describes an experience where a friend of hers described seeing the ghost of her grandfather on the night that her grandmother was dying. Another guy describes an out of body experience he had when he was younger. I can understand why these people are moved by these experiences, but these are all subjects that I've encountered from my layman's study of psychology. I'm unmoved. Next we hear from a girl who describes a truly horrific childhood, which is upsetting to listen to. She's a very passionate Christian already (so I'm not sure why she's here, but I guess we all have our own reasons and maybe we'll find out as the sessions go on) and says that she feels her faith has helped her move through all that. It's a truly sad moment that makes me consider my own position: I've had a pretty comfortable upbringing, a loving family, good friends and no fear of abuse or living in desolation. How can I identify with somebody who's gone through this. Surely that's gotta affect your perception of things, but who's to say whether it has a distorting effect, or that it forces you to find clarity?
I don't volunteer to talk about why I'm taking part in the course.
The final section addresses a specific passage in the Bible.
Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." - John 6:35
We're asked to discuss what we think Jesus meant when he said this. People offer all kinds of their own interpretations. "Jesus meant that belief in him is like food for the soul." "We need bread, or food, every day to survive. We can't just eat bread once, because after that we starve. Jesus is saying that to gain eternal life, we have to have a relationship with him every day." "Just as bread can satisfy our hunger, Jesus can satisfy our hunger for love."
It's at this point that the course coordinater decides that I've been silent for too long, and directs the question squarely at me. Time for the discussion to take another twist.
"As far as I can see," I say, "it seems that as we sit here discussing what Jesus meant in these words, we can come up with countless 'theories' about what he's getting at. And for some reason, even when the meanings are contrary to each other, we nod in agreement to every statement. I could now say anything about what I think he meant by this. But this would tell you nothing about Jesus, it would only tell you something about me, about the way that I think. The statement is so metaphorical that it becomes meaningless."
"Then what would you say if a friend of yours," she asks me, "came to you one day and said 'I am the bread of life.'"
This seems utterly irrelevant. "Well, that would raise certain issues: firstly, it would plainly demonstrate that it doesn't take a divine being to be able to make statements like this. Secondly, if a friend said this to me, I would be in a position to ask directly 'What do you mean? Explain yourself.' I can't do this with Jesus. His words are so ambiguous that without any further explanation we can get nothing from them about his intended meaning. We can only get our own meaning from them. So why do we need Jesus?"
The coordinator then tries to draw an analogy by asking us all to look at a chair. We can all see it from slightly different angles, some of us see the left of it, some see the right, others see the front. "If we each describe what we can see of the chair, none of us are wrong, we just see things from a different point of view." Everybody nods in agreement. I spot the logical fallacy instantly. "There's a big problem with that analogy. This chair is passive. It's just there, being a chair. It's not trying to communicate with us, it's not trying to express a point. My point of view of it is just as valid as anybody else's. The way I see it can't be 'wrong', as such. But if Jesus is trying to say something specific in his metaphor - and there's no way for us to discern whether his message was meant to be either specific or vague - then my understanding can very much be wrong. That's not a very useful analogy."
OK, let's step it up a gear...
"Not only that," I continue, "but what we're reading here is John's account of what Jesus said. Words written from John's memory, more than likely written long after Jesus' death. Is it not possible that he may have misremembered the exact words Jesus used? Maybe Jesus did say something about the bread of life, but the wording may be fudged slightly. If we're supposed to infer from this that Jesus was the son of God, then that's a staggering warping of logic."
Now to hit you with an extra little thing to think about... I'm writing about things that I said. But is this exactly, word for word, what I said when we were there? No, of course not. I'm remembering some things but not others. How often can you remember exactly what was said in conversations you've had?
Yet somehow, a written account from a third party is supposed to be undeniable evidence that Jesus did all his miracles and now we're all going to be looked after by God in the sky forever and ever, Amen?
I've just been friend requested on facebook by somebody called "TVstar Psychic-Roadshow"
Their profile states "In 2010 we are going to perform and read in over 100 towns and cities across Britain! We will be reading tarot, crystal ball, rune stones & showcasing stage mediumship! We are Psychics, Mediums,Past life experts, Reiki Masters, Master Psychics."
Oh dear... they don't know me very well, do they...
While American novelist Anne Parrish was browsing bookstores in Paris in the 1920s, she came upon a book that was one of her childhood favorites - Jack Frost and Other Stories. She picked up the old book and showed it to her husband, telling him of the book she fondly remembered as a child. Her husband took the book, opened it, and on the flyleaf found the inscription: "Anne Parrish, 209 N. Weber Street, Colorado Springs." It was Anne's very own book. (Source: While Rome Burns, Alexander Wollcott)
I love stories like this. Here's another one:
When Norman Mailer began his novel Barbary Shore, there was no plan to have a Russian spy as a character. As he worked on it, he introduced a Russian spy in the U.S. as a minor character. As the work progressed, the spy became the dominant character in the novel. After the novel was completed, the U.S. Immigration Service arrested a man who lived just one floor above Mailer in the same apartment building. He was Colonel Rudolf Abel, alleged to be the top Russian spy working in the U.S. at that time. (Source: Science Digest)
These are what the layperson would describe as coincidences. Extraordinary coincidences, for sure, but coincidences all the same. They make for fascinating and surprising stories, and they always make me laugh and smile. On a very basic human level, they appeal to us. There's a feel of the supernatural to them, a spooky eeriness that gives us the feeling that these things couldn't possibly have happened by chance. It's magic, and the appearance of magic is a wonderful and heartwarming thing.
You can choose to stop there. You can choose to believe that, in the first story, fate somehow guided Anne Parrish to that bookshop thousands of miles from home to find the long lost book, or that Norman Mailer developed a kind of psychic connection with Rudolf Abel. There's nothing wrong with believing that (so long as you don't violently assert that it's true, and that anybody who disagrees is straight-out wrong), but if you enjoy a bit of thinking, there's something more you can get out of it.
