Atheism and Death

One of the hardest things for anyone who does not believe in an afterlife, is to console someone who is bereaved.  What are we to tell them?

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God has called your loved one, to be with him?

He's in a better place now?

We'll all meet together in some happy place someday?

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The best we can do is to listen to them; identify with their grief, and suffer with them; show them our love for them; offer to help with their duties, if possible.  Recently bereaved find relief in talking about the dead one, so listening is important.  But other than helping in practical ways, I wouldn't know where to go to get spiritual help.

There have been atheists among us for millennia.  Many of our greatest thinkers have been closet atheists.  But when they meditated upon death, they often used Christian--or theistic, anyway-- imagery: an immortal soul, and a hall of heroes.

What Shall We Do With Our Savings?

Long ago, when I retired, I met with the advisor the retirement company assigned to me, to decide what to do with my retirement savings.  (My employer and I had been giving them a little bit each month, which they had been investing in corporations on my behalf, and hopefully by the time I retired, there would be so much money that I could take a bit each month, and as long as my wife and I lived, we would not run out of money.)

Now, the retirement company--any of them, really--offer a deal.  They offer to take all your savings in a lump sum (scary, huh?) in exchange for which, they give you an income for life.  No matter how long you live!

They'll tell me in advance how much I'd get each month; it would depend on how much I gave them.  This is called an annuity.  The agreement is called buying an annuity.  It is the responsible thing to do, if you don't want to gamble with your retirement.

Alternatively, you could leave your savings invested in the stocks and bonds the company invested it in, and hope that the stock market would not take a nose dive.

Well, guess which road I took? 😭😂

Ñobody knows (excuse my Spanish) what's going to happen; the economy could rebound (probably not very soon), and anyway, the retirement company will hedge their investments by buying bonds, which are loans that companies take from my savings, at a negotiated interest rate, which will not dive like the stock market.  All sorts of crazy things could happen, many of which are bad for my savings.

If I had to do it all over again, here's what I think I should do.  I should divide my savings in half.  With half, buy an annuity, which will give me an annual income of half what I would have gotten if I had bought an annuity with all my money.  The rest of my savings I would keep where they have been, going to the moon with the crazy stock market.  This way, if the stock market goes sick and is on life-support, I won't be completely helpless.

I know lots of friends who know all about stocks, and who are in the insurance business (which depends heavily on the stock market), but I hesitate to get their advice.  Nobody has lived through a recession as crazy as the one on the horizon, and they cannot advise; they just don't have the background to do so.  So this 50-50 strategy is the best we can do, I think, in the total absence of reliable information.

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The So-called Economy

Continuing a pattern that has really never worked for me, I'm writing about something I don't know anything about.  Why should I change now?

Like lots of other retirees, I am living off savings, which are managed by a retirement company, and these savings have declined by about 20% since they peaked.  So that tells you just how much my thoughts are worth.  If I knew what I was talking about, I would have requested the company to move the money into precious metals, or bonds, or just cashed it out, or something.  Now I'm going to have to hope that I die before the money runs out!  (Just kidding.  Or ... am I?)

See, the 'value' that my savings is supposed to have is what the stocks that I own are valued at.  (In principle, I can sell them for that price if I act fast.). But these prices are really based on what investors think they're going to be worth.  Right now, investors don't know what's going to happen, so their guess at the prices of stocks is low.  If they think that trump is going to be president again, and give big investors a tax cut, the stock market would go through the roof, and the value of my stocks, too.  But trust me, I'd rather lose half the value of my stocks than have the afore-mentioned team get the white House.

At one time, the value of the dollar was tied to gold.  But not today.  Today dollars are auctioned off, and what the buyers are offering for dollars are the value of them.  Actually, something similar goes on with stocks.  Investors in a lousy mood will be unwilling to buy stocks, so the price goes down.  Once the price going down is observed, the price goes down even more.

After election day, stocks usually go up if Republicans win big.  Investors usually think Republicans are good for business.  If Democrats win, investors will buy stocks in the undertaker's industry, betting that lots of Republicans will be slitting their wrists, or storming the Capitol, or whatever the plan du jour is.

