"virgin" Mary. . . MY ASS!

The virgin birth of one, Jesus H. Christ, is a corner stone of the religion that bears his name. A little research shows that the word 'virgin' used to mean other things than it does today! Here's a good link that discusses this problem of semantics.

The short version. . . One ancient definition of the word 'alma or almah' is that of simply 'young girl'. Also remember that the whole bible is a translation subject to the whims and beliefs of the translator. By the time we get to the modern age the word 'virgin' has only one meaning. This coupled with the fact that the idea of virgin birth was quite common in Greek mythology and other places.

People need Jesus to be a god and one way to get there is to be conceived by God himself. The evidence that this actually happened though is tenuous at best and probably better understood in terms of etymology and the evolution of language. There is contention among biblical scholars about the proper translation of the word 'alma or almah' which may or may not connote 'virgin' as we think of it today. It may simply mean 'young woman'. I imagine like a lot of words it is the context that tells you what it means. Suffice it to say that the 'FACT' that the bible predicts (in Isaiah I think) the virgin birth of a son of God is NOT a slam dunk by any means.

Cult Mom Pleads Guilty In Son's Starvation Death

This just in...Take a look at this story.

Yeah, She starved her 16 month old son because he refused to say amen and had a rebellious spirit. I hope I'm not the only one to see that without crazy ass religion this kind of crap does not happen. There is no reasonable person that would starve a 16 month old. The list of evil committed in the name of religion is WAY longer than any perceived good religion has done.

This just sickens me and I don't get why people keep turning to magic instead of trusting their own good reasoning skills.

Faith Based Programs

White House panel will guide faith-based programs

Well this is an interesting twist. Apparently the government gives money (500 million) to faith based programs such as church groups that feed the hungry. While that may seem noble on the surface of it to me it smacks of a violation of separation of church and state. While feeding the hungry is noble, the government has its own programs for that so why not let the churches get their own damn money.

The twisted part is that to qualify for federal money you may not discriminate who gets to be in your club based on race nor religion! Get it? That means that Jewish groups MUST allow Muslim members. Catholics must allow Jews. And Baptists, well, they’ll take anyone (but NO IRISH!) Funny how these typically self-righteous groups may find themselves in violation of anti-discrimination laws.

This is why a reasonable government cannot get itself wrapped up in funding faith based programs. Reason and faith simply do not go together and a collision will happen somewhere along the way. Churches already get HUGE tax breaks. I’m for that because I don’t want them having a say on policy based on how much they’ve invested. Those tax breaks and tax breaks given to those who contribute to their faith will just have to be enough to sustain whatever programs they have going.

The Resurrection

OK, let's face it. They key piece to the whole Christian ball of wax is the resurrection. Without that there is no church, no molested alter boys, no Notre Dame football! So I can rant all I want about the virgin appearing on a grilled cheese sandwich but really it all comes down to the resurrection. Without that Jesus was just a good public speaker and others would come after him and all would have been forgotten. But, the aledged resurrection makes the whole religion machine work.

Here's an interesting site that goes into great detail PROVING that the resurection really happend. It's well written in it's own way by Josh McDowell and I've not got enough biblical nor historical knowledge to challenge this document outright but would like to comment on one paragraph.

Christians believe that Jesus was bodily resurrected in time and space by the supernatural power of God. The difficulties of belief may be great, but the problems inherent in unbelief present even greater difficulties.

Supernatural power. To me here is the weak link. You have to believe that there is such a thing as the supernatural in the first place to accept this argument. If Jesus rose bodily into heaven, not ghostly Jesus but the flesh and blood guy, then where did he go? Moreover, how does supernatural power work? If it is a real thing and the author of the site is claiming it is a real thing, then it must have a mechanism by which it works. As usual the theist wants it both ways. He wants magic in the world but wants it to be real as well. You can't have it both ways.

Additionaly I found this site: Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection by Richard Carrier which point by point nicely refutes each of McDowell's claims. Be warned if you go to the two sites I've linked to, both these guys are VERY wordy! Good stuff though for a rainy afternoon.

And another thing. . . The story is that God sacrificed his only son so that he (the son) could die for our sins. But Jesus didn't die. He got up 3 days later so how much of a sacrifice is this? Again, everybody wants it both ways. Jesus died for us. . . but he didn't die! Can't have both!

Well now. The Pope is going to start a weekend long 'Reading of the Bible'. That's nice. It's the word of God you know except that

THERE ISN'T A SLIVER OF EVIDENCE THAT THAT IS TRUE!!!!!!

So nice that the guy who is in charge of billions of Catholics is doing this. Let's not worry about how to feed those parishinors (who in the hell would even try to feed the masses?). Let's not even try to promote world peace. Naw. John Lennon was in charge of that apparently. While we're at it, let's tell indigent, undeducated, third world familiies that MORE KIDS IS A GOOD IDEA! Then let's sit back in our throne in the Vatican (The Popes on freaking COUNTRY) and contemplate how close we are to the lord. Finally, let's read the bible. All of it. How sweet.

[right here I threw up in my mouth a little]

I want to go on a multi-page rant about all the inconsistancies in the bible and what a waste of time to read it outloud but I've done that. Many before me have done that. Thousands of web sites are devoted to nothing but that. So without speaking to any of those inconsistancies specifically, let me just ask how you hang your faith on such a poorly written and full-of-holes document? I really want to know.

OK, Read on your holliness!

Jesus Appears in Ceiling Tile

OK, I never tire of these stories. This one has Jesus appearing in a ceiling tile at a workout and tanning salon. Mysteriously, this appeared after a heavy rain. The link is a video that will certainly frighten you. I have my usual questions.

1. Why in the hell to TV people think they have to cover this kind of crap?
2. Please tell me that most people get that this is a water stain and that's the end of it. (Ok that wasn't a question.)
3. Remember, nobody actually knows what Jesus really looked like. All we have are artists who apparently all copied each other. So, if Jesus really did appear he might look like Henny Youngman* for all we know (which would be really funny). Not a question either. . .
4. Why do these stories always depress me?

Here are some other stories that TV did not cover. . .

• Little Johnny Miller saw a cloud today that looked like a raccoon
• A man bought a potato that looked just like Al Gore (actually they all do)
• In Long Island bird poop on a squad car looked just like a map of Long Island!
• A woman in South Bend sees Knute Rockne in her salad.

If you really dig this stuff here's a whole list of miraculous statues. Enjoy

I could go on and on but you get the idea. Sometimes things look like other things.

They're not though.

* If you like Henny Youngman, here's a collection of his one liners.

Money, Power and 14 year old girl

The pope arrived in the southwestern town of Lourdes on the second day of his visit to France after earlier celebrating an outdoor mass for more than 250,000 people in Paris, telling them the modern world had made idols of money and power.