"It must be a psychic connection," says the True Believer, "it's just too unlikely for it to be anything else!" Well, OK... but let's look at it another way. The UK lottery system uses 49 numbered balls, six of which are drawn at random to give the jackpot. The number of possible combinations puts me, with my lottery ticket, in with approximately a one in fourteen million chance of winning. In other words: very unlikely. Everyone playing the lottery each week faces the same odds. Yet somehow - miraculously - somebody wins! Wow! That person who won had a staggeringly low (one in fourteen million) chance of winning. That is overwhelmingly unlikely. And yet... they won!
If I were to tell that story to a True Believer and ask "how do you explain that?" they would probably look at me puzzled and say "But there's nothing to explain. Somebody, somewhere had to win!"
And BINGO! They've unwittingly refuted their own statement.
The simple fact is that coming across that book in Paris was not impossible. Neither was the possibility that Norman Mailer would unknowingly have written a story so similar to what was happening in the same building he lived in. These were just very unlikely events.
Let me give you another example of a very unlikely event that is not impossible. I'm thinking about somebody right now. A friend of mine, who knows my address, and could, in theory, call at my house at any time. They've never paid me a surprise visit before, and it would be especially unlikely in the middle of the night, but they could ring my doorbell right now. If I just think, really hard! I won't hold my breath waiting for this to happen, but if it did, it would be staggering! This is because I predicted it.
"That a particular specified event or coincidence will occur is very unlikely. That some astonishing unspecified events will occur is certain. That is why remarkable coincidences are noted in hindsight, not predicted with foresight."--David G. Myers
Think about all of the times that you might have been thinking about somebody and just then, you get a phone call from them, or a text message. It can feel like a psychic bond. But imagine this... if it's a person who you happen to think about a lot anyway, and also somebody who texts you frequently, how much MORE amazing would it be if you never heard from them while you were thinking about them? Then think to yourself, "would I also be amazed if anybody who I'd recently thought about happened to call soon after I'd been thinking about them? You probably would! And when you think about how many people there are in your phonebook, it's bound to happen one day!
When you're dealing with large numbers of people and the events that they encounter, amazing things happen. You can't predict which of those amazing things will happen, or when, but you can bet that something extraordinarily unlikely will happen to you at some point in your life.
Some amazing coincidences have happened to me. Just consider, even, your very existence:
"The number of people who could be here, in my place, outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. If you think about all the different ways in which our genes could be permuted, you and I are quite grotesquely lucky to be here! The number of events that had to happen in order for you to exist, in order for me to exist. We are privileged to be alive and we should make the most of our time on this world." - Richard Dawkins
But I still love these stories. Why? Because I'm human. I'm susceptible to that momentary belief and the rush of feelings it causes. But then there comes a shift, from feeling to thought. And it's doing this that leads the True Believer to accuse skeptics of being joyless and soulless. I disagree.
"There are True Believers who refuse to, or cannot, make that move to detached thinking and find such an approach necessarily joyless. They miss that we can all feel that initial joy at such anecdotes and events, but only some of us get to experience another level of joy which is warmed by it's closer proximity to the truth. We need to live by our hearts as well as our brains to engage most wonderfully with this world: sadly there is often a proud refusal among True Believers to engage with the latter." - Derren Brown
It's been a long time since my previous post, and many things have happened that I simply haven't addressed. There's been, of course, the death of Michael Jackson, a subject about which I was keen to write a blog coming at things from a skeptical angle; there's been a report put out by the King's Fund on alternative medicine, which was absolutely atrocious in it's recommendations; there's been a supposed image of the Loch Ness Monster on Google Earth (which strangely looks somewhat boat-shaped, with ripples caused by it's wake on the surface of the water, but who am I to make such outlandish claims); and there's been the ongoing libel case of Simon Singh (sign the petition here to show your support. No seriously, do it! It'll take two minutes and it's one of the most useful things you can do with two minutes of your time!) All of these things I've wanted to write about, but life (and Grand Theft Auto 4) tends to get in the way sometimes and now here we are, more than two months after my last post and what's the big topic of the moment?
Well aside from Derren Brown "predicting" the lottery results (a great subject for a skeptical blog, one that I might cover another time), we've also just recently passed the eighth anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Flight 93, and, as expected, all of the conspiracy theorists have once again come crawling out of the woodwork. And since conspiracy theories are a personal favourite subject of mine, I thought we'd take a look at it.
While I plan to make this general and applicable to all conspiracy theories, there will be a bit of 9/11 slant to it, but I'll also draw some examples from two of my other favourite conspiracy theories: the moon landings and the assassination of JFK. Lets get stuck in!
1. The "official" story The "official" story behind 9/11 is that Islamic extremists hijacked four planes and crashed them into their targets as an act of terrorism. The "official" story behind the Kennedy assassination is that a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, acted alone when he shot the president. The "official" story behind the moon landings is that... well... astronauts went to the moon!
What intrigues me the most is the labelling of these stories as "official". This label has the explicit implication that the story is in some way manufactured by the conspirators (usually the government... or the 'shadow' government... or the Illuminati... or the Freemasons... or the Reptoids) in order to cover their tracks and/or to pin the blame onto somebody else. This is a gross misrepresentation. The truth is that the "official" story is the result of a huge array of evidence from a variety of different sources: yes, the government plays their part, but there's also a mountain of evidence collected from thousands of investigative journalists, eyewitnesses, structural engineers and demolitions experts, doctors, physicists, police departments, universities etc all carrying out their own research and studies into what have been three of the most closely investigated historical events of modern times. This is where the "official" story comes from.
The truth is, there's no such thing as the "official" story, it's a complete misnomer. There's just several different conspiracy theories, and then there's "what really happened"
2. Anomalies
Anomalies are the foundation on which conspiracy theories are built. These are the little details that get pointed out that seem to show something slightly out of line with the "official" story. The kind of thing that people point at and say "explain that then!" Anomalies are what they are, and they're often valid. But here's the important thing about them that most theorists overlook: they are negative evidence against the "official" story. They are not positive evidence for any one of the myriad conspiracies out there. Yes, I'll concede that they may, in places, very well highlight a problem in the "official" story. They may very well lead to the "official" story being revised and altered. In this sense, the official story (notice the lack of quotation marks) strongly resembles a good scientific theory: it is altered and adapted as new evidence presents itself. But they can't be used to support an alternative theory, unless they also tie in with a vast array of other evidence comparable to the evidence for what really happened.
