Get This

Turns out the evangelical Christians in the US (read, 'nut balls') support giving money to Israel. Why? BECAUSE GOD IS TELL THEM TO (Yes all of them) to do so to the tune of several million dollars. Here's some quotes from the CNN story.


The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates 85 million evangelicals believe God tells them to support Israel -- more than six times the world's Jewish population.

Back in church, Baras told the congregation: "We need to stand together so that our governments will believe that the land of Israel, the entire land of Israel, belongs to the Jewish people."

OK, here's my question. If that land historically belongs to the Jewish people then doesn't the good old US of A belong to the American Indians. Why don't they jump on this one and give away their property to the first Indian they can find and F-ING MOVE TO ISRAEL. Then we won't have these millions of nut cases voting!

God tells them? Where was god when we were wiping out the American Indian. Where was god when we played that little game of Shock and Awe. How about the bombing of Dresden. Or, my favorite, Hiroshima.

How come these people's antennae are so finely tuned so that god tells them exactly what they would have wanted to do anyway without god interferring?

Let's not even get into the whole, "How does the communication process work" thing right now. I just think it is very self-serving and pious to say, "God told me to do this or that". You know that won't keep you out of jail if god tells you to go kill someone. People have tried it. Doesn't work. But why? If the judge and jury all are good christians and some guy says god made me do it, why DON'T they let him off. They must not believe that god speaks to us directly.

This says it all....

A classic comic in Non Sequitor. Check it out...Nuff said

$660 million?

The Archidioces of LA just settled out of court with 508 cases of sexual abuse for $660 million. That's dollars. That's 508 cases. $660 x 10^6. I'll give you that a number of these people are probably jumping onto the ox cart for a payout. Still...Let's say it's only 250 cases. THAT IS WAY MORE THAN ZERO!!!!! OK a number of questions come up...

1. Where does a body based on the vow of poverty come up with $660 million? OK, they have to sell some land and liquidate some holdings and borrow but they CAN come up with it. Could you? $660 milliion?

2. What is their souce of income to compile a portfolio that would allow even a chance of putting together $660 millon. Who's dropping the big coins in the plate?

3. Maybe it's time to let priests marry. Aparently polishing the candle isn't doing it for them any more.

4. BIG question....why doesn't the creator see this coming and DO something about it before it happens. This isn't any old chuch thrown together by some cracker in South Caolina with a microphone and a couple of snakes. This is THE church created by HIM. Upon this rock St Peter built THE church.* Well, what the hell? Is this working or not?

Discuss

*The pope says that the Catholic church is the only real church but that other christians still get to go to heaven. . . .Sure, but I bet they have to go to the end of the line on the really cool rides.

From the LA Times:

The deal settles all 508 cases that remained against the archdiocese, which also paid $60 million in December to settle 45 cases that weren't covered by sexual abuse insurance.

The archdiocese will pay $250 million, insurance carriers will pay a combined $227 million and several religious orders will chip in $60 million.

The remaining $123 million will come from litigation with religious orders that chose not to participate in the deal, with the archdiocese guaranteeing resolution of those 80 to 100 cases within five years, Hennigan said.

The archdiocese is released from liability in those claims, said Tod Tamberg, church spokesman.

The settlements push the total amount paid out by the U.S. church since 1950 to more than $2 billion, with about a quarter of that coming from the Los Angeles archdiocese.

God's never too busy...

OCEAN CITY, New Jersey (AP) -- Miss New Jersey can keep her crown despite photos that show her acting "not in a ladylike manner."

Miss New Jersey Amy Polumbo blew kisses to audience members during the announcement.

Hours after a nervous Amy Polumbo went public Thursday with photos of herself that had been sent anonymously to pageant officials, those officials decided the pictures did not merit stripping her of the title.

"I'm very happy about this decision, and I look forward to resuming my agenda* as Miss New Jersey," said a smiling Polumbo, who blew kisses to audience members during the announcement.

The beauty pageant winner apologized for the trouble the pictures had caused and thanked the pageant board for its support.

"I want to thank the public," Polumbo said. "I also want to thank God for getting me through this."

The pictures include one showing what Polumbo said was her boyfriend apparently biting her breast through her shirt, another of Polumbo in a limousine wearing jeans with her legs spread in the air and another of her in what appears to be a Halloween costume dress holding two small pumpkins up to her breasts.

"It's not in a ladylike manner. I'm not a robot. I'm a human being," Polumbo said.

------------------
OK, I like to imagine God sitting in a huge control room....like the one at Fermi Lab only bigger and with even more buttons and things that go 'boooop'. So, he's sitting there and it must be action packed... "Let's see I got that plane with mechanical trouble, Osama is still hiding somewhere, still can't quite get rid of No Child Left Behind, there's that kid playing on the train tracks...what the. . . hold the phone! CODE BLUE! CODE BLUE! Someone is being mean to Miss New Jersey. Shut down ALL the prayer lines EXCEPT her's. Roger.

Yeah, the creator has time for your tough life as a beauty queen. (This is where we need Sam Kinison) Starving people just wait a minute will you? sheesh. Some people.

