Recrudescence

America is climbing out of the hole. Slowly.

2009-03-09T22:30:00.001-07:00

According to the American Religious Identification Survey, non-believers now make up 15% of Americans, and I believe this is a wonderful achievement.

There are some who believe it's a waste of time trying to educate the public about religious dogma and ignorance. Who are we (atheists) to tell others what to believe in, or more accurately, what not to believe in. Why should we ruin a good thing for the believers?

Daniel C. Dennett put it best in his book Breaking the Spell:

The problem is that there are good spells and then there are bad spells. If only some timely phone call could have interrupted the proceedings at Jonestown in Guyana in 1978, when the lunatic Jim Jones was ordering his hundreds of spellbound followers to commit suicide! If only we could have broken the spell that enticed the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo to release sarin gas in a Tokyo subway, killing a dozen people and injuring thousands more! If only we could figure out some way today to break the spell that lured thousands of poor young Muslim boys into fanatical madrassahs where they are prepared for a life of murderous martyrdom instead of being taught about the modern world, about democracy and history and science! If only we could break the spell that convinces some of our fellow citizens that they are commanded by God to bomb abortion clinics!"

We could try to stop these events from happening by punishing the radicals, but that's not going to be the solution to the massive problem of ignorance. Ignorance is bliss until somebody gets hurt, and in the case of religion it happens much too often to ignore. It's not enough to punish the radicals, by then it's too late. We need to ensure that religion does not escape the scrutiny of scientific investigation and question. If we can get a Christian to even read an atheist book - that is a massive achievement. Regardless of whether he chooses to accept its facts or not.

We're on our way to making good progress.

Is There Really Life Beyond The Grave?

2008-10-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

As I got on the bus today, it was fairly empty. People usually like to leave various newsletters on vacant seats as they leave. I find this quite convenient because then I can pick one up and read while on my way to school. I'm able to re-use the newsletter, thus save some trees, and I save myself the time of having to go to a newspaper stand.

However today, instead of the typic daily newsletter I found an Awake! magazine on one of the seats with the front page title called "Is there Life Beyond the Grave?". As I flipped over the cover I realized that it was a Watchtower magazine (a huge Jehovah's Witness publication here in Canada, and I believe in the US as well).

I've always wanted to read one of these and tackle some of the issues inside and today seemed like an excellent opportunity, especially because the title was so straightforward. I was curious to see how they were going to explain life after death in a way that made sense to the general population. Unfortunately, their approach was quite poor - a standard, inverse-thinking approach that preachers often use.

I'm going to take the article part by part and look closely at the problems in the way they arrive to their conclusions.

Death: Is it really the end?

The first section begins by telling the story of an 85-year-old skeptic who get converted by his son as he finds out he is terminally ill and decides to discontinue using the dialysis machine that has been keeping him alive. It's the infamous death bed conversion.

"That final time together provided an opportunity for the two to reflect on a subject they had discussed before: Is life possible beyond the grave? The father, a college-educated man, was a skeptic. He had been influenced by the teaching of evolution and was repelled by the hypocrisy of religion. He called himself an agnostic -- believing that the existence of God is unknowable."

Right off the bat my hope that the article would remain fairly neutral was shot out of the park. Just a few sentences in, the author is already setting up evolution, and hence college-education, to be the villain.

"The son, desiring to provide comfort and hope, shower his father why life beyond the grave is a real possibility. As death approached, the father acknowledged that living again, enjoying another life with renewed vigor and health, would be desirable."

The entire article's main argument for why there is life after death is set up right at the beginning. Life after death is desirable, therefore it exists. This is all possible because God wants us to be happy and he can do everything. Just because we want to live forever, we can. It's that simple. Miracles are possible.

However, at this point, the author starts telling us that there is a price to pay and there are certain rules. So it's not all that easy.

"Most people, if not all, would want to live again if they could do so with restored health and vigor in a world where peace prevails. Humans are unlike animals, which are described in the Bible as "unreasoning," or as "Creatures of instinct." (2 Peter 2:12; New International Version) We bury our dead. We contemplate the future. We do not want to grow old, get sick, and die. Yet, these are realities of human experience."

This paragraph begins to emphasize the heightened status of the human over animals. The author completely avoids the fact that humans are animals as well. There are several major issues with this paragraph and I will briefly go through them.

1. Humans are not unlike animals. Humans are animals. We are no different, except that we have a bigger and better brain. Like giraffe's have bigger necks, anteaters have longer tongues, falcons have better eyes, and dogs have better noses - we have a better brain. The reason is simple. It's because we use our brain to survive, and thus natural selection used that as the driving force. If we relied on sheer force and power to stalk and kill our pray, we would probably have huge muscles. Instead, our ancestors were fox-like, clever inventors who found cunning ways of survival. This requires brain power. The smarter humans were favored because they survived and therefore our brain and its power grew. There's no reason to favor a better brain, anymore than a better neck or tongue. Who's to say that thoughts and brain power are better than good eye-sight, or really strong muscles?

2. We have no way to prove that other animals are "unreasoning". Consciousness science is still in its infancy, and we still don't understand our own consciousness, much less the consciousness (or lack thereof) of other animals. To claim that other animals are unreasoning is to make a blind guess. This is not a good way to approach an argument or to convince people to join your side. We simply don't know if it's true or not. Now certainly, it could be true, and the author could have a point, but until we know for sure this statement has to be completely rejected as myth.

3. Now although we can't prove that animals can reason, we can certainly observe animals behaving in ways that go beyond natural "instinct". There are tons of stories of animals behaving in incredible ways that defy our common preconceptions. Things like eye-seeing dogs, and dogs that have rescued their owners (risking their own lives in the process) are the first examples that come to mind. Animals certainly do not rely purely on instinct. They adapt to environments in the same way that we do. Or if you want to think about it in reverse, you could also make the argument that humans behave purely on instinct too. It all depends on what the author means by "instinct". Again, we don't really know how much they reason, but to say that animals behave solely on instinct is not true. The fact that we bury our dead and contemplate the future does not separate us from animals. There are plenty of things other animals do that we don't. Why are the things we do so special?

4. "We do not want to grow old, get sick, and die." And who says that animals do? That's why they hunt, eat, sleep, drink and reproduce. This is not "human" experience. It's the experience experienced by all life forms. The inherent nature of life is that it wants to go on. It wants to survive. All life, not just human life. Even plants don't want to die. They spread their seeds, and sprout in new places. They evolve bigger leaves and longer roots.

5. Finally, this paragraph raises quite a bit of concern for animal and pet lovers. Do you not get to see your beloved pet in the afterlife? What if your entire life you've lived with an animal, and they have been your loyal companion? I would imagine that your "paradise" land after life would be to be with them again. Even if we admit that animals are not worthy of God's love, are they not worthy of our love? And if God loves us, how could he not allow animals amongst us? Why is there this favoritism for humans?

Next the article explains exactly why we don't want to die.

"For one reason, we have an inborn desire to live and enjoy life in peace and security. Death -- nonexistence -- is inherently repulsive. It is difficult, if not almost impossible, to accept. The Bible explain why: "[God] has put eternity into man's mind," or "in their heart." *(Ecclesiastes 3:11; Revised Standard Version) We want to live -- no die. think about it: Would that desire be so strong if it were not our Creator's original purpose for us to live forever? Is another life in endless health and happiness possible?"

Why yes -- yes -- the desire would be so strong if it were not our Creator's original purpose for us to live forever. This argument doesn't make any sense. We don't need a creator to want to live forever, all we need is a reason to live... Not even that. All we need is to be alive. Love, simple pleasures, entertainment... all these things are a reason to live. We don't need a creator to plant desires into our mind. Doesn't this violate some sort of freewill rule that Christians are always so concerned about?

Also, what about those people that no longer have the desire to live? The people with no love, no simple pleasures, no entertainment, no Creator - only suffering, pain and heartache? Are people who commit suicide not created by the Creator, since they have no desire implanted in their heart? What about those people who attempted suicide and then later found some desire to live? Were they first created by the devil and then reincarnated by God?

The answer is that the desire to live comes from how we live our lives. There are times when things are so hard that our desire to live may fade.

"Last year, AARP The Magazine, published by the American Association of Retired Persons, featured the article "Life After Death." Interview of scores of people who were over 50 years of age revealed that "nearly three quarters (73 percent) agree with the statement 'I believe in life after death.'" On the other hand, the magazine reported that nearly one quarter agreed with the statement "I believe that when I die, that's the end." But is that what people really want to believe?"

What people "want" to believe has no importance. Certainly, when things are going well we want to live. Most of us want to live forever. This is not a valid point for an argument. Some of us want to believe that we can fly. Some of us want to believe that we are rich. Wanting to believe doesn't make things so and false hope is often more harmful than realism.

Giving people, especially dying patients false hope is a terrible thing, and a crime. A crime blatantly disregarded by Christian Science practitioners.