Yes! The top man in the church famous for its vow of poverty flew in his own plane to Paris and later via his private limousine drove to Lourdes where dressed in white, red and gold vestments (and that crazy big pope hat) spoke to the unwashed masses about the evils of money and power.

Hubris?

How about just plain balls? Here’s one of the most powerful men on the planet. He controls the money and the thoughts of millions of catholics all over the world. He lives in his own COUNTRY for crying out loud. The value of the paintings alone in the Vatican is valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars. People are required to bow and kiss his freaking ring just to talk to him. This guy then has the enormous spheres to give a speech saying that we value money and power too much.

How about this guy? I mean if he really believed what he was saying he’d demonstrate it not just talk about it. How about he reads his own vow of poverty and drops all the golden vestments and just goes with the good old black shirt and dog collar. Sell the vatican. Work out of a more modern (and energy efficient) office building. Put the money to good use educating the poor (I mean REAL education like the Jesuits do just not more ways to pray), feed the hungry, help the infirm (didn’t some guy around year 1 do this kind of stuff?)

FALSE IDOLS At mass on Saturday morning in Paris, the pope told more than a quarter of a million people that the modern world had turned money, possessions and power into idols as false as the gold and silver statues worshipped by the pagans of antiquity. "Has not our modern world created its own idols?" he said.

Next time you get a chance go to a big catholic church and see how many statues there are of jesus and the virgin mary. THESE statues are ok I guess. Also see how much gold and silver there is lying about on the alter and in the vestments of the priest. THIS gold and silver is ok. When the church owns huge tracts of property it’s ok. When the church owns art and paintings in the millions THAT’s ok but individuals shouldn’t get all wrapped up in that sort of thing. Individuals should stick with the more spiritual things like putting money in the collection plate! What? Is the Catholic church afraid that someone will buy up too much of the stuff that THEY haven’t bought yet?

At Lourdes, Benedict prayed in the grotto where Saint Bernadette Soubirous said she had seen the Madonna 18 times in 1858, and drank water from a spring that believers say has healing powers.

In the past 150 years, the Church has recognised as "miracles" 67 medically inexplicable healings of sick pilgrims who visited Lourdes

Bernadette ‘said’ she saw the virgin 18 times. Anybody can SAY anything. If someone sees something and no one else sees it that’s either a miracle or someone is nuts. Three finger Mordecai Brown appeared to me and told me that this was the Cubs year. Am I nuts or a saint? As to the 67 inexplicable healings I’ll have to do more research, but my first question is 67 out of how many attempts? I know people go there in droves looking for a miracle cure. If only 67 of them got the cure, how miraculous is this place? Doesn’t it seem a little mean if the creator uses this place to occasionally cure someone. What about the others? The miracle is that with a batting average like that that people would still go. I bet it aint’ free either! Of the 67, how many had diseases that had the chance of clearing up by themselves anyway? When the church says ‘inexplicable’ how hard did they try to research what happened. OK, more research by me and we’ll see if there are any answers to the above.

Now for some ‘facts’ from the internet. Low batting average? I guess. Lourdes has been getting about 6 million visitors a year since the 1960’s. Up to 8 million this year as this is the 150th anniversary of Bernadette’s visions. Bernadette was 14 by the way and anyone who has worked with 14 year old females knows that they are never hysterical.
I’m sure that they weren’t getting 6 million people a year 150 years ago so let’s see. . . 6 million a year since 1960 is about 250 million. Let’s allow Lourdes another 250 million for all the years before that and put it at about 500 million visitors total looking for a miracle cure. There have been 67 ‘miracles’ out of 500 million! That’s a batting average of 0.000000134. Wow!

Also it looks like the healing water is free but along the road leading to the grotto are hundreds of shops selling every kind of virgin mary trinket you can imagine. Glow in the dark virgin (my favorite), Virgin on a plate, Chocolate Virgins, etc. So it’s ‘free’ but nearly everyone buys something. Lourdes is also great for the hotel and tour industry. The hotels in and around Lourdes are filled to the max every summer.

So, what about those 67 cures? Well, in a strange twist, the church tries to use extensive scientific research on claims before they are accepted as a miracle cure. For example there can be no reoccurrence of the ailment which is why it takes about 10 years for a claim to be verified. Also, you have to be off your meds before and after! Who quits taking their medicine and how can you be sure that the meds didn’t finally kick in? I guess I find it a little ironic that the church can’t figure out what a miracle is without using the power of science. That same science that many faithful would claim is not even a road to truth. So what of those 67 then?

Of course a real scientific test would be to do a double blind experiment where some people get regular water and some get Lourdes water and no one knows who is getting what. But that’s another story.

I don’t have documents on each of the 67 individually but one popular cure at Lourdes is for people suffering from cancer. On the other hand remember the batting average. Doctors have confirmed that in about 1% of cases cancer will spontaneously go away and stay away without Lourdes. That would be batting 0.010. Better to stay home maybe? On the other other hand consider this…

Two independent studies into spontaneous remission of cancer found psychological changes, occurring just before the physical disease began to improve dramatically, could be significant. Both found that resolving an existential crisis in the person's life, a dramatic change in life outlook and a reduction in anxiety and depression, seemed to occur just before the cancer started to resolve by itself.

So, if a visit to Lourdes can bring about this drop in anxiety this could in turn bring about the evaporation of the cancer. Nice, but it’s still a long shot and just so we’re clear this would mean that there is no god or virgin involved in magically curing anything. But a person’s belief that such things exist triggers the cure. But what the hell, the cured person is happy and so are the hotel owners!

Finally, Lourdes may be running out of juice. There have only been 4 confirmed cases since 1978. That may have prompted Jacques Perrier the senior cleric at the shrine to invent three classes of cures: These will include: 'unexpected healings', 'confirmed healings' and 'exceptional healings'. This is like reducing the size of the strike zone to pump up batting averages. That should help the old Lourdes batting average a little and keep them buses rolling in.

Hey get your rosary here! Ice cold rosary. . .who’s ready?

Finally, in a somewhat related story (and this might be dated) a half eaten grilled cheese sandwich bearing the likness of, you guess it, the Virgin Mary sold on e-Bay for $28,000. I have nothing to say.

My Spiritual Side

This is a phrase I always wonder about. It is said so freely and so often I think people all assume that everyone more or less knows what is meant - ‘your spiritual side’. Or, the spiritual side of life in general. What does this mean? The dictionary tends toward two areas of definition. 1. True spirits, ghosts, the holy spirit and perhaps the belief in them as in religion etc. 2. Alluding to emotions, desires, true self, in the spirit of things.

