A number of people read all or part of “The Holy Bluff” as it was emerging chapter by chapter or in completed drafts. Certain questions tended to come up repeatedly and are answered here for the interested reader. Charles Nolan welcomes comments and questions from readers and can be reached through the “contact” tab of this website.
Why did you write this book?
Like anybody who writes any book, I wrote it first and foremost for myself. There were things I needed to deal with, and not dealing with them was leaving a big blank space in my life. The human needs that religion tries to meet aren’t needs we can throw away when we walk away from religion. If you walk away from the waterhole because you’ve decided it’s a mirage, you’re still stuck with the problem of finding water in the desert – you’re still thirsty. The more I got into it, the more I realized that a lot of people were in the same place I was, needing answers and having a hard time trying to live with the idea that there weren’t any. I stumbled onto "The Holy Bluff" when I was writing a song– it just popped into my head - for some reason it worked for me. It’s taken me a few years and a lot of digging to find out why. Hopefully, the book will make what I found clear to other people.
How are you qualified to write a book about the meaning of life?
Everybody’s qualified to write a book about the meaning of life. We have to be. Nobody lives for us and nobody dies for us. It’s our life and we have to find our own answers. Whether we write them down or not is almost beside the point. It’s no different from having to do our own breathing. The question of “special qualifications” in this area is one that’s been exploited by many people down through history and has done a great deal of harm – the old “I know and you don’t so you’ll have to trust me” game. As somebody recently pointed out, a Doctor of Divinity has a PhD. in nothing. There’s no information behind it, nothing to hold onto but the false authority the credential is attempting to validate. Because of my interest in the topic, I’ve done a lot of homework most people wouldn’t want to have to, and I have a way with words. Those are my qualifications, and of course being human.
Why at times do you inject humor into your treatment of topics that are really very serious?
In part, it’s a reflection of my personality. It’s how I cope. I also believe that the more serious the topic, the more you need to keep your sense of humor about it. It’s like the story of the man on the way to the gallows. As he got to the foot of the scaffold, the guard told him to be careful because the steps were steep. This hit the condemned man as funny, that anyone would care if he tripped and broke his neck on his way to be hung, so, despite himself, he started to laugh. By the time he got to the gallows, he was laughing uncontrollably. This made the crowd very nervous, but the poor man couldn’t help himself. He literally died laughing. Like it or not, that’s the human condition. The joke’s on us, so we might as well enjoy it.
You toss off a lot of information about cosmology, anthropology and history without citing a lot of sources. Have you done the research?
Yes – to the level anyone in my position – reasonably well educated, but not having spent the time and dedication necessary to achieve expert status in any of those fields – could be expected to. I don’t put myself out there as being any more or less well informed than the average citizen who’s paying attention. My positions are consistent with the available information, like the fact that standing up straight made it possible for our ancestors to develop a larger brain cavity. I didn’t spend years digging at an anthropological site, but that fortunate side effect of the glitch in our backs is pretty well established and tells us a lot about how things actually happen in human history. That’s just one example. I didn’t compile a list of references for all the details, since that’s not the kind of book I was writing. One of my central points is my willingness to change my story as new information is received. The details are changing constantly, but the big picture doesn’t. Given the internet, the information’s out there for anybody who wants to check on it.
Once someone has read your book, what are they supposed to do about it? What difference do you expect these ideas to make in anybody’s life?
Hopefully, the book will jump start some thinking on the reader’s part. I’m not expecting anyone to buy my package, hook line and sinker. If they did, they’d be missing the point. I think that realizing that religion and inventing the can opener came from the same place in our heads, and that that place is valid, healthy and good, can be liberating, and can free a person up to create an opener for their own particular set of cans without feeling guilty or foolish about it. The best reaction I could hope to get would be from somebody who cared enough to argue with me. I’ve had much better discussions with people who disagreed with me than those who nodded their heads and said “very interesting”.
Why did you write this book?
Like anybody who writes any book, I wrote it first and foremost for myself. There were things I needed to deal with, and not dealing with them was leaving a big blank space in my life. The human needs that religion tries to meet aren’t needs we can throw away when we walk away from religion. If you walk away from the waterhole because you’ve decided it’s a mirage, you’re still stuck with the problem of finding water in the desert – you’re still thirsty. The more I got into it, the more I realized that a lot of people were in the same place I was, needing answers and having a hard time trying to live with the idea that there weren’t any. I stumbled onto "The Holy Bluff" when I was writing a song– it just popped into my head - for some reason it worked for me. It’s taken me a few years and a lot of digging to find out why. Hopefully, the book will make what I found clear to other people.
How are you qualified to write a book about the meaning of life?
Everybody’s qualified to write a book about the meaning of life. We have to be. Nobody lives for us and nobody dies for us. It’s our life and we have to find our own answers. Whether we write them down or not is almost beside the point. It’s no different from having to do our own breathing. The question of “special qualifications” in this area is one that’s been exploited by many people down through history and has done a great deal of harm – the old “I know and you don’t so you’ll have to trust me” game. As somebody recently pointed out, a Doctor of Divinity has a PhD. in nothing. There’s no information behind it, nothing to hold onto but the false authority the credential is attempting to validate. Because of my interest in the topic, I’ve done a lot of homework most people wouldn’t want to have to, and I have a way with words. Those are my qualifications, and of course being human.
Why at times do you inject humor into your treatment of topics that are really very serious?
In part, it’s a reflection of my personality. It’s how I cope. I also believe that the more serious the topic, the more you need to keep your sense of humor about it. It’s like the story of the man on the way to the gallows. As he got to the foot of the scaffold, the guard told him to be careful because the steps were steep. This hit the condemned man as funny, that anyone would care if he tripped and broke his neck on his way to be hung, so, despite himself, he started to laugh. By the time he got to the gallows, he was laughing uncontrollably. This made the crowd very nervous, but the poor man couldn’t help himself. He literally died laughing. Like it or not, that’s the human condition. The joke’s on us, so we might as well enjoy it.
You toss off a lot of information about cosmology, anthropology and history without citing a lot of sources. Have you done the research?
Yes – to the level anyone in my position – reasonably well educated, but not having spent the time and dedication necessary to achieve expert status in any of those fields – could be expected to. I don’t put myself out there as being any more or less well informed than the average citizen who’s paying attention. My positions are consistent with the available information, like the fact that standing up straight made it possible for our ancestors to develop a larger brain cavity. I didn’t spend years digging at an anthropological site, but that fortunate side effect of the glitch in our backs is pretty well established and tells us a lot about how things actually happen in human history. That’s just one example. I didn’t compile a list of references for all the details, since that’s not the kind of book I was writing. One of my central points is my willingness to change my story as new information is received. The details are changing constantly, but the big picture doesn’t. Given the internet, the information’s out there for anybody who wants to check on it.
Once someone has read your book, what are they supposed to do about it? What difference do you expect these ideas to make in anybody’s life?
Hopefully, the book will jump start some thinking on the reader’s part. I’m not expecting anyone to buy my package, hook line and sinker. If they did, they’d be missing the point. I think that realizing that religion and inventing the can opener came from the same place in our heads, and that that place is valid, healthy and good, can be liberating, and can free a person up to create an opener for their own particular set of cans without feeling guilty or foolish about it. The best reaction I could hope to get would be from somebody who cared enough to argue with me. I’ve had much better discussions with people who disagreed with me than those who nodded their heads and said “very interesting”.