"... many are skeptical -- as was the father mentioned at the outset, who would often say to his son, "Belief in religion is OK for those who can't handle the reality of death." yet, as he and other skeptics have had to acknowledge, belief in an all-powerful Creator provides an answer to otherwise incomprehensible miracles."

The authors decides not to mention any such "incomprehensible miracles". Instead he uses the following example,

"For example, just three weeks after conception, the human embryo begins to form brain cells. These cells multiply in spurts, at times up to a quarter of a million of them a minute! Nine months later a baby is born with a brain that has a miraculous capacity to learn. Molecular biologist James Watson called the human brain "the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe. When considering marvels like this, are you -- as most are -- filled with awe? Have such reflections helped you arrive at an answer to the question raised by a man long ago: "If an able-bodied man dies can he live again?""

The author's example is what Richard Dawkins refers to as the 'Argument from Beauty' in his book The God Delusion. It is quite possibly the most common argument religious people use in defense of creation and quite possibly the weakest.

I am not going to delve very deeply in explaining all of its problems, but will simply quote Dawkins, "If there is a logical argument linking the existence of great art to the existence of God, it is not spelled out by its proponents. It is simply assumed to be self-evident, which it most certainly is not. Maybe it is to be seen as yet another version of the argument from design: Schubert's musical brain is a wonder of improbability, even more so than the vertebrate's eye. Or, more ignobly, perhaps it's a sort of jealousy of genius. How dare another human being make such beautiful music/poetry/art, when I can't? It must be God that did it."

Life Beyond the Grave - It is Possible!

In this section the author tries to give us "evidence that provides reason for us to believe that life after death is possible." The way this is achieved is by explaining exactly why we die,

"Regarding Jehovah God, our Creator the Bible says: "Perfect is his activity." (Deuteronomy 32:4, Psalm 83:18) The first man, Adam was created perfect, and he had the potential of living forever in Eden, the earthly Paradise garden in which God placed him. (Genesis 2:7-9) Why did Adam lose that Paradise home and grow old and die? Simply stated: Adam failed to obey the command not to eat fruit from a particular tree. God had clearly warned Adam of the penalty for doing so, saying: "You will positively die." (Genesis 2:16, 17) Adam joined his wife, Even, in disobeying that command, so God evicted them from Eden. The reason for God's prompt action is significant. The Bible states: "That [Adam] may not put his hand out and actually take fruit also from the [garden's] tree of life and eat and live [forever]." -- Genesis 3:1-6,22. Adam and Even died for their disobedience, but why do all their descendants grow old and die? Because they inherited sin from Adam, and sin has resulted in the imperfection and death of every one of his offspring. The Bible explains: "Through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned." -- Romans 5:12."

Alright, so let's tackle the problems of the story of Genesis, and some of the questions that get ignored.

1. We've seem favoritism towards humans above, but why the sudden favortism towards Adam? Simply because he's the first one, does that really justify the sin to be passed down to all mankind? I mean, it's God and He can do as He wants, but you have to wonder about His motives and reasons, right?

2. Next I'll throw in the whole feminism problem, being why should Eve pay for Adam's sin? Christianity in general has a lot of sexist statements all over the place, so I won't say much more about it.

3. Now, lets question the whole scenario for a second. So let's say you are God, all-powerful and all-knowing. Why would you create a tree of fruit that cannot be eaten? There are really only two reasons; 1, you're evil and you want to cause your human creations pain and 2, you're purposely setting up a situation for Adam to fail and then feel bad - which again doesn't make you look very good either. There is no reason for that tree to be there. There is no reason create a trap for Adam. Since God is all-knowing, He must have known that Adam would eat from the tree. So firstly, why bother with the whole charade at all and why not just create humans as creatures that eventually get old and die, instead of doing the whole sin thing? And secondly, why does God care so deeply about fruit? If it's an "earthly Paradise garden" then certainly we should be able to do as we please and have an abundance of fruit and freedom?

The reason why the Bible contains this passage is to instill fear into its worshipers to do as God says. It's a means to demonstrate that if you do something that God doesn't like you'll be punished, and to set up a situation which states that your actions will reflected upon others. In principle this isn't all bad, you should always be aware of your actions, but in this particular case the concept of sin and fear and doing as you're told needs to be taken lightly and questioned.

Had I been Adam I would have asked God, "Well what is so special about this tree? Why can't I eat from it?" I'm curious as to what God would have said. "Because I say so?" seems like the only possible response, and if that's the case - then perhaps God really isn't very nice at all.

My point is backed up when the author continues with,

"What is it that makes possible a righteous standing with God and the enjoying of everlasting life?"

It's all about serving God and doing as He says. It's about pleasing Him. Which we know from studying history is a terrible way to go about life. Life should be about being in a righteous standing with your fellow human beings (and animals), not some omnipotent being.

"Why, though, is Jesus the only human who could "give his soul [as] a ransom" for us and thereby save us from the deadly consequences of sin? -- Matthew 20:28. Jesus is the only one who could give his soul as a ransom because he is the only human who did not inherit sin from the first man, Adam. Why so? Because the life of Jesus was miraculously transferred from heaven to the womb of Mary, who was a virgin. So, as an angel told Mary, her son was "holy, God's Son." (Luke 1:34, 35) That is why Jesus is called "the last Adam" and why he did not inherit sin from "the first man Adam" and why he did not inherit sin from "the first man Adam." (1 Corinthians 15:45) As a sinless human, Jesus could thus give himself as "a corresponding random" -- his life corresponded to or was the once perfect, sinless, first man. -- 1 Timothy 2:6."

It seems like mankind's existence and our whole lives are based on a single event - a virgin birth 2000 years ago. It seems like the entire Christian faith would fall apart without this event occurring.

We have to blindly believe in so many things in order for this story to be true. We have to believe to God impregnated a random woman in Jerusalem, we have to believe that there are angels and that one of them spoke to Mary. We have to believe that God cares only about sinless people. We have to believe that no man (aside from Adam and Jesus) are even sinless. We have believe so many things, a lot of them relying on us believing in more things. What's worse is that a lot of the things we are required to believe in have to support other than the story of the Bible. A few have other references (like the existence of Jesus). But none of these things can be tested in the modern day.

So in the end, if you really want there to be an afterlife it seems easier to just believe in an afterlife rather than believe in the story of the Bible. If you're at the stage where you're about to die and you don't want it to be the end, believe in anything you want. It's likely that what you want is more plausible than the Biblical story.

Why Care? Part 3

2008-06-21T11:41:00.000-07:00

Still not convinced?

Here's one more article to prove my points:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D91DVT200&show_article=1

Why Care? Part 2

2008-06-20T12:54:00.000-07:00

In the original "Why Care?" post I described my feelings about why everyone should care about religious dogma.

Today I stumbled upon this video:

http://current.com/items/88929480_baby_tossing

And now I realize that that one video alone could have entirely summarized my original post.

Why care?

2008-05-16T13:21:00.000-07:00

I often get asked, usually by my friends, "Why do you care so much about what other people believe in? Why be so aggressive about changing people's minds about subjective topics?"

Richard Dawkins addresses this question fairly well in The God Delusion and this particular question is a focus point of every Sam Harris lecture. But because this question is usually a question of personal opinion I thought I would explain the reason why I am so adamant about fighting religious dogma.

When I was a child, I would have referred to myself as a Christian. Later I became an agnostic. A year ago I firmly believed I was an atheist. Several months ago, I escalated my status to antitheist. The reason for this last escalation was a direct result of the reasons below. I'll describe them in point-form, in no particular order other than the order in which I happened to think of them.

1. Education. Although I fully support diversity, as Sam Harris says, we should not respect people's beliefs, but rather evaluate their reasons. If someone's reasons for believing in something are good enough, I'll have no choice but to believe what they do. The reason why I use the word 'reasons' instead of 'evidence' or 'proof' is because certain things might simply not have substantial 'evidence'. Therefore, a more tolerant approach is required. For instance, it's (at this point in time) impossible to prove that The Big Bang really happened, but I have reasons to believe that it did because just about everything we observe in the universe supports the theory. At this time, it's the most plausible and simplest theory (and I am an avid supported of Occam's Razor). Until a better alternative comes up, we have no choice but to believe that this is really how the universe originated. Believing in an alternate theory, is rather silly.

This is to say, I am not against the idea of reducing everyone's beliefs to those of my own. My goal in life is not to instate some sort of global mass-conversion where everyone will start believing in the same things I do. Not that it would be possible, anyway. My goal in turning antitheist is to give people reasons for believing in what I do, and let them make up their own minds. The problem is that most people are quite simply uneducated, or don't ask the right questions. A lot of people simply don't care about certain issues which they take for granted. Issues that could mean life and death for others, eg. abortion, gay marriage, blood transfusion, etc...

So quite simply put, the first reason for being antitheist is simply to generate a flow of information in the world and inform and educate others about possible (and in this case, better) alternatives to religious practices and a frame of mind based upon faith.

