No Rule Can Substitute Compassion

I happened to come across a few episodes of The World's Strictest Parents, a TV show where troublemaker teens are “shown the way.” The message is as conservative and moralistic as can be expected, narrowmindedly blaming the teenagers for just about everything. Still, upon closer inspection, it can't be brushed off all that easily.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

No Rule Can Substitute Compassion

Patterns of Creation Myths

I made a new website, devoted to creation myths, their stories, structures, and patterns of thought. There is much to discover about the human mind in what kinds of ideas about the world beginning have been imagined way back in the dawn of civilization. We haven't changed that much since, nor has the essence of our perception of the world.

To begin with, the material on my new website, creationmyths.org, is mostly stuff I earlier had on my stenudd.com website. But there it was hidden beneath layer of layer of other stuff. So, I thought I'd better make a new domain explicitly for my writing on creation myths.

And it got me adding a new text, about Rig Veda 10:129, an Indian hymn contemplating in a drastic way what might have been before the world was created. It's an old favorite of mine among cosmological writings of the past.

I've studied creation myths for years and years, mainly but not only within the history of ideas, where I'm still supposed to complete a dissertation on the subject. I don't know about that, but surely there will be a book of some kind, eventually. In the meantime, I will keep adding to my new website. Please have a look at it:

creationmyths.org

God Is Retreating

It's getting increasingly difficult to be religious – not that it stops lots of people from persisting – as the progress of science forces God to retreat step by step. In  the world and how we learn it works, God is becoming redundant.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

God Is Retreating

That Damned Why

Continuing to watch episodes of Through the Wormhole, I sense a pattern. The science described mainly speculates about the how, rarely about the why. That might be increasingly insufficient as we get closer to the inner workings of the universe.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

That Damned Why

To Be Aware of Being

I'm watching episodes of Through the Wormhole, reminding me of the cosmological speculations that have been a kind of background radiation in my brain since I was a tiny kid. I'm sure we all have them. This time, the subject is life and its origin.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

To Be Aware of Being

Big Bang Is No Answer

Big Bang is presented as a theory about the origin of the universe, but it has no answer to that question. It may explain the emergence of the world, but not from where it came and what was before it. So, we still have no clue.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Big Bang Is No Answer

What's With the Beard?

Soon, Santa Claus will sneak down the chimney with presents to all good children, with a jolly “Ho, ho, ho!” That's all fine. But what's with that big white beard?


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

What's With the Beard?

Believers Don't Believe

”I'm a believer,” The Monkees sang in 1966. They meant a believer in love, but mostly the term is used for and by religious people, sticking to convictions that common sense dismisses. But the term is a paradox. The use of it reveals a lack of belief.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Believers Don't Believe

Many Occasions to Contemplate Murder

In 1986, the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot on a Stockholm street. That shocked the Swedish nation, previously spared from such violence against our leaders. It gnawed my mind persistently, so I wrote a book.

The book, Occasionally I Contemplate Murder, was not at all about the assassination of Olof Palme, in spite of its slightly cryptic dedication:

To the poor target
of the one who probably
triggered this book.

Instead, I wrote about the mysteries of life, death, and what kind of meaning might be found in their interaction. The eternal question, refusing a definite answer: What's it all about?

Out of the Gloom

In an effort to write without getting drowned in gloom, something that the subject in combination with the Swedish language would be hard to avoid, I decided to do it in English. I wanted the contrast of the somber content and a light-hearted tone, as if not taking it that seriously. Otherwise, the book might become as heavy to write as it would be to read.

English literature has a tradition of such dead-serious comedians, some of them old favorites of mine – like Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut. The darkest subjects can only be explored by comedy.

This was the first time I wrote a book in English, originally. When I lived in the USA for about a year in 1979-80, I translated some of my Swedish work into English, but that's another story. With Occasionally I Contemplate Murder I was delighted to find that my intention was fulfilled. In the English language it was indeed possible for me to keep a light tone in spite of the dark matters at hand. I worked on it during 1986 and got it finished somewhere in the spring of 1987.

So, there I was with a complete book script in English, but what to do with it? I sent it to a US literary agent, which had been mine for a while when I stayed in New York (Sanford J. Greenburger), but they had failed to sell another script of mine, so they were not that keen on the new one – especially since it was more of an essay than a novel.

When they declined, I just let the script lie in a drawer. But soon, a Swedish publisher, Eric Fylkesson, heard about it and asked if he could read it. Eric had a small publishing house releasing odd and intriguing titles. He was – and is – also a brilliant poet, both in text and on stage. He is one of the Swedish writers I admire the most, so I was happy to let him read the script.

To my delight, he urged me to translate it into Swedish, saying that he would gladly publish it if I did. Although I was flattered, I doubted that it would be possible to turn the text into Swedish and keep its essential light-hearted style. Eric wouldn't take no for an answer, but insisted that I give it a try. Well, I did, and it actually worked.

