Ooh, after just writing the title for this blog post, I realized that it's pretty grandiose. But if I stumble and fall before I cross the blog-post-expectation finish line, this will simply serve to emphasize one of my points about the meaning of the Olympics -- assuming I can remember what it was.
The Paris Olympics are about halfway done. My wife and I watched the opening ceremony in its entirety. Well, until the ceremony reached the stadium, after which we lost interest.
I thought it was one of the best opening ceremonies ever. Creative, emotional, energetic. Having the athletes on boats was a stroke of genius. I'm always moved by so many nations coming together under a single banner: the Olympics.
As I recall, the athletes from Iran were on a boat just ahead of the boat that carried the Israeli athletes. Though their countries are mortal enemies politically and religiously, I'm confident that athletes from Iran and Israel would get along fine if they met during the Olympics.
It gave me hope to see the floating Parade of Nations. I realize that sports is a special case of global cooperation. But if the world can peacefully coexist on the field of athletic competition, it sure seems that one day we can bridge our political, religious, and cultural differences.
That's why John Lennon's Imagine was played during the opening ceremony, a song with great lyrics, including:
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
A big reason why sports unites rather than divides is that there are agreed-upon rules for every Olympic event. If you can't follow the rules, you can't compete. Breaking the rules has consequences. A warning, a penalty, maybe even a forfeit of the match.
In part this was a dream of the United Nations, including the International Court of Justice. It still is to some extent, but I'm sorry to say that my country, the United States, is one of those that puts itself above the rule of international law. Which makes no sense, since the United States is pleased to follow international rules that govern our athletes in the Olympics.
People hate to see their favored team or athlete lose. They hate it even more when an officiating error seems to bend the rules unfairly. That happened to American tennis star Coco Gauff when she lost a match after a linesperson called a ball out while Gauff was about to swing at it, which made her mishit the ball, then the referee overruled the call and refused to replay the point.
This shows how life often isn't fair, or at least appears to be unfair, despite the title of one of my books that argued otherwise.
Further evidence of this abounds in the Olympics, as in all sporting events. However, I don't see this further evidence as pointing to life's unfairness, but to life's contingency, its unpredictable and chaotic nature. Meaning, large effects often follow from small causes. Very small, sometimes. This helps produce the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.
For me, the surfing competition showed this dramatically, which is taking place in Tahiti, at a notorious reef where large waves break with tremendous force in what soon turns into shallow water. Surfing is a unique Olympic sport in that the field of play, so to speak, is constantly shifting -- in line with Buddhist notions of life itself.
Two competitors have 30 minutes to catch waves, taking turns, basically. Depending on the ocean conditions, there might be a string, or set, of large high quality waves that will showcase the surfer's talents. Or, the competitors might have to wait, and wait, and wait for a decent wave.
I watched two surfers who were pretty evenly matched. Only a small difference separated their scores as the competition grew close to the 3o minute mark. The surfer who was behind hoped for a large wave to appear, as this was their only hope to get in the breaking "pipeline," pop out cleanly, and earn a good score from the judges.
But it wasn't a big wave day. The horn sounded signaling the end of the competition with the surfer behind never getting another chance. That's how sports, and life, often is. You do your best, but there are forces outside of your control that have the last say in how well you do.
Surfers, like skateboarders and athletes in many, if not most, other Olympic sports, love what they do. They'd be doing it even if fame and money didn't accompany their efforts. I liked watching two male surfers on a really big wave day catch giant wave after giant wave, smiling and laughing with each other as they paddled back out to get another wave.
An announcer, who I believe was a professional surfer himself, said that what the competitors would remember about this day wasn't whether they won or lost, but how great the surfing was. Similarly, I read that after a Japanese skateboarder pulled off a very difficult trick, giving him a gold medal, his competitors applauded him, since they love skateboarding more than they hate losing, and someone who advances the sport via a rarely or never seen trick -- that really pleases them.
I'm a competitive person. I don't like losing, whether it be an argument or an athletic competition (though my days as an avid club tennis player are far in my rear-view mirror). But I'm going to try to keep in mind that losing an argument to someone who makes better points than I'm capable of isn't anything to be ashamed of, but an opportunity to admire the skills of the other person.
The Olympics brings out the best in competitors. It also can bring out the best in us spectators, if we have the right attitude toward watching.
Oh, almost forgot to mention another memorable moment, the last minute or so of the bronze medal match between the United States and Australia women's rugby teams. Australia was ahead 14-7. The Americans were 85 yards away from the goal line. Things looked bleak for the USA team.
After a few passes that didn't result in much, if any, forward progress, the ball ended up in the hands of an American woman who was almost instantly in the grasp of an Australian player. But she managed to get loose, looked upfield, and saw open territory between her and the goal line.
She took off running. Nobody from the Australian team could catch her. I was worried she'd run out of steam, but she dived across the goal line untouched. The camera showed the joy of the American players and the shock of the Australian players.
They had the game won, seemingly. Until the game was lost. That's life. You just never know for sure what's going to happen next. Something horrible. Something wonderful. You just never know.
Back to basics: our faithless faith and commenting policies
It never hurts to return to the basics. So in this easy-to-write post I'm going to copy in one of the first posts I wrote after I started this blog in 2004, "Our Creedless Creed," plus this blog's commenting policies.