2. Prevention of miseducation. This one is closely related to the first point, but I think it deserves a separate mention because it's incredibly important and because this is the one that gets me the most upset.

There are countless cases of religious activists pushing certain agendas and spreading misinformation to large populations. From the Creation Museum to Abstinence-only Sex Education, there are cases when being tolerant of other people's beliefs becomes stupidity and ignorance. At this point, we have to draw the line and get off our butts and do something. It's one thing to teach people (especially children) theories that are highly plausible yet not confirmed, but it's a whole other thing teaching people theories that are just plain untrue.

We know that the Earth is far older than several thousand years old. We know this without a shred of doubt. Teaching children (who don't know better) that the Earth is a few thousand years old and was created in 'several days' is, as Dawkins implies - child abuse. Teaching teenagers not to have sex is just plain stupid. They'll still have sex, but if you don't teach them about safe sex, they might (and often do) have serious complications from the act. These are preventable problems that arise due to religious dogma and ignorance.

There is a point when you need to take a stance and take some responsibility into your own hands. If a religious group trying to open a Creation Museum in your city, being agnostic and passive is the wrong thing to do. You may not immediately see the problem with it, but the problem is not a short-term problem. It's a problem that will result in the long-term and will probably haunt your children.

Although, short-term problems exist too, and also require special attention. A good short-term problem is that of Christian Science, see an older post I made about it below for more information. Basically, instead of taking people to the hospital when they're sick, some Christians believe it's up to God to heal their loved ones. The result is that the person usually dies. In the rare case that the sickness goes away - they call it a miracle.

3. Dismissal of organized religion. This is another goal that all rational people should have. As I stated above, I support diversity, but I don't support the politicization of organized religion. Religion must be kept separate from politics, but the more a religion becomes organized - the more it pushes its way into politics and therefore causes problems for the rest of us. Keeping religion and its associated acts a private organization is at the top of my list of goals. The government should not provide ANY monetary or other forms of support for ANY religious organization, movement or activity. I am not saying this because I'm an antitheist, I'm saying this because I'm a constitutionalist. I wouldn't want the government supporting any atheist organizations either. That seems wrong to me. People's beliefs are their own, until they start to interfere with other people. The reason why atheism is so different, is because it doesn't interfere with other people's beliefs and relies 'mostly' on science.

Giving religion power causes such catastrophes as gay marriage bans, abortion bans, stem-cell research bans, etc... Things that do not affect the religious zealots banning them, but that affect everyone else. Stem-cell research saves lives. I can't seem to come up with any examples of funded religious organizations that save lives in an unbiased way. Dawkins goes into detail about this in the God Delusion so I won't say more about it here. Go read his book.

4. The Bible as a portal. Although I have many Christian friends who are not religious fanatics and are genuinely good people, they read the Bible too. And because the Bible is open to interpretation, certain people interpret it differently.

Clever religious activists at this point might say something about people who have used Darwin's Origin of Species as a justification for genocide and discrimination. But that's completely absurd. The main difference is that Darwin doesn't leave anything to interpretation. We know exactly what he is talking about, and people who misinterpret the book and use it for other purposes other than learning about the concept of natural selection and evolutionary biology, are entirely to blame for their actions. The Bible isn't like that, unfortunately.

The reason why the Bible is different, and we have reasons to blame it for numerous violent conflicts, is because we don't know what the correct interpretation is. We don't know if the passages inside it are true (well, for certain things we do, but not for others). It's completely irresponsible for us to teach anything out of this book, using any interpretation. Not to say that the Bible doesn't have good lessons and good messages, but we need to teach these lessons independent of Jesus, Heaven, the Apocalypse and the whole shebang. We can't pick and choose which passages we like and which we don't. The book should be tossed into that dark corner of the library that's used merely as a collection of historical artifacts.

But let's not stop at the Bible. Let's throw the Qu'ran and the Torah in there as well. And that Scientology book as well, whatever it's called.

5. Because they'll do it to you first. The reason why it's sometimes (not always) necessary to be hostile towards religious fanatics is because they're already being hostile towards you. Although, it's best to resolve conflicts peacefully, sometimes religious people simply won't listen. I'm not talking about using violence. I do not support waging war, but sometimes you need to take aggressive action in order to fight off crazy religious people. There's just no way around it, be it political or judicial.

Living in Canada (as I do), it's a little hard to understand just how much discrimination there is against atheists. This isn't going to be solved by agnostics. It's going to be solved by antitheists who take things seriously and raise awareness and generate publicity (and request political interference if necessary).

I know I'm making religion sound incredibly bad and evil. It's usually not. Most people, of various beliefs are good people. But some people have these dogmas, usually as a result of their parents' teachings. It's just the way it happens and it's nobody's fault. We just need to wake up and make sure that our children aren't brought up with the same fallacies about the world.

The "it's just a theory" argument

2008-01-11T00:00:00.000-08:00

I've never personally run into this argument before; I guess it's because I've only tried to discuss religion and science with educated people, but recently this argument came up in a debate surrounding American presidential candidate Ron Paul and his refusal to "accept the theory [of evolution] as a theory".

Apparently, after discussing this topic with an anonymous reader online, I've come to realize that this is more common than I thought it was. So firstly, for those who are lost and aren't quite following the issue I'm addressing, let me briefly explain it.

There are people in the world who reject the theory of evolution simply because it is a theory that has not yet been proven. Usually these people are religious, and therefore their logic goes as follows, "The theory of evolution clearly contradicts my beliefs as a person of faith, but since the theory of evolution is only a theory and not a scientific fact, I am going to reject it and continue to believe in my faith."

What I say to these people is, "You are uneducated." However harsh that is to say to their face - it is true. Clearly these people do not understand what the theory of evolution is, and more importantly they do not understand the meaning of the words 'scientific theory'. So let me try and explain, exactly what is a 'scientific theory'.

The Random House Unabridged Dictionary states that a theory is "a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact". A scientific theory is more than just that, as it follows the scientific method. A scientific theory is not simply a person who proposes an idea and leaves that float there in the world for people to choose to believe in or not. A scientific theory goes through three very important stages of analysis: observation, proposal of a hypothesis and finally rigorous and communal testing.

This simply means that before a scientific theory is even called a 'scientific theory' hundreds of scientists (usually experts in the field) have observed and tested the theory under scrutiny. If it passes their review, it gets published in a scientific journal for everyone to test and investigate further. The only reason why at that point it is not called 'fact' is because science never likes to call something a fact unless there can simply be no other imaginable alternative.

At this time, let me put forward an example: the theory of gravity. This theory (and yes, it is a theory) states that all objects with mass attract one another. Certainly any educated person in this world accepts this theory as truth, although nobody has ever yet proven this to be as undeniable fact. The reason why people have accepted this theory as fact is because the evidence for it vastly outnumbers the evidence against it. And when I say 'vastly', I really mean it.

Well, the theory of evolution is no different. Yes - it is still a theory, and it is possible that there are alternatives, but the evidence for this theory to be truth is so great that to not accept it simply because "it's just a theory" is not only absurd, but childish.

Am I missing a leg again?

2007-07-18T11:28:00.000-07:00

There are many popular arguments that atheists like to bring up when discussing prayer with a person of faith. One such argument, that I know Sam Harris has often used before, is, if prayer really works, how come there have been no cases of people regrowing (or regenerating) their missing limbs. It's a sad and tragic scenario. A soldier (of religious faith) loses his leg on the battlefield, gets sent home and while lying on the hospital bed asks God, "Why did this happen to me? Please Lord, give me back my leg." His family prays for him and prays that God will heal his leg, too. Nothing happens.

The argument is a strong one, because it asks the question, "What can and can't we pray for? And why?" Some people believe it is absurd to ask God to regrow limbs because it's impossible for humans to grow back missing body parts. But then the question arises, "Well if we can only pray for things that are physically possible, and might occur by chance or through other means other than faith, what is the point of prayer? Where is the miracle?" Isn't prayer supposed to a miracle?

Some people pray for their favorite sports team to win, and when their team loses the game they believe that it was unfair of them to ask God, an all-knowing, omniscient creator of the Universe to take time out of His busy schedule for some irrelevant football match. However, when their team does win, they thank Him and believe that it was with His help that the team won the game. Again, I must ask, where's the miracle? This is not the will and power of a divine being, it's the ignorance of the individual that drives this belief.

So while the poor, religious amputee soldier is praying to the Heavens, what are scientists doing? Well, as it turns out, they are actually finding ways to help people like him. Scientists are constantly developing technology to regrow limbs, if not naturally, then artificially. One recent article about a bionic hand caught my attention:

Milestone for unique bionic hand

I found this to be quite ironic. While people are praying to God for something that a lot of them believe to be impossible, the scientific community is actually doing something about it - they're doing the "impossible".