Does nature itself have a spiritual side? It has a real side - a natural occurring and evolving side to be sure. The side that we can touch and detect and agree on our results afterward. If I go to a wonderful place for me like Quetico in Canada or a beautiful anchorage like where I am right now, do these places themselves have a spiritual side? If so, can it be detected? If it can be detected by two or more independent observers would they agree on their results? If so it would seem to put this spiritual side back in the area of the natural occurring. That would seem to indicate that people may have a spiritual side but external nature itself does not.

Let’s come at this from another way. Why do we as people value beauty? To what end? How did evolution pick beauty value-ers over others? It is right here where the theist gets a grip. He would say that beauty HAS no intrinsic value to our survival and only by allowing god to exist can we explain why we are more if you will than our monkey cousins.

Consider this. . . It happened that as we evolved we were first nomadic. No gardening. A place with a cool stream and plenty of game would also have wild flowers, trees, and options for shelter perhaps. This place would make a good layover place for the tribe. Barren places with dry ground, nothing growing, and no shade would be avoided. What we would now call beautiful places were originally useful places! We still have that in us. As our brains developed in crazy ways our ‘beauty’ lobe if you will was already in place and ready to expand to more intellectual and abstract ideas of beauty such as painting, music, etc. No god needed again!

So, when I go to Quetico the placid waters, shade, cool streams all click for me at a very fundamental level. Maybe I do have a ‘spiritual’ side then and maybe we all do but it has nothing to do with invisible beings or gods. Maybe it has to do with tapping into some of our most deeply embedded hard wiring. Things we would be hard pressed to put into words because they hearken back to a time before language itself.

The Big Bang

In my short lifetime as a scientist/teacher the Big Bang model of the universe has moved from conjecture to well documented scientific theory. A couple of students at University of Michigan (I wish it had been Notre Dame but you can't have everything) summarize Big Bang cosmology rather nicely. For those of you (yeah, like anyone is reading this besides me!) who are curious, there are some cogent facts that make the Big Bang a very solid theory (theory means we KNOW something. Hypothesis means we're guessing.)

1. In the 1920's Edwin Hubble, having given up his brief career as a prize fighter turns his black eye to the sky and discovers that all the galaxies are moving away from us. Moreover the farther away they are, and they are all really, really far away, the faster they are moving. That is the classic geometry of an explosion. Think about it. From his data you can run the movie backwards and figure out about how old the universe is. About 15 billion years.

2. In the 60's a couple of Bell Labs engineers, Penzias and Wilson, accidentally discover a microwave hum if you will coming from every direction in the sky. So they took a break in their quest for a micro-wave oven and asked what could be causing this hum. Now every 'hot' object will glow and emit radio waves of a particular wavelengh. If you ask what temperature/wavelength a 15 billion year old universe would be glowing at (2.73 degrees above absolute zero) you get exactly the radiation that Penzias and Wilson had measured.

3. Recently the COBE satellite did a sweep of the sky and showed how amazingly uniform this background radiation is except for small anomalies here and there. The anomalies are a big deal because if you had a perfectly smooth big bang there would be no way for 'chunks' to form. Those chunks are the galaxies, stars, and good old mother Earth.

Nice. There is no longer and serious controversy about the origins of the universe. Similarly there is no real controversy about evolution or the sphericity of the earth. All a theist who is glued to a literal interpretation of the bible has to do is create the illusion of controversy and they're home free. They don't even have to do experiments or present any other data. Pretending there is controversy is enough. You can observe this technique in action right now in monitoring the 'controversy' in global warming. This is a technique well learned from the tobacco institute.

So, why am I writing about the Big Bang? For one thing I'm sitting in a very nice coffee shop on Damen Ave in Chicago and, well, what else does your mind wander to when drinking coffee and sitting alone but the creation of the entire universe? Also, it always seems strange to me that the Big Bang is not mentioned in the bible. I know you can't read it literally for whatever reason but I don't think there is any way to twist the 7 days of Genesis into a cloaked description of the explosion of the entire freaking universe 13 billion years ago. I don't think numbers even went up to a billion back then did they? And yet, since it is VERY clear that the Big Bang really happened (read the above link) and it is supposed that the bible is the word of God, why no mention of it? I assume that if you are a semi-intelligent theist you accept the Big Bang as an event that really happened then you must be in a quandary about why the bible is so far off on this topic.

Or. . . the God of the bible was not the creator of the universe but only the God of people on this one planet. That's kind of like demoting Pluto from planet to an also ran. It's way more impressive to imagine a God that created the whole ball of wax.

Of course the fact that the universe has a definite beginning is more of a problem for our tiny brains than if it were infinite in time as it was presumed to be in pre-Big Bang cosmology. If there is a moment when the universe began can we even ask the question about what was going on BEFORE. Does the word before even carry any meaning if the Big Bang was the creation of space AND time? Also, you have to wonder if the Big Bang had a cause. But again, causality presumes that something happened and that caused something else to happen later. We're back to needing something to happen before time zero. Is that possible? Here's a very good discussion about the idea of 'before the start of the universe' by physicist Paul Davies. Enjoy

Ah well, maybe another free refill on my coffee. Maybe I'll ponder why do fools fall in love. . .

Awesome

There's a picture in today's Trib showing some protesters on Chicago's south side. They are protesting the alarming rise in gun violence in their neighborhoods. OK, but, the signs many are carrying say, Our GOD is an awesome GOD.

Why is that the sign and what could it mean? The signs wording is a nice short phrase for many nagging questions regarding theism.


1. Ownership. " Our God" implies that there are others but this group has their own and he (or she?) is awesome.

2. Assuming that awesomeness is measureable, how can you tell your God is awesome. Awesome by his good deads or by the destruction that he wreeks?

3. Do the sign carriers not see the irony of believing in a powerful God (or at least awesome) and yet their kids are dying in the streets. Where is God's hand in this mess? Is he un-involved and so there is the violence and if so that's not so awesome. Or, is it His had that is involved in the shooting (although a pistol is really the devil's right hand - Steve Earle) which would be awesome in a way.

4. I'm so tired of empty phrases like this. Support our Troops. Moms are good. Smile. Cubs Suck. Sox Suck. It is especially hard with religious empty phrases because people get so indignant when you try to ask them what a phrase might really mean. 'Take Jesus into your heart'. I went round and round with a Jehovah's witness about this once as I claimed the phrase was devoid of true meaning. I think maybe it only means something (maybe) if you already believe in this stuff. Even then it doesn't really take you anywhere.

Well, I agree that something should be done on the south side and elsewhere where hand guns are so available. To his credit, mayor Daley has tried to get hand guns outlawed in Chicago only to get shot down (!) by the NRA and gun lobby. I guess there are a number of south side hunters that like to go after deer with their Glocks. Right.

Anyway, these people have a good case for protesting and asking for some action. So, what's with the signs?