This brilliant idea to base the value of stocks on their asking price--or whatever--makes it impossible to plan.  Retirees have to gamble, and most of us hate to gamble.  We're "risk adverse," as they call it.  My wife and I were asked, some years ago, whether we would prefer to buy an annuity.  This is an interesting idea, where the retirement company signs an agreement to pay us an income for life.  No matter how long we live!  They are gambling that we won't live too long, in which case they keep all the money they've set aside for us.  At the time we were considering this idea, my wife and I were really wondering whether the economy would tank.  If it is likely to tank, the safe decision is to buy that annuity.  If it is likely to keep healthy, it would be better to keep control of our savings.  Well, what do you think we did?  And what do you think happened?  My only consolation is that Trump's stocks must be shrinking too, and faster than mine!  Unless he owns a lot of gold, and you know, be seeing how obsessed he is with gold --i mean, he paints everything gold.  As soon as he buys (or steals) something, he paints it gold.  Good thing the FBI found all those documents before the painters got hold of them!

I have no advice for you.  We don't know enough--or I don't know enough--to advise.  If I were still contributing to my retirement savings, I would be delighted, because the retirement company would be buying up all these low-priced stocks on my behalf, and whenever this economic slump ended, I would be sitting pretty.  So I guess all my young readers would be happy, while other retirees would be just as anxious as I am.  Sucks to be us.

Couch versus Sofa

The words we use in America (or the USA, or just the US, if you insist) are in a deplorable state.  I'm old, and my days is almost done, as Enid Blyton would say, so my level of concern for these things is pretty low, but in the interest of exactness and precision, it makes sense to clarify the meaning of words, when there is ambiguity.

For decades, American have used the words couch and sofa interchangeably.  I think that they ought to mean different things.  But we could use them interchangeably, because using them that way doesn't really do a lot of harm.  I'm going to describe what I think should be how we use them, and my reasoning, and you can take it or leave it.

Many years ago, when affluent men had large, private offices in their homes, it was customary for them to have an upholstered bench along one wall.  At one end was a section, about 18 inches, that was hinged, and could be raised, so that either the person whose office it was, or a patient, could take a nap on it, or even sleep on it overnight.  They were broader than the typical bench; not quite as wide as a single bed, but say three feet wide, and with a moderately soft cushion on which you could get comfortable.  These are couches.  You could, as I said, sleep on them comfortably.  Notably, couches would not have backs, but would have the raised--or raiseable--section at one end, sort of like a chaise.  A chaise would have that portion permanently raised, whereas a couch could be made completely flat if desired.

A sofa is quite a different thing; it is something like an armchair designed for three people, more or less.  Also, it would have a back, and arms.  Also, the seat surface need not be completely horizontal, but angled back like a bucket seat, in which case the seat back would also be slightly reclined.

What most families have in front of the TV is a sofa.  What you have to lie on when you're being psychoanalyzed, is a couch.  Consider that if the seat of a sofa happened to be angled, it would not be comfortable to sleep on.  In contrast, a couch, being a glorified bench, would not have that problem, and indeed one of its functions is precisely to be available for sleeping on.

Well, if any of my readers have been accustomed to using these words in a different way, and find it difficult to conform to my suggested uses, I will not be offended if you do it your way.  I feel that if you have two words, and the distinction between them begins to fade, you have lost a word, and made two words stand for the same thing.  Sometimes this is progress; other times, this is the opposite.

Arch

P.S. I recognize that some illustrations would make this much clearer; I will attempt to persuade the family illustrator to provide some helpful artwork.

About "Profiles in Ignorance""

I read the book Profiles in Ignorance.  It was tough going because it really wasn't a laugh a minute; it was a groan a second.

The followers of trump may have felt that they elected him because he was smart.  But they elected him because he was an outsider, and they did not trust the Washington bureaucracy, which (it seemed to the rank and file of the Republican Party) was often putting in place rules and procedures that were a nuisance.  After all, Trump was often firing these big time players on his TV show, so he could do that very well.  The general belief about Trump's cleverness was from Trump's own statements.  No one in the history of the presidency claimed his own cleverness more than Trump did.

But the real attraction of DJT was his regular guy next door vocabulary, his repetitious speech, and the anti-intellectualism of trump himself.  He could not get his head around why we could not bleach viruses out of people's lungs.  Why we could not be tougher on Iran.  Why we couldn't be nicer to those Saudi princes.

(To be continued.)

Popularity of Christianity

In the last century, John Lennon of the Beatles got a lot of hate when he said that they (The Beatles) were more popular than Jesus Christ.  It may have been true, based on the statistics, but Christians are annoyed by this kind of statement regardless of any truth there may be in it.

In the last few days, a CBS News website has been reporting an opinion that in a decade or so, Christianity may not be the majority religion in the USA.  (I don't know whether that prediction counts the Roman Catholics among the Christians--which in my opinion they should--but this time, I expect a little less hate than with John Lennon.)  Christian leaders, some of whom have been drawn to Christian Leadership because of the fame and the financial rewards, have caused the faithful to be disillusioned with their message.  Hordes of former Christians have left organized religion, and sometimes begun to call themselves atheists, or simply said that they belong to no specific religion or denomination.