But while we're at it, let's look at some of my favourite anomalies:
"Jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel." No, that's right, it doesn't. Look here.
"No wreckage was found at the pentagon or Flight 93." Well first off, that's not true. There was some wreckage. But we're talking about a jet plane made of extremely thin metal (speak to an aircraft engineer, you'll be surprised at just how thin the metal that makes up the wings and fuselage really is!) slamming into THE PENTAGON!!! And yes, that does deserve italics and block capital letters. This is the largest military building in the world, and is built of extremely strong reinforced concrete. And if you want to see what happens to a plane hitting a concrete wall, then here's a lovely video for you.
"Back and to the left!" This phrase has become like a mantra for the JFK conspiracy theorists (especially since that dodgy Oliver Stone movie), repeated ad nauseum. Surely this proves there was a second gunman, stood in front of Kennedy on the grassy knoll? Well... no, actually. Counter-intuitive as it might sound, a target (like a human head) would actually jerk toward the bullet. Physicists and hunters know this. Again, here's an explanation. (God bless YouTube!)
3. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
OK, I admit it... I've fallen for conspiracy theories before. Even 9/11 and JFK. I hold my hands up. My downfall was the anomalies. They caught me out. I take a great deal of pride in my skeptical approach to things (I even have 'question everything' tattooed on my arm) and the anomalies raised strong suspicion in me toward the "official" explanation, but I'm far from infallible. However, what marks out a true skeptic from a conspiracy theorist is this point: absence of evidence. I've already noted that anomalies are not positive evidence for a theory, but negative evidence against a theory. However, they could be counted as positive evidence if they were consistent with a body of evidence that all stood together to create a coherent "conspiracy" theory. Only that evidence doesn't exist. Conspiracy theorists have a good answer to this though: absence of evidence is evidence of absence. In other words, wherever evidence for a conspiracy is lacking..... well that's just evidence of a conspiracy! Of course there's no evidence, the conspirators destroyed it and covered it up! There's a lot of questions raised about why we haven't seen CCTV footage of the plane hitting the Pentagon, leading to suspicions that no plane hit the Pentagon and it was, in fact, a missile! The lack of evidence for this is clearly evidence of a cover up! To get from the official story to belief in a conspiracy, you need some kind of solid evidence that isn't alsoconsistent with the official explanation. In the case of the moon landings, JFK and 9/11, this evidence is sorely lacking. It was this realisation that triggered my critical thinking and led me away from conspiracies.
If lack of evidence doesn't make you reconsider your stance, there's little hope for you. You're as stuck to your preconceived notions as a creationist who denies the fact of evolution.
4. The DeAngelis-Novella Postulates This is a fun little test to apply to a conspiracy theory: does it meet the DeAngelis-Novella postulates? Named after Perry DeAngelis and Dr Steven Novella of the New England Skeptical Society and the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast, the postulates identify the people involved in the conspiracy, split nicely into three groups.
1. The "big evil" As mentioned earlier, this usually means the government, or the Templar Knights, or the... oh, whatever. In short, the conspirators. It doesn't matter who it is, these people are supremely powerful, totally corrupt, extremely well-organised and so good at keeping a secret that they are able to pull off these grand conspiracies without anybody - not the hundreds of news organization, scientists, foreign governments, rival political parties, intelligence agencies - finding out, and without a single insider blowing the whistle. Despite this, they make fundamental blunders, mistakes so astonishing in their carelessness that a retired schoolteacher printing pamphlets in his garage can spot them and see right through them, figuring it all out. They own the news organizations and control the worlds media, silencing dissenting voices, though somehow, shows like Coast to Coast manage to get through without being killed off, and guys like Oliver Stone are left alive to make shitty movies. Of course, they could just be part of the conspiracy. Who knows, maybe Alex Jones is part of the conspiracy too! He's just a stooge put in place by the "big evil" to divert your attention away from the real conspiracy. Of course, there's no evidence for this, but when did that ever matter?
2. The Sheeple This is the vast majority of the public. The dupes that have swallowed the "official" dogma without question or care. We just want an easy life. We'll do what the big evil tell us to do and live with our eyes closed. We're slaves to the big evil.
3. The Army of Light The select few that have swallowed the red pill (or was it the blue pill?) and seen the truth! It's their duty to get the "truth" out and expose the almighty, power-mad megalomaniacs for what they truly are. Strangely, the makers of movies like Zeitgeist and Loose Change are still alive and well. They haven't had a mysterious "accident" like the one that befell Princess Diana.
... and finally 5. Don't blame on malice what you can just as easily blame on incompetence Oh come on... the government couldn't even cover up a blow job in the Oval Office! They couldn't cover up a robbery in a psychiatrist's office in a hotel! Bush wanted to have creationism taught in science classes. That's not pure evil, that's just retarded! Do some background studies into Lee Harvey Oswald's obsession with communism, Osama bin Laden's extreme interpretation of the Koran, and look at the technologies that have come out of the space programme and the huge records at NASA. In truth, the US government were partly responsible for the 9/11 attacks, just not in the way most conspiracy theorists want us to believe. They were responsible for some terrible security blunders. You don't have to like a particular individual or institution in order to say they're not guilty of something. You'll notice that all three conspiracy theories I've been referring to are based in America. Coincidence? Well no, not when you think about it. They're really the world's only super power at the moment. They're rich and powerful, which makes them an easy target for conspiracy theorists. And they have a constitution protecting freedom of speech, which makes these kinds of theories possible. You just try to criticise the government in Iran or North Korea and see how long you last.
In science, the word "theory" has a very specific meaning which is different to it's colloquial meaning. A theory must be supported by multiple lines of evidence, that are not internally contradictory and that are mutually supportive of the theory and of each other. To become a successful theory, it must be consistent with any new evidence that arises. And to become a accepted theory, it has to make predictions that are testable and that turn out to be true. Only then can it be successfully regarded as a "theory". Conspiracies don't meet any of these criteria.
In colloquial English, the word "theory" means an idea... a series of thoughts usually emanating from an individual or a collective that explain away a mystery behind how or why something happened. In this colloquial sense, a theory may or may not have any basis in reality.