Emily Dickinson

Who knew? I always have admired poets for their economy of words while managing to get big ideas across. Here's some very nice verse from a surprising atheist...Emily Dickinson. Enjoy.

Barking up the Religious Tree

Bark from Skokie holds religious message, some Muslims say

Markings made by insects allegedly show 'Muhammad' in Arabic

By Deborah Horan |Tribune reporter

June 5, 2008

Here's the article from the Trib. I've put in my clever (sarcastic) comments within the text in RED

Something about the sound of the tree bark hitting the ground caught Assad Busool's attention, compelling the Islamic scholar to pluck the wood fragment from the pavement in front of his Skokie home.

I'm sure. After the fact this guy thought about it and, yeah, it sounded different. How different? Why would it be different? So, from all the tree bark this guy has heard hit the ground, this time it sounded different. Please.

What he found written on it has caused a minor stir among some members of his Muslim community, who view the engraving as a divine reminder of the existence of God. The word "Muhammad"—or rather the Arabic for the Islamic prophet's name—had been carved into the bark by insects.

"I was astonished," said Busool, 69. "I said, 'What is the meaning of this?' I have a holy tree in my yard."

Assad, I'm astonished too. Why couldn't this be a coincidence? Why can't you be muslim AND think this is a coincidence? Would any reasonable person be they muslim or not conclude that this 'writing' was divine?

Like Catholics who claim to have seen images of the Virgin Mary, some Muslims in Busool's community are interpreting the markings on the 14-inch-long bark chip as a sign from heaven, even though, like visages of Mary, it is mixed with other markings that open it to other interpretations.

"It's crystal clear, it says Muhammad," said Andala Mbengue, a cabdriver from Senegal who saw the wood after Friday prayers at the American Islamic College on Irving Park Road in Chicago. "Allah is always putting himself out there. Sometimes people ignore it, but he's always showing us signs."




I love this. These supernatural beings are omnipotent and decide to give us a message on overpass walls and INSIDE tree bark. Wow, that is subtle. As to the writing itself, would a disinterested observer conclude that the pattern on the bark matched the Arabic writing below? To me the two only look vaguely close. You have want this to be Muhammad to see Muhammad in the bark.

Sani Umar, a professor of religion at Northwestern University, said some sects within Islam would treat such findings with great skepticism. Other Muslim societies might be more accepting of the phenomena, he said. The most conservative sects would dismiss the sightings.

Not everyone greeted news of the bark chip with Busool's level of enthusiasm.

Unlike the tribune that publishes this crap every time it happens! It's like covering ground hog day!

Dr. Muhammad Sahloul, a physician and president of the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, said mainstream Muslims "don't tend to overestimate the significance of these things."

And a colleague of Busool's at the Islamic college said he didn't see the word Muhammad the first time he looked at the bark.

"I guess it depends on how you look at it," said Ghulam Haider Aasi, chair of the Islamic Studies Department.

Of course it does. How do you even know you are looking at it right side up? Not to mention by what mechanism Alla would get the worms to do their work. I know - by magic.

While the Virgin Mary has allegedly appeared in towns such as Lourdes, France, and more recently as an image on the Fullerton Street underpass of the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago, apparitions in Islam are typically in Arabic script, not human form, which is forbidden by Islam, scholars said.

What such sightings mean depends on a person's religion, experts said.

Catholics, for example, might interpret a manifestation of Mary as a rebuke of the modern world or an expression of sorrow at the state of the church, said Robert Orsi, a religion professor at Northwestern. But scholars of Islam said some Muslims would view such apparitions as mystical reminders that God is everywhere in nature, in the setting sun, in the clouds, in a blade of grass.

Look, if a 'sign' has to be interpreted maybe it's not from a higher being but just a natural phenomena. If an all powerful being wanted to communicate with us why not send an un-ambiguous sign? Rearrange the stars to spell Go CUBS. Vaporize all the water on the planet and then put it back. Turn Dick Chaney into a donkey. Something like that.

"Nature is a scripture that has to be read," said Ali Asani, a professor of Indo-Muslim languages and cultures at Harvard University. "So you find these phenomena in different Muslim societies, of people finding the name of God written on things."

In Kenya, Muslim farmers noticed the brown splotches on a newborn calf spelled "Allah," the Arabic word for God, Asani said. In Australia, Muslims found a tree inscribed with the same word. And in Senegal, a Frenchman caught a fish with markings that said "Muhammad" and another fish was found in Liverpool, England, marked with "Allah."

People find the name of god because they are looking for it. A critical observer just sees scratches. . . which is what they are. Me? I want a religion that is a little more upscale than showing up in 'brown splotches'.

How about this for a sign: I look around the universe and test this and test that. I find that every test so far shows the universe to completely reasonable and testable with no phenomena that need magic to explain it. Can I be in the newspaper too?

"The idea behind this is that God manifests himself in nature, and thus these phenomena are taken as objective proofs of his existence—and, by extension, the veracity of the religion of Islam," said Ruediger Seesemann, a professor of religious studies at Northwestern.

Busool, a Sunni Muslim and Islamic judge who rules on family matters, cites a verse in the Quran, Islam's holy book, to explain why insects might cut lines in wood to spell the word Muhammad. The verse teaches that every living being on Earth sings the praises of God in languages human beings can't understand, he said.

"They don't know Arabic. To eat the inside of the branch and make that writing, it's guidance from God, of course," said Busool, who assumed the insects were termites. (Local experts said the markings were more likely made by wood borers.) "The termites were worshiping God," Busool said.

Busool sees the hand of God in much of the tree's story. Last year, he considered chopping the tree down but held off after a Skokie employee determined it was healthy. Then, a few days before Memorial Day, he was watching squirrels run up the tree when he heard the bark fall with a loud crack—as though God were trying to get his attention, he said.

"I've never heard a branch make that much noise," Busool said.

I want to scream. Yeah, in all your branch listening experience. Idiot.

His wife, Ann, a Christian who doesn't read Arabic, said she hoped the bark chip might portend good fortune.

"Either we have some very intelligent termites out there or something else is going on—some kind of omen or wish," she said.

come on keep going: . . . or its just scratches and I'm putting what I want to believe on top of it.

For now, Busool has placed the bark in a plastic bag and enclosed it in a red felt box given to him by a friend. He bought a glass case for it, but still carries the wood in his briefcase wherever he goes, his wife said. So far, he has shown it to a couple dozen people at the Muslim Community Center on Elston Avenue, where he sits on the board.

OK, this guy is under educated an overly religious. Fine. But I wish this crap didn't make the papers every time it happened. It's the weight of stories like this one, the astrology section (of every paper), TV shows like Charmed and the like all together cause a background of belief that there must be something magical out there. Could be religion. Could be fortune tellers but something. The truth is that there is no evidence of ANYTHING magical in our world. There is no reason to interpret natural happenings as having divine origins until that is the only thing left to conclude. For the believers though it is not the last thing. It is always the first thing.