Atheism and Morality

2007-05-13T12:16:00.000-07:00

A very popular attack on atheism (at least from the religious side) comes in the form of a question of morality. Atheists are accused of having either no morals or morals that are loose and weak. Because most other religions derive their morals from some form of moral code or sacred texts or religious figures, they expect atheists (which a lot of religious people believe atheism to be a religion in itself) to have some soft of moral code too. From childhood these individuals have been told not to do certain things because it was written in the Bible or the Koran or whatever, and so, they expect all people to derive their moral standards based on some sort of written laws or principles.

Of course the next leap of reasoning, which a lot (but certainly not all) religious people make, is this notion that, because atheism doesn't have a moral book, or some sort of moral document which tells us how we should act, all atheists are amoral and therefore a danger to society. The Roman Catholics love to bring up names like Stalin and Hitler and Mao (all atheists) as 'evidence' of this amorality. It is believed that a lack of morals leads to a life of violence, chaos and torment. And that's a reasonable claim. But who said atheists don't have their own morals?

Here's an interview that Richard Dawkins did with Bill O'Reilly this year. As far as interviews go, this is a typical scenario where the scientist gets repeatedly cut-off before he has a chance to explain his point-of-view and a case where the religious defendant briskly changes the subject once his opinions start to get jeopardized. But this interview clearly shows the attitude that a lot of fundamentalists Christians and other religious people have towards atheists:

I am certainly not the first atheist to tackle a response to this accusation. Many atheists have had to answer this question in their own lives, but I believe that most atheists are not providing very good explanations. And I sympathize with them. It's hard to explain why we do certain things the way we do. And it's not just atheists, this goes for everyone. Morality is not simple. Morality is not like mathematics where an equation has a determined number of possible answers. We run into social scenarios every day where there is an infinite number of possible outcomes and choices, a very large number of which are 'good' and a lot that are 'bad.

A few years ago a fellow classmate had asked me if I believe in a 'right' and 'wrong'. This is basically the same question of morality, but rephrased. At the time, I was positive that yes - there was a 'right' and a 'wrong' choice for every situation. My mate argued the other side. He was positive that a situation had more than one possible 'right' answer or perhaps no 'right' answer at all. This was a very difficult debate because, even though I had a good idea of why I was right, I had a hard time determining why he was wrong. It was only recently that I had come to realize that we had both been right.

The short answer is that our moral codes are both fundamental and numerous. This is possible because morality evolves. The longer answer, I will get to in just a second. First let's take a look at a popular poor response to the atheist morality question. This one comes from AskTheAtheist.com:

And although I agree with Jake's natural instincts to the feeling that there is some sort of "social contract" out there, this doesn't answer the question "where do people get their morals from?" and it doesn't answer more difficult moral questions (eg. abortion, capital punishment, etc...) The 'social contract' is great and so is the 'golden rule', but that simply is not enough. It does not answer all the questions. So where do we get the answers to more difficult moral issues? From a holy book? Certainly not.

To illustrate my point let me quote a passage from Moral Minds, a brilliant book about the origins of morality by Marc D. Hauser:

Consider the following scenarios:

1. A surgeon walks into the hospital as a nurse rushes forward with the following case. "Doctor! An ambulance just pulled in with five people in critical condition. Two have a damaged kidney, one a crushed heart, one a collapsed lung, and one a completely ruptured liver. We don't have time to search for possible organ donors, but a healthy young man just walked in to donate blood and is sitting in the lobby. We can save all five patients if we take the needed organs from this young man. Of course he won't survive, but we will save all five patients."

Is it morally permissible for the surgeon to take this young man's organs?

2. A train is moving at a speed of 150 miles per hour. All of a sudden the conductor notices a light on the panel indicating complete brake failure. Straight ahead of him on the track are five hikers, walking with their backs turned, apparently unaware of the train. The conductor notices that the track is about to form, and another hiker is on the side track. The conductor must make a decision: He can let the train continue on its current course, thereby killing the five hikers, or he can redirect the train onto the side track and thereby kill one hiker but save five.

Is it morally permissible for the conductor to take the side track?

If you said "no" to the first question and "yes" to the second, you are like most people I know or the thousands of subjects I have tested in experiments. Further, you most likely answered these questions immediately, with little to no reflection. What, however, determined your answer? What principles or facts distinguish these scenarios? If your judgment derives from religious doctrine or the deontological position that killing is wrong, then you have a coherent explanation for the first case but an incoherent explanation for the second. In the train case, it makes sense -- feels right -- to kill one person in order to save the lives of five people. In the hospital case, it feels wrong to kill one person to save five. You might explain the hospital case by saying that it is illegal to commit intentional homicide, especially if you are a responsible doctor. That is what the law says. That is what we have been raised to believe. Our culture inscribed this in our minds when we were young and impressionable blank slates. Now apply this bit of legalese to the train case. Here, you are willing to kill one person to save five. You are, in effect, willing to do something in the second case that you were unwilling to do in the first. Why the mental gymnastics? Something different is going on in the second scenario. For most people, the difference is difficult to articulate. In the hospital case, if there is no tissue-compatible person nearby, there is no way to save the five patients. In the train case, if the side track is empty, the conductor can still switch tracks; in fact, in this scenario, the conduction must switch tracks -- an obligatory act -- since there are no negative consequences to turning onto the side track.

Hauser goes on to explain why we act in one way and not the other, and goes on in detail to explain where exactly these moral ideas come from. But the facts are in - we do not get our morality from books or texts or "social contracts". We make these moral decisions instinctively, and usually with little or no reflection. If morality did in fact come only from the Bible or any other text, we would be required to think hard about these two cases because they are so different from anything encountered in the Bible and, in fact, most peoples' decisions tend to contradict the Bible's basic rules. The experiments done by Hauser also disprove the idea that all morality comes from a "social contract" because these two scenarios alone (and there are many more that have been tested) show that it's not simply a "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" case. In fact, it doesn't apply to this what-so-ever. Something else is behind our moral reasoning.

If we can get people from all corners of the world to take the same morality test and we can find enough evidence to show that most people will act in the same way independent of their religion, culture or location, then we can conclusively prove that religion, culture or where you are from has nothing to do with your moral decisions. And these kinds of tests have, surely enough, already been done. These include the works of the anthropologist Kim Hill, and economist Ken Binmore. Furthermore, studies have been done by the political scientists Norman Frohlich and Joe Oppenheimer show that for the most part, humans from all backgrounds generally respond in the same way to moral situations. There are slight variations here and there based on cultural differences. But those differences should be expected. The evidence is - religion has absolutely nothing to do with morality. Not only does it have nothing to do with morality, but religion is, craziest of all, a bad thing when it comes to morality because it tries to teach lessons based on irrational laws. The best example of this comes from Islam:

"The United Nations Commission on Human Rights reports five thousand honor killings per year... In the Arab world, more than two thousand women die every year from honor killings. In the West Bank Gaza Strip, Israel, and Jordan, nearly all murders of Palestinian women are the result of honor killings... In Islamic cultures, there is nothing in the Koran that would allow for or encourage honor killings. However, deep within Islamic tradition is the attitude that women are property. The owner has the power to do with property as he pleases."

Even today in the Western world, in some cases, passion crimes are sometimes forgiven and excused by the justice system. Something tells us that sometimes killing can be allowed. Even though our instincts tell us that all live is sacred and all murder is wrong, when situations come up, we adapt and modify our instincts. John Rawls suggests that perhaps we can deliver moral verdicts based on unconscious and inaccessible principles. It's the idea that we all have moral instincts and that morals are not rigid. They are flexible and change over time, much like languages.

For more insight into the question of morality I highly recommend Marc D. Hauser's book. It is life-changing.

Christian Science

2007-04-10T20:30:00.000-07:00

Today's post is quite different in that I have absolutely no words. I'm stunned, shocked and absolutely terrified. I don't know if I'm angry or upset, or both. Please take 30 minutes of your time and listen to this latest Podcast from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) about child abuse:

http://media.libsyn.com/media/ffrf/FTRadio_49_033107.mp3

Religious Dogma that Kills Kids

Rita Swan, founder of Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, grants a powerful interview about losing a baby to Christian Science anti-medicine tenets, and her subsequent activism to repeal religious exemptions in laws governing healthcare for children.

"My Sweet Lord"

2007-04-02T10:23:00.001-07:00

Today's video is entitled: Conservatives Outraged Over Chocolate Jesus Art and is an interview with the artist who sculpted a life-sized, naked Jesus for a Holy Week exhitibition. The piece was entitled "My Sweet Lord".

Bill Donohue, head of the watchdog Catholic League, said it was "one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever." I'd love to ask Bill - "HOW!?" I think it's an assault on the freedom of the artist and freedom of speech if anything.

As an artist and an atheist this is really revolting. Did you notice how he was turning to violence and deliberate assaults. "I want to make him financially bankrupt," and "you're going to lose more than your head." He is ready to act out in acts of vengeance and physical retaliation over a form of art that the artist openly denies as an attack on Christianity. Cosimo says that he himself is a Christian and did this for the sweetness of Jesus. I have a strange feeling that he won't be a Christian for much longer.