It's no surprise that it's often non-scientists who use the wrong terminology for the wrong conclusions.
"We don't approve of anyone being an atheist. God is great and it doesn't matter which religion you believe in. The important thing is to believe,"
Roughly translated as:
"We don't approve of anyone using free thought, rational enquiry and reasoning to come to their own conclusions as to what is true or not. Belief in God among the people is useful for the people in charge as it makes them docile, so it doesn't matter which religion you believe in. The important thing is to abandon your critical thinking, your personal freedom, your 'soul' (in a purely metaphorical sense), your integrity and your independence and instead, swallow our dogma, donate to our churches, fall in line with what our religious leaders say, and settle on easy, lazy and ultimately false answers to some of the most difficult questions we face, rather than taking a scientific approach in order to find out, broaden our understanding of the world around us, and use our increased understanding to help raise the quality of life for people around the world."
Saying that though, I might apply! How much can I win? Eternal life? Awesome!!
I have a question that I'd like answered. It may sound a bit sarcastic, but that is honestly not my intention. If it sounds ludicrous, then that is not because I mean to ridicule in an arrogantly mocking way, I'm just using a comparison that I feel is appropriate to where where I'm going with the follow-up to it. Here's the question:
Let's say I claim I can cure the flu (for the purpose of this question I'll use flu as an example, but any disease will do). To do this I take an empty bottle, seal it so that it's airtight, and then place my hands on it while concentrating really hard on that disease going away, out of somebody's body. I then sell this bottle to a person suffering from the flu and tell them to open the bottle and breathe in the air inside it. This, I say, will cure them. Am I legally allowed to do that?
I'm sure there must be some law against that, but I've done some searching, including The UK Statute Law Database and I'm struggling to find it. Perhaps I've been typing in the wrong keywords. If anybody knows anything about this, I'd appreciate the help.
Why do I ask?
Channel 4 News tonight ran a short feature on the Truth behind NHS's homeopathy budget in which it reveals that nearly £12million has been spent on homeopathy in the past three years. This is taxpayer's money.
The comparison between my proposed treatment and homeopathy isn't completely fair, I admit, because if I were to sell my magic air in a bottle, it would be for profit, whereas homeopathy on the NHS isn't (or is it... I'll come to that later). But as far as the efficacy of the treatment goes, and the plausibility of it working, the comparison is definitely valid.
Let's look at how homeopathy 'works': 1. In 1796 a German Physician by the name of Samuel Hahnemann put forth the idea of homeopathy. His 'theory' was that "like cures like". What that means is that if you are suffering from some particular symptoms, then you could use something that would produce similar symptoms to cure it. Lets say, for example, as a symptom of hayfever, your eyes are continually watering. Onions make your eyes water. Therefore onion juice will cure your watery eyes. The fact that this makes absolutely no sense doesn't really matter, because we haven't even begun with the nonsense yet! 2. These examples of cures will only work if they are heavily diluted (apparently) so they dilute the onion juice in water. They have a special method for doing this: you take a drop of onion juice (or whatever substance produces symptoms similar to the ones you're suffering from) and drop it in a bottle of water. You then shake the water "ten times up and down, ten times back and forth, and ten times side to side". You then take a tiny drop of this solution and drop it into another bottle of water and repeat the shaking process. You then take a drop of that solution and drop it into another bottle of water. Shake. Dilute again. Shake. Dilute again, etc, etc. Eventually, you have repeatedly diluted the solution so many times that by the time you get to the final solution, there is not a single molecule of onion juice mixed into it. 3. "But if there's no onion juice in the final solution, how does it work?" I hear you ask. Well because, according to homeopathy, the water has a 'memory'. Each drop of water that you carry across to the next solution 'remembers' the onion juice. 4. You then drink the 'solution' (which, by this point, is not a solution at all, but pure water) and somehow it makes the symptoms disappear!
Only it doesn't make the symptoms disappear. Homeopathy has been tested again and again and again and again and it has been shown repeatedly to have no effect.
Peter Fisher (I refuse to call him "doctor") of the London Homeopathic hospital claims there is evidence supporting homeopathy. But his evidence has not stood up to the scrutiny that is demanded of all other types of medicine that the NHS provides. There is a clear double standard.
When you want to find out which research is credible, it's usually best to go for people who are doing research independently, rather than people with a vested interest. If homeopathy funding is withdrawn, then Mr Fisher finds himself out of a job, so of course he's going to claim that it works. This is where it gets to the point I mentioned earlier about profit. Although the NHS itself makes no profit from homeopathy, the fact that Mr Fisher has a vested interest (i.e. his job) based on this nonsense, means that he would likely prove very unwilling to openly accept the reality of the double-standard and face the truth. Instead, he would rather continue being paid to do a worthless job. His claim to the efficacy of homeopathy is a bit like a turkey telling you that there is evidence that Christmas is a bad idea. If you wanna know whether it really works, ask somebody with no vested interest either way who is genuinely seeking the truth. What do you find? No effect.
