Ten Commandments for Atheists

Comedian/magician Penn Jillette has come up with 10 Commandments for Atheists. Although Timicism is not strictly an atheist religion, I'd like to include his commandments in the Timicist cannon, because they are something I can get behind.

Jillette's list:

1. The highest ideals are human intelligence, creativity and love. Respect these above all.

2. Do not put things or even ideas above other human beings. (Let's scream at each other about Kindle versus iPad, solar versus nuclear, Republican versus Libertarian, Garth Brooks versus Sun Ra— but when your house is on fire, I'll be there to help.)

3. Say what you mean, even when talking to yourself. (What used to be an oath to (G)od is now quite simply respecting yourself.)

4. Put aside some time to rest and think. (If you're religious, that might be the Sabbath; if you're a Vegas magician, that'll be the day with the lowest grosses.)

5. Be there for your family. Love your parents, your partner, and your children. (Love is deeper than honor, and parents matter, but so do spouse and children.)

6. Respect and protect all human life. (Many believe that "Thou shalt not kill" only refers to people in the same tribe. I say it's all human life.)

7. Keep your promises. (If you can't be sexually exclusive to your spouse, don't make that deal.)

8. Don't steal. (This includes magic tricks and jokes — you know who you are!)

9. Don't lie. (You know, unless you're doing magic tricks and it's part of your job. Does that make it OK for politicians, too?)

10. Don't waste too much time wishing, hoping, and being envious; it'll make you bugnutty.

Religion Analogy

I love a religion analogy that is phallic, funny, and follows the spirit of Timicism.

New Theories of Death

As a Timicist, I am fascinated with ideas of death. I mostly believe that it's a big dirt nap, but I've just read a book about lots of different theories and I'd like to add it to the Timicist cannon.

Sum: Forty Tales From the Afterlives by David Eagleman is a small thing, a short read that I could probably have finished off in one sitting if I were so inspired. It's a fascinating idea: 40 different theories on what happens to you when you die.

Unfortunately, the idea is more interesting than the content. It does have some fascinating, mind-blowing ideas, but on the whole the book is mostly disappointing. Maybe that's what the afterlife is really like: you get all excited about the idea of it, but then it's anticlimactic.

The title passage, "Sum", posits that in death we re-live all the moments of our life, but they are bunched together by activity. Therefore, we sleep for 30 years and spend six days clipping our nails. Seven months of non-stop sex. One year reading books. Twenty-seven intense hours of pain: broken bones, accidents, cuts, etc. Three weeks realizing you're wrong. You get the picture. Everything is clumped together.

Although the statistics would be interesting, it's kind of a stupid idea. As I was reading it, I protested, "But you can't just take all of these moments out of context like that." Relaxing on the couch after a long strenuous day is different from sitting on it for months at a time. But that is his point. He ends this story with the moral that we are fortunate that life is broken up into "tiny swallowable pieces." Like so many other theories in the book, it seems to point more to life than to death.

Almost every theory in the book points to one conclusion: when you die, you find out what the true nature of life and the universe is. (Which happens to be what I always hoped the afterlife would be like.) It's only that true nature that changes from story to story. There's also a very heavy Western bias in all the theories. They're mostly all about the Judeo-Christian God-- some anthropomorphized deity-- living in heaven. I had kind of hoped that the theories would be a little more out there.

The writing isn't that great, and a lot of the examples or conclusions he comes to don't make sense to me. He might have an interesting idea, but the implementation feels all wrong. For example, there's a theory about how you are represented in the afterlife by yourself at every age, so that your 5-year-old self might hang out with your 34-year-old self and your 67-year-old self. Neat idea, but then he goes on to say that many of your different selves realize they have hardly anything in common other than a name. Huh? Surely sharing the same life history and experiences counts for a strong bond, even if it's a teenager and an elderly version of yourself?

Still, as an idea book, it gets the job done. Some of his ideas are very similar to ideas I've had, and some are completely new to me. Those new and old ideas mingled and brought up new theories.

