Won't Get Fooled Again: Oh Really?

Last Monday was April Fool’s Day, I think it may be my favourite day of the year. Why you may well ask? Well because we all fall for them, no matter how clever we may think we are; we all get suckered into believing the nonsense from time to time, no matter how clever or rational we may think we are. I love April Fools Day because it brings us down to right size, to our fully human level, it reminds us that we are not as clever as we may think we are, it keeps us humble, it reminds us that we are fully human.

My favourite one this year was not actually an April Fool by design and actually occurred before the official date, in fact it was launched just a few days before Easter (I'm sure that someone will argue that it wasn't one as it did not occur on the official date, well who cares? It certainly worked like one). It was a meme about Ishtar, a Babylonian fertility God who the poster claimed Easter was named after. Now this went viral within a few days and was all over the internet. I received several postings myself and those of an anti-religious bent really went to town on it. Stephen Fry and his followers spread it all over twitter. Some 70,000 facebook followers of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science shared it with anyone in their circles. People just went crazy over it and seemed to use it as a launching pad to attack Christianity, during its most important week of the year. The meme itself read:

“This is Ishtar”, pronounced “Easter”: Easter was originally the celebration of Ishtar, the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility and sex. Her symbols (like the egg and the bunny) were and still are fertility and sex symbols (or did you actually think eggs and bunnies had anything to do with the resurrection?). After Constantine decided to Christianize the Empire, Easter was changed to represent Jesus. But at its roots, Easter (which is how you pronounce Ishtar) is all about celebrating fertility and sex.”

(I wonder if anyone reading this blog fell for this one) 

The fact is that very little of this is true. While very few people doubt that Easter is a blend of both pagan and Christian traditions it has absolutely nothing to do with this Assyrian and Babylonian goddess. There have been several rebuttles of this over the last few days, showing that just a little bit of research into the subject would have revealed the utter nonsense that was being claimed. It was eventually removed from The Dawkins Foundation site and others too. I do hope that in the future Stephen Fry brings this up on his excellent quiz show OI, it would be a wonderful act of humilty on his part if he did.

This is a link to my favourite critique. I take issue with a couple of points, but it is more or less accurate, the writer certainly did not disable her rational faculties while writing it.

http://bellejarblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/easter-is-not-named-after-ishtar-and-other-truths-i-have-to-tell-you/

Now what really made me think about all this was the frenzy of excitement that it brought about in so many people who seemingly cast aside all reason and sense just to attack a religion and those who follow it in its many guises. Some of the comments I read were so hate filled it was disturbing, especially from people who claim reason and understanding, there was no sign of any of it. As a couple of friends of mine who are themselves atheists have said they were appalled by it, adding further that they really dislike the kind of anti-religious zealotry espoused by Professor Dawkins and his brand of atheism.

Now while all this was going on Lord Carey, the former Arch Bishop of Canterbury was also all over the news claiming that Christians were being marginalised in this country. He has been roundly criticised for this in many quarters. Certainly it seems difficult for a man who has a seat in the House of Lord, just because of his former position, to claim that he is a marginalised member of society. That said there does appear to be an increase in anti-religious feeling both in this country and around the world. It has impacted my own Unitarian tradition too, we who claim to be a free religion. Only a few weeks ago the Wayside pulpit at Altrincham was defaced. It had originally read “You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist”, nothing offensive in that you would think. This had been covered up another poster that read instead “Religion Is A Lie: Now Stop Worrying And Go Enjoy Your Life”. No doubt this was inspired by the British Humanist Association Campaign, fronted by professor Dawkins, of a couple of years ago. If you remember the campaign placed posters on buses up and down the country reading “There’s Probably No God: Now Stop Worrying And Go Enjoy Your Life”. Now I’m all for people stopping worrying and enjoying their lives and people are entitled to put whatever posters they like on buses. That said I’m not sure it’s ok to deface others open and loving messages or to maliciously and aggressively attack them in other ways. This is especially so when you haven’t even got your facts straight and your unreasoning prejudice just leads to hatred. How can anyone justify that?

Anyway back to the original subject...

What I really love about April Fools Day is that it saves us from our greatest danger “Hubris”

Hubris is the Ancient Greek word for over stretching ourselves; it translates as arrogance or overwhelming pride. The ancient Greeks saw Hubris as the very root of tragedy. Their tragic dramas, played out at their religious festivals centred on human beings, often rulers who forgot their human limitations. In these tragedies the audiences were reminded of the dangers of acting like immortals or Gods. They taught the value of knowing themselves, who they really are and to know what it is to be truly human.

