A short history of the Babble....

I was reading a schlock novel recently, one partaking in the Da Vinci Code craze, and one chapter dealt with a history of the Bible which is starkly different from what most Xians (and atheists) believe. The reaction of atheists to this is probably quite different from that of a typical Xian (let alone a fundamentalist). Atheists will typically respond with surprise, and yet without surprise. Xian responses will probably centre around complete denial.

Very little actual documentation from Jesus' time exists. Actually, it closely approximates none. The discussion in the novel I was reading (The Last Templer) was a succinct synopsis of its early history, but being a work of fiction I wanted to take a deeper look. While not a novel I would put in the same class as The Da Vinci Code, this part seems to have been well researched. The first big surprise lies in that not one of the four gospels was written in the time Jesus supposedly lived. In fact, none of the authors is really known. Their authorship is ascribed to the four apostles without any real evidence. The earliest, Mark, is a good 40 years after Jesus' death. That's 40 years of playing the telephone game without any newspapers, video feeds or audio clips. Matthew was likely written between 70 and 100 CE, Luke between 50 and 100 CE and John anywhere between 90 and 120 CE. With only oral tradition keeping the story alive, what are the chances of the Jesus story being at all accurate, even if such a man lived? Certainly, since it is more likely that Jesus was a man with a vision, the story of Jesus took on a life of its own. It certainly bares a remarkable resemblance to the story of Horus. I've recently had an interesting thought about the Resurrection. Jesus rose from the dead three days following his crucifixion. That number 'three' has some significance in relation to crucifixions: if the victim survived three days the sentence was considered to have been fulfilled and he was released. I wonder if, along with the telephone game, this somehow mutated into being raised from the dead.

There were many more gospels than those attributed to Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, as the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library in 1946 demonstrated. If there were many such codexes available at the time, why only these four? Well, the blame comes to rest with Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon in the 2nd century CE. Essentially, he took the gospels which were consistent with who he believed Jesus was and considered the others heresy in his Adversus Haereses. Well, that seems somewhat arbitrary, doesn't it? To further distance the church from gnosticism, which many of these codexes espoused, he declared these four gospels divinely inspired in an all too human manner. I have yet to discover on what basis such a statement was made.

So, what do we have? A religion based upon stories of a man that may or may not have existed (but the one in the Bible certainly did not), and which suspiciously strongly resembles earlier mythologies; of the many written works only four which were reasonably consistent were chosen in an ad hoc manner, arbitrarily declaring all others as heresy. It simply stuns me that after all this people can still possibly believe.

This is the power of blind faith (NOT faith!). Faith is trusting someone with a task because you know from previous experience that they always keep their word. There's a history, something to fall back on as a predictor of outcome. Science is like that. I have faith in Science because it works! Blind faith, on the other hand, is like the manual for my Focus SVT telling me my car can actually fly and believing it. Not many of us would take that without a grain of salt and would like to see some evidence. Why not for the Bible? Why is religion exempt from skepticism? I have no idea. Every part of one's life should be looked at critically!

Often, as discussed in this novel, people will look to the good that Xianity has brought, like the code of morality and ethics. But it has done far more harm than good, as history shows. The moral tenet, Thou shalt not kill, only applied to fellow Jews. It was quite alright to kill gentiles. There were even rules on what to do if in your fervor in slaughtering a group of gentiles a fellow believer was also killed. (It was decided that this is okay, the loss of one believer was considered acceptable in eliminating numerous unbelievers.) It's modern meaning post-dates Jesus. Indeed, the holocaust could not have happened without Xian anti-semitism. The Crusades had little to do with freeing the Holy Land and more to do with lining pockets. The biggest problem is that because religious people look to obey a higher power, turning their backs on their fellow humans. The moral and ethical codes presented in the Bible are out of date, as I've demonstrated in an earlier blog. It was meant for an earlier society, where technology meant a new way growing whatever it is they grew out there.

