Essay: The meaning of the “Sacred”

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The meaning of the “Sacred”

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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#Religion #God #Worship

Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

The meaning of the “Sacred”

Let us take “the sacred” to be that which is accepted (by an individual, culture, etc.) to provide an ultimate reality, value, and meaning for life (Ludwig 3). Although there are some who believe that life holds no meaning and that nothing can be proved, these same people usually choose to keep living and hold some criteria that serves as their basis for making choices. I would propose that a sense of the sacred is universal among self-reflective beings.

With the above definition, “anything” can be sacred. For instance, for the very secular, scientific truth may be held as sacred. Anything that merits the use of ceremony may also be endowed with sacred attachment. In religion, baptism and weddings may actually be called sacraments. In a wider perspective, life is so remarkable, the unlikely conditions that make our life-supporting environment possible are so precious, and the potential of our creative nature is so inspiring, that everything should be sacred.

An unusual predominance of such feelings of sacred fullness and identification was first associated with epileptics in the late 1800s. Since then, a wide range of scientific experiments

Essay: Moral dilemmas of World War II

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Moral dilemmas of World War II

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

Moral dilemmas of World War II

World War II had an entirely different character than The Great War. Advancing technology continued to increase the destructive power of armies and their ability to project that power, often in sudden and unexpected ways. World War II became alarmingly dangerous. The determination to definitively end this war posed a great many strategic and morally equivocal choices.

World War I followed centuries of colonialism and national consolidation. At that point, a bunch of bully-boys were ready and anxious to play king-of-the-mountain. Some of them played very rough and everybody got hurt. For the most part, they came away determined to play nicer in the future. Most of the world believed that they had learned the lessons of full-out nationalism.

As things worked out, social conventions (and faltering economics) had developed to the point that colonies could attempt (and usually gain) independence. World War II played out the end to large-scale overt military conquest when a pair of hard-core bad boys

Essay: Nationalism, cultural assimilation, and pluralistic globalization — or The Ultimate Imperialism

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Nationalism, cultural assimilation, and pluralistic globalization — or The Ultimate Imperialism

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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#immigration
#Imperialism

Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

Nationalism, cultural assimilation, and pluralistic globalization — or The Ultimate Imperialism

In the past, as one nation conquered another, assimilation policies affected public welfare. Where deliberate steps were taken to introduce mainstream society and outside cultures to each other, the conqueror benefited from increased diversity and reduced rebellion.

The Ottoman Janissary system seems similar to the Assyrian practice of assimilating and dispersing conquered peoples. For instance, the Israelite Daniel and his companions were taken into the court of the Assyrian king for education and eventual responsibility in governing his empire.

The millet system’s tolerance for other religions was practical, as people are most likely to fight for the religious practices that are ingrained in their world views. Who would you more likely want to displease; your God or some remote king-at-this-time?

Taking the best and brightest children for government service assured that

Essay: Known knowns and unknown unknowns

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Known knowns and unknown unknowns

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Donald #Rumsfeld on Known knowns and unknown unknowns

Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

Known knowns and unknown unknowns

In 2002, the press took exception to a comment by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. However, I think he was onto something important…

“…there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
Donald Rumsfeld – Defense Department briefing, February 12, 2002  (Federal par. 160)

This quotation has been rendered in several minor variations. They all fall short by one of exhausting the matrix of known and knowable. But, that is not critical to the point that he was making. The version (below) that I transcribed from a video of his briefing includes the sound of an audience starting to laugh. The reporters may have been anticipating questioning him sharply about unknown knowns:

“… there are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns; there are things we do not know we don’t know.”           
ibid (transcribed by Satterlee—italics added)

Secretary Rumsfeld was nearing the end of a protracted and confrontational news conference at the time that he made this statement. Reporters had repeatedly parsed his words and perversely tried to turn them against him. He had just defended a ludicrous challenge to the Pentagon’s attentiveness to Iraq. A questioner asserts that, “…there is no evidence of a direct link between Baghdad and some of these terrorist organizations.”

Rumsfeld, evidently getting testy, introduces

Essay: How to Build a Joke (No joking, I’m serious.)

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How to Build a Joke (No joking, I’m serious.)

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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#Comedy #Humor 

Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

How to Build a Joke (No joking, I’m serious.)

For most people, a good joke is like pornography or the Tao—they cannot give you a good definition, but they know it when they see it.