Hubris of course manifests itself in many forms. The one place it appears where you’d think it ought not to is in religion. Yet it’s probably more obvious there than in any other area of life. Those who believe they have a direct link to God and know not only what God’s will for themselves is, but what it is for everyone else do appear to be suffering from the worst form of hubris. My response to such thinking is usually “Come off it who do you think you are?” By trying to convert a person to your way of believing seems like the worst kind of Hubris to me. Although of course if I’m honest I’ve suffered from it myself from time to time. I could be accused of it now, while writing this blog. I do hope that when I am critical of other people's beliefs I do so in a loving way and I do not lose my rational faculties. I'm sure I fail from time to time, but then I am far from perfect. What do I know?

Sceptics also fall into the trap of hubris too. To belittle someone’s genuine faith by calling it a superstition or merely a crutch is deeply disrespectful. It certainly does not honour or respect their humanity. No one can ever truly know what is to have walked in another’s shoes and to have lived their lives. To be smug about one’s personal so called rationalism seems like the worst kind of arrogance to me. The question I’d like to ask is why we need to spend our time proving what someone else genuinely believes as wrong or false or immature, wherever we find ourselves on the faith spectrum? That said, once again, I have to hold up my hand and admit that it’s not something I’m immune from. As I heard someone say many years ago “To be right you don’t have to make anybody else wrong” 

I need to remember that one more often. “To be right you don’t have to make anybody else wrong.”

Sadly so many of us spend our time attempting to do so...We do not "have" to, but so often we do.

Hubris is an insidious beast. We often fail to see it in ourselves. Because Hubris is so well hidden in ourselves it can have a nasty habit of sneaking up on us. Why you may well ask? Well because it is neatly packaged as the virtue of truthfulness and righteousness.

Fortunately there exists a healthy antidote to hubris, humility!

Humility may well be humanities greatest virtue. It is essentially about accepting our human limitations. By doing so we become teachable, we learn from others, which leads not only to us improving our own lives but the world that we inhabit but do not own;  which in turn leads us to nurture and develop healthy relationships with other people. By recognising that we are not, nor do we speak for God we will open ourselves up to voice of transcendence as it speaks to us in life. In doing so we will be honouring life itself as sacred, which will hopefully lead to us taking care of what is our responsibility; our own lives mind, body and soul, our families, our homes, our friendships, our communities, our planet.

Hubris for me can be the most inhibiting and potentially dangerous delusion a human being can suffer from. In the end it actually stops us living the best life we can. Humility on the other hand helps us to see the truth about ourselves “Warts and all and beauty spots too”. From here we can honestly improve our own lives and those who we share this spinning planet with. It achieves more than that though. It draws us closer together not only to one another but to this amazing universe that we play a small but vital role in. The dangers stem from losing sight of this and believing that this universe and rest of humanity revolves around us and is there to do our bidding.

We all know so little and we can all easily be hoodwinked into believing almost anything, no matter how clever and rational we think we are. As the Ishtar meme seemed to prove as it went viral last week. So many people who claimed to live by reason and science loved it as it allowed them to pour scorn on those folk they believed were irrational and stupid, well in the end it is they who ended up with egg on their faces and looked both irrational and hate filled.

Oh well it can happen to us all. I think that’s why I love April Fool’s Day so much, because it reminds me we aren’t as clever as we think we are, we are still fully human and truth be told we know so very little about most things. By the way that’s a good thing, because it leaves us open to experiences way beyond our imaginations.

I’m going to end this little chip of a blog with some words from my old favourite. Good old Forrest Church, words on humility and openness...oh and then a fantastic clip of a fabulous song...

“In every field of human inquiry, ignorance increases as knowledge grows. The Greek philosopher Socrates once said, “I am the most ignorant man in Athens.” He wasn’t indulging in false modesty. He was pointing out that others, knowing far less, had no idea how ignorant they were. Socrate’s ignorance, the knowledge of how much remained for him to learn, expanded in direct proportion to his learning. Of both belief and knowledge, the same is true for us. When reflecting on several years of contemplation on the origins of the cosmos, one cosmologist sighed, “It’s not only queerer than we imagined; it’s queerer than can be imagined.”

“Whether informed by religion or by science, our minds cannot unwrap life’s mystery. This is why, in offering evidence to corroborate religious truth, true believers may more honestly be accused of being too rational than too irrational. They are not alone. We all use our minds to figure out things that can’t be deciphered by anything as small as our minds. On the one hand, the attempt is a noble one. Trying to decode life’s mystery is what makes us human.”