Quaran as Target

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's most powerful Sunni Arab political party on Monday said a U.S. soldier's desecration of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, requires the "severest of punishments," not just an apology and a military reassignment.

Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond apologizes after a U.S. soldier admitted using the Quran for target practice.

The Iraqi Islamic Party, the movement of Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, condemned what it said was a "blatant assault on the sanctities of Muslims all over the world."

An American staff sergeant who was a sniper section leader used a Quran for target practice on May 9.

The U.S. commander in Baghdad on Saturday issued a formal apology and read a letter of apology from the shooter.

The sergeant has been relieved of duty as a section leader "with prejudice," officially reprimanded by his commanding general, dismissed from his regiment and redeployed -- reassigned to the United States.

But the Iraqi Islamic Party -- which said it reacted to the news "with deep resentment and indignation" -- wants the "severest of punishments" for the action.

"What truly concerns us is the repetition of these crimes that have happened in the past when mosques were destroyed and pages of the Holy Quran were torn and used for disgraceful acts by U.S. soldiers," al-Hashimi said.

"I have asked that first this apology be officially documented; second a guarantee from the U.S. military to inflict the maximum possible punishment on this soldier so it would be a deterrent for the rest of the soldiers in the future."

Jeez-o-peet. Don't you wish the US could just say, "OH, go to hell". Quran, Qurshran. Big deal. How about trying to have a real government instead of a bunch of little bitchy, religious tribes. Why in the hell are mixed up with these idiots. Oil? Naw!

Space and Time

Any introductory physics class always starts with the basic measurements of time and distance. Seems reasonable that those two observations are fundamental to measuring other things about our universe. Things are where they are and are some distance from other things whether we measure that distance in feet or furlongs or leagues. The fact that things obviously move implies that time goes by and it’s arbitrary measure in seconds or months or leagues is a logical result. Time. We are born and we die. Seasons come and go. Day and night. The phases of the moon. Time is an obvious and necessary quantity to keep track of. We’re not high level thinking, obscure physicists when we measure these two things. We could be as simple as a shepherds or carpenters measuring out fields, deciding when to plant, or building a barn. We’d understand discussions of time and distance.

So then, as I understand it, the word of god was given to man via divine illumination or inspiration. . . or indigestion. They wrote it down as is was received from the creator and that’s the bible. To read what was illuminated is to believe that the earth is the center of the known universe (it’s not). That the earth is about 5000 years old (it’s not) and, moreover, that the earth IS the universe and the unreachable heavens are where the clouds are and where god and heaven are (way off). Look at any religious painting and you’ll see angels and demons hanging out in the clouds. Not on mars. Not in the Orion nebula but in the clouds.

So why all the misinformation from the creator? I know the faithful will say that those stories are just metaphor. But, why should they be? Why are they not the real thing if they’re so stinking real? Why couldn’t the creator just as easily have told the various shepherds and so forth who were put in charge of writing the bible, “Listen, the universe is way bigger than you can imagine right now. Imagine something really far away....no that’s still to close”. And, the earth is way older than you can imagine (4.5 billion years!) and all of my creation (the entire universe ) is even older (13.5 billion years). A better question is why try to tell these ignoramuses anything! They’re not ready. Why not let us discover what we now know to be true and measurable about the nature of time and space, the size and age of the universe and then come down and say, “Yeah, I did that”! Although I beg my own question. . . come down from where?

And, what if. . . What if there are other intelligent creatures out there in the universe. Universe? Let’s stick with the galaxy for now. Not even Star Trek allowed missions to other galaxies. Our Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light years in diameter. That means that a radio or light signal from one end would take 100,000 years to get to the other side. Imagine putting in a phone call! After 100,000 years your signal would get to the receiving party and then another 100,000 years for you to receive the response. And you got the machine! Ha! But there are millions of stars in our own galaxy and it is starting to look like lots and lots of them have planets. Some of those may be the right distance from their star and some of those may have the right mix of water and oxygen to support life. If so, some of them may be millions of years ahead of us in evolving. What would the theists do if an alien species came here and didn’t know what the hell we were talking about when it came to Jesus, god, and the holy ghost?

More significantly, doesn’t it seem a little outrageous that the creator of the universe would give such a skewed story about creation to some undereducated farmers from pre-history? Why no mention of the big bang?

As Jack Nicholson said in the movie of the same name, What if this is as good as it gets? What if the universe is exactly as it looks? Why would that be so bad? Life evolved here in a completely natural way. Humans survived by sticking together and taking care of their own and their tribe. We still do that. Magical appearances and disappearances of things, walking on water, coming up out of the grave, curing by touch. . . these things do not happen! They are stories from long, long ago and they are killing us literally and intellectually.

A possible out?

So, maybe the judeo/christian god is not the creator of the entire physical universe. Maybe he is just the god of people. Maybe god evolved as people evolved and he is an earth bound entity with no knowledge or interest in the rings of saturn or the Orion nebula. Maybe this god has no more idea about what caused the big bang than we do. Sounds good so far? Let’s keep following this line. . .

Does this god have power and what does it mean to have power? Can he affect events in the lives of people? Can he be petitioned by prayer? If so, how does any of that work? Did the power of god evolve as naturally as everything else evolved here on earth? Moreover, things evolve or not depending on their usefulness. What environmental conditions would support the evolution of a single god? The nature of evolution itself is that things come from simpler things. Did god evolve from simpler gods? What would that even mean? A proto-god who could make it rain but couldn’t smite thine enemy? I can see where he might be useful if there was any evidence that you could affect things by prayer but there is not one shred of evidence that this happens despite very carefully controlled testing. Why would nature support the evolution of a single entity that cannot be detected? To what end?

So it seems that a pan-universal god is illogical and an earthbound god is impossible. Then, what the hell are we doing? Could we please get about the business of feeding everybody and educating everybody to not make so many babies? Could we educate everybody on how to not foul their own nest so that our children and grandchildren might also enjoy the planet? And, could we please just drop all the religious rhetoric which would in turn stop 99% of all the wars?

But, god, if you’re there, could I please have a Cub world series win?

Huckabee. . . what's the point?

You can find Santa at every mall. You can find discounts in every store," Huckabee said from the pulpit of Cornerstone Church. "But if you mention the name of Jesus, as I found out recently, it upsets the whole world. Forgive me, but I thought that was the point of the whole day."

Yes...it is the point of the whole day for about 33% of the world. The rest of the world are not Christian. . . only about 2% are atheist.