Even being an atheist, I believe there is still a philosophical role for Christianity to play.  For years, Christian leaders--for their own inscrutable reasons--downplayed the messages in the Sermon on the Mount, and in most of the parables, to focus on a certain defensive attitude towards the religion.  It is more important to defend the religion, they say, than to turn the other cheek.  It is more important, according to some of these leaders, to keep the Leadership in private jets, than to give to the poor.  It is more important, according to some of these leaders, to elect political leaders who support the church, than to elect those whose agendas include helping the poor and the indigent.  I think it is time now, for new church leaders to come forward, who teach the gospel, and the true spirit of the gospel.

Because of the cynicism of our age, there will be few who heed the urging to charity, to the other-centeredness that Jesus taught.  Many will say: Jesus helps those who help themselves.  Many will say: Charity begins at home; we must first help the Christian Leaders, and the money will trickle down to the poor and needy.  But those who are inclined to adopt Christian morality, the Sermon on the Mount, who feel a sense of responsibility to oppose the economics which ensures that some families earn enormous wealth, while other families can hardly exist (after all, the political philosophy of the USA seems to support the view that the extraction of anything the traffic will allow is fine) those of us who abhor this economics that supports those who already have more than they need, we have no philosophical home.  Where can a family turn, so that its children are surrounded with those who feel that they have an obligation to look after their fellow-man, and not just their fellow-family-members?

It is not the habit of atheists to get together on Sundays (or any days, for that matter), to take a holiday from the usual cynicism they find at work.  We don't have feasts, we don't have gatherings--at least I don't think we do; we don't get together enough for me to find out.  We don't have big weddings (but my wife and I did; it was sort of a party!) we don't have big funerals (though when my close friend died a couple of years ago, his former colleagues got together, to reminisce about all his great characteristics.  And there was a lot of food!), atheism is not a social thing.  It could be, I suppose.

Perhaps these mega-churches should fade away.  Some of them are probably doing some good, but a lot of them seem focused on spewing hate against The Left, which is trying to rein in the greed of big businesses, on spewing hate against other religions.  Occasionally, I suspect, spewing hate against the Catholics, and the Pope.  And now: spewing hate against same-sex couples, and anyone in the LGBTQ++ spectrum, and proponents of unisex toilet facilities.  Are there churches that spew hate against electric cars?  I would like to know, so that I can shower ridicule upon them.  I promise to be very gentle.

Arch

Kim's Game

When I was young, I signed up for Boy Scouts.  At that time--and possibly even now; I'm out of touch with them--a lot of the early skills taught in Boy Scouts meetings were based on the Kipling book Kim, as well as The Jungle Book.  

One of the most central activities, presented as a game, was Kim's Game.  It just struck me that many of the skills I have been trying to teach, as I taught mathematics, presupposed the skills taught in Kim's Game.

Boy Scouts are probably grinning to themselves, but I need to describe this activity to get everyone on the same page.  (A very close relative of this game is Concentration, so if you feel a sense of deja vu, that's where it's coming from.)

Before the tribes gather, the leader (or, as we called him, the Scoutmaster) lays 30 or 40 assorted objects on a table, and covers them up with a cloth.  Once everyone is present, and preliminary activities have been concluded, each participant is given a sheet of paper, and something to write with   The leader then pulls off the covering cloth, for a specific amount of time.  (The more practiced the participants are, the briefer the time interval could be.)

Once the table is covered again, the participants (frenziedly) write down as many of the articles on the table as each one can remember.

At this point, the game can proceed in different ways; each person's list can be verified, to eliminate imaginary articles, and winners announced according to who has the longest list.  Other times, it could be more about which item was most overlooked!  When the troop is divided up into subgroups, such as colors, or clans, the lists of the members of each subgroup could be consolidated (put together), which would make it a rivalry between these subgroups.  (This makes verification less tedious, at any rate.). The whole point is to improve the participants' observation.

I remember we had Kim's Game regularly.  As one who taught   Integration, a technique used in calculus, we were using a technique that depended on the student noticing that the integral contained a certain configuration.  It was more difficult for me to teach the class to  notice that the configuration was present, than to teach them what to do with it (once the configuration had been spotted).  So teaching calculus regressed into essentially teaching observation.

Olivia Newton-John

A beautiful face is a wonderful thing for anyone to have.  An amazing voice would be great, as well.  What about a glowing smile?