“Balancing these two apparent contradictions. I base my own theology on contrasting principles: openness and humility. No ceiling limits the expansion of the human heart. Yet, humility teaches that when death visits, we will have attained only a flickering notion of what life and death are all about. The light we discover will be framed by darkness. But, when we ponder the nature of our shared mortality, meaning may begin to emerge. Not unlike when we leave a warm, brightly lit room, go outdoors, and contemplate a dark winter sky: one by one the stars come out.”

Holy Fools: Uncommon Sense

The blog below was originally published on "April Fools Day" 2012, when it fell on the same day as "Palm Sunday"...

“Life is too serious to be taken too seriously”  I can’t really remember where I was when this first dawned on me or who first said it to me, or where I first heard it. It is though a line that keeps on re-emerging into my consciousness. “Life is too serious to be taken too seriously”.

I suspect it originates from that great Victorian wit Oscar Wilde who said “Life is too important to be taken seriously”. Maybe, maybe not. I know that they are words that I keep on remembering.

Today is Palm Sunday, but it is also the 1^st of April, “April Fools Day”. I am sure that we’ve all fallen for April fools Jokes over the years. I think the most famous one must be the Panorama "Spaghetti Tree Hoax" of 1957. The program showed images of spaghetti growing on trees. Pasta was a not a popular dish in those days and apparently hundreds of viewers phoned the BBC as a result asking how they could grow their own spaghetti. Many years later CNN described the broadcast as “The biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled.”

No one is really sure of the origins of April Fool’s Day. There are references made to it in Jeffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written in the 14^th century and there are festival of fools that can be found throughout most cultures dating back to ancient times. I suspect that the modern day custom has its origins in sixteenth century France. In 1564, under the reign of Charles IX, the Gregorian Calendar was adopted. Prior to this date New Year had been celebrated, with the giving of gifts, on the vernal Equinox on March 21^st. New Year now fell on 1^st of January. People were now expected to give gifts on New Year’s day and they also began to give mock gifts on 1^st April. It seemed that many folk resisted the change and those who persisted with the old ways were victimised and had pranks played on them. These people became known as an “April Fish”. April Fish are pinned on people's backs to this day, on April 1st.

There is great wisdom in folly. The fool can reveal deeper truths that common wisdom appears blind to. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians chapter 3 v 18 makes reference to the wise fool. He said “Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise.” Every culture, throughout human history, has a version of the “Holy Fool” The fool fulfils a vital role , he counteracts human arrogance and pomposity, he protects humanity from hubris. He breaks down the order of things and his crazy outspoken talk questions what is regarded as common sense; he reveals a new kind of sense, an uncommon sense. His unconventional appearance exposes the pride and vanity of those around him and his seeming foolhardy loyalty and love of hopeless causes undercuts the self interest of those who possess power. That said this does make him vulnerable and at the mercy of those who hold power in this world. The "Holy Fool" is often abused.

One of my favourite “Holy Fools” is Nasrudin. “The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin” by the Sufi Mystic Idries Shah, chronicles his adventures. I love Nasrudin because he is funny, but also because he possesses uncommon sense. He often uses his apparent foolishness to his advantage. Below are a couple of tales based on his wisdom...

One day Nasruddin saw a man sitting by the roadside sobbing uncontrollably.

"Why are you crying, my friend?" asked Nasruddin.

"Because all I own is in this bag" said the man, holding up a tatty little canvas bag.

"Just look. all I have are a couple of rotting pieces of fruit, some stale bread, a few rags, a bit of old rope and few coins. That's it. I don't own anything else, and I'm so miserable."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Nasruddin, sympathetically, and he immediately grabbed the man's bag and set off running at top speed down the road.

"Oh, now I have absolutely nothing!" wailed the poor man, but he picked himself up from the ground, and began walking wearily in the direction Nasruddin had gone.

"If I can find the thief, maybe he'll take pity on me and give me my bag back," he thought to himself.

He'd walked about a mile when he saw his bag lying in the middle of the road. He ran towards it, picked it up, kissed it and shouted out, "Hurray, I've got my bag and all my belongings back. Thank you, thank you!"

"How strange." said Nasruddin, as he appeared from behind a bush. "how strange that the bag which a few minutes ago was making you cry is now making you ecstatically happy."

Nasrudin met an old friend whom he had not seen for twenty years. They sat down together in the cafe and talked over old times. “did you ever get married Nasruddin?” asked the friend.

“No I’m afraid I didn’t.”

“Why not? I’ve been married many years and I’ve never regretted it.”

“Well”, said Nasruddin, “I was always looking for the perfect woman. I wanted my wife to be beautiful, intelligent, and sensible.”

“And you never found her?”

“I thought I had, when I was twenty. Her name was Ablah.