(Oh and I hate her hair! and her giant front teeth!)

*Don't you really want to see this agenda: Get up, comb hair, take nap, comb hair, check make-up, blow kisses, act bitchy to my aids, comb hair, buy a dress, repeat.

Which came first the bible or the religion?

I haven't written much about the bible itself in this blog. Suffice it to say that there are numerous problems with it. In general, if it was written via divine inspiration (and how does that work?) as the official word of God then why are there so many inconsistencies? One simple example: In Genesis (rife with inconsistencies) we find that God separated the day from the night and then a couple of days later created the sun. Hmmm...You see the problem.

Of course the bible has been written and re-written many times over the years and scholars agree that there are numerous 'authors' work in the bible. So, why doesn't God fix this? No big secret that copies of copies and re-telling of stories ends up with huge distortions. So, come on. Divinely inspire someone and let's have a re-write.

Come to think of it, if you are God and want to bring God's word to people, why use multiple authors at all. Couldn't God see that that was going to lead to problems?

Also, why is the bible so wrong about so many things that we now know to be true. There is no question any longer about the age of the universe and that it all started with the Big Bang about 13 billion years ago. If God was the cause of the big bang why isn't it mentioned in Genesis? What we have instead is a reflection of the thinking in the day of the nature of the universe including a lot of flat earth references and no freaking idea as to how big the earth or space is in general. Could it be that these authors weren't so inspired after all? Could it be that the bible is a collection of tales that were formally passed on by word of mouth and then at one point put down on paper? Could it be that LATER people got the idea that this book was holy and must have come from God?

What seems more reasonable?

Finally, to people who say that the bible is just metaphor and not meant to be factual I say you have the cart before the donkey. Religions started getting organized and split into various groups AFTER the bible. The bible is the reason that there are religions. So you can't hang your hat on your favorite church on Sunday and they pooh pooh the bible. If it's not the divine word of God then where does that put your church and religion? As usual, the thoughtless theist wants it both ways and avoids this sort of thinking.

Newton not an Atheist!

Recently it seems there has been a flare up in the religion vs. Science discussion. In a recent article on CNN some of Newton's papers are being displayed in an exhibit in Jeruselam. Apparently some are finding it shocking that Newton was, well, a nut! He believed in all sorts of mystical things and looked for clues to the end of the world (~2060 according to Newton) in the book of Daniel. Here's an excerpt from the article:

Yemima Ben-Menahem, one of the exhibit's curators, said the papers show Newton's conviction that important knowledge was hiding in ancient texts.

"He believed there was wisdom in the world that got lost. He thought it was coded, and that by studying things like the dimensions of the temple, he could decode it," she said.

The Newton papers, Ben-Menahem said, also complicate the idea that science is diametrically opposed to religion. "These documents show a scientist guided by religious fervor, by a desire to see God's actions in the world," she said.

Let's look at what Newton did NOT do. . .

He did not stop doing excellent physics just because he had a mystical side. He did not, I don't think, deny any piece of data even if it would have been at odds with a belief. In other words he kept the two separate and probably understood that those two worlds HAD to be separate since there was no real common ground.

Galileo was also a believer. He believed that science was a fine way to study and appreciate "God's good work".

The only problem I have with today's theists is when it is their way or the highway in ALL manner of human endeavour. No studying evolution because it is at odds with you belief system. In fact just let me invent some science to replace it and then I'll study that! (Creationism). No big bang either.

There is only a battle between science and religion when the zealot tries to infuse a belief system into the rational world of science. As an atheist/scientist I have nothing to prove. I don't claim that invisible people exist. I have no business mucking about in the workings of the church. I could care less. So, let's not have the faithful mucking about in science!

By the way. . . don't you think Newton looks a little like Roger Daltry of the Who who is also ENGLISH! Coincidence???????

Two Easy Pieces

Nothing Lasts

If you look around and pay attention to this old world one thing that becomes obvious is that nothing lasts. I don’t mean this in a negative or pessimistic sense. But, rather, as a bald observation about the universe. No living thing lives forever. There is a copying and recopying mechanism involved in all life and copies of copies of copies ultimately break down. It is true of the construction of cells to the mega-construction of sequoias and elephants. Life itself replenishes itself but not an individual life. Life goes on as they say. . .

Of course the idea can be expanded. The day ends. The season ends. The year ends. Game over. The fat lady sings. And more! Stars themselves don’t live forever. There is a natural progression to the burning that goes on in a star and, as conservation of energy would dictate, it simply runs out of fuel one day and explodes. Our sun will do this in a few billion years. We see the remnants of exploded stars throughout the sky. Of course there is star birth as well. From the remnants and dust left behind gravity will sculpt a new star. And so it goes.

The universe itself certainly had a birth about 13 billion years ago and perhaps it too will die as the galaxies stop their expansion and turn around and race to each other in a hyper universal demolition derby of the entire universe. And then a re-birth? Or, perhaps the galaxies will race away from one another until the universe dies a cold death where each galaxy thinks it is the only one. We’ll see...well, we won’t will we?