ONJ had all three!  I would say---at the risk of making a lot of women mad---that Olivia Newton-John had one of the most dazzling smiles I have ever seen.  Many women, including my lovely wife, have wonderful smiles.  Olivia's smile was more: it was blinding.  You would imagine she was deliriously happy, and was about to break into laughter!  And maybe she was!

She died of cancer, and she probably was diagnosed many years ago.  She was a simple person; perhaps that was---and I'm going to be killed for saying this---clear in her expression.  She could look on the bright side of life easily.

I will miss her.

Men and Women Are Equal?

When I was growing up, the equality of women was not something that was taken for granted, either by men or by women.

Make no mistake; there were plenty of enlightened men who believed in something close to this principle of equality.  Our cultural history—like most countries—was dominated by men, who were ruthless about protecting their advantages.  But over the years and centuries, the rights accorded to women were accumulated, and on one fine day in the early sixties, a Sri Lankan woman became the first elected female head of state.  (Even then, she was elected from within a political party, therefore she was not elected by the popular vote.)  Furthermore, traditionally in many Asian countries, women were the heads of households.

In the family in which I grew up, our mother was the head of the household, for many practical reasons: she earned the larger paycheck; she managed the home; she had the larger influence over the education of the children; and she had a degree of influence over my father’s occupation indirectly: he was a pastor, and he volunteered her for various responsibilities in the ‘parish’, such as the so-called women's fellowship, the Sunday-School, the flowers for church, the choir, and so on.  So my mother held not one job, but about 5.

The equality of women and men as far as talent was concerned was never in any doubt, in our family circle, and as I was growing up, in our country at large.  So it was with efficiency and capability.  Women did continue to be suppressed, ultimately, for political reasons.  Men believed that women did not have the judgement that some office required.  Some men were prejudiced against women.  Some men resented women for reasons that never emerged.  This is true of almost every society: men simply could not bring themselves to declare that women were equal to men politically; the most they could concede was that women deserved the vote.

What do I personally think?

The question of equality between the sexes is vague.  As long as women have the unique responsibility for bearing children, this fact establishes an asymmetry in the comparison of the two sexes.  All rights and privileges of government and society should be equal to the two sexes.  But the phrase ‘The sexes are equal’ simply does not make sense.

Of course, I speak as a mathematician.  It does not make sense to say that a Ford is equal to a Toyota.  In what sense? is the question that springs to the lips.  Are men and women equal in the athletic field?  In the boxing ring?  In the Olympic games?  In family planning?  In insurance premiums?  In bathrooms?  I believe that equality is not true in all these areas.  As long as women and men are more comfortable with many activities taking place in segregation, there cannot be unqualified ‘equality’.  (I’m using the word unqualified in the sense of unrestricted.)

I wish this was a forum where you readers can respond to these posts.  You can, but hardly anyone does!  Well, I'm aware of this inequality between us, so the lack of any counterarguments to my opinion will not make me assume that I have won the debate.

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I'm a Foodie!

These days I spend a lot of time reading.  It so happens that I was reading a passage about a meal, and now I'm hungry for pasta!  It's only 8 in the morning, and I'm craving Fettuccine Alfredo.  (Actually, from a nutritional point of view, it's better to eat something heavy and cheesy earlier in the day, so that the food circulates all over your body as you walk around.  Instead, if you eat late and go to bed--or stay seated--the food just diffuses to the tissue near your belly, so you're likely to grow your belly.)

I once made Alfredo from scratch from a recipe in a Time/Life book, and it was the most heavenly thing we ever ate.  Butter, cream, black pepper, fresh grated Parmesan.  Italian cooking is (supposedly) all about the fresh ingredients.  In contrast, French cooking is about the sauces, though that's probably an oversimplification.

But there's no doubt that I am hopelessly suggestible; if I read about pizza ...

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A Conundrum

First off: is the plural of 'paradox' simply 'paradoxes', or 'paradoci'?  (Or is a paradox better than one dox, and already plural?)

Ok, here's the conundrum, and it's a serious issue.  From a lot of what I've read, in order to avoid unnecessary weight gain, the nutrition gurus advise to only eat when you're hungry.

Now, obviously in modern communal or family living, when one person cooks for a whole group, for the sake of efficiency, the whole group ought to eat together, even if they're not all simultaneously hungry.  So what to do?

There are lots of possible solutions, depending on the micro-culture of the group: is it OK to leave the cooked food on the counter, for each person to eat when they're ready?  Who's going to wash up? And so on.

I had several other conundrums lined up, but now I've forgotten ...