She was beautiful, just the kind of woman I like, but I’m afraid she wasn’t very intelligent, and her language was atrocious! I was embarrassed to be with her! She certainly wasn’t the perfect woman.”

“Was she your only girlfriend?”

“No. When I was twenty-five I met a woman called Bahira. She was good looking and intelligent, but she wasn’t very sensible. She spent all my money on frivolous things, and she couldn’t even boil an egg! She wasn’t the perfect woman either.”

“Were there any more?”

“Only one. At thirty I met Haddiyah and she was truly a gift from God! She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and the most intelligent. What’s more she was prudent and sensible, a good cook, and a brilliant conversationalist.”

“She sounds like the perfect woman you were looking for.”

“Then why didn’t you marry her?”

“Unfortunately, she was looking for the perfect man!”

It is not always easy being the fool, holy or otherwise. Just think of the Jester in King Lear. He does not gain the King’s favour by revealing the truth about him. The King threatens to whip the fool when he refuses to tell the whole truth and the fool responds by saying that he wishes that he could lie. King Lear then replies by saying he will whip him if he does lie, to which the fool utters these  immortal words...“They want to whip me for telling the truth, you want to whip me for lying, and sometimes I’m even whipped for keeping quiet. I’d rather be anything besides a fool.”

I’m sure we’ve all felt this frustration at times. It will hurt if we tell the truth, it will hurt if we tell a lie and it will hurt if we remain silent. No it’s not always easy playing the fool, Holy or otherwise.

Below is the "Holy Fool" scene from the opera "Boris Godunov"

So much of what Jesus is purported to have said is cloaked in mystery. To most logically minded people it may not even make sense, but what’s wrong with a bit of mystery? Mystery can often reveal deeper, hidden truths. He said: lend money but don’t expect to get it back; love your enemies; that the poor are blessed by God; that the person who gave the least, actually gave the most; that you should invite strangers to your party; that the tiniest seeds grow into the biggest plants. Yes Jesus was the King of paradox, he spoke in riddles. His sayings shocked and surprised those who heard them, because they reversed the order of the day. I suspect that Jeremy Paxman would have struggled with him. He answered questions with questions or with a story which on the surface does not necessarily make sense. The point is that he was trying to make the questioner think for themselves. He mocked religious piousness and hypocrisy. Long before the story of the emperor’s new clothes he pointed out who was dressed and who was undressed. He definitely displayed uncommon sense.

When I say life is too serious to be taken too seriously I am not being flippant and I am not denying the harsh realities of life. I am very aware of them. In the examples I have shared and many others, the life of the holy fool is far from easy, they are all hurt and abused at one time or another. Things are constantly going wrong, they are made to look foolish and are often embarrassed. There is a great deal of humour in the stories, but they are by no means a barrel of laughs.

We need the “Holy Fools”, on so many levels. We need humour, we need laughter, we need someone to point out when the king is in the all together. We need someone to reveal that uncommon sense that is so easy to miss.

On Palm Sunday Jesus was mocking the triumphant entry of the victorious Roman emperors and the people knew this. The Roman’s had conquered the entire known world of that day. They imposed their rule of law over the Jewish people and their religious leaders simply went along with it, deep down the people knew this. Jesus broke through their denial. His entry was a protest, but one filled with humour, a bit like a modern day flash mob I suppose. He was criticising what he saw as the hypocrisy of the time, but he did it with love. He was not simply mocking people for the sake of it and poking fun at the defenceless in some crude or crass manner. He was motivated by pure love and I think that this is the real key to the power of his message.

Humour is a vital tool for pointing the truth out to someone. Why? Because sometimes pointing out the direct truth can be too painful. The truth can sometimes be too unpalatable, so we need to wash it down with a spoon full of sugar or a good dose of humour. Jesus and others like him were great teachers because of how they revealed these uncommon truths that most folks wouldn’t or couldn’t face up to. They did not merely present facts or rules, they told stories, made jokes or gave us some unforgettable examples. By conveying a tiny mustard seed of truth, a great truth eventually sprouted and grew and thus uncommon sense truly did flower into common sense.

I think this is the message of Palm Sunday and April Fool’s Day; this seeking of the uncommon, unobvious sense; this looking for the truth that is not easily found. The Buddhists teach that the beautiful lotus flower grows in the most unexpected of places, in the muck. Well maybe it’s the same with all of life, maybe this is the ultimate joke. Maybe this is what we all fail to see and maybe just maybe it takes a holy fool to point this out to us.

Maybe the problem is that we’ve spent too long seeking after common sense when in reality the truth is only revealed through un-commonsense?

Maybe that commonwealth of love is already here amongst us we just have not yet got eyes that can see it or ears that can hear it?