You may ask "what's the harm?" Well aside from the examples given in the link above, here are my main concerns over the harm done by homeopathy: 1. It takes people away from real treatment If a person is sick and they need some serious treatment for their condition, homeopathy can be seen as a more attractive solution. Unlike chemotherapy, for example, there are no side effects (of course there are no side effects, you're drinking pure water). Each time a person goes for chemotherapy they come back feeling bad. The treatment is tough and arduous and often painful, but it works. It doesn't save 100% of the lives it cares for, of course not, but the effects are significant and they help, as has been clearly demonstrated by double-blinded, randomised clinical trials. After a homeopathic treatment, you don't feel worse. In fact, the fact that you expect to feel better may actually affect your perception and make you believe you are feeling better. But as your illness progresses, the short term effect of feeling better soon fades away and you have to go back for some more ineffective treatment. The longer this continues, the more the disease progresses and by the time you realise the treatment has failed and you decide to give the conventional medicine a go it may be too late. 2. The money could be put to better use Perhaps one of the blessings in disguise of the recession is that there will need to be some budget cuts, and spending on useless treatments may soon come to an end. In the meantime, taxpayers are paying for people to go to get this "treatment".... at a cost of £170 per 'episode' of treatment, and a staggering £3,067 average cost per inpatient. I've heard people say "but if it makes them feel better, then why not just let them do it?" Well a lot of things make people feel better, and they cost a lot less than £3,067. Heroin makes a junkie feel better, but is it really helping them? Chocolate makes me feel better, so should the NHS pay for it? (£3,067 would get me a LOT of chocolate! I'm beginning to like that idea). Perhaps one day "Retail Therapy" will be available on the NHS. "Here's some money, go buy yourself some new shoes." It'll make you feel better for a day or two, just like homeopathy, and then the effect will disappear again... just like homeopathy. The short point is that £12million over those three years could have paid the salaries of around 200 nurses. Instead, it is a lot for the taxpayer to be spending on a few people wearing white coats and shaking up bottles of water when it doesn't do anything. 3. It encourages magical thinking There's nothing really wrong with having a fantastical imagination. If you want to imagine a magical fantasy world then that's fine! Sometimes it can be nice to drift away into flights of fancy. But when that interferes with your perception of reality, it causes dangerous problems. You need to keep yourself grounded on more serious issues. Breathing in the air from my bottle won't cure your flu, and in exactly the same sense, homeopathy won't prevent malaria (yes, they really do claim this). If you want to imagine it could, that's fine, but don't let that stop you acting in a way that accords with reality rather than fantasy. Also, if you want to pay for it out of your own pocket then knock yourself out! No magician actually does real magic, they perform conjuring tricks and the appearance of the impossible can be an awesome spectacle, and in a situation like this, suspending your disbelief for a moment can bring a lot of enjoyment. But if you actually believe that homeopathy will do anything, you are putting yourself in danger, and this is what the NHS needs to think about. They are putting a stamp of approval on something that simply doesn't work, and that puts credulous people in danger. So yes... the NHS is endangering peoples lives by using homeopathy.
One man interviewed by Channel 4 news said that if the NHS didn't provide the service, the people would go elsewhere and that when they come back to them even more sick, they are even more expensive to care for. If they stick with NHS homeopathy, at least they will be getting it alongside effective treatment. Providing a dishonest service may actually prove cost efficient. How do we "square that circle?"
BY MAKING THE FACTS KNOWN. By teaching people to think critically so that this kind of mumbo-jumbo is never sought out in the first place. So often, education is put forward as the answer to all problems and that's because it really is. Educate people, starting young. Don't teach them what to think, teach them how to think. And then maybe we'll be in a bit less of a mess.
NOTE: It has been drawn to my attention that I've made a slight factual error in my description of how homeopathy works. Once the solution has been finalized you are NOT, in most cases, given the solution to drink. Instead, a drop of the "solution" is dropped onto a sugar pill and you are given the pill to swallow... which only serves to further reduce the possibility of you getting any active ingredient.
OK. Before I start, I'll get a few things out of the way. Firstly, although I really did want to write about this in my blog, I am a bit worried about it. To me, one of the main points of putting your thoughts down in writing is that it's a way of straightening out in your own head the confusion you might be feeling over a certain subject. You get to re-read, look over and re-evaluate the things you've said before submitting them to the scrutiny of others, and that way you can be truly confident that you actually mean what you say. This is often the problem I have in conversations: I'll either tend to be very quiet and not say anything for fear of not getting my point across correctly, in a way that is unambiguous, direct, sensitive and clear, or I'll say something straight off and be misunderstood because I worded it clumsily. My concern about this blog post is that because it's a little complex, and likely to be lengthy, and I'm a little out of practise with structuring my thoughts in this way, it'll all be a mess of incoherence. But I'll give it a shot.
OK, here goes!
Logic, Love and Happiness
Mathematics… and growing up
When I was a kid at school I was very good at maths. It was soon noticed. I never quite understood why it was noticed that I was good at maths because to me it just didn't seem difficult. Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division were merely simple steps to follow. If you understand the concept, you just followed the steps. Then you needed to understand the concept of numbers, i.e. what's the difference between '1' and '6'. Sounds pretty simple, but you need to remember that numbers don't actually exist. They're just representations of a concept. But if you can accept that notion, you're pretty much on your way. Benjamin Pierce called Mathematics "the science that draws necessary conclusions" which basically holds true for any real-world application of it (that is, in the world as we understand it and are capable of understanding it). You never start with an answer: you don't, for example, start with the belief that two plus two equals four and then work backwards to prove it: you start by asking “what happens when we add two and two together?” and draw the conclusion that it equals four by following the steps. No preconceived notions, just go where the logic takes you. Maths is essentially logic. I learned when I attended university that maths doesn't always require numbers. It's not always quantitative, it's just a set of methods that leads from a premise to a conclusion. The key thing about logic (and therefore maths) is that it works. Look around you... everything (and I mean, quite literally, everything) is the way it is because of maths. The clothes you're wearing (assuming you're not naked), the furniture you're sitting on (assuming you're not standing), the walls and floor of the building you're in (assuming you're not outside) only exist because of logic (I deliberately missed out “the computer you're reading this on” because if you need it pointing out to you that without maths we wouldn't have computers you should really stop reading). Even the ‘natural’ world outside is the way it is because of maths and logic (though I won’t go into that cos it’ll take me way off topic).
When you're sitting at a school desk with a teacher at the front of the room, pen and paper in hand, and you start to follow these steps towards their logical conclusion to answer questions, problems etc. you begin to notice that some people in the class are having a higher success rate at following the steps to their conclusion than others. While it's evident that all people are different, it's not easy to understand why. Some of my classmates were exceptionally talented at art, whereas I still have trouble drawing a convincing stick man. Others had a level of control over their body that made them excel in sports. Not me! And while I may envy people for the talents they have that I don't, I had my own talent and that was a knack for grasping logic. Occasionally, during a maths lesson, a friend would ask me to look at what they'd done to check they'd done it right. If you're regularly awarded with high marks, you gain a reputation for these things and people will quite naturally turn to you if they're struggling, and so it was with me. Yes, of course, these were school days, and the old juvenile disdain for achievers was always there, but it carried a level of respect too. If somebody was struggling, they would quite happily come to me and say "I can't quite get this. Can you help?" from which I'd look over their working and, if they'd made a mistake, I would quickly spot it. I'd point out the mistake, explain why the logic didn't follow, describe the step they should take instead, and explain why they should take that step, and they would be grateful. They'd also know, in future, how to tackle a similar problem whenever it cropped up.