For example, as I was reading the book, I had this revelation that maybe I have already died dozens of times, but the superior being who is playing the "Game of Tim" keeps going back to an earlier saved version of the game and reviving me. I do this when I play computer games if I make a stupid fatal mistake. I go back and try again. Maybe that's what my life is like. That could explain why I'm convinced that things will work out in the end. Any fatal mistakes can be fixed by going back to an earlier saved version.

The book is a short read that can get your creative juices flowing, so I recommend it.

Shrinking Jinxes

Lately I've been rethinking my attitude toward jinxes.

Traditionally, jinxes have been an acknowledged superstition of Timicism. As it says in the Book of Timicism 3.0:

Jinxes: If you want to insure that something will never happen, think and talk about it a lot. If there's something you really want, just spend all your time obsessing about it; it will surely never come true. Whatever scenario you act out in your head for any given situation, the reality will always be different. If you plan for something, it won't happen, or not like you planned it. This goes for positive and negative scenarios. If your overactive imagination plans for the worst-case scenario, it won't happen, either. Misfortune, just like fortune, sneaks up on you.

I've always had a superstitious imagination. If I imagined something good happening (motivational gurus call this "visualization"), then I was convinced it would never happen. I would be jinxing it, and then I'd feel like a fool for ever thinking it was possible. And even if it did happen, it would never look like it did in my imagination, so it would be a disappointment.

My solution to this was to try as hard as I could to NOT think about possibilities. If there was something I really wanted (which almost always involved getting with a girl I was crushing on) I would do everything I could to NOT visualize it. Because if I visualized it, I believed I guaranteed its failure.

The Timicist position was to keep your expectations low and you won't get disappointed. That way, you're not crushed when the thing you really want doesn't happen.

I was trying to tell a friend about this recently, and she didn't understand my reasoning. Why not visualize good things? What's the worst that will happen if they don't come true? Why keep yourself from thinking good thoughts? And at least you have the good feelings that come with the visualization, even if it never comes true.

Per usual, I was defiant and kept trying to argue my position. But she planted the seed of an idea in me, and after much thinking, I realized she had a point. Why was I so afraid to imagine good things? Has this strategy actually kept me from getting disappointed?

The thing is, the "jinx" superstition doesn't even hold up to analysis. I can think of two significant times in my life where I imagined something wonderful happening, and it DID happen. And it didn't lead to a disappointment once it turned into reality. It was actually the opposite: the fantasy enhanced the reality. Because the reality is never exactly like the fantasy, so it's amazing and wonderful to see how it plays out in real life. Real things are 100 times better than fantasies, merely by the fact that they're real. Fantasies can't touch them.

It doesn't make sense to say visualizing things jinxes them, except when they don't.

So I'm officially revising theTimicist position on jinxes. Go ahead and let your imagination run wild. Even if you're a fool for getting ahead of yourself, it's better to be a fool with happy fantasies than a one who lets fear of a superstition rule his life.

Luxuriate in all the possibilities. When something you might have "jinxed" does indeed happen, it will be way better and more surprising than anything you can fantasize about.

Of course, as with everything, balance is key. Don't spend your whole life in fantasy, and don't make huge decisions based on empty hope, but also don't let fear prevent you from thinking of all the wonderful possibilities life offers.

Timicist Funerals

I recently attended a Christian funeral. The beginning was a little slow, but I did like the reading of the Bible passage from Ecclesiastes about there being a time for everything: "A time to be born and a time to die... a time to kill and a time to heal... a time to weep and a time to laugh... a time to love and a time to hate..." (You may have heard these quotes in the famous Byrd's song, "Turn, Turn, Turn.") It's one of the few parts of the Bible that really impresses me, and it speaks to the Timicist bonus principle of balance.

The most powerful part of the funeral was when people volunteered to get up and share memories and remembrances of the deceased. His children, sister, nephews, grandchildren, and friends all had touching stories to tell. There were many tears and a few laughs. I shed a few sympathetic tears of my own, even though I was not personally close to him. (Hey, I'm a Timicist, not a monster.)

I was still basking in the emotion of these testimonials, the tears drying on my cheeks, when the third minister of the service got up to speak. By now it was 2 pm, the funeral was already an hour long, and due to a promised lunch after the service, I hadn't eaten since breakfast. The third preacher apparently had something to prove over the first two, so he spent the next half hour going on and on about Jesus and the Lord and sheep and even reread some of the Bible passages the first two preachers had read, in case we had forgot them in the past hour. What was conspicuously absent from his ramblings, however, was anything about the man in the casket.