By simple observation and a little thought and study we learn that individual things (cells, plants, animals, people, stars) do not last but their off spring and their larger environment goes on. The atoms of the deceased recycled from finger to flower, worm to eyelid, flower petal to sloth lips.

How on earth did christianity get the idea then that an individual somehow gets to continue on in some other dimension after death? This idea is contrary to every possible observation we can make about our universe. You cannot look anywhere and find examples of this. You can’t find any theory on which to base this sort of process. We can only be taught this outlandish idea at a very young age while we still depend on the elders to speak the truth. (We have a biological, evolutionary wiring for this for very good reasons. Humans take a long time to develop. During those formative years the child needs to depend on the adult for support and information. We are naturally, biologically susceptible to the teachings we get at a very early age from our parents. It is then extra hard to change or challenge these lessons.) If one were allowed to be taught by nature itself with the support and critical, logical eye of the adult (master learner rather than teacher) would that individual come to the conclusion that there must be an afterlife and a heaven?

Certainly because we can think, ‘I am’ we all can then think, ‘What then when I am not’? This is the curse of our being sentient. Now just because we are frightened by that thought doesn’t mean that we get to make up an answer that helps to allay our fears. Well, we can and we certainly have but SHOULD we? Should we teach the children an answer that we have only made up which does not come from observation?



“There’s always a reason”

Reason: A justification or power or process of thinking

There is a saying among theists and probably mostly Christians when something bad happens they say, “There’s always a reason”. The implication is that God has a reason but we don’t see it. Interesting.

To make this statement is to walk on both sides of a fence. On one side you live in a world where magic is possible. Water turns into wine, people come back from the dead, cures happen via prayer. These events and others are deemed outside the normal flow of the natural laws of nature. That’s a good thing for a theist because god should be more mighty than the very laws that he invented.

On the other side of the fence we apparently still want the operation of the god to be reasonable. See? We try to make the unreasonable reasonable by simply saying that it is ... but that we can’t know it. How can you have it both ways? How can you invent a god that does unreasonable things (things that are physically impossible) and yet somehow works in a reasonable or logical way?

And what is there to make a reasonable plan unknowable? Is this not just more proselytizing that we are mere mortals and cannot possibly know (we’re not worthy to know) the workings of the god? But if there were a grand plan that the creator was using and if that plan were reasonable what would there be to stop a reasonable creature from understanding it? It could be long. It could be convoluted. It could have hard math in it. OK. But what could make it unknowable by its very nature?

Is is not MORE reasonable to look around this world and conclude that there is no sentient plan and that events are unfolding naturally - to conclude that we are independent and free thinking beings that make our own way or not. Sure the world is big and complicated but to bring in a creator with an unknowable yet reasonable plan only complicates matters more. Nothing is answered. Nothing is gained.

To assume that the creator has a plan and that he represents all goodness means that you have to somehow incorporate the holocaust, the sinking of the Titanic, and the popularity of American Idol into this ‘good plan’. Isn’t that much harder to swallow (ok, I guess it’s supposed to be) than to conclude that there is no plan?

When people began with the Greeks to make a model of the universe they naturally put the earth at the center. This is not stupidity nor is it necessarily arrogance but a very nice observation. If you watch the sun, moon and stars over the course of days, weeks and years they appear to make repeated circles around us. As the data got better things got a little more complicated. The motions were circular but the speeds were not constant. The circles were perfect but the earth wasn’t right at the center. To include the planets in this model you had to have a planet go in a circle around an empty point in space while that point went around the earth. More and more data produced more and more levers, cams, gears inside of gears until finally even the true believers (and that was nearly everyone since the catholic church had already burned the non-believers at the stake.) asked, “Why would the creator make it so complicated? If the heavens are so beautiful and supposedly so perfect, why are these motions so convoluted”? Of course the premise that the earth was at the center was wrong. There was no way to make an accurate model of the universe with the earth at the center. Step in Copernicus to put the sun at the center and all the bells and whistles fall away and you have simple (although not circular but rather on ellipsoidal) motion around the sun coupled with a spinning earth to explain all that we see in the sky.

This has happened more than once in the natural development of ideas. it happened with evolution, with the discovery of DNA, and with the quark model of the nucleus. The point is that when things get very, very complicated we start to worry and think maybe there is a way to simplify, ‘start’ over, and re-think our assumptions.

To assume that there is a creator with a complicated plan answers nothing and leads to further complications and conundrums. We want to pray to him for good things to happen knowing full well that he either allows or causes bad things to happen. This plan has to be hyper-complicated or...there is no plan. Again, this is a grand simplification into which all the known facts already fit.

I’m not kidding. We have a testable model for how the universe evolved from a few nano-seconds after the big bang right up to today. We get how protons and neutrons distilled out of the pure energy of the explosion. We understand how particles would have come together via gravity to form stars and entire galaxies of stars. On our little planet we have a very nice time line from self-replicating cells, RNA, tRNA, DNA and how mutation would lead to ever increasing complexity. We even understand where ‘goodness’ comes from. Since humans were no match for predators physically, they had to turn to each other and stick together in tribes to have a chance. The humans that evolved from those tough times are here today and still have the ability to care for and love other humans. We couldn’t have evolved otherwise. Into this already complicated yet reasonable story where do you insert god and to answer what question? Isn’t this complicated enough? Isn’t this beautiful enough?