In fact, religion is not the source of morality and ethics; it codified these principles which exist whether religion does or not. Xians would have us all believe that morality was given to us by god. But if you witness an act that you find morally reprehensible, did you have to consult scripture to come up with a moral value judgement first? I doubt it. You made a mental calculation using moral grammatical rules that bypassed your conscious mind. Morality is inherent within each of us, not obtained from some old book. An evolutionary origin to morality explains a great deal about the diversity of morality and ethics which religion does not. If you would like to see where we really get our morals from I strongly recommend Marc Hauser's Moral Minds for further study.

A modern moral dilemma

I was making that hellaceous drive in to work one morning listening to CBC radio (sometimes they have very interesting topics) instead of the iPod. A man with the Huntington's disease gene was being interviewed. Not about his disease, which in all likelihood he will suffer from later in life, but on the use of genetic screening to choose children without that gene. The couple chose to do this using in vitro fertilization rather than natural conception to avoid the potential ethical quagmire that would result if the fetus was shown to have the gene. The result was a set of twins that will never have to look forward to nervous degeneration later in life.

Enter an ethicist (why do they always weigh in to screw things up?). Her position is that since we would not think it ethical to eliminate people with undesirable characteristics, that no matter how positive (as is evident in this case), the outcome the ends do not justify the means. As Michael Shermer would say: Nonsense on stilts. This is nothing more than another case of absolute ethics throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Is genetic screening a form of eugenics? Probably (it has a rather broad definition according to the Wikipedia), but there is a vast difference between this case and the Nazi program that this word brings to mind. In the Nazi case, this was an attempt to create 'perfect' (whatever that means) humans and won't work. Selecting for certain traits can have unpredictable and deleterious results in other areas. This was seen in the famous Russian experiment with silver foxes. What happened when these animals were selectively bred for their tameness had unexpected consequences: floppy ears, coat color changes and curly tails (very much what happened in the domestication of the dog).

I would hardly place screening for Huntington's disease in the same class as Nazi eugenics programs when the end result is the certainty that your children will not become afflicted with a debilitating disease. Few of us can imaging their relief as parents for having undertaking this expensive procedure to ensure their children's health in later life, at least insofar as passing the disorder on to them. This was something I don't think the interviewed ethicist even considered when assessing her position.

While it was immediately apparent to me that the ethicist's position was ridiculous, I had to ask myself, "Why?" The question she asked was whether people suffering from Huntington's or other genetic conditions that may be construed by society as being undesirable, such as dwarfism, would want to be discriminated against or eliminated because of their condition. The answer is obvious. Life is preferable (almost) no matter the circumstances. But was this the correct question to ask? I don't think so.

One of Michael Shermer's main moral tenets is that if you are unsure as to the morality of an action (especially when it impacts on others), ask first. Well, we cannot ask a blastocyst and expect a response (which is one of the reasons that I think calling an unthinking, unfeeling collection of cells a human being is ridiculous), but we can ask people suffering from these disorders whether they would rather live with their condition given the chance to have a life without it. I think that that is the real question, and I think that the ethicist interviewed completely missed the mark.

The current legal position regarding genetic screening in Canada is dangerous, however. There is in fact no position at all. This leaves open the possibility of truly unethical uses of this technology, such as selection of sex (some cultures are notorious for their desire to have only male offspring). Fortunately, as is the case for a representative of an IVF clinic, screening for sex is done only in conjunction with testing for sex-determined disorders. With proper regulation and oversight, genetic screening can be another effective (and in the case of genetic disorders, currently the only) tool in the fight against disease. It was not all that long ago that IVF itself presented moral and ethical issues, but its presence in today's society is all but assured. Why not this?

Does religious dogma have anything to offer in the form of moral guidance in this context? Long answer: No. (Anyone who reads my blogs will have seen this coming...) Moral codes based on a society 2000 years ago simply cannot even relate to ethical and moral dilemmas presented by today's technology, a word itself only 150 years old in its current usage.

The problem with all absolute moral systems is there inability to adapt to new situations. For instance, how does religious dogma handle the disposal of unused blastocysts when abortion is considered immoral? The couple in the example here donated them for scientific research purposes, for which I applaud them. If use of stem cells from aborted fetuses is wrong, then is the use of blastocysts which will never be used (and hence have no potential for becoming human beings) for research also wrong? I put it to you that 2000 year old Abrahamic religious dogma is completely incapable of dealing with these situations and a new, more flexible set of ethical principles is needed.