Huckabee, like a lot of fundamentalists thinks the whole world revolves around HIS religion. It doesn't. He is a prime example of a guy who thinks that if he wraps himself in piety people will draw the faulty conclusion that he is a man of quality. One does not follow from the other.

If I believe that a guy was born to a mother who never had sex, that he walked on water, that when I eat a piece of bread I am really eating his body, and that he rose up into the air after death. . . how does that make me anything but a NUT? For sure belief in this sort of thing doesn't make me think he is necessarily a good guy and shouldn't to anyone else.

If he wants to run for presiden, ok, but lets hear some plans. Lets get down to facts. Lets lay out what you intend to do. That fact that you believe in invisible people who live up in the clouds really has nothing to do with your ability to govern. Well, actually, to me it does. To me it means he can't be trusted. How can you ever know when one of these guys is going to say, 'the hell with the constitution. I listen to a higher power'. Wait that already happend with George W.! See? These far out religions nuts cannot be trusted in high government positions.

I am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter.

Hofstatdter is the author of one of my favorite books: Godel, Esher, and Bach. published in 1979 and is a fascinating interplay between the works of the three men named in the title. Mostly, though, it is a long proof, and not and easy one, of Kurt Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem. In his current book, I am a Strange Loop, Hofstadter returns to the themes from GEB to better nail down how he thinks the loopiness described by Godel is responsible for our consciousness or our “I”. Heady stuff.

Before 1931 Bertrand Russel and Sir Alfred Whitehead thought they had totally nailed down the fundamentals of mathematics. They produced a system of axioms and rules to apply by which all the properties of mathematics could be systematically proved (or un true statemens disproved). In this system, and central to mathematics thinking, is that true statements are proveable and proveable statements are trure. The converse is equally correct, namely, unproveable statements are false and false statements are unproveable. The renegade Godel (only 25 at the time) produced a paper in 1931 which showed that not only this system but any logical system is doomed to failure. The essence of the theorem is the idea of self-referencing. Call the Russell/Whitehead system RW. Godel produced a theorem that basically said “This theorem is unprovable in RW”. Think about that. If you did prove it then it is true. . . but you already proved it! If it cannot be proved than it is false which means it should be provable.

Statements that contradict themselves have been an entertaining curiosity for eons but Godel’s theorem is actually deeper than that. Still, wacky sentences like that will give you the flavor of the problem. Here’s another example. There’s a game you can play (although not that fun) whereby you try to express numbers in english sentences in as few a number of syllables as possible. For example, 1024 could be expressed as ‘one thousand and twenty four’. 7 syllables. But you could also express it as ‘two to the tenth’. Only 4 syllables! So, I’ll make up a number, call it B. B is the first number that cannot be expressed in less than thirty syllables. Got that? But wait. I’ve now completely described this number in twenty syllables! But by it’s very definition it CANNOT be described in less than 30! Loopy.

It is this kind of self-referencing that Hofstadter is talking about. You can think of the operation of our brains in two ways. One way is at the basic level of atoms and synapses. At this level you will never come to any greater understanding of consciousness. Say you hear a song and it makes you remember a long lost girl friend. You’d be hard pressed to identify exactly which neurons (if any) are exactly responsible for either remembering the song or connecting it to the girl. Perhaps much more advantageous to work at the ‘symbol’ level of the brain. The brain retains an interconnected set of symbols for that song and that girl. The symbols are responsible for moving the atoms around and not the other way around! Now extend the idea of the symbols to being loopy and the loopiest of all in that it points to or references it’s own loop is the symbol that we call “I” - our consciousness or our soul. Hofstadter uses the word soul a lot but not in the Judeo-Christian sense. He uses it to mean that inner voice. That “I-ness”.

I should point out that these ideas are drawn out via a multitude of analogies and stories from his personal experience and I only offer a sketch of the big ideas.

The later part of the book goes into how the symbols of one person can be incorporated into another. Like when we adopt another’s mannerisms or shared memories. A jump is then made to perhaps even incorporating a grainy version of the other person’s “I-ness”. The question then comes up, if one person dies is that person or at least some of their brain symbols and perhaps even a crude “I-ness” still around in the other person’s brain?

Understand all of this is from a guy who is professor of Cognitive Sciences at Indiana University. While some of the ideas may sound mystical there is actually nothing in his writing to suggest that at all! This is an interesting but tough read and you don’t really have to read GEB as a prerequisite. He does a pretty good job of giving a shorter proof of Godel’s theorem in this book. You do need to read slowly and stop and reflect on occasion.

I have a few chapters to go and am interested to see how he wraps all of this up. In a strange loop I would guess!

Moving Forward

Sometimes I get tired being drug back into the muck arguing about religion. Also, the 'idea' of atheism is a negative. It is reactionary. It is a response to the overwhelming weight of theism in which we must live. Sometimes you just need to step away and think in a more positive way.

Rather than the label of atheism I'd prefer to think of myself and many others as rationalists. People who in the face of no evidence of magic in the universe take a rational approach to their world. Having been largely caught up in the now boring arguments about religion vs atheism I'd like to try to 'move on'. I'm pretty done arguing with theists and by the way I won. Now maybe it's time to think more deeply about the truly pestering thoughts about existence, consciousness, and what the hell are we doing here anyway? Those kinds of questions can and should be approached in a reasonable way.

Lately, I've been printing religious nuttiness and then responding to it. In retrospect most of this is a re-hash of my main rant that started this blog. I'm a little tired of it but may come back to it when there is something especially funny (that's not hard!). Instead, I hope to take a slight turn in this blog to the more interesting and positive ideas that truly boggle our minds. I intend to start by writing notes/reviews of the new book by Douglas Hofstadter, I am a Strange Loop. He is the author of Godel, Esher, and Bach which is an immensely fascinating book from 1979.* He wrote that when he was 27 (by hand on lined paper). Now he is 62 and is still working on what might be the key ideas to the nature of consciousness. I've only just begun and will be writing my impressions and ideas along the way.

So, stay tuned. I'll try to write more often and you try to comment!

*Interesting to us rationalist is the key idea from this book which is really a long proof of Kurt Godel's icompleteness theorem which proved that no matter how logicial of a logical system you create there will be a way to create crazy 'sentences' that contradict themselves without breaking any of the rules of logic. Heady stuff and perhaps a key to our consciousness. . . ?

Nobel Prizes

Do Nobel Prizes tell us anything about a country and perhaps its' educational foundation? Upon looking back at Nobel prize winners for the 20th century I find only 4 prizes to Japan in Physics, Chemistry, or Medicine. We are constantly hearing how Japanese kids are killing our kids in test scores and they are. I've always contended that good test takers make good worker bees (Japan loves those) but are bad at original thinking which is exactly what is needed for Nobel Prize winning work.

