The question of hell

From the depths of the endless thread, Owlmirror asks an interesting and provocative question, so I thought I’d toss it up top for everyone to take a stab at it.

At what age were you taught about Hell? Was it described as a place of eternal torture, or just being apart from God? Was it taught in a way that you thought was serious, or might there have been some skepticism in the teacher? Were you specifically told that you yourself were in danger of going there unless you met the exacting standards of your religion? Were you told that everyone who did not believe as you were taught was doomed to hell?

Richard Dawkins describes a young girl who was traumatized by the thought that all her friends who were not of the same religion as herself were doomed to hell. I was just wondering about the sequence of when young children are taught about the “stick” of Hell, to go with the corresponding “carrot” of Heaven, in different religions and religious subcultures, and in what contexts.

I’ve known people who had Hell drilled into their heads from an early age, and I know of many sects that preach hellfire, and I know the concept has deep historical resonance (Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, and all that), but it was never brought up that I recall in the church I attended, and definitely never threatened by anyone in my family. It was a generic cussword, and I had the general idea from popular culture of what it was all supposed to be about — flames, pitchforks, devils — but really, my image of it was mostly the product of Hot Stuff the Little Devil and such frivolities.

The first time I learned anyone took it seriously was probably in my early teens, when I vividly recall being accosted by a wild-haired screechy old lady who intercepted me as I was walking down the street and ranted at me about the Lake of Fire and an eternity of torment unless I got down on my knees and accepted Jesus into my heart right now. It was scary, all right, but it wasn’t the idea of hell that had me worried — it was that this deranged woman was unbalanced enough to be threatening kids with it.

So no, I never in my life took the threat of hell at all seriously. How about you?

There will be blood on this day

Two salient facts:

  • We no longer have any cats. The kids all moved out, and to our shock and surprise, they took their pets with them. I guess we raised them responsibly after all.

  • Temperatures here in the soon-to-be great white north have dropped into the freezing range lately, and are likely to stay there. And lower.

Any of you who have lived in this part of the country knows what happens next: the wildlife all tries to move indoors, and without large roving carnivores about, the rodents have been having a carnival. They’ve been banging the pots all night and frolicking on the countertops, and that means I have to act.

It is Halloween, and there shall be a reaping. I’ve got a pile of traps to set up, the swift savage ones that smash skulls and necks (most emphatically not the cruel slow glue traps), and I’m anticipating a ghoulish evening of hearing snap-snap-snap all night long, and cleaning up bodies in between handing out candy at the door. Let’s all hope I don’t get my jobs of dispensing things into buckets mixed up.

Remembrances of books past

Our university library is having a book sale today, one of those unfortunate but necessary events where they purge old or duplicate items from the collections to make room for new books, and I had to make a quick browse. What did I discover but an old children’s book that startled me with fearful and powerful remembrances — this is a book that I checked out from the Kent Public Library when I was ten years old.

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That’s the Golden Guide to Mammals by Herbert S. Zim and Donald F. Hoffmeister, copyright 1955. It features “218 ANIMALS IN FULL COLOR”, with maps of their distribution and short descriptions of their habitat and life histories. I remember reading that from cover to cover, practically memorizing it, and going on long walks out into the fields and forests around my home, looking for the elusive Boreal Red-Backed Vole or the dens of the Hoary Bat, or using it to try to identify the shredded carcasses of road kill.

Now with hindsight I realize it’s a rather awful little book, simultaneously too thin on information for each species to be really useful, and far too limited in breadth to be helpful in actually appreciating diversity, but I have to appreciate it for being an early provocateur, telling me that there was more to the life around me than people, my dog, and the lettuces and corn growing in the nearby fields. So thank you Drs Zim and Hoffmeister! I had to buy the rather ragged copy on sale at the library today as a nod to my early years.

I also had to buy it as an act of expiation. I sinned in my youth, and it curiously still nags at me. I checked the book out of the library when I was 10, and I didn’t return it. I kept it hidden away in my bedroom for a long, long time, and it was small enough to fit in my pocket when I went out, so I just…kinda…kept it. The library sent out all kinds of late notices and my parents kept nagging me to find the damned overdue book, while I just willfully pretended I didn’t know where it was, and they eventually had to just pay to replace it (so I’m pretty sure the Library Police aren’t still trying to hunt me down). I was so bad.

When I look back on my childhood and recollect the naughty things I did, I have to say that my appropriation of that shallow little book is at the top of my list of criminal acts, and I still do feel a bit guilty about it. But now I have my very own copy, openly and rightfully paid for! It’s not as if I’ll ever actually use it, but it’s sweet how holding it now brings me back to the edges of old ponds, hiking the steep flanks on the west side of the Green River Valley, wandering half-lost through silent forests, and that time I climbed up the side of an abandoned gravel pit to startle a grouse at the top who almost sent me plummeting backwards to my likely death when he puffed up and flew right at me.

Which led me to check out the Golden Guide to Birds, which was another story…

What am I doing today?

Brain melting. Remember that call for applicants for a tenure track job? We’re screening all those applicants now, and meeting tomorrow to consider who to invite to the first round of preliminary phone interviews. If you haven’t got your application in, you’re late! You’re going to hope everyone else sucks badly if you’re still trying to get something filed here.

All it means to me right now though is more squinty staring at lots and lots of essays and CVs and recommendations. I may be entering a data coma soon.

Sunday afternoon…there’s nothing on TV, anyway

Tomorrow (Sunday), from 2-4pm Central time, I’ll be on the League of Reason show. I’m not sure exactly how this is going to work; I’m calling in via skype, the link above takes you to a chat page so you can razz me as I’m talking (I expect all the other panel members will be addressed respectfully, while you guys will be calling me “poopyhead”. Seriously, I can’t take you anywhere.)

It should be fun anyway.

When will I ever learn?

I’m in London, and I got ambushed by this guy making videos. He bought me beer, what can I say? Anyway, he said he wanted to ask me serious questions about biology, and when he got me on camera he instead asked me all this weird stuff about constellations and telescopes and has me looking like a stammering moron. He’ll probably put it online soon, and then I’ll be in trouble.

He goes by the name Andromeda’s Wake. At least it was really good beer.

My humiliation and profound ignorance made public:

The Amazing Meeting: London

Do you expect a full report? TAM London is over, I have no sense of time left, I just got back from a late and very entertaining dinner with the ferocious Rebecca Watson and the fabulous Richard Wiseman, and I think I need to pass out.

It looks like you can get a video feed of the various talks at the live feed — they’re playing back the recorded events right now. You can read the #TAMLondon hashtag to get an idea of the audience reaction, and Martin Robbins has liveblogged the whole weekend. Or if you’d rather, you can read few short sound bites.

My talk went fine, I think, although it’s hard for the speaker to get a good impression. I did let everyone know my excuse ahead of time: Tim Minchin sang The Pope Song the night before, completely stealing the entire text of my planned talk, so I had to rewrite it at the last moment. By the way, the live song was fantastic, far better than the youtube recording — he had a hard, angry tone to the whole song that made it even more biting.

TAM is always a fun meeting. You should have gone!