Being able to reach a conclusion logically was useful because it's the only real surefire way of getting to the right conclusion. Because I was good at it back then, I was regarded as the brainy kid. Of course, that didn't mean shit when creating works of art, or playing at sports, or social skills or success with girls (too right!) but when a matter of logical consequence was in question, I was certainly respected because... I was usually right.
One of the things it taught me was not to jump to conclusions, or to stay firmly fixed to a belief that future evidence points away from. If you follow evidence, it generally leads you to the truth, whatever that truth might be.
Perhaps my experience at school – of seeing people excel in areas that I could only dream of, while I was naturally good at some things that others weren't so good at – should have prepared me for the experiences I have as an adult. Of course people don’t think the same way that I do, I know that. And of course people hold different beliefs and reach different conclusions to the ones that I come to, I expected that. What I wasn't prepared for was the way in which people would cling to their beliefs and conclusions despite strong contradictory evidence. It seems that when you leave school and you no longer have a teacher marking your papers and giving you a score (that you naturally want to be high) you don’t care about reaching the right conclusions anymore. Instead, people who hold beliefs tend to expend their energy on insisting their belief is right instead of simply following the logic and finding out what the truth is. This surprised me. I do find it hard to understand it when people believe something that my logic won’t accept. My brain just doesn't work that way. I seem to be hard-wired to think the way that I do. I can't help being who I am and I wouldn't change it even if I could. Being able to reason logically is a skill that I value and treasure.
People
If I had to describe, very simply, what makes me happy, it would be people. More specifically, connecting with people. Having a simple conversation, discussing ideas, a light-hearted chat, physical intimacy, a shared experience… these are the things that make me happy. Seeing someone else happy makes me happy too. Mutual trust and understanding makes me happy. And I see the potential for all of these things in all people. Here's a quote from Albert Einstein to help me illustrate my point:
Strange is our situation here on Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smiles and well being our own happiness depends.
Smart guy, that Einstein fella. Said and did a lot of clever things. This, however, just seems like plain common sense to me. I can't fathom the notion of a person who can be indifferent to the feelings and sensitivities of those around them, especially the ones we love (though I am aware that people like this exist and are known as sociopaths). To see a loved-one happy is to be happy. To see a loved-one in distress or unhappy can be heartbreaking. I saw a film recently called ‘Into The Wild’. If you haven’t seen it I highly recommend it, it’s beautiful. There was a quote from that film that struck a chord with me and, without giving anything of the plot away, I’ll briefly put this quote into context: this young guy spends a lot of time alone in the wild and, at the end of the movie, he writes in his notebook “Happiness only real when shared.” This is a sentiment I can understand. I recently read a blog post (I won’t say who, but if you’re reading you’ll probably recognise yourself) about a couple taking a trip to Brighton together. The girl writing described the places they went to, the things they did and showed photos. I remember looking and reading and smiling, thinking “that looks so cool and fun. I’d like to go there and see that.” But then I remembered I’d be missing out on the key thing that would make it enjoyable, i.e. somebody to enjoy it with. As of the past few months, I no longer have a partner. An experience - any experience - is greatly reduced, almost to the point of meaninglessness, if you don’t share it with the right person. Well, it’s like that for me anyway. Sometimes I read something or see something, or find myself in a place that makes me think “Wow, this is amazing/beautiful/funny/so true!” When those moments are shared with somebody you care about, it’s a much warmer feeling.
Skepticism
Skepticism is defined in many different ways, often characterized by the notion of “universal doubt”, or the idea that we cannot really and truly know anything. While I accept this definition and agree with it, perhaps a more fitting description of the real-world application of the skeptical attitude would be a worldview where beliefs are based on evidence and are subject to change in the face of any new evidence that may arise. That sounds reasonable, doesn't it? To some extent, everybody is skeptical. We all know about beliefs that somebody else has that we don't share. The most obvious example to me would be religious belief: nobody believes in ALL religions, you're either one religion or none at all. If you're a Sikh, you're skeptical about Buddha and Muhammad; if you're a Christian, you're skeptical of Guru Nanak and Krishna and Vishnu. In fact, if you belong to any religion, then you're skeptical about all others except your own. But I use religion just as an example because it's the most commonplace (and most accepted) non-evidence-based belief-system in our culture. Many other such examples exist: alternative medicine; mediumship; grand conspiracy theories; UFO encounters and alien abductions; cryptozoology; marketing scams; destiny; the list goes on and on! Voltaire once said:
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
We've seen this all the way through history and it’s brought right up to date when young men fly aeroplanes into buildings or detonate bombs on underground trains. But as well as making you the oppressor or the terrorist, it can also make you a victim. Many have died or suffered needlessly as a result of their rejection of conventional medicine in favour of “alternative” therapies, or lost their life savings because of some marketing scam. This is what skepticism protects you from.
The Closet
Skepticism and Logic are inseparably connected and so, just as I was always naturally good with maths and logic, so it follows that I've always been a skeptic. Even as a kid, I never believed in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy without the evidence. I was so scientifically minded even then that I used to try to test the hypothesis. I admit, I was a little baffled at how the tooth I’d placed under my pillow seemed to turn into a coin without me waking in the night, but as each tooth fell out I would be more and more determined to test the hypothesis by trying as hard as I could not to fall asleep in order to catch one of my parents making the switch. I never managed to catch the Tooth Fairy, but I did eventually manage to catch my dad sneaking into my room with some presents the night before Christmas and I was satisfied. My hypothesis was supported, the Santa hypothesis was falsified. No Santa. Although I was baptised as a child, my home was pretty much a religion-free zone. It wasn't outright denied, it just simply wasn't an issue. Not on the radar. Then, still a kid, I joined the Scouts, and part of being a Scout was church attendance on a Sunday. Not every Sunday, I think it was once a month or something like that, but I remember then a feeling of pointlessness when I could have been riding my bike or climbing a tree. At around the same time, I remember several occasions of calling out to the skies, challenging God to hit me with a lightening bolt, but no such bolts ever came. And so my metaphysical beliefs remained unchanged the duration of my life: no compelling evidence to pull me away from the null hypothesis.