This is a great example of what Richard Dawkins was talking about in Chapter 1 of his book, The God Delusion, where he said that religion seems to be in a field of its own. You can criticize artists, politicians, ideologies, but as soon as you bring up religion everyone explodes and takes offence. Why?

And the question of 'Why?' is particularily curious here because, in my opinion, the artist didn't do anything that hasn't already been done before. Artists have portrayed Jesus with a naked body before...

Mmm... Chocolate Jesus. Perhaps Tom Waits was a prophet.

"Well its got to be a Chocolate Jesus
Make me feel good inside
Got to be a Chocolate Jesus
Keep me satisfied"

The artist is a bit of a wacko, I agree, but it's all in the name of art. Can you make an anatomically correct, life-size sculpture of a person out of chocolate? How about "repainting a Manhattan hotel room in melted mozzarella, spraying five tons of pepper jack cheese on a Wyoming home, [or] festooning a four-poster bed with 312 pounds of processed ham."

Catholics...

The Three Wise Men

2007-03-25T23:24:00.000-07:00

When it comes to atheism we have our role models too, but they're very different from those of religious faiths. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel C. Dennett have emerged as the leaders of the atheist movement for the 21st century. So I thought that I would take this opportunity to really take a close look at these "Three Wise Men" and see what makes them unique and makes their message a powerful one. They are important figures, and they are people who've received their share of criticism too. In response to their movement Gary Wolf writes, "the irony of [...] New Atheism -- this prophetic attack on prophecy, this extremism in opposition to extremism -- is too much for me". And he's certainly not the only one who's given Dawkins, Harris and Dennett a hard time. Theists from all over are claiming that these guys are Satan-worshipers and to listen to them is to listen to temptation which is a sin. Well if truth is temptation and temptation is a sin - we've got a long way to go until we can "break the spell".

I'll begin by looking at the works of Sam Harris. Harris is what I would call an 'active atheist'. He believes that religious faith is not only uneducated, but more importantly that it's dangerous. He actively attacks religious fundamentalism, as well as religious moderation. I will let him speak now:

You can get the full transcript of Harris' speech at www.cfinyc.org/transcripts_pdf/sam_harris_transcript.pdf

"I am simply worried."

Here is the first of many differences between a religious activist and an atheist activist. Atheists do not attempt to convert, or manipulate, or spread propaganda. They do not have an agenda. A lot of religious people accuse atheists of being immoral, inconsiderate, intolerant, murderous people, but we are just the opposite. We have a problem with poor morals, and intolerance and murder and this worries and terrifies us to no end. We begin to ask ourselves, "where does this disrespect for life come from?" And the answer we often find is - religion.

"We have the marriage of, quiet literally, first century or earlier beliefs—literally Iron Age philosophy—with 21st Century destructive technology. This, on its face, should seem untenable to us."

I believe that this is a tremendously important point. Religion, no matter what our priests keep telling us, is greatly outdated. It simply does not belong in our world. It should have died out ages ago.

"We do not respect people's beliefs. We evaluate their reasons. If my reasons are good enough, you will helplessly believe what I believe. That is what it is to be a rational human being. Reasons are contagious."

This is Harris' response to a lot of religious questions. Questions such as, "Well if God doesn't exist, why don't you prove that?" and "Why can't you just let us believe what we want, what's it to you?". It's not enough to simply believe. No matter how you put it, in a modern society in the 21st century, simple, uneducated and blind belief in the supernatural should be considered a mental illness or just plain stupidity.

"All we need is a standard of intellectual honesty where people who pretend to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about receive some conversational pressure."

Again, note the difference between this statement, and the common response of a religious activist. Thankfully, I am from Canada which is one of the most atheistic countries in the world, and a country of free speech and tolerance of all faiths. But what if I were from a deeply Islamic country where speaking out about religion is punished by death? This is why I strongly advocate the notion of 'intolerance of intolerance'.

"Forty percent of scientists believe in a biblical God. That does not suggest that there are good scientific reasons to believe in a biblical God. That suggests that 60% of scientists are not doing their jobs. There really is an argument to be won here."

This is in response to my previous post about Religion and Science. Harris agrees that religion and science simply cannot live together.

"...there is no place in the books where God says, “When you get the new world and you develop your three branches of government and you have a civil society, you can just jettison all the barbarism I recommended in the first books.” These books really are engines of fundamentalism. They are engines of intolerance."

I often get criticized for criticizing the Bible. People often tell me that I'm way out of my league and that it's absurd to criticize the Bible because the Bible itself does no harm, it's the Church that causes harm. But although there is some truth in that, the Church is a whole separate issue. The book itself is an 'engine of fundamentalism and intolerance' and it must be dealt with.

We have this idea that the fact that we were burning heretics alive for five centuries in Europe, this represented some kind of departure — a civilizational departure into psychopathology. It didn't. It is perfectly reasonable to do this if you believe the books.

And we do believe the books. We still believe the books. And in some places we still burn heretics alive. This is a problem.

You have probably noticed that Harris isn't really a great speaker. He certainly doesn't have the punch and the presence that, say, a preacher would. Keep that in mind as we move on to Daniel C. Dennett:

Daniel Clement Dennett is a prominent American philosopher and atheist advocate. Dennett's research centers on philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently a professor at Tufts University.

"I don't think there is a God so I'm an atheist, but I don't make a deal of it. It's not that I passionately believe there is no God. Of course there isn't a God, so what?"

Daniel C. Dennett has a very different approach from someone like Harris in the sense that he doesn't "make a deal of it". He approaches religion from a very philosophical point of view. He uses reason and thought rather than science and evidence to discredit God and what God does. This, of course, isn't to say that Dennett isn't a man of science and evidence - he is very much so and has written several books about it.

"I have a feeling that not that many people actually believe in God. Many people believe in belief in God. That is, they think it's a good thing. And they either try to believe in God, they hope they can believe in God, they wish they could believe in God and they say they believe in God. They go through all the motions, they try very hard to be devout and sometimes they succeed. For periods of their life they actually do, in some sense, believe that there's a God and they think they are the better for it. Otherwise they behave like people who probably don't believe in God. Very few people behave as if they really believe in God. A lot of people behave as if they believe they should believe in God.

Dennett tries to reason out God through the individual. He concentrates on the person and the person's belief in God and the person, rather than on the character of God Himself. He avoids, what I call, the "religious bubble". Outside the bubble God doesn't exist and it's all good, but most religious people won't listen to you because they do believe in God. They live in a different world than you. In order for you to be able to communicate with them, you need to step into their little bubble in which their God does exist. This means having to put your atheistic beliefs aside and hypothesize, for the next few minutes, that there is a God, and its their God. Dennett says - nonsense. There is no God, and I know it and most people already know it. They just won't admit it to themselves because they believe that belief in God is necessary. People need a God.

In his book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon he tries to break the conviction that religion is off-limits to scientific inquiry. And this is precisely what Sam Harris was talking about and what I'm trying to advocate. For some reason, as soon as you begin to question religion, religious people go wild and take it as some sort of personal attack. I've always liked Dennett because he reminds me of what God looks like in most religious icons and it creates a very pleasant sense of irony. :)

Unfortunately, the video I originally posted for Richard Dawkins (The Root of All Evil?) was removed for some unknown reason. It was previous found here: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=6169720917221820689. So if per chance it comes back online, I highly recommend it. But for now, instead I'll use this one:

Richard Dawkins asserts that belief in God is irrational and inflicts great harm upon societies. Jeremy Paxman interviews Professor Dawkins as part of the Newsnight book club.

"I'm wound up about the truth. I care passionately about the truth as a scientist and I do regard religious claims about the universe as alternative scientific claims."

Here we have the great atheist and speaker Richard Dawkins. He has lately come up to the forefront of the atheist movement, mostly due to his highly popular best-selling book "The God Delusion". Dawkins is a scientist, and a highly respect one. That's probably why people listen to him.

Of course, the other reason why he's become such a popular figure in the discussion of religion is because he makes wild claims which really get on religious peoples' nerves, such as saying that the feeling of God is probably a simulation in brain. Which to me, another atheist, sounds like a brilliant deduction, but to a religious person might sound like a direct attack because it implies their stupidity and ignorance.

And to finish off this entry I'll let Dawkins read a little bit from his book. Pay attention to the way atheists talk in comparison to evangelicals you usually see on TV. Or even in comparison to preachers at church. I agree with every single thing Dawkins has said, so I'd love to hear your opinions.

Richard Dawkins reads excerpts from "The God Delusion" and anwsers questions at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia on October 23, 2006. This Q&A features many questions from Jerry Falwell's Liberty "University" students.