Furthermore there are NO Nobel Prize winners from any middle eastern, Muslim state. None. Not surprising as original thought is deemed heresy by these knuckle heads. Not to mention all the time wasted in prayer 6 times a day! When some of these idiots scream that they want a government that is based on the Koran I always ask what successful model they are looking at? Give ONE example where this has worked. Of course like all religious arguments, they are not based on data or facts but rather emotion . . . especially anger.

So, to advocates of No Child Left Behind (or as I like to call it, All Children Held Back) and all the standardized testing that goes with it, be careful what you are trying to "fix".

Prayer in School

Twenty-nine states have now enacted laws requiring a minute of silence, quiet reflection, or meditation. That's right REQUIRED. It is the current round in the age old fight of prayer in school. In 1964 The Supreme Court correctly banned prayer in school as an obvious violation of the separation of church and state. Of course the religious right can't leave anything alone (Roe vs Wade?) and have been trying to sneak prayer back in ever since. This leads to several questions.

1. Why? Why do so many people think that this is important? Why can't they pray at home? They could even go for more than a minute at home. They could pray until their brains fell out if they want. Why must they have EVERYONE somehow hooked into prayer in SCHOOL?

2. To what end? What are they trying to fix? What evidence would you look at between 1964 and now and be able to isolate a measurable effect that is ONLY attributable to the lack of prayer in school that these new laws would then fix?

ANSWERS:
1. Because the religious right is probably the most reactionary and paranoid bunch of people on the planet. They only feel OK with their own beliefs if everyone is doing it. I am all for freedom of religion but even more so I'm for freedom FROM religion. Do what you want but leave me out of it and keep it out of my elected government.

2. This group doesn't make decisions based of facts or evidence. If they did they'd quickly find a better way to spend their Sunday mornings. They make decisions based on "feel good" phrases. "Support our troops, God loves you, Jesus died for our sins, etc." So they want prayer in school because it feels better than to not want it. Feelings are what they are. They are different for everyone but powerful for all. But, are they the trigger by which we should be making decisions about the school day?

Now you might be thinking that they are NOT requiring prayer - just silence with which the kids can do whatever. How many crazy parents out there are instructing their kids to pray their asses off (hands folded and mumbling) during that silence to 'show' those bad kids what it is all about. There is nothing better for a Christian than when he can really wear his religion on his sleeve for all to see. Can Catholics haul out their rosaries during this minute? Can the Muslims get up, kneel and face Mecca? Can the Jews throw on a yarmulke? What is the line as to what a kid can do with his minute?

This is just another reason why reasonable and intelligent parents are saving their money and sending their kids to private schools.

BTW. The link above is a religions one but outlines the history of the prayer in school pretty well. On the other hand one of the links there is really choice. Check it out. Turns out sometimes prayers aren't answers because you just don't do it right! This site can help you out with 'proven prayer methods' (a $147 value FOR FREE). I won't comment on it line by line. It stands by itself as a model if idiocy. But really, where do you get the number $147?

Well, do they?

I was sitting around trying to not kill myself over the 07 Cubs when I thought, Do animals have souls? Well, through the 'magic' of the Internet (actually it runs by "electricity") I found this article from the ARK which speaks directly to this question but also brings up some other tid bits from religious thinking. My comments are interspersed in green.

Do Animals Have Souls?
By Deborah Jones

'Only humans matter: they have souls. Animals don't.' This has been said, millions of times. People often use it as a mantra, not because they are necessarily helping to alleviate human suffering, but to justify their lack of concern and compassion for the suffering of animals. Of course humans matter - but so do animals: and animals have souls too.

Catholic teaching has never actually denied this, following St Thomas Aquinas in this as in most things, although it has not yet developed a fully positive understanding of the place of animals within the order of salvation. This is a subject being grasped by some of the best theologians of our time, as they realise that this lack of understanding results in an untypically muddled response from the Catholic Church over an important contemporary issue - that of animal welfare.

I remember having this scary message being delivered to me by our pastor when I was a kid. We had a great dog, Shep, and I asked if he was going to heaven and was told no because animals don't have souls. I cried.

The first thing to unravel from the various strands of tradition is the meaning of the word 'soul'. It is not really helpful to talk of people or animals 'having' souls - as you might 'have' a wristwatch or brown eyes or curly hair. Body and soul are not simply two factors existing alongside or in each other, but form an indivisible whole. A person, or an animal, is wholly body and wholly soul and both are at all times the whole being. In other words we do not only 'have' a body, or 'have' a soul - we are both body and soul. The Hebrew language does not talk of the two as separate entities, as we shall see in the Scriptures. Pagan Greek and Roman philosophers, whose thinking played such a leading role in influencing Christian theologians through the ages, did make the separation between spirit and matter, placing reason and soul in the higher, spiritual sphere, and according body and matter a much lower status. We shall see how this came to effect the way in which animals, and the rest of the nonhuman creation, came to be viewed.

Well, it sounds nice to say that we are both 'body and soul' but on what do you base such a statement? If I say, no, I think we are only a thinking organism, what evidence could be brought to the table to say that we are both? I'll listen to it what ever it is.

Living souls

In the beginning of our Scriptures, we see God creating 'every living creature' (Genesis 1:21, 24). The Hebrew words (transliterated) are 'chay' (living) and 'nephesh' (soul). 'Nephesh' is mentioned over 400 times in the Old Testament signifying soul. The words 'chay nephesh' are used from chapter one, verse 20, when the waters are filled with living creatures. The close translation from Hebrew is: 'And God said: Let the waters swarm [with] the swarmers [having] a soul of life …' and in the next verse: 'And God created the great sea animals, and all that creeps, [having] a living soul …' (The words in square brackets are not used in Hebrew, but are understood.) In verse 30, God provides food - purely vegetarian - to every living thing, in which, the Hebrew adds, '[is] a living soul'. There is a definite separation here between 'every green plant', which of course are living things, and every creature possessed of a 'living soul'. In chapter two, the second, and older Creation account, the first human being was created from dust, then God 'blew into his nostrils [the] breath of life and man became a living soul', a 'chay nephesh'. Here we have the real sense of 'nephesh', or soul, as a being animated by the breath of life. This reminds us of the glorious invocation of psalm 150, where 'everything that breathes' is to praise the Lord.

Surprise! The whole argument for the existence of a soul is based on it saying so in the bible. By the way, when 'God said. . . .", to whom was he speaking? Oh, I know that is just a metaphor, right? Well, then where does metaphor stop and actual information begin in the bible. I feel that people draw the line wherever it helps them the most to make whatever argument they like (gays are bad, abortion is bad, smite your enemy is good, etc.)

Oh, and I do like God having the waters swarm with swarmers. That seems like a good plan.