Building good jokes requires attention to context, discrimination, structure, and activation of a special set of neural responses. So, the first thing I need to do is explain how a joke works. After all, how are you going to create an original version of something if you do not have a grasp of the fundamental internal mechanisms, the secret ingredients in the special sauce?

There is something wrong with a good joke. A good joke produces immediate, obvious, and alarming symptoms of acute pathology. The victim’s face contorts and begins involuntary convulsions that may spread to the entire body. Respiration becomes disrupted and spastic. Blood pressure and heart rate go up suddenly. Food may be aspirated and beverages may be expelled from the nose. If you were not aware of the stimulus, the physiological reaction might lead you to assume overt acute pathology.

As it happens, strokes and certain other brain lesions have been known to trigger what is known in medical literature as “pathological laughter and crying” (PLC). Oddly, the same small brain area is responsible for both laughing and crying. This is consistent; we have all known, and possibly been offended by, someone who laughed suddenly when

Essay: Psychic travels in my otherwhere

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Psychic travels in my otherwhere

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

Psychic travels in my otherwhere

I have always enjoyed hiking, usually alone, in the woods. Twice now, when I had the chance, I have moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina. My wife and I purchased our present home because it was isolated and out of view of other houses. We cherish our “hole in the woods.” I could walk out the back door and follow paths, or just my nose, for miles. These woods are my comfort and respite from the anxiety, noise, and stress of living in cities.

Years ago, while searching for peace, I read a recommendation to create a detailed, imaginary, inner place of quiet refuge. Sitting down with a sketch pad, I developed a plan. It was filled with resources that I could only imagine. It has been my private safe place now for many years. It is always ready and available, but has to be approached methodically. I have never taken anyone there with me.

I am walking, slightly uphill, along a path. It may be in the rolling hills of Kentucky along the Appalachian Trail. It is late spring but the morning air is still tart. The trail is well-trodden and about 4 feet wide. There is enough room for two people to pass without crowding or having to pause to acknowledge the other. The path is densely lined so that no horizon is visible past this tunnel through the trees. Last season’s leaves still mulch the way, sliding gracefully ahead to an infinite destination. 

Every footstep is muted, the birds are hushed, no breeze disturbs the cathedral trees. Every step is comfortable and smooth. My small daypack seems weightless. The resolute scent of wild mint lifts the feet, the heart, and the spirit. A small squirrel watches from four paces off the way and is

Essay: When you say “WE,” just who do you mean?

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When you say “WE,” just who do you mean?

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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#fundamentalism #authoritarianism #human #development #integral

Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

When you say “WE,” just who do you mean?

Family is always, obviously, “WE.” But stopping there just puts too many limits on the culture that we can achieve. If WE is only family, you need a strict father or tribal chief to enforce order and to lead YOUR cousins on plundering raids against OTHER families or tribes.

If your WE is too small, you have to always arm yourselves and be vigilant to protect your life and property against the next small group that defines “US” as just “OUR family” or “OUR tribe.” 

Without broader cooperation, life just becomes too hard and too dangerous and it often becomes necessary to attack other families or tribes to survive. Our philosophy becomes, “If we do not stand for ourselves, first, foremost, and always, we stand to fall.” If WE is too small, it is moral to take what YOU can from THEM because OUR needs are more important to US because survival is always the highest value.

Or, do you get your values and sense of who you are from a larger association, community of faith, or regional alliance? Do you identify primarily as Scandinavian Lutherans or Southern Baptists? Is YOUR version of God the ONLY TRUE God? My, how comforting that

Essay: A personal transformation that shocks my family

Gave up #Religion

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A personal transformation that shocks my family

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

A personal transformation that shocks my family

MOST OF YOU DON'T KNOW that my political participation and the tone of my writing is particularly shocking for those who know the deeply conservative evangelical fundamentalist Christian faith in which I was raised.

I was taught to be radically non-political, with the certainty that God is Love and Satan is the false god exercising power over all governments of men and all other religious beliefs. We understood that only Christ's Kingdom could restore humanity to peace, security, and the approval of God.

I deliberately married a woman with these same beliefs and we taught them to our children. I also taught these things inside the congregation and to the public. As my certainty weakened, my family, faith, work, and physical and mental health all unraveled together. Having survived the loss of all that, I pretty-much started from scratch.

It's been over ten years and I'm still fragile but somewhat better now, thank you. Under stress, I have Tourette ticks; I hoot, moo, and chirp. Thankfully,