What don’t we know? We don’t know if the big bang had a cause. We don’t know if it makes sense to even discuss ‘before the big bang’ as if it was truly the first thing then there is no before. If there is no ‘before’ can there even exist cause and effect? We don’t know the fate of the universe. It may expand forever or stop and rush back toward a center and giant crunch. We don’t know how our brains work or which part (or the whole thing) leads to sentience. I’m sure there are other burning questions in biology and maybe even chemistry. The fact that there are things we don’t know, though, doesn’t mean they are unknowable by their nature. Just don’t know them yet perhaps. One certainly shouldn’t take the giant middle ages leap that the unknown equals the work of the gods. Or of demons. Thunder and lightning used to be an indication that we had angered the gods. We don’t think that anymore, right? Maybe the questions for which we don’t have a ready answer are just not answered YET. Which path is simpler and more reasonable?

Finally, as Dennet would put it, maybe it is time to ask ourselves why we are still carrying around the burden of religion? There is a question truly worth investigating.

God's Holy Wrath?

A few days ago tornadoes ripped through central Florida destroying homes and taking several lives. Additionally a church in Lady Lake, Florida was demolished. A couple of thoughts....

1. Why is the fact that a church was destroyed always a part of these news stories. What about the bowling ally, or city building, or Bernie's tavern? Why is this reported as if it were an 'extra' awful disaster. Comes back (as always) to some of the points in my main rant. If you believe in all this business what do you need the building for anyway? Sure you like getting together with liked minded people and the church building is where you do that but that's just a place. The VFW hall may have to be rebuilt too. Is that extra disastrous as well?

2. I was stuck in the airport during a CNN report on this and they kept repeating the same story about the church. Their little hook headline was, "Prayer couldn't save it but faith will rebuild it". First off... I doubt whether anyone was praying for the saving at the church at 3 AM when this storm hit. If I were praying it would be that my own ass didn't get blown into the Atlantic Ocean. Secondly, if "faith" rebuilds it what rebuilds the gas station, VFW hall, etc? What does a sentence like that even mean?

3. If Faith is 'strong enough' to rebuild it why wasn't it strong enough to steer the tornadoe a few hundred feet to the left or right and spare the church in the first place. Of course god do work in mysterious ways and it's not up to us to question.

But WHY can't we question? Is it because deep down the questions and the line that they will naturally take become very uncomfortable? The big underlying thought behind this and so many other stories is the theists are fond of saying that they "feel blessed" when something good happens to them but don't say "God's a bastard" when something bad happens. I guess bad stuff is the devil's work and God just doesn't get to win 'em all!

Ramblings

Quote of the day: "I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies." - Benjamen Franklin

Interesting quote from good old Ben. Is it true that all truly deep thinking humans ultimately come to the conclusion that faith and religion lead either to no where or at lest to no good? Certainly it has been the case that religion encourages one to stop thinking and give one's self over to faith. If true questioning is allowed to follow its natural course some very big unanswerable questions naturally arise. Religion then has to take the fall back position that some things are by their nature un-answerable . . . . which makes them holy. I contend that the existence of things being un-answerable by their nature is impossible and in any case how would that make them holy? What does holy even mean?

Discourse

A good friend of mine, an admitted theist, and I tried to carry on a reasonable back and forth on atheism/theism. It was interesting and frustrating. The short version is that it turns out there is no arena in which to have such a discussion. No common ground. The discussion turned out to be simply arumentative. My friend continually took the tack that science doesn't really know anything either. Trying to drag skepticism down to the level of mysticism. I argued, of course, that my claims were repeatedly testable by independent investigators - something theists can never claim. After a bit we just let it go as the whole discussion became uninteresting.

Evolution Thoughts

You'd think that a well thought out and established pardigm like evolution wouldn't find a place in a blog about religion. Of course we all know better due to the tempest in a teapot created by a few fanatical 'Creationists'. Like giving your faith in magic a new name would put it on par with a skeptical, self correcting scientific theory. Some thoughts on the matter. . .

Darwin didn't start out thinking, "I'm gonna go find me some evidence for evolution". The idea of evolution itself evoloved from the preponderance of the evidence. You'd have to be a complete idiot to deny in what direction the evidence points. A 'Creationist' on the other hand pretends he is a scientist even though he only has one axe to grind and is blind to all else. This is not the healthy skepticism in which truth is ultimately discovered

No one actally working in the field of biology/anthropology/you name it...pays any attention to creationist thought. The paradigm of evolution and natural selection is the template for all study in these many fields...BECAUSE IT WORKS! The press can make it look like an even handed argument and a close contest. There is no contest at all in working science. Just another way to get people to watch your news show.