Because I had the English version as a source, I could find the corresponding Swedish language. The translated text didn't fall into an abyss. Much to my surprise.

Here, There, and Back Again

In August of 1987, the Swedish book was published. It never entered any bestseller lists, but it became kind of a cult thing. Lots of people let me know that the book had triggered their thoughts. I was especially pleased to learn that several colleagues appreciated it greatly.

Well, life went on and the book slowly fell asleep like most books do. Almost 20 years after it was published in Sweden, the media world had gone through multiple revolutions. Suddenly it was possible for me to have it published in English. At first, I did so on my website, just for fun. I embraced the idea of reaching the world with my words, without any go-between.

Then, Internet bookstores and Print on Demand publishing made it possible to get the actual book out. In spite of the world wide web miracle, that's still how a book becomes real. You need to hold it and turn the pages. Otherwise, the reading experience is somewhat lacking. Touching is part of reading.

The first edition was published in 2006 with the simple title Murder. For the second edition, I edited the text for the umpth time and also decided on a new title: Occasionally I Contemplate Murder – to make it say something more about the content and the type of book. And I had great fun producing the drastic cover image.

Alas, there have been many targets and triggers since Olof Palme was assassinated. Just these last days, we struggle with the shock of a Norwegian fanatic methodically shooting down more than sixty teenagers. One would like to believe that this must be the last act of such kind.

Life and death, and the way they dance together, are still in dire need of explanations and still constantly escaping them. There are many occasions to contemplate.

Here is more about the book: Occasionally I Contemplate Murder
Here it is on Amazon US and on Amazon UK.

Faith or Not, You Have to Leap

Steve Martin has made a bundle of movies. Of those I've seen, three stand out: the revealing view of superficial society in LA Story, the sensitive modernized version of Cyrano de Bergerac in Roxanne, and the naked take on fake religion suddenly becoming real in Leap of Faith. This is about the last one, right now my favorite – although maybe because I just saw it anew.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Faith or Not, You Have to Leap

Religion Has Always Been Doubted

I've just published a new edition of my book about the Greek philosophers and what they thought about religion, their gods, and the myths about them: Cosmos of the Ancients. I was curious about how much they actually believed in their gods. Not much at all, I found.

Generally, we tend to take for granted that in ancient times, doubts about religious matters were almost unfathomable. We expect that the further back in time we go, the less people were able to see through the religious concepts or question them at all. The gods were as real to them as the sky, the sun, and the moon.

I was not so sure of it, considering the nature of the human mind, which has been about the same – as far as we know – for hundreds of thousands of years. That's how long the human brain size has been about the same. This big thing must have been put to use in all kinds of matters, especially those that appeared from inside of it.

We are unable to scrutinize human though in any detail, way back to the stone age, but there are lots of thoughts preserved from Ancient Greece. That's at least some 2,400 years back, in a time where gods were worshipped and myths about them were common knowledge. So, I decided to investigate what the Greek philosophers revealed about their thoughts on religious matters.

They were the finest minds of the time, no doubt, so what they concluded might not have been the views of the common man. But if they were at all able to question the existence of the gods and the accuracy of the myths about them, then all the people of that time would at least have had the ability to do the same. It could not have been beyond their mental capacity.

Indeed, most of the philosophers expressed some kind of disbelief regarding religious views. Several of them were outright atheists, others regarded the gods as symbols of sorts, or imagined supernatural powers of other kinds. Actually, philosophers with a belief in the common myhtology were hard to find.

This might very well be true for any time and any culture. The religious beliefs are not embraced by all, at least not entirely. There has always been doubt and alternative ideas about it all. This needs to be considered wherever religion is studied. We can't take blind belief for granted, even when we go far back or examine a culture where religion seemed to rule the world view. Its rule was probably never absolute.

People's minds wander. They've always done so. The one thing that is the hardest to find, upon closer examination, is consensus. That's probably how we progress at all.

Here's my book about the Greek philosophers and their religious views on Amazon.
It's also a Kindle ebook.
And here is more information about the book on my website.

Suicide or Bombing

A man carrying bombs blew his car and himself up in Stockholm. Fortunately, nobody else was seriously wounded. The first terrorist suicide bomber in Sweden. There are so many aspects to this, I hardly know where to begin. Nothing in this world is simple, nor black and white.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Suicide or Bombing

Jesus was Not a Christian

The rage of atheists on YouTube and elsewhere is understandable. They react to the increasing nonsense from Christian fundamentalists, mainly in the USA. But Jesus is not really to blame.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Jesus Was Not a Christian

Condom News Sensations

The condom makes the news twice – the Pope suddenly expresses an understanding of its use to protect against HIV, and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is accused of not using it sufficiently. The rubber has the center stage.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Condom News Sensations