Then you start to notice a few things about the world around you: The first important thing you notice is that people argue all the time about their differences of opinion - whether it’s political or ideological or economical - and rarely, if ever, are people aggrieved by the challenges their opponents may pose to their way of thinking. This seems true of different schools of thought on economic issues, for example, or any way of thinking that’s arrived at through contemplation and reason, but any belief arrived at through emotion or desire, that isn't supported by evidence, goes unchallenged. As a kid, you ask questions anyway, through naïveté, not knowing that the questions you ask make people uncomfortable. Then as you grow, you get a sense of what you should question and what you shouldn't… if you want to avoid upsetting people, that is. And, going back to my section entitled “People”, you may correctly suppose that I didn't like to upset people, so I’d tend to keep my mouth shut. The second important thing you begin to notice is that there seems to be a lot of stupid and needless harm being done because people are unwilling to question certain things. Growing up in 80s/90s UK there was a lot of talk about the “troubles” in Northern Ireland. The IRA were the al-Qaeda of the time for us back then, the bogeymen flashed all over the news that are “coming to get you!” with their bombs. So naturally, you ask why they’re fighting, and who is fighting. “Well, it’s the Protestants and the Catholics.” This made no sense to me. I’d been baptised into the Church of England which apparently made me, technically, a Protestant, while my next-door neighbour and best friend at the time was a Catholic (at least in the sense that his parents were Catholic and he went to a Catholic school). Why weren't we killing each other? After a while, you learn to stop asking questions cos none of the answers make any sense. It reminds me of a line from one of George Carlin’s stand up shows:
Military cemeteries around the world are packed with brainwashed, dead soldiers who were convinced God was on their side. America prays for God to destroy our enemies, our enemies pray for God to destroy us. Somebody’s gonna be disappointed! Somebody’s wasting their fucking time! Could it be… everyone?
When somebody close to me told me once that they were going to see a homeopath I just stood there blinking. I kinda couldn't believe it, but I didn't question it. OK, so they believe in something that’s a little bit crazy. What do I say to that? (On a side note, I once visited a doctor when I was around 20ish about concerns over my vocal chords and he said it was fine, rest my voice a little is all that is necessary, but that if I wanted I could also try going to a place where they did homeopathic remedies and gave me some details on a piece of paper. At the time, like before, I just sat there blinking, thinking “What? A medically trained doctor prescribing homeopathy?” I left quietly and didn't bother with the magic water but, needless to say, if that happened again now I wouldn't leave without issuing a serious complaint!) Once again, when you believe something based on no evidence, nobody questions you. Why?
I think I figured out the answer to this recently: it’s impolite because it embarrasses the person you are questioning. They are embarrassed because they know what they believe, but they don’t know why they believe. A belief based on true premises and logic is a conclusion and can be supported confidently. A belief not based on logical reasoning is faith and can only be supported through a stubborn refusal to accept the possibility of one’s own fallibility. Lets bring this last point back to the first two sections of this essay: 1. Growing up, I was used to people around me being open-minded and willing to accept the fact that sometimes they may be wrong and that if their reasoning was unsound they were grateful for any help where they may have made a mistake in order to get closer to the truth. 2. I like to see people happy. I don’t like to embarrass people. And I’d seen now that all the things I’d learned were useful as a kid were no longer useful if you wanted people to like you. In short, I learned what was right and then decided that I’m not gonna live by what’s right. I’m gonna live instead by lying to people in order to tell them what they want to hear instead of the truth because they seem to be happier that way - despite how wrong I can clearly see that to be, despite the harm it can do, and despite how unhappy it makes me. Sometimes, the truth is inconvenient.
Coming out
Then a couple of years ago I read two books which, it would be fair to say, changed me in quite a profound way. The first was “Tricks of the Mind” by Derren Brown. It was brilliant, an absolute joy to read! Before I read that, I don’t remember a time when I finished a book and immediately returned to page 1 to start all over again. I've always been a fan of magic and mystery and fascinated by the art of deception and how the mind works, particularly our power to delude ourselves. But that book was a Trojan horse: it started by talking about magic and the art of the magician, but it was unlike any magic book I’d ever read. It went into the mind of the spectator and covered in incredible detail the way that tricks are set up by good magicians in order to lead peoples thoughts in a certain way until it gets to the point where the spectator is doing most of the actual fooling work themselves. A person can fool themselves much more convincingly than anybody else can. I could go on about it, but the key thing about that book that had an effect on me was the final section entitled “Anti-science, Pseudoscience and Bad Thinking”. It outlined the skeptical outlook nicely and really fired up my passion for clear, rational thinking. But I won’t explain why until I get onto the second book that changed me: “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins. Although it’s focus was, as the name suggests, on matters of religion, it is really simply a promotion of rational, critical thinking. In terms of the conclusions the book drew, it didn’t really tell me anything that I didn’t already know. As a professor of evolutionary biology, of course, he filled some of the gaps in my knowledge and understanding of evolution, and that was fascinating, but what I found so refreshing was the way that he didn’t hold back from speaking honestly. The reader is never treated as somebody who needs to be comforted or reassured over your fears: you’re treated with respect. Not in the sense of respect for your beliefs or ideas, but respect for your ability to think, to reason, to be brave and independent. Your intelligence is never insulted. It spoke very plainly about all the things you know but shy away from saying: that the troubles in Northern Ireland are worsened by nationalism and religion; that female circumcision (and male infant circumcision for that matter) is something barbaric that we shouldn’t accept and turn a blind eye to simply because of an ancient belief system; that teaching kids in schools that the Earth is only 6,000 years old (or any unsubstantiated claim as fact) is a gross disservice to the children; and that following faith blindly can - and often does - lead, as Voltaire put it, to atrocities. For anybody who really cares about people (see above) it becomes clear that, uncomfortable as it may sometimes be, sometimes you really do have to be honest with people and tell them the truth.