Actually, one of the more interesting arguments against natural selection is the existence of the eye. The argument goes somethingn like this: Since evolution makes ever better versions of things, how could an eye evolved from a less than perfect eye? What good would an eye be that couldn't see? Therefore the eye must have been created all at once by a superior intelligence.

There are at least 3 things wrong with this argument.

1. At every stage of evolution an organism is perfect. It is not a faulty working version of a later stage. It doesn't work that way. Improvements are made but not to correct bad design but only to improve already working design.

2. There is a nice sequence of designs from which the modern eye has evolved. The latest version which uses a lens to create images on a retina did not come from a version that made bad or out of focus images. It evolved from light sensing organs which are usefull to turn oneself toward the light. Here's a brief article about this. Also, November '06 National Geographic has a nice series of diagrams showing how the eye may have evolved from basic light gathering cells. It is interesting to note that starting with a cell that is a little sensitive to light evolves to putting that cell at the bottom of a tube. This gives you a little directionality. The tube then began to close up at the top creating a pin hole which, as all kids used to know, is a basic pin-hole camera. That is, it is a basic image former with no lens per se. Lens and iris are then improvements on this already functional design.

3. As with all things like this, to say that 'God made it' is no answer at all but only opens up a whole new line of inquiry. If God did it, HOW did he do it. If there is an effect there must be a cause. To say God did it is to say I don't understand. This should not be an end to thinking but a beginning.

That's it for now...have a reasonable day!

Mohammed vs. Jesus smackdown!

I read a short piece on the history of Islam and the prophet Mohammed. It seems strange to me that, like judeo-Christian religions, the angle Gabriel picked out Mohammed to receive the message of the Koran directly from God. Mohammed was himself illiterate but by all accounts a really nice guy. He walked about the mid-east and did good deeds (like Johnny Appleseed) and slowly but surely the religion of Islam got started. Sound familiar? Isn't the bible alledgedly written by God through people who just acted as conduits? Wasn't Jesus also a pretty nice guy (as long as you weren't a money changer!)? I guess the big question is...who did God really talk to? Was it God's intention to start two huge religions on purpose? Do Christians and Muslims both believe in the same one true God but differ on who brought the message?

Interestingly, it seems that Mohammed was really, really a nice guy and wouldn't hurt a fly and preached that. So, what's with all the Jihad? The perfect example was recently when the Pope alluded to the fact that maybe somebody sometime in the ancient past referred to Muslims as violent or something of that nature the Muslim community responded by blowing up a couple of Christian churches. Call us violent will you. We'll show YOU!

It would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic. Is this not a perfect example of 'my invisible guy is better than your invisible guy'?

Imagine there's no heaven....

Happy Easter

The main event of all of Christianity is celebrated in the spring. I guess Jesus was crucified on a Friday but I’m not sure if it was in the spring time - a time of renewal. (Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox I think) Like Christmas, the early Christians took over pagan holidays that were already there. Christmas time originally celebrated the winter solstice and return of the warming rays of the sun. Sun worship was popular in pagan days so Christianity just jumped on this one and took it over. Lots of spring holidays pre existed and the story of the resurrection of Jesus probably took those over too. The vernal equinox is a measurable event and important for spring planting.

Anyway we have THE event that defines Christianity. God giving up his only son to die for our sins. Now I know I’m not supposed to ask reasonable questions but here we go again. If this is real stuff then it should be ok to ask reasonable questions about it.

1. Why did God wait so long. If we are now saved from this selfless act from God/Jesus what about all the people that came before the year 36?
2. What of the proto humans before homosapien?
3. If God can do anything why did he have to sacrifice his son to forgive us for our sins? Why not just do it?
4. How does is really work. What is the mechanism by which I am saved via the death of Jesus 2006 years ago?

OK, I could go on and on about the technical difficulties this presents but let’s get down to some tin tacks.

I just read the part of the bible where Jesus gets crucified (absolutely riveting!) and then appears to Mary Magdelan and then days later appears to some of the apostles. He even appears to Doubting Thomas (my favorite apostle) letting him touch his scared (sacred?) hands to confirm for himself that this was in fact the re-incarnation of Jesus. Throughout this part there is a lot of ‘searching of the heavens’, rising up into heaven, cloud references and so forth. Let’s think for a second what the world view was around this time.

Educated people knew the world was round. You can tell. The ancient Greeks even had a rough estimate of the earth’s circumference. What they had little concept of was how really big the universe is! It’s really big. The sun was not 93 million miles away but was a fiery object traveling in our own atmosphere. The clouds were as unreachable then as the center of the galaxy is now. What is different now is that although we would have a tough time reaching the center of the galaxy, we understand what is there. We get that all the stars in the sky are more or less like our sun. Other galaxies are more or less like our galaxy: a collection of stars bound by their mutual gravitational attraction. It was in fact a huge discovery (and a fairly recent one) that the periodic table on earth is the same periodic table everywhere. The laws of physics and chemistry are the same everywhere. No new elements no matter how far you travel.