More on that in a later blog. I have to get work done some time today....

Deepak Chopra: One of those 'crystal wearing freaks in need of a smack'

I don't know that Chopra is into crystals, but I couldn't resist using that great line from MC Hawking's "What We Need More of is Science." I'd heard of Deepak Chopra, but never gave him much thought till I came across a blog at one of my favorite Science blogs, Pharyngula. I followed the link to see more and was appalled by the lack of understanding, misinformation and just downright inanity I read. Let's get started with the punting, shall we?

"There's a sense of crisis in the air over the notion that reason itself is in jeopardy. The attack on reason is coming primarily from religious extremists, but the whole ethos of fundamentalism is seen as irrational. So the alarm goes out to defend science and push back unreason. This urgent call is supposed to salvage future progress for humanity and defeat the wave of barbarity that travels under the name of terrorism. But how can anyone seriously defend science as a panacea when it gave us the atomic bomb?" Interesting. Just who is it that espouses Science as such a thing? Science is a way of viewing the world to find out how it works. A toolbox, if you will. Nothing more. If you are looking for moral and ethical guidance, Science offers none. Look elsewhere. (May I suggest "secular humanism"?)

"Rationality is creating new methods of mechanized death every year. The future being planned by so-called rationalists includes robot armies and neutron bombs that can kill every enemy combatant--or civilian population--while leaving their buildings standing." I reiterate: Science is amoral. Rationality has never caused anyone to strap on a bomb with the intent to kill and maim. It is ideology, whether religious or political, which does this. And someone should take Deepak's collection of fifties sci-fi movies away from him.

" Reason isn't the savior of the future. That role belongs to wisdom." Huh? Someone wanna tell me how you can separate wisdom and reason? Or how wisdom can be applied without reason? Sounds to me if his personal philosophy is a little underdone and should go back into the oven.

" For at least two thousand years, our evolution has shifted to the following:
--We assimilate new information and evolve mentally.
--We don't evolve physically (except to grow healthier and live longer) but instead use technology to extend our physical limitations and gain more power over Nature.
--We gain a higher vision of ourselves and evolve spiritually." Arrgh! Another Science education-deficient idiot savant! Spiritual growth is not evolution! And yes, we are continuing to evolve physically! The difference now is that we are creating some of the natural selection pressures ourselves. He clearly has NO IDEA of what he's talking about here.

"Arch materialists like Richard Dawkins, despite an expertise in evolutionary biology, miss the whole point of human evolution, which is that it long ago broke out of the prison of physicality. True, modern athletes are stronger, bigger, faster, and more accomplished than those of the past, but this doesn't affect anyone's survival the way becoming a bigger, stronger, faster gazelle would." Again, Chopra shows his embarrassing lack of understanding of what evolution is. This was written by someone who thinks he knows what Evolution is, but has failed to grasp the concept entirely. And no, Richard Dawkins does not miss the point about human evolution. You do, Chopra. In fact, you miss the whole point of what evolution is: there is no point. There is no end purpose, no guiding mentality. Modern athletes are bigger, stronger and faster mainly because they train. True, their genes give them an edge over the likes of (presumably) you and me, but it doesn't happen through an individual's lifetime, as he seems to think. Stupid and ridiculous. Someone give Deepak a copy of 'Evolution for Dummies' for Xmas please.

"Taking all factors together, humans evolve through the metabolism of experience. That is, we absorb everything going on in our environment, and in some rather mysterious ways, the next generation knows more and can do more than we can. I am not being mystical here. When Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity, Bertrand Russell famously said that he was one of three people in the world who understood it. Now a bright high school student can grasp Einstein's principles, if not his mathematics." "Metabolism of experience"? Just what the hell is that? Why do spiritualists like to use fancy terminology in their attempts to express ideas, yet fail miserably because the terms are so nebulous as to completely obscure all meaning? Could you spