Death, Rebirth, and the skeptic (metaphorically speaking)

I've got a full blown case of Halloweenitis now. Damn, but I love this time of year.

Mostly, I love the symbolism of this time of year, and of the whole holiday, especially in its pagan roots. Death! Rebirth! Renewal! A time of transition, of liminality. In-betweenness. Which, really, for humans can be scary stuff. We like things nice and settled, mostly. Only life doesn't quite work that way, does it? We always get hit with those unsettled times. The transition moments, when for a bit it's hard to say whether we are this or that, or maybe something else entirely.

Those transitions, that's the stuff of horror and other scary stories. Maybe why we like it so much. It's not just the meditation on death and all that -- it's the dealing with moments of change and transformation.

Watching the atheist community, you get to see a lot of that. I'm one of those members who never did the religion thing much. But many, of course, did. They had to grapple with something that was a huge part of their life. Let go of it, or maybe even have it torn away. And often enough thrust...nowhere. Into Limbo, an in-betweeny place with no sense of whether there is something to be had on the other side, or if there is even an other side.

I have so much respect for people in that boat, the ones who have made that journey. Because that's some scary shit. It takes courage. And it strikes me that this is what lies at the heart of skepticism -- embracing that liminality. Refusing the easy answers, the certainty, the solid ground, and setting out into the unknown, never knowing for sure if there is another shore. Or, really, not seeking a shore. Just seeking. A journey with no end point. No enlightenment, only the promise of always being enlightened.

And Halloween, Autumn, this whole topsy-turvy time of year, it's a good time to meditate on that. Embrace it. Let the wildness of the season sink in and embrace the change. Knowing that even as things die -- our certainties and beliefs and safe little thoughts -- new things will be born. Scary shit, but fun. Me, I've been embracing it a bit the last week or so. Doing some writing like I haven't been doing for a while, thinking and planning, finding ways to upend my life and kill a few things so that new things can grow.

Skepticism and Freethought as a Lifestyle

Here's the thing I always have to remind myself of: this freethinking thing, this rationalism and skepticism, it isn't a hat to put on and take off as I like. It doesn't work like that.

We see it all the time. Think of your Francis Collins types, who play the skeptical thought game as a matter of course in their jobs as scientists, but find ways to shove it aside in other matters. Atoms shall be questioned, the resurrection of Jesus shall not. I mention Collins because he has been a topic of conversation i

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n the atheist, skeptical and scientific blogospheres since his nomination for the NIH post. While his professional credentials are impeccable, his naive pronouncements on his religion are baffling when seen through the light of his day job and the mindset it demands. It's all a bit Jekyll and Hyde, really, only without the bloody murders. One moment he is Mr. Science, and the next he is Mr. Evangelical.
What's important though, I think, is that we are all Francis Collins to one extent or another. No matter how hard we try to be rational, to "freethink," to engage our skepticism in all things, we fail. And that's okay, really. We're human, it's going to happen. It's the larger process that's important. It's part of the permanent learning curve. If you ever think you have it figured it out, that you've "arrived," you really, really haven't.


I can't rag on Collins too hard, because really, I'm not much better. In my case it isn't a matter of setting aside skepticism to protect my religion -- it's setting aside skepticism to protect my bloody little illusions about myself. I've struggled, for years, with depression, anxiety. General screwed-upness. I've made bad choices, set up bad patterns of behavior. I hurt myself really, really badly in the process.

The last few years, I've been piecing it all back together, finding a way past the stupid thinking. That, let me tell you, is some hard work. Those stupid thoughts are habits, burned into your brain, and getting rid of them is a long, torturous process. It takes constant skepticism -- asking yourself questions all the time: is this right, is this true, is this real? Is this what I really want?  And sometimes, frankly, I slack off and go into a minor nosedive. I turn off the skepticism, don't question the assumptions I make about myself and my life, and usually end up the worse for wear.

I've been in one of those recently -- nothing major, nothing that will involve needless melodrama. But enough that over the weekend -- confronted with one small but frustrating problem created by it all -- I hit a minor funk, followed quickly by a flurry of thinking and planning and changing things to get back on track.

It's hard to make the skepticism a habit. Our brains just aren't designed that way, at least not completely. But it's nice to know that I've succeeded, in a small way. That I can apply it to all the areas of my life, not just to academic questions of science and social policy. Not all the time. Not completely. Not always with great success. But I'm working on it.