Regarding the latter, note that comments are supposed to stick to the subject matter of a post. I'm flexible about this, but today two commenters (UM and Nimfa) engaged in an almost entirely irrelevant series of eleven chat comments on a post about the RSSB guru's authoritarianism.
That's unacceptable.
As you can read in the commenting policies, off-topic comment conversations should go in an Open Thread, which I call "free speech for comments." When people read a blog post, a newspaper story, or such, then click on the comments, they expect to find comments about the subject that's been written about.
Hijacking comments for purely personal purposes is a form of spam. Again, I'm fine with an occasional off-topic comment, and admit that I haven't been consistent in enforcing this rule, but don't be surprised if your comment is deleted if it doesn't pertain to the topic of a blog post.
Here's Our Creedless Creed. It's in the category of "Basics of our faithless faith." I'm impressed that after 18 years of blogging, during which I've become steadily more atheistic, there's nothing that I would change in the creedless creed other than the last item. Currently I don't think it is likely that death provides any final answers.
If you think that any of these statements are inaccurate, make your case in a comment on this post. That will be totally on-topic! I'll add numbers to the items to make it easier to comment on them.
UPDATE: I decided to add "any possible" before "immaterial reality" to make clear that currently there is no evidence of an immaterial reality separate from our universe. And I added "may" in the final item of the creed to make clear that if consciousness ends with death, as is very likely, getting any answer after death is low probability but still possible.
Our Creedless Creed
Note: to make this Creed more readable, some qualifiers have been omitted. So "God" signifies God/ultimate reality/final truth, not just a personal divinity. And "religion" signifies religion/spiritual path/philosophy, not just a mainstream theology.
(1) There is no objective proof that any religion knows the truth about God. If there were such proof, most people on Earth would have converted to that faith long ago and all scientists would be believers.
(2) Spirituality thus is an individual affair. Proof of any metaphysical realities that exist will be subjective, not demonstrable to others.
(3) Every person has the right to pursue their own spiritual quest without interference, so long as he or she doesn't interfere with the rights of others.
(4) Since the veracity of each and every religion is unprovable, equally unprovable are the moral and ethical tenets derived from any and all religious teachings.
(5) Thus morality also is an individual affair. There are no absolute laws of right and wrong as there are absolute laws of physics. Subjectivity rules in ethics.
(6) Individual ethical decisions may be formed into a collective codification of societal norms, or laws. These are purely human, not divine.
(7) Science is the surest means of finding truth. Theory, experiment, analysis of data: such are the tools of science, whether directed toward knowing material or any possible immaterial reality.
(8) Religious teachings are hypotheses to be confirmed through individual research. As such, they must not be taken as gospel truth by adherents of a particular faith.
(9) Religious doubters, skeptics, and heretics should be honored for their efforts to assure that unproven assertions about God are not put forward as solid truth.
(10) Every adherent of a particular religion should say to himself or herself, "I could be wrong." If he or she won't do this, other people can say it for them: "You could be wrong."
(11) This creedless creed of the Church of the Churchless also could be wrong. It needs to be reexamined and revised regularly.
(12) Death may provide the final answers (if only momentarily). The spiritual quest is to get answers ahead of time. But the big question is, "What are the questions?"
And here's this blog's commenting policies.
You're welcome -- even more, encouraged -- to leave comments on Church of the Churchless posts. Some of the most interesting writing on this blog comes from other people, not me, Brian the Blogger.
All I ask is that comments be in accord with the following policies. Otherwise a comment probably will be deleted or edited.
(1) No personal attacks on me or other commenters. Challenge the message, not the messenger. Best: You're wrong, because... Semi-OK: You're a fool, because... Not-OK: You're a fool.
(2) No extreme obscenity. Write as if you were in a congenial coffeehouse discussion group, not a high school locker room after your team lost the game in the final seconds. Mild swear words are fine. But goddamn it, don't go over the top.
(3) No rants about the uselessness of this blog. If you're a religious believer, I can understand why this blog could make you angry. Solution: don't read it. If you need to vent, leave a comment on my "I Hate Church of the Churchless" anti-site, not here.
(4) No commercial or religious spam. Advertising, in a comment or a URL, obviously isn't acceptable. Neither are lengthy quotations from a religious scripture, or preachiness. See #5 below.
(5) No irrelevant comments. Please stick to the subject matter of a post in your comment. If you want to talk about something else, leave your comment in an Open Thread, email me with a blog post suggestion, or use the Google search box in the right sidebar to find a previous post on this blog concerning your "something else." (Note: Open Thread comments also should adhere to the policies above.)
(6) No trolling. On the Internet a "troll" is someone who tries to disrupt normal discussions through various annoying behaviors. Here's some ways to recognize a troll. Best response to them: no response. Their sad lives thrive on attention, so ignore them.
(7) No false "facts" about critical issues. As the saying goes, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. This applies to this blog, especially about COVID-19 and other critical issues. Blatantly false comments won't be published if they're about life and death or other critical topics such as global warming.
Lastly, one of my pet peeves is how uncourteously many people behave on the Internet. "Flame wars" aren't productive, so try to keep your cool if you disagree with what somebody has said.
I agree with Wikipedia's take on Flaming:
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