So, what if Jesus had been ‘sent down’ in 1995 instead of 0? Sent down from where? Upon his electrocution, to where would he have risen up? The whole basis for religion like this is the basic underlying idea that there are unknowable and unapproachable places. In the year 0 that would have been up in the clouds. (The ‘gods live in the clouds’ is borrowed from various Greek and Roman myths.) I can see how you get a religion started when there is so much apparent mystery in the world. With so much lack of understanding many natural phenomena do seem like magic. What I don’t understand is how you keep a religion going in the face of all our understanding.

I notice that reanimated Jesus is not a ghostly apparition. Doubting Thomas is allowed to touch the wounded hands for himself. So, in Acts 1:9…After saying this, he was taken up to heaven as they watched him, and a cloud hid him from their sight…we’re talking a solid human rising up into the clouds. Is this still the view of modern Christians? Do they believe that God/Jesus lives up in the clouds? I doubt that they do but I could be wrong. Where then? If a solid Jesus went up into the sky, where did he go?

Moreover if modern Christians have to drop the idea of the clouds being the location of heaven what else must be dropped due to a modern view of our universe? You see you have a recurring problem of on one hand claiming that you have a book that is by definition ‘the truth’ while on the other hand picking and choosing which parts are REALLY true and which parts are metaphor. I don’t think you can have it both ways.

Another world view that presents problems is that of the place of humans on the earth. People around the year 0 certainly thought of themselves as separate from plants and animals. The last 100 years of research has shown that we are just as natural a part of the earth as a sparrow or a dinosaur. Our ‘special place’ is of our own making because we are so impressed by our own understanding of the phrase “I AM”. So at what point along the evolutionary trail did we become special and need saving from our sins? Was it when the first RNA molecules started to replicate? First cells? First multi-cellular organisms? First mammals? First trick of walking on our hind legs? Juggling?

Let’s say that everything Jesus is purported to have said in the bible he actually said and that the disciples actually believed and bought into the whole thing exactly as reported. I get that people around the time 0 could have this kind of experience based on their narrow world view. What I don’t understand is how a modern man or woman can pretend they are living in the year 0 and buy into the whole thing just like an ignorant Sheppard of 2000 years ago.

So happy Easter everyone. We should all remember to be nice to one another because if you think about it, that is the best for the most people.

Sunday School

I was thinking the other day as to whether or not it is fair to send litle kids to sunday school. On one hand I get the idea that a religious family thinks of church as a family event and is anxious and happy to get the little toddlers involved as early as possible.

On the other hand this is a pretty impressionable age to be presenting little kids with promises of eternal life and so forth. Kids at this age are not yet able to discriminate between magic and reality. They are easily fooled with simple things because their cognitive delvelopment has not nearly reached the stage yet to handle the heady ideas in the bible.

Moreover, there can be (and usually is) a lot of guilt associated with the teachings of the bible. "You better be 'good' or your soul will go to hell". That sort of thing. Kind of sounds like the Santa Claus myth doesn't it? At any rate, it is pretty much agreed upon via the work done by Piaget and others that people don't develope the capability for critical thought until after the age of 12 or so. You cold argue 11 or 13 or you could argue the symantics of critical thought but the basic idea of being able to hypothesize and consider situations in THEORY doesn't arrive until the early teens.

So, what chance does an individual have to truly consider religion in a fair way when it is brought to them as undeneighable TRUTH starting at the age of 3 or 4? Of course a 'good' theist parent doesn't want their kid to even have this chance because to do so is to invite eternal damnation. By indoctrinating them to the teachings in the bible at an early age they think of themselves as good parents.

What if you held off though? What if as a theist you didn't allow your kid to go to church or learn the teachings of Jesus and the others until, say, high school? If they ask tell them they're not ready for such heady theoretical stuff as the immortal soul, father, son holy ghost, and so forth. Like booze, driving and voting. Not ready! These are in fact pretty complex philosophic ideas and maybe should not be taught to the little ones before they have the capabilities to consider such topics fairly.

Of course you know the answer. The answer is that a theist already 'knows' the right answer to how to live so why wait? The child in question doesn't need to consider anything else (but what if they wanted to ...or were just curious?) because the WAY is already as clear as the nose on their face.

And yet, like John Lennon, I just try to imagine how it would be if we didn't have to carry this big religion load around with us everywhere but could just deal with each other fairly day by day.

We want our cake and eat it too!

Does anyone but me find it curios that the religious right “scientists” have only taken issue with one theory in all of science? I guess they are ok with the laws of electromagnetism, gravity, genetics (to a point), the law of equal proportions, levers, the periodic table, gas laws, orbits, laws of motion, Boyles Law, Charles Law, Lenz’ Law …and so on. These are all fine. But the one theory that needs a little tweaking is evolution. Curious. All other fields of science are ok but not this one. This alone demonstrates the non-science of this approach. You can’t just pick a law and then start picking it apart to suit your own political aims. The attempt to invent something called ‘creation science’ is so transparent and laughable that luckily, intelligent people can just ignore this like they ignore palm reading and tarot cards.

Then there’s Iowa

And the President

Hey maybe this isn’t so funny!

