Skeptically Speaking
As some of you know, for about five years I've been a monthly instructional columnist for what I consider to be the best national billiard magazine in America. I'm not too bad at pool, as you would guess.
Last night during our local league play, someone was getting up a game of ringer nine-ball. It's a gambling game in which several people can play. I've played it with as many people as 9 players! Anyone who sinks the 5-ball gets $1 from everyone, and anyone who sinks the 9-ball gets $2 from everyone. If there are five players and I run the rack I get $12 (4 times $3). [Sometimes the bet is $2 on the 5-ball and $5 on the 9]. When you first get into the game you start last, so sometimes you'll have to pay out some money before you even get a chance on a good decent shot. Sometimes even when you get a shot it's a really tough one since you follow a shooter who may miss and accidentally leave you really bad. I got into the game after it started and paid out some money waiting for my first decent shot. Players must get lucky again and again to get other decent shots in subsequent games. Eventually I won about $25. But while I was paying out I called it "the devil's game." That's what it's called because you must get lucky to get some decent shots on the money balls. Depending on how much money you have and how many players are in the game you may never get one before you run out of disposable cash. But when I said it was "the devil's game" a friend of mine said, "Yeah, right, an atheist believes in the devil."
This event reminded me of what I am reading in Dr. David Eller's fantastic book Atheism Advanced. He argues convincingly that western cultures are dominated by Christian language, rituals, symbols, arts, music, habits, and so forth. It's as if we are almost imprisoned in it. He writes:
No more.
Last night during our local league play, someone was getting up a game of ringer nine-ball. It's a gambling game in which several people can play. I've played it with as many people as 9 players! Anyone who sinks the 5-ball gets $1 from everyone, and anyone who sinks the 9-ball gets $2 from everyone. If there are five players and I run the rack I get $12 (4 times $3). [Sometimes the bet is $2 on the 5-ball and $5 on the 9]. When you first get into the game you start last, so sometimes you'll have to pay out some money before you even get a chance on a good decent shot. Sometimes even when you get a shot it's a really tough one since you follow a shooter who may miss and accidentally leave you really bad. I got into the game after it started and paid out some money waiting for my first decent shot. Players must get lucky again and again to get other decent shots in subsequent games. Eventually I won about $25. But while I was paying out I called it "the devil's game." That's what it's called because you must get lucky to get some decent shots on the money balls. Depending on how much money you have and how many players are in the game you may never get one before you run out of disposable cash. But when I said it was "the devil's game" a friend of mine said, "Yeah, right, an atheist believes in the devil."
This event reminded me of what I am reading in Dr. David Eller's fantastic book Atheism Advanced. He argues convincingly that western cultures are dominated by Christian language, rituals, symbols, arts, music, habits, and so forth. It's as if we are almost imprisoned in it. He writes:
"We find in practice that atheists in Christian-dominated societies speak and think in Christian terms just as surely as Christians do. We let Christianity set the agenda, identify the questions, and provide the language of the debate. We quite literally 'speak Christian' just as fluently and just as un-self-consciously as they do."Eller continues:
"We need to stop speaking Christian so as to loosen the grip of Christian language on our thinking....We do well to begin our debunking of religion with a debunking of religious terminology."While I cannot begin to tell you all of the specifics of his brilliant analysis, and there is much more to it, I learned last night he is right. I'm going to make a conscious effort to avoid all religious and Christian terminology for starters. In pool we also speak about "the pool gods," as a metaphor for good luck. When we cuss sometimes we'll say "God damn it," or "Go to hell."
No more.