This was merely annoying, but when he started using this man's death as an opportunity to threaten me with hell fire, I was offended and completely turned off. Who the fuck does he think he is, telling us who is or isn't going to heaven based on his very narrow understanding of God? And using a captive audience to do so? I'm here trying to honor this man's life, and I have to endure an infomercial for Jesus? And, I'm fucking starving!!!

Look, I understand that for Christians who believe in heaven, it is a comfort for their loved ones to believe that their dear departed is in a better place. What I object to is using that as a springboard to telling the rest of us we won't be in a better place if we don't accept Jesus into our hearts. Because if there's one thing Mr. Smug Preacher made absolutely clear, it's that there is only one path to salvation, and it has nothing to do with good works or living like Jesus or loving God or loving your fellow human. Nope, only one thing does it, and that's accepting Jesus as God's son.

I've ranted elsewhere about why this is an absurd premise, but during the funeral I thought about the unmitigated tackiness and arrogance it takes presume you have all the answers. And to discount the worth of billions of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, secular humanists, and followers of hundreds of other religious traditions. And to take advantage of the captive audience to advance your agenda.

I also understand that this was the view of the man in the casket, and he would have wanted his death to serve as an occasion to spread the word. If even one person is drawn to Jesus from this occasion, then it was worth it. Well, what about all the people like me, who are turned off by such a display and vow to never, ever follow Jesus as long as assholes like this preacher speak for him? You could be turning away just as many people as you're helping.

You know what? When I die, I want to force everyone to sit through a two-hour lecture on logic and the scientific method.

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Which brings me to my real point. Attending this funeral also got me to thinking about what a Timicist funeral would look like. So let me take this opportunity to put in writing, for my loved ones, the way(s) I would like to be honored when I die.

First of all, I want my body to be harvested for as many organs as possible. As John Prine sings, "Please don't bury me/ down in that cold, cold ground/ I'm gonna have 'em cut me up/ and pass me all around..." If my death can serve to help others, I'd rather give something concrete, like a lung, rather than scaring them into following my imaginary heroes.

Whatever's left of my body should be cremated, so as to leave the smallest possible imprint on the Earth. Actually, what I'd really like to do is be cut up and fed to chickens. Since I've eaten so much chicken in my life, it only seems fair to give back. From chicken to chicken, or something like that. Assuming Timmeat would be good for chickens.

The chickens should be free range, of course

I also wouldn't mind being composted and used to fertilize something-- a tree or flowers or phallic-shaped vegetables. But I don't know if any of that would be legal, so cremation is probably the most practical way to go. As for where to scatter my ashes, I don't have a specific place. I like mountains and scenery & stuff, so maybe some place with a nice view.

I'd like there to be a lot of crying at my funeral. Like, serious wailing and gnashing of teeth. If any of my exes want to sob in anguish and throw themselves on my urn, I wouldn't object to that. But I'd also welcome laughter. Not the dancing-on-your-grave kind of laughter, but the remembering-funny-things-I-said/did kind.

Readings from any of the following authors would be appropriate: David Sedaris, Dan Savage, Bill Bryson, John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, Nick Hornby. There could even be a reading of some of my writing. Hey, I'll be dead, I'm allowed to have an ego. But please, dear god, none of my poetry from high school.

As for music, of course John Prine's "Please Don't Bury Me" should be there. Jimmy Buffett's "I Have Found Me a Home" and "Happily Ever After (Every Now and Then.)" Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" and "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go." Barenaked Ladies' "This Is Where It Ends" and "If I Had $1000000." I'd also like They Might Be Giants' "Particle Man," but only if I die before my brother Dan, who also wants this song at his funeral.

Absolutely no one will be lectured at my funeral about how to live their life.

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The problem with being a corpsezilla and trying to plan your own funeral is that is it the ultimate reliquishment of control. I won't be there to make sure all goes as planned. For the control freak, his funeral is a final, unwilling act of letting go. So do whatever you want. I've said my peace, and when the time comes, I hope I can go rest in it.