It's a question of faith

2007-03-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

When it comes down to the question, "Where does the the world come from," there are a lot of possible answers. None of them are really any more valuable than the other. Honestly, nobody knows. My answers has always been, "does it matter?" Does it really matter where it all came from? I think it's more important to know where we are going. And although I recognize the value in understanding history in order to predict the future, I don't recognize the value in the popular religious answer.

"God created the universe." My problem with that argument is of course, "Well where did God come from?" To that, the only response is that God has always existed. Well how come it's so easily to believe in God existing just like that, and not the universe existing just like that? Why is it okay for God to have no explanation for His own existence, but not for the universe?

Religion answers the question about the existence of the universe, but what about God? I understand that God is supposed to transcend this universe, but if He exists, one must ponder about where He comes from.

Religious people have a problem with the Big Bang theory because they wonder about where the material of the Big Bang came from. They say it came from God or else the theory is wrong or the Earth is a few thousand years old. So my question to you is, if it's okay for God to exist without question, why isn't it okay for matter to exist without question?

Science and Religion

2007-03-21T12:54:00.000-07:00

A popular question in the science and religion field is, "Can a person be both a scientist and a person of religious faith?" Recent statistic show that 60% of scientists are non-theists, which at first seems like a small percent. But something interesting happens once you look at the more established scientists of the National Academy of Science. The more accomplished scientist you are, the less theistic you tend to be.

On the latest show at the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Radio show, Nobel Laureate Paul D. Boyer talks about these statistics and how he came to become an agnostic and then an atheist. The show also talks about Intelligent Design and the Creationists that try to combine science and religion.

You can download the podcast version of this broadcast from: http://media.libsyn.com/media/ffrf/FTradio_47_031707.mp3

How do you live a moral life as an atheist? Mr. Boyer, like me, believes that morals really have nothing to do with God or religion.

THE BIBLE: or teach your children to pillage and murder the way God intended it

2007-03-18T22:24:00.000-07:00

“The Bible” is the best-selling book of all time (Wikipedia). With some six billion copies of this sacred text spread all over the world I wonder about its affect the children who are using it as a source of morals (All-Time Bestselling Books and Authors). A Google book search reveals that over 170,000 other books relating to the Bible have been published as well, so it looks like people are really involved in the Judaeo-Christian concepts (Google). With numbers like these you would naturally assume that most people would know the stories and messages in the book quite well, but surprisingly, statistics in America show that nearly half of the American people haven't even bothered to read the thing at all, and 80% of these people say that it's too confusing (Whelan). So what about the men, women and children that have actually read the Bible for a moral code? What has the Bible taught them? Are the children any better off having read this book, or does the Bible promote something other than love and compassion? I believe that the Bible is indeed very confusing, but not because of its language or format. The Bible that promotes love, compassion, kindness, and at the same time promotes genocide, slavery, injustice, cruelty, violence, and intolerance. So which parts of the Bible are we teaching our children?

Before we begin to look at the passages of the Bible that cause concern, it's important to note that the Bible was written centuries ago and is a compilation by several different gospels and voices (Ehrman 6). It was not written for the sake of historical reference, but rather as a compilation of the stories and events as described by their proper authors (Ehrman 63). The historical accuracy and inerrancy of the Bible is a highly debated topic that has been the subject of many doctrines and various books (Johnson; Dallas Theological Seminary). This is important because it creates a division among believers: those who believe that the events and stories of the Bible are accurate historical representations of what actually happened, and those who believe that most of the events of the Bible were not actual events but are rather stories with moral or ethical lessons (in this case a person picks and chooses which passages are fact and which are allegories or parables). These two nearly opposing views create a very blurry division among believers and this discrepancy is often used as a 'way-out' for apologetic Bible defenders (Miller; Till, Part 1). For the time being, I'm not going to worry about this too much because in the end, no matter how you look at it, we'll see that you still reach the same conclusion.

Why do people use the Bible for their moral code at all? From our childhood, our parents, teachers and church officials have told us that Christianity is all about love and worship. We were cited the Ten Commandments which said that, “thou shalt not kill” (Exodus, 20:13), that “thou shalt not commit adultery” (Exodus, 20:14), and that "thou shalt not steal" (Exodus 20:15). We were told not to lie (Exodus 23:1). We were taught not to hate (Leviticus 19:17) and to treat all people fairly (Leviticus 19:33-34). We were read from The Children's Illustrated Bible which had entertaining chapters entitled, “The Plagues of Egypt,” “Noah's Ark,” “The Flood,” and “The Resurrection” which were packed with moral lessons (Hastings 276). From a child's perspective these looked like wonderful, heart-warming tales, especially in the way the book was illustrated, with bright colors, majestic figures and smiling people walking to accomplish God's plan (Hastings 18).

Similar illustrations are present on children's websites which were constructed to walk the child through each Bible story. One of these websites caught my attention. The website is called JesusAndKidz.com and is an illustrated Bible guide written by Ellen Kent. In the story “Moses and the 12 Spies,” Moses sends twelve spies into the Canaan territory to investigate the land that God has promised to the people of Israel. When they return they bring back fruits and milk to demonstrate the richness of the land, but ten of the spies say that the area is heavily fortified by other people living there, and there are too many of them there to win the land over. Two other spies, Joshua and Caleb say that they should go there anyways because God has promised the land to them. Kent describes the passage as follows:

Caleb and Joshua, the other two spies said, "The land we saw is a wonderful land. The Lord has promised it to us, and if we have faith in His promise, we shall surely win this land."
But the people were frightened and angry and began to stone Joshua and Caleb.
Then the Lord appeared in the tent of meeting. "How long will these people reject Me and lose faith after all the signs I have shown them? I think I must punish them and reject them as My people." But Moses begged the Lord to forgive them. The Lord said "I have pardoned them as you ask. But as their punishment you will not enter the Promised Land for 40 years, and this generation will never enter, but only their children." (Kent 6-8)

There is a grave problem with the way Ellen Kent has interpreted this story for young children and an even graver problem with the story itself. Let's make a list of things that this story is teaching children: God has made promises to the people of Israel; the people of Israel shall receive land and items belonging to others (meaning the original land-owners will lose everything they own and either get killed or thrown out of their houses (Deuteronomy 12:10)); when faced with problems all you need to do is have faith in God and He will solve them for you; you can go to war with others because of what God has told you or promised you; your God is always right and you must not argue or question Him; you can stone or violently attack people who do not agree with you or God; God is not forgiving and even if He pardons you He will still punish you when you don't do as He asks. Now I'm not sure about the general reader, but to me these don't seem like morally just lessons. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that these lessons are vulgar, sadistic and completely inappropriate for any human being, much less for young children who do not have the mature reasoning skills necessary to determine what is truly right and wrong. More than that, these lessons seem to be contradictory to the previous lessons, mentioned above, about not hating and killing others and being fair and kind to everyone. With such messages of intolerance, having the website decorated in bright colors, rainbows and smiling stars while talking about murder makes something inside of me twist in disgust. What is really going on here? What is the lesson that Kent is trying to teach children?

If we begin looking inside the Bible itself we begin to see various examples of this violent, and unjust nature of God: “Moses murders an Egyptian after making sure that no one is looking” (Exodus 2:11-12 ); “God explains to Moses that he intends to smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast“ (Exodus 12:12 ); “After hardening Pharaoh's heart a few more times, God drowns Pharaoh's army in the sea“ (Exodus 14:4-28 ); “After a woman gives birth, a priest must kill a lamb, pigeon, or dove as a sin offering. This is because having children is sinful and God likes it when things are killed for him” (Leviticus 12:6-8); “God hardened the heart of the king of Heshbon and so that he could have him and all of his people killed” (Deuteronomy 2:30). The list of cruelties under the hand of God is incredibly lengthy and tremendously disturbing in the way some of the acts of terror are committed (Cruelty and Violence in the Bible). The Skeptic's Annotated Bible is an entire Internet community that goes into detail finding and analyzing all the injustices, and the cruelty in the Bible, the Koran and the Book of Mormon. Their findings are absolutely terrifying, and yet Biblical apologists continue to try and find excuses (Brucker). But what about the young children? They have no way of being able to defend their beliefs and to judge what is truly right and wrong? Christianity is teaching children that murder should be a form of punishment. This must stop.

It seems evident to me that we cannot be teaching from this book to our young children. It seems evident that we cannot be teaching from this book to any rational person at all. The latest news shows the religious agenda forcing its way into our education system where it infiltrates our scientific centers and brainwashes our students (Wallis). Some people, who refer to themselves as “evangelical scientists” (which is an oxymoron if I ever heard one), have even taken their religious movement to refute the idea of evolution with their "Intelligent Design" movement. This sparked a popular satire about the religious right refuting the idea of gravity, calling the it “flawed” and introducing a theory of “Intelligent Falling” (Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory). These are the same kinds people that are trying to teach us what's morally right and wrong? Religion cannot be the source of moral codes. The latest evidence suggests that moral codes are deeply rooted in our genes and get passed down from generation to generation (Hauser xix). It is a process of nature and has nothing to do with religion or reading things in a book or even our parents. It doesn't matter if the Bible is telling us what really happened or simply providing us with parables, it's still teaching us the wrong things. At what point do we say, “enough is enough” and begin educating our children using proper codes that pertain to our modern time?