While we’d like to just make fun and poke giant holes in the arguments from the religious right we have to remember to do just that. If they want to make a stand on scientific grounds then let them do it scientifically and not with some ad hoc argument that presupposes the existence of a superior being. They will continually lose on this battle field because there is no experiment that can be done to support the existence of a superior being. People have been trying to prove the existence or non-existence of god for centuries. You can’t do either. Here’s why

For the atheist you can never prove a negative. I can’t prove that you didn’t see monkeys playing cards in your back yard. Similarly, I can’t prove that there is NOT a god pulling strings. On the other hand the proof is not on the skeptic. If someone has a claim as to the existence of a superior being, the onus of proof is on them. Not up to me to prove that the premise is false.

For the theist you have an impossible task. You believe there is an invisible god in the universe who operates by magic. What I mean is he works outside the normal laws of physics, chemistry, and the other sciences. Water changes into wine. Dead people rise up. Direct communication via prayer. Things like that. Here’s where you want your cake and eat it too! If you want to believe that there is magical operations in the universe then you should challenge ALL of science, math and logic itself not just evolution. You should eschew all things that come from such logical endeavors such as electricity, cars, and modern medicine. Maybe that’s a little inconvenient though. We do like our modern marvels -cake- but we want to pretend there is a big guy taking care of us as well –yum!

Let’s take the ‘creation science’ deal for what it is. It is a thinly veiled attempt by very insecure people to put Christian prayer back into the public schools. It is a political movement plain and simple and has virtually nothing to do with science at all.

virgin is slumming in Chicago

The following is from CNN. I think I'll just post it here and say that it verifys much of what I've been saying and, let me say, it makes me afraid...very afraid.

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- A steady stream of the faithful and the curious, many carrying flowers and candles, have flocked to an expressway underpass for a view of a yellow and white stain on a concrete wall that some believe is an image of the Virgin Mary.

Police have patrolled the emergency turnoff area under the Kennedy Expressway since Monday as hundreds of people have walked down to see the image and the growing memorial of flowers and candles that surround it. Beside the image is an artist's rendering of the Virgin Mary embracing Pope John Paul II in a pose some see echoed in the stain.

"We believe it's a miracle," said Elbia Tello, 42. "We have faith, and we can see her face."

Tuesday morning, women knelt with rosary beads behind a police barricade while men in work shirts stood solemnly before the image, praying. A police officer kept the crowd of about three dozen from getting too close to the traffic but didn't stop them gathering around the stain.

The stain is likely the result of salt run-off, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation. The agency does not plan to scrub it off the wall.

"We're treating this just like we treat any type of roadside memorial," said IDOT spokesman Mike Claffey. "We have no plans to clean this site."

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago had not received any requests to authenticate the image as of Monday, spokesman Jim Dwyer said.

"These things don't happen every day," Dwyer said. "Sometimes people ask us to look into it. Most of the time they don't. (The meaning) depends on the individual who sees it. To them, it's real. To them, it reaffirms their faith."

But onlooker Victor Robles, 36, said he was skeptical about the stain's Virgin Mary resemblance.

"I see just a concrete wall and an image that could happen anywhere," Robles said. "If that image helps more people feel closer to God then maybe that is a good sign."

Worldwide, people have been drawn to images believed to resemble the Virgin Mary seen on windows, fence posts and walls.

Among the best-known in the United States was an image seen in office windows in Clearwater, Florida. Within weeks, a half million people had been to the site. Glass experts believe the image was created by a chemical reaction and corrosion of the metallic elements in the glass coating, but they could not explain why it took the shape it did. The windows were broken last year.

Hey, I got your big bang right here!

In researching some web sites on the Big Bang for a lecture I have to give on Wednesday I ran into a theist posing religious questions connected to the Big Bang. I don't know why theists feel so threatened by scientific inquiry. Maybe it because in their hearts they know they are just passing along old stories made up by long dead shepards while the world has gone right along and invented things like moveable type and pizza delivery.

Anyway, this guy lists the 5 basic premises for the existence of god. I list them here followed by my comments.

1. The cosmological argument: the effect of the universe's existence must have a suitable cause.

Why? Isn't it just as possible that we can ask questions that don't have good answers yet. Some among us are egotistical enough to stamp our feet and demand that the universe be explained and then posit the existence of a super being and call that an explanation.

1. The teleological argument: the design of the universe implies a purpose or direction behind it.

The design of the universe only implies a purpose if you already believe in a super being. Then, you use this argument to back up your previous beliefs. No fair. The universe cannot imply anything. It's just the universe...it's big but still....

1. The rational argument: the operation of the universe, according to order and natural law, implies a mind behind it.

See above argument. The universe only "implies" things to the theist. I just like to look at the stars!

1. The ontological argument: man's ideas of God (his God-consciousness) implies a God who imprinted such a consciousness..
   

Can you say circular argument? Because I got the idea of a god, god must have given it to me. Give me a break. This guy would fail plane geometry! And, by the way, exactly how does the imprinting work? I'm guesing 'in mysterious ways'.

1. The moral argument: man's built-in sense of right and wrong can be accounted for only by an innate awareness of a code of law--an awareness implanted by a higher being.
   