Pope John Paul II: 'animals possess a soul'

When Pope John Paul II declared in a public audience in 1990 that 'also the animals possess a soul and men must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren' some people must have thought this was a new teaching, unaware of the Holy Father's scholarly familiarity with the authentic Hebrew texts. When he went on to state that all animals are 'fruit of the creative action of the Holy Spirit and merit respect' and that they are 'as near to God as men are', animal lovers in the audience were ecstatic! The Pope mentions the special relationship of mankind with God as being created in His image and likeness. 'However,' he goes on 'other texts state that animals have the breath of life and were given it by God. In this respect, man, created by the hand of God, is identical with all other living creatures. And so in Psalm 104 there is no distinction between man and beasts when it reads, addressing God: " … Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth." The existence therefore,' the Holy Father reminds us, 'of all living creatures depends on the living spirit/breath of God that not only creates but also sustains and renews the face of the earth.'

OK, now animals have a soul because the Pope said so. Being pope he doesn't have to provide any evidence. Of course since he stated exactly what the author wanted to hear she doesn't question his statement. This is in direct contrast to real research. When a real searcher of truth gets a result that agrees with their hypothesis they immediately try to shoot it down. You question your own result even though it would maybe help you out. That is a real and valid approach to shaking a little truth out of the world.

This could be a slippery slope for the church. I think when this author says 'animals' she is only thinking of 'Shep' and other cute, furry creatures. What about snakes? How about spiders? Did the good lord only mean mammals? Does a cock roach have a soul or are they just minions of Beelzebub? Coral? Bacteria? Where does it end. . . or start? 90% of all animals on the planet are extinct? Did they all have souls and if so are they ALL in heaven?

The other thing you see here is that the Pope is INTERPRETING the bible. You see it has to be interpreted because it is such a crazy collection of ancient thinking that no intelligent human being could take it literally. But why does the word of GOD have to be interpreted? Why can't he just come out and say what he means? And, after about 5000 years, how about a 2nd edition?

This discourse caused a stir around the world, and was especially encouraging to Catholic animal welfare groups which had begun to despair that anything 'animal friendly' would ever be heard in Rome. The then professor of theology and dogma at the University of Urbino, Carlo Molari, called it 'very important and significant. It is a "sign of the times" because it demonstrates the Church's desire and deep concern to clarify present confused thinking and attitudes towards the animal kingdom. There should be no need, but the Pontiff, in reiterating that animals came into being because of the direct action of the "breath" of God, wanted to say that also these creatures, as well as man, are possessed of the divine spark of life and that living quality that is the soul. And are therefore not inferior beings or only of a purely material reality.'

The image of God

In the ten years that have passed, not a great deal has changed in church-goers' understanding of the souls of animals. Could that be because so little is ever taught or preached or prayed about them and their undoubted suffering at human hands? More is known about mankind being 'made in the image of God' and about having 'dominion' over the natural world. That is too often used as justification for treating the world as one great natural resource for human benefit, and all the other creatures in it as designed for mankind alone.

But what did 'image' really mean? Statues, or images, were and are used to represent kings and rulers. Think of the number of statues of Queen Victoria there are scattered around the former Empire. Human beings are living statues, living representatives - in much the same way as ambassadors represent the head of state of the country they come from. We human beings are to represent the rule of God in the created world, using delegated powers to see that the world continues to function and flourish in the way the Creator intended. To be shepherd-kings, not 'as those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them', but as 'slave of all' (Mark 10: 42-45). St Francis came close to this model in treating all other created beings as 'brothers and sisters', rather than as most people do today, as disposable things whose only value is in their usefulness to us.

You can see in this paragraph that there is still an implied hierarchy. We are clearly the top of the heap because of our large brains. This is very wrong thinking. . . I think. Every creature is at the current pinnacle of its own evolutionary thread. An osprey is a great flier/hunter as all the lousy ones have been sorted out. An osprey will never be a computer programmer but that doesn't put him somewhere below us. ALL the creatures are on the top of their own heaps. I AM pleased that as crazy as the thinking in this article is it does tend to lead to an idea of all the creatures being ONE thing as opposed to man vs beast. The north American Indians (luckily having NOT been indoctrinated with Christianity) spoke of the streams and the beasts as their brothers and we thought they were waxing metaphorically. They were NOT. They were very literal and thought of themselves as part of the whole rather than lords over it.

Also, does being made in the image of God mean he has form like us? He's a guy like half of us? Again, a pleasant Sunday school story but based on what? This thinking leads to so many crazy questions as to be laughable. Where was God before creation? Why would God need legs if there was no firmament yet? Moreover, if God was just God by himself and he looked just like any other guy why would he need a. . . well, YOU know? What would he do with it?

We have elevated the human being beyond all other creatures until he has even taken the place of God. Secular rationalism would do away with the concept of soul altogether. The French philosopher, Descartes (1596-1650), divided the human person into the 'thinking part' res cogitans and the body res extensa. He saw the body as a machine, which had to be governed by the self-awareness of human rational thought. He dropped the word for soul 'anima' and replaced it with the word for mind 'mens' What animals lacked, so he said, was the human rational thought, therefore their status was purely that of machines - and machines cannot feel. The screams emitted by tortured animals were no more, he said, than the squeaking of mechanical parts and of no consequence. That attitude to some extent still exists, even though scientists are now discovering that even relatively simple life forms are capable of feeling pain and stress.

The Age of Reason was typified by Descartes and by Kant, who wrote that 'So far as animals are concerned we have no direct moral duties; animals are not self-conscious and are there merely as a means to an end. That end is man.' For them might have been written those chapters in Job in which God asks: 'Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?' (chapters 38 and 39). However, they had been influenced more by Aristotle and the Stoics than by Scripture. These ancients held that animals, while possessing 'animal souls' (as distinct from 'vegetable souls') lacked reason, and demonstrated their lack of reason by lack of speech. They were not to know of the complex communication abilities of many of the primates, dolphins, whales, etc. What is worse is that they considered that lack of speech gives us the right to exploit them! Stoics also thought that animals cannot learn by experience - but then, they never watched 'One Man and his Dog'!

I'm not sure what the author is going for here. It is true that the rational thought of Kant and Descartes put animals at some lower level than man based on the idea of consciousness. Certainly it is true that we are the only conscious creatures on the planet. We are conscious because we possess language. The fact that these guys may have done harm to the status of animals was not by their lack of religious training but rather their lack of understanding of how ecology/evolution work. Both of these guys lived up to a century before Darwin.

What is definitive in Christian understanding of animals in the order of salvation, is that, with the incarnation of Christ, with God taking flesh, there is a new connection between all that shares the matter of flesh, of bodies: as the Holy Father said, a 'solidarity' between us and our brothers and sisters, the other 'living souls', the animals.

By the way, order of salvation is no easy topic. Check out the 'flow chart' from the 16th century!