Works Cited

“All-Time Bestselling Books and Authors.” The Internet Public Library. The Regents of the University of Michigan. February 19, 2007.

Brucker. Annotated Skeptic's Annotated Bible: A lay Christian's honest response to perceived flaws in the Bible. February 22, 2007.

“Cruelty and Violence in the Bible.” The Skeptic's Annotated Bible. February 20, 2007.

Dallas Theological Seminary. Doctrinal Statement. February 20, 2007.

Ehrman, Bart D. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005.

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory. The Onion. August 17, 2005: Issue 41-33.

Google: Book Search. Bible. February 20, 2007.

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We are animals

2007-01-07T21:30:00.000-08:00

I'm really frustrated when it comes to a discussion about animals and feelings. Eventually someone will bring up the argument that humans are 'higher' beings and animals are not and have to be treated differently. Why do people create this clear division between animal and human? I don't understand it. If there is a line at all, it certainly isn't clear. It's either very vague and blurry, or not there at all.

I always make the cave man argument. The hunter-gatherer - is he an animal or a human? If you look at common cave man actions they are very similar to those of any other carnivorous animal. And even in the modern world, certain cultures still possess the same attitudes and actions.

Here is a video of the sand people of the Kalahari.

I don't think that you can make a clear distinction between humans and animals because humans are animals. The argument of God specifically creating humans as greater beings is very weak and has no significant basis what-so-ever. A lot of the latest evidence suggests that certain animals possess the same sorts of feelings and emotions as humans.

I have often been criticized for these statements because I claim to be a humanist, which at first seems to directly contradict the ideas in this journal. However, I tend to find a middle ground. I am humanist in the secular sense. I believe that the human is more important than the divine (which I don't believe in anyway). However, I don't put the human into the center of the universe. The human is just a life form. Surely, just because we have a larger brain with a frontal lobe and a cortex that gives us an illusion of consciousness and intelligence doesn't mean we have any right to treat any other animal as a slave or a useless creature. Life, any life, cannot be treated in the same way that you can treat a stone.

Here's a comedy clip by Armando Iannucci about this particular topic:

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Pursuit of Happiness

2007-01-03T02:32:00.001-08:00

My favorite song of all time is the Weekend Player's Pursuit of Happiness which not-so-coincidently brings me to talk about happiness. Both the song, and the video by Dan Gilbert from TEDTalks (available for preview below) do a great job explaining what we do in order to achieve happiness instead of what we should be doing. Happiness is rooted inside of our own head and it can be called upon at any moment. Happiness doesn't have a direct link to materialistic objects, although they do influence our happiness and give it definition.


In this memorable talk, Dan Gilbert demonstrates just how poor we humans are at predicting (or understanding) what will make us happy. Gilbert is a psychology professor at Harvard, and author of "Stumbling on Happiness". (Recorded February 2004 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 22:02)

There is another great, popular video up on YouTube which really puts our entire existence into context. A look at the "big picture" as you say. The video is called "What We Are" and is a quick sketch of our world. It will serve a purpose later in this note.

In the next video Barry Schwartz talks about the idea that too much choice is a bad thing. The more choices we have - the more potential there is for us to be dissatisfied. Which is true, but I think that he draws the wrong conclusion from it. It's okay that we end up feeling like we didn't get the best choice, because in the end, the truth is that we got a better choice than we would have had had there been less choices. So in a way I agree with the ideas in the following video, but the conclusion is flawed.

This whole idea of having "the best" I think is very important. Penn and Teller did a great episode about it on their TV Show "Bullshit". In the episode (currently not available for preview online) they do an experiment where they use the cheapest ingredients to make food that looks very exquisite and present it as if it's very expensive. The unsuspecting customers think that they are getting the best and therefore they feel really good. Even though the actual food quality is awful, their mind ignores that and when asked whether or not the food tastes good - almost everyone responds with a very positive note. We fool ourselves!

We often see TV shows where guys run back to their ex-girlfriends with lines such as, "I was a fool. I didn't know what I had when I had it. Take me back." When you're in a relationship, for example, you have a very narrow and limited point of view. You compare the world around you to what you have and you look for all the things that are better than what you have. You always want a faster car, or a more powerful computer, or a bigger MP3 player. And even when you have the best one, a year later there will be a newer version and you'll want that. But as soon as you go outside, as soon as you leave your relationship, you assign a value to what you had. You compare experiences on a different scale, because what you had goes back into the pool of things that you no longer have and therefore they look enticing and you want them again when you can't find anything else.

So what should we do? Well, unfortunately I don't know. I don't have an answer. Yes, it's very disappointing after having watched all those videos and read all that text. But I think that this is one of those topics where the solution is individual. You need to turn all those options of best and worst outwards. Instead of focusing on yourself - "Do I have the best cellphone?" Focus on a comparison between the rest of the world, "Am I happy with what I have even if the average person has a better cellphone?" Well, that's for you to decide. And it's for you to decide whether or not you really want to let a tech toy rule your happiness.

Do unto others as you would have them say unto you

2006-12-27T15:36:00.000-08:00

There seems to be a very strange line between what we say and what we do. For years I've always been convinced that what we say is incredibly important and basically determines the outcome of any particular event or situation. Simple words can change a person's beliefs and cause people to act in a certain way. What you say can put people to tears, or make them jump for joy. Certain words contain secrets and certain words can expose those secrets. Words can be truthful, words can be manipulated and words can turn into lies. Words are very powerful and are a great tool. Some people are great with words. Some people are able to easily communicate with others. Some people are able to manipulate words to make you believe in one thing and not the other. Politicians for example are generally very good with word manipulation (maybe not George Bush though).

However, while all this time I was concentrating on what I should be saying in particular situation I kept on feeling like everyone was waiting for me to act. Everyone around me seemed to say that actions speak louder than words. And so, even though I was trying to do my best with what I was saying, I eventually had to abandon this belief and I decided that my actions had to be more important. It was expected of me. And so, in order to build my character and present myself to the worlds, I began acting in ways that were particular to the situation. I would purposefully go out of my way and do something in order to prove some point. And I though instantly, that this would then prove whatever it was that I had to say. However, again, I was disappointed and people did not respond to my actions. It felt like even though you can explain something with words and then back that up action, it is still not enough.

And so, now I'm trying to search for something that can speak even louder than actions. I'm having a hard time figuring it out. Meanwhile, I'm going back to my original belief that words are more important than actions and I'm watching very carefully what I say and to whom. It seems like information that is contained within words can often be used against you. It's the manipulation of the words that can really change certain outcomes and it needs to be controlled.

You choose, then I'll choose and we'll see which one of us it comes to

2006-12-12T11:09:00.000-08:00

Freewill, for some unexplained reason, happens to be popularly debated. Some say it exists, other say it doesn't, others say it's just an illusion. I don't understand where all the confusion comes from. Freewill is very simple.

Freewill is simply the ability to choose from a known number of choices. It's like when a magician fans out a card deck in front of you and asks you to choose a card. You can take any card you want. You have absolute freewill (provided he hasn't tempered with the deck). You can only choose from the cards that you see. You can't choose any other card because you aren't aware of its existence in this particular situation. The magician could potentially be holding another deck of cards in his back pocket, but because you aren't presented with those choices and because you haven't been previously told about another deck of cards else where, your only choices are those of the cards in front of you. It's the same with any other situation where we have to make a choice. We can choose to do anything we want. There is nobody that can stop us, and there is nothing that can prevent us from this choice. However, from the previous entry, you'll notice that all those choices we are presented with are initiated by some influence. That's where the choices originate. Each time we learn something, we add on another card to the deck that we can choose from.

However, ultimate freewill is an illusion because we aren't able to choose from all the possible choices. The reason for this is that we simply don't have certain choices available to us, or they are unknown to us. Like things we haven't yet discovered. For example, the prehistoric men in 40,000 B.C. probably needed light for their caves so that they could move about without hitting their heads on the rocks. They were presented with this problem: How do we illuminate our residence? Well, at the time, torches were popular, wax candles weren't invented yet, neither were oil lamps and electricity and the electric light bulb wouldn't come around until many years later. So the prehistoric men had several choices to choose from: torches, small fires, carving our more windows for more sunlight. All these are choices that they could choose from, including many others. However, electricity or oil lamps weren't a choices. In fact, if you were to try and explain what electricity was to an ancient cave man, he probably wouldn't have a clue what you were talking about. This is because the thought of electrons and tiny particles moving and creating electric current is completely absurd to someone who is used to making fire from sticks and stones. Their known universe and imagination is simply not capable of understanding a concept as such, especially never having seen one in practice. So, even though we know that electricity and light bulbs exist, the prehistoric men at the time didn't have access to it, or any knowledge of it, so it couldn't be one of their choices for providing light in their caves. Even though they had freewill, it was limited due to the restrictions on their intellectual capabilities and the lack of influences they've had.