Ocam's razor implores us to always go for the simplest explanation. Which is easier to believe: People managing to evolve via cooperation in a hostile environment or the existence of a super being that knows what we are doing even though there is no evidence for his/her existence? Discuss.

I know these are all numbered 1. I hate word!

TS and the religious right wing

The praying and crying and gnashing of teeth by the fundamentalist right wing of this country over the Terri S. case is an obvious case of their strange need for everyone to see how pious they are. Somehow this group is so insecure with their own faith that they have to haul it out and make extravagent public displays of themselves. If you think praying helps, pray. You don't have to put tape over your mouth that says LIFE and pray. You don't have to stand outside the poor husbands home with candles and signs and pray. Just pray. Or do you just want a little attention for yourself? This picture shows what I mean I think in many ways.

Check out Leah's Worldly Gossip for a link to the NY times article about this as well.

The moral high ground

I was listening to the radio the other day (wgn as it turns out. Must have been comercials on all the other stations.) and the radio guy was talking about the feeding tube case in Florida. First off, do all weird and depressing stories come out of florida or is Mississippi just not reporting theirs? Anyway, this guy is discussing the interesting moral issues of removing someones feeding tube (boy does that sound like 'Brave New World' or what?) and to establish his position he tells his audience that he's a church guy, he goes to church and prays and all that, so then...

Now what am I supposed to think? I think he thjinks he is establishing himself as a moral person by telling me he believes in invisible beings that have some control or interest in life on earth. How does that work? I pray so I am good? I don't pray so I am bad? Once again most people think of church goers as the good people and the atheists as the bad people. And, once again there is no support for this position.

We are good and bad by our daily deeds. By how we treat each other. By how we treat strangers. By how we tend to our children and to theirs. All of these deeds stand separate from what one may or may not believe in. It is REASONABLE to be a fair and moral person. If you give it a moments consideration you see that we are all better off if we all are willing to some extent to give the other guy a break and help out once in a while even if it is nothing for you.

Makes sense.

Penn & Teller

Penn & Teller are my favorite atheists. They have a show that I've never seen where they debunk people who make supernatural claims. These guys are the ultimate example of how a life lacking any connection to spirituality is still vibrant and interesting. Here's a link describing their show in some more detail

http://www.sho.com/site/ptbs/about.do

OH, and here's another site for atheists with a great Ayn Rand quote. Check it out...

http://www.atheists.com/index.php

THE ten commandments

I know it seems hard to believe but once again the supreme court has to decide whether or not a govermental body can legally post the ten commanments. Seems like we've been through this a few times. I heard a theist on the radio screaming that the ten commanments were what this country was founded on. Here's a surprise...he had a southern accent!

Separation of church and state means that you have complete freedom to believe anything you damn well pleas and nobody can stop you. ISN'T THAT ENOUGH? No. You are so taken with your own believe system that you feel the need to cram it down everyones' craw. What about the Atheists. Ok there's only a couple of dozen of us but still. What about Muslims? American Indians (see note about numbers of atheists) but you get my point. What one person finds awe inspring another may find repulsive therefore...SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.

I hope the Supreme Court does the right thing but nothing would surprise me anymore.

Here's a link to an Atheist site with more info on the vote today.

http://www.atheists.org/

Skepticism vs. Cynicism

I think there is a misconception out there, well, maybe it’s more of a mis-perception. I think when people hear the word skeptic they think the word cynic. A cynic is no fun. A cynic pooh poohs everything. Nothing is good. We’re all going to hell in a hand basket. Everybody is a liar. All politicians are crooks (well, they be right on with that one), all athletes are assholes, all modern art is crap, etc. That’s a cynic.

A skeptic on the other hand is not annoying. A skeptic just asks the question, “Really? Are you sure? How do you know that? Can it be duplicated? Can it be made to happen at will? When somebody says, “You know a spaceship landed in my yard and the little guys inside came out and beat my ass at chess.” The skeptic asks, “Really? Any pictures? Burn marks in your yard? Did you resign or get check-mated?” We all agree that those and others would be reasonable questions.

But…

When somebody says, “Yeah, this bush was burning and yet not consumed and a voice came out of it.” and the skeptic says, “Really? Any pictures? Can it be made to happen again? What was the bush like when it was over? Was it real fire?” he is considered to be a cynic. Or worse…a heretic! Why? Why in our everyday life is it generally considered a good thing to be a little skeptical but not when it comes to questions of religion? Someone who is not a little skeptical is the brunt of jokes. Like every joke about a country bumpkin coming to the big city or jokes about people getting fleeced by a used car salesman. Nobody wants to be that vulnerable, country bumpkin piece of meat. No, we’d like to think we are all a little sharper than that which means we view the world with a nice dose of skepticism. Then why not be a little skeptical with the huge and life changing claims made by religion?

This goes back to the two world problem of wanting the real and the magical to exist at the same time. It’s like people who are all for equal rights for all people…as long as they don’t buy the house next door. Be as skeptical as you like but not with my religion buddy!