I’ll give you an example of how this honesty ties in with love: Below is a video of a “Kiai Master” fighting a young MMA fighter. You can watch if you like, but I’ll briefly summarize the main points if you can’t be bothered. 1. This guy is a fighter who harnesses the power of “qi” (pronounced chee) . In the opening few seconds of the video, we see him using his powers on his students that he has trained. We see them rushing to attack him, only for him to “knock them down” without touching them by simply waving in their general direction. Next, we see him apparently fighting one of his students from a distance, knocking the poor guy about all over the place. 2. Impressed with his own power, he offers to fight anybody with a $5,000 dollar prize for anybody who can beat him. Of course, nobody will be able to beat him because he will simply knock them down before they even get close to him. 3. A young guy trained in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) says Sure, I’ll fight you! He doesn’t believe in qi and thinks the teacher’s students have simply been influenced by his charisma. He hasn’t “drunk the dojo kool-aid.” 4. The fight starts... and the young MMA fighter kicks the crap out of the old man.
(The audio and video are slightly out of sync, making some of the strikes look weaker than they actually are. The MMA fighter makes strikes at approximately 2:20 and 2:50, which are followed a few seconds later by a 'crack' sound. That had to hurt!)
I heard this video being discussed on a podcast and one of the people commenting said “You know what these people are missing in their lives? They’re missing people who really love them.” And it makes sense to me. Before that old man stepped into the ring to be battered by a fit, highly-trained young fighter, where was this guy’s wife to say “Honey… you don’t have magic powers!” Where were his real friends, as opposed to his students who were so heavily influenced by his charisma that they fell into the belief system he was promoting, unable to discern fantasy from reality? If I announced that I could fly and that I was going to prove it tomorrow by gathering a crowd together at the Empire State Building to see my amazing demonstration where I will leap from the roof, flap my arms and soar around the city’s skyline, I think a lot of people would probably turn up to view the spectacle, a lot of people probably just wouldn’t care, and a few people who really cared about me would say “Blake... you can’t fly. No seriously, you can’t! Don’t do this, PLEASE!!” The people who care are the ones that give you the reality check.
So why is it that when somebody is about to do something that is clearly harmful or wrong or dangerous do we keep quiet if their reason for doing it is based on a non-evidence based belief? There comes a point where you have to be brave and accept that by speaking out, some people aren’t gonna like what you have to say. My “coming out”, as I called it in the title of this section is about coming out as a skeptic, borrowed, of course, from the now common phrase used when gay or bisexual people become open about their sexuality. Why is it important to come out? Any “out” gay person will tell you that: you need to be true to yourself. Putting myself in their position, I can’t imagine what it’d be like to spend a whole lifetime pretending to be one thing when really you’re something else, maybe even getting married and having kids, and all the time knowing that you can never have the life you really want simply because you can’t just be open and honest. In some small way, we can all identify with that. There are aspects of all of us that we don’t want to make public for fear of how others will see us or how our views or opinions might upset those around us. Reading those books gave me the confidence to start speaking more openly about the things I believe in.
Happiness
The unexamined life is not worth living… - Socrates
I have never really respected myself. How can you respect yourself when you know something is wrong and yet you go along with it anyway, or keep quiet about it? You really get to the point where you think “what is the point in me being here?” And really, if you go along like that, there is no point. For many, many years I just couldn't see the point in living: not in the seriously depressed sense - I was actually quite happy for the majority of the time - but in the “existentialist crisis” sense. I just felt like there was no point. Whenever I sat and really thought deeply and philosophically about things, that was always my conclusion: there is no point. I might as well be dead. I hung on though because my survival instinct was too strong; and besides, there was always enough going on to distract me: there was a lot of fun to be had and quite often I had it! I had friends that made me laugh, things coming up that I could get involved in and look forward to. I had a pretty good life. But always, always lacking that self-respect. The root of that feeling of lack of self-respect comes from feeling unable to muster the courage to say what's really on your mind for fear of being judged, or upsetting people. When I finally found that courage, everything changed. I could be 100% open and honest. I never felt judged. My parents (I was living at home at the time) said later that around that time they noticed changes in me that they couldn’t quite explain. I certainly felt more confident and happy with the new-found comfort I had with myself. In the midst of that time, I remember thinking “It really is a beautiful world after all!” I put that on my phone as a welcome note a few years ago so that I would see it every time I switched my phone back on again. It was my reminder that if I ever felt down again to remember those feelings that I had when I was being at my most open and honest, the most important being a feeling that I could go through another twenty-odd years of feeling the way I did my whole life just for this feeling again. This is worth everything. Every moment of pain, every feeling of self-doubt, everything bad ever ever ever in the past twenty-odd years because I feel like this right now! I don’t switch my phone off very often, so it’s rare that I see it and I always forget it’s there, but every time that I do see it, it works. No matter how shit I’m feeling at the time, no matter how crap my day has been, it reminds me of that time and how amazing life can feel.
I have somebody now who understands me and will support me and give me the confidence I need to speak plainly when it’s necessary and to live my life the way that I see as right: myself.
As I go through my life now I will say things that may lose me friends, things that might get me in trouble, things that will upset the people I care about the most. But I won’t stop saying them. If my friend thinks he can fight using the power of “qi”, I will give him the reality check he needs to avoid getting his face smashed in; I’ll be the voice that shatters a friend’s belief that they can fly if it’ll stop them leaping out of a window; I’ll explain how “alternative medicine” works to somebody who is trying something whacky because they’re afraid of getting the operation that their doctor says they need.
I hope I won’t end up alone. I have a lot of love to give and I want to give it as much as I can. But I know that I’m setting myself up for a bumpy ride and whoever wants to join me better be prepared for the same thing. Maybe I’ll never find someone like that.
But I will have that self-respect. And I’ll be happy.
I’m happy now…. And life is definitely worth living.
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
- Henry David Thoreu
(Final point)
This has been tough to write and I freely admit that there may be some mistakes in there. If I’ve got anything factually wrong, or made any mistakes in my reasoning, then please comment and criticise. I don’t claim any authority on any of these matters, this is just the way that things seem to me. However, I have put a lot of thought into this, so if you do criticise, make sure you get the logic right. I’ll spot it if you don’t.