If we present the same problem to the modern man he would have many more choices to choose from, but again it won't be an ultimate selection. I'm sure there are other methods of light generation out there that we simply haven't invented or gained control of yet. I guess, we could construct a small nuclear sun in our room to generate light... Or something that I can't even possibly imagine (like the prehistoric man and electricity), so even though I feel like I have a variety of options to choose from, it will not be an ultimate choice. To me, however, it shouldn't matter, because I don't find myself at all robbed of choices. Even though I am aware of the possibility of other options existing out there, because I'm restricted (technologically, intellectually, etc..) I can't choose them anyways.

So again, this isn't to say however that the cave men didn't have freewill. Freewill is not the ability to choose from all possible choices. Freewill is the ability to choose from all known choices. You can't decide to do something you don't know. It's contradictory and illogical. In this respect, freewill is an illusion, but it's irrelevant to us. Just because there are other options out there that we are incapable of, or unaware of, doesn't mean we loose our sense of free choice. We are still free to choose from any of the choices we have (and believe me, we have plenty to work with).

Now let's take this freewill concept into a religious context (because I love to do this to prove my religious point of view). If God exists (and I'm talking about the Christian God here, for the sake of popular argument) and He is omnipotent then He ultimately has all the possible choices. He is then not limited to only the choices that He is aware of, because He is aware of all of them. Therefore, you could say that God is in fact the only being that could possibly experience ultimate freewill (that is if humans never achieve such godliness). What this means then is that God is aware of the best and worst thing to do. The reason why right and wrong things appear here (and only here) is because only when you have ultimate freewill can there be extremities like this. So essentially, in a situation where there is a natural disaster occurring that God can prevent (because He is omnipotent), He has the ability to choose a particular scenario where nobody would get injured and where nothing would be destroyed. He has the ability to prevent all innocent death and property damage in any situation. And since this doesn't happen, we must then conclude that if God does in fact exist, He chooses (from all of His choices) to purposefully let people suffer and experience innocent pain.

Now as for whether or not the world is pre-determined, I think it doesn't matter. Because again, if it is pre-determined, until we can prove it, it will not influence our choices. And if it isn't pre-determined, then we don't have to worry about it.

On this unfortunate note, I'm going to end this journal entry.

Why live?

2006-12-10T19:54:00.001-08:00

Not too long ago one of my best friends, Jonathan Fenn, had a so-called epiphany. Out of nowhere, he said that the world doesn't matter and that nothing we do in this world matters because feelings of pleasure and pain are illusions. He asked a lot of very hypothetical questions wherein the entire world could be a part of a matrix or someone's imagination (or something to that extent) and nothing we did had any consequence or relevance because in the end we were all just going to die. Basically, it meant that our actions had no consequence and we were free to do as we wanted and nothing would matter because eventually we would just die. This renders life on Earth completely meaningless and full of deceit and illusion. I knew, as soon as I read his blog that I had to go talk to him to make sure that I was understanding him correctly and that he wasn't experiencing a severe mental breakdown. Immediately I felt like what he was saying was completely absurd and it needed to be clarified and discussed.

I think at one point in life everyone goes through this same kind of epiphany. However, it's important that in the end you draw the correct conclusion from it, because the concept that "nothing we do matters" and "nobody has feelings" is the type of methodology that murderers and insane criminals use. This isn't to say that there is a "right" and "wrong" way to think and perhaps the epiphany does have a hint of truth behind it, but I think we can all agree that living in a world where nobody has feelings and where nothing matters would be chaotic. Sounds to me like something out of the Book of Revelation, and we all know how that ended.

After a long debate, we've come to the conclusion that the world does in fact matter and it matters very much what we do and what we feel. Which gave me a sense of relief to know that I was able to talk some sense into him (although I think for the most part he talked the sense into himself). What we did was we laid out a very simple solution to the actions each person takes and then we were able to see that everything that comes before the action and everything that follows the action has a huge impact on the person doing the action and on the people that are around.

Click the image to see it full-scale:

We drew up a mental diagram, that in my head looked something like this (Fig. 1)

In this we can see that a person's actions really follow through 4 chronological steps: influences, characteristics, actions and results. The cycle then repeats indefinitely and grows in numbers of influences and in numbers of choices we have (possible actions).

It begins with an influence, which can be God, school, the science of evolution, your parents or any number of other things. You educate yourself, or get taught something, then this influence generates a certain feeling inside of you. It could be emotional, or it could be a simple characteristic. For instance, God could be an influence that would result in you obtaining the characteristic that says that you are defined by The 10 Commandments which say that you shouldn't kill. This then results in a series of choices. It means that you, as an individual, when presented with a situation, have several choices to choose from. Simply put, one could be to kill and the other could be to spare someone's life. Your characteristic (the one that was influenced by God) would then probably reason you to choose the path that would spare the individual (although this is another religious subject about God's mercy that can be discussed at a later time). This action then produces a result. In this case, you let the person live and don't kill them. So we've gone from an influence to a result via a decision in which choice we make. In Fig. 1, the example shows the influences contrasting between several choices and eventually resulting to a decision and the choice to ignore or put aside one of your influences for that particular action.

Sounds very simple, doesn't it? Well, for some reason it took us several hours to agree on this (and even still we have very opposing views when it comes to more detailed interpretations of this idea). And something that looks like common sense to me, seemed very confusing to my friend. However, you can see in Fig. 1 that certain influences will conflict with others. This is precisely what gives you the illusion of free will and choice. You must choose between going to school and not going to school. And in life you end up making a lot of choices. In this case, you simply choose to abandon one of your influences and choose to take the actions proposed by that particular influence. However, over time, when you are faced with a new decision, your original influences will still be there and you will again have to choose which one to abandon and which one to follow.

Of course it's never just that simple. It's almost never a simple choice between two things. There isn't just a wrong and a right way to do something. There is an infinite number of choices neither of which are more wrong or more right than the other. However certain ones will generate a greater number of positive results. Others will generate a lot of very negative results that will not be of much help to you or others. However, to say that there is a generic right and wrong way to do something (with a few options in between, or not) is incorrect.

So what does all of this have to do with living? Does the world matter? Is it important that we are alive? Certainly. Because if we can act and influence our environment and others through our actions, that means that there is a purpose for us being alive. Now some believe that this purpose is predefined by God, or a destiny of some sort, but I don't buy into that. I believe that the purpose is individual and could be as simple as just waking up the next day and eating breakfast. That sounds like a very reasonable and achievable purpose to me, even if it is very short-term.

Eventually of course, you end up wondering what your glabal purpose in life is. And most of the time people will either bring up religion, or some other fundamental belief system. Others will simply say that there is no ultimate purpose. And others don't know and don't really care as long as they can survive. Well, again, I really don't think that it's that complicated. For me, the global purpose is to live until the next day (it goes well with my need for food, water, and air), and learn as much as I can about our world and in that progress the human race as a whole. Now it seems like a very vague purpose, but in fact it's not. It defines very specifically what I have to do throughout my life. What it doesn't do is define specifically each of my daily tasks. This gives me a lot of room to explore and learn in my every day activities.

What's great about my individual purpose is that even if there is an "ultimate" purpose in life that was predefined by some deity, or even if there is a god, the fact that I'm doing my part in progressing the human race means that eventually we might get smart enough, or build sufficient technology to realize this "ultimate" purpose, or an "ultimate" being. So far, however, there is no reason for me to believe in their existence, so I don't have any tendency to follow them. I don't like walking around blind, or in blind faith (and with good reason). If some ultimate deities exist, then one day we will probably be sure of it, but until then, all evidence points to a world where secular humanism makes the most sense and will provide the most benefits and success. There is currently no evidence to show that a deity cannot be exposed and there is no evidence to show that a deity currently exists (more on this in future journals).

Introduction

2006-12-08T17:35:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Recrudescence,

You are currently reading my latest blog called Recrudescence. The address to the blog is http://blog.globexdesigns.com/

Let me introduce myself. My name is Evgueni Naverniouk and I am fascinated by religion (mostly Christianity and Buddhism), philosophy and the origin of way we (humans) think. I am an art student at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design where I have been greatly inspired by John Wertschek. I am an agnostic and I'm a strong believer in secular humanism, logic and freethought. I am greatly inspired by Daniel C. Dennett, adaptionism, J. Farrell Till and consciousness science. In this blog I plan on sharing with you my journals, notes and essays about anything pertaining to the previously mentioned topics.

Before I begin making official posts I'd like to encourage everyone reading to participate in the discussions. Please let me know what you think about the issue in question and share your ideas. I'm always very interested in hearing what people have to say and a lot of the time other's opinions greatly help influence my philosophies as well.

Hope you enjoy the read.
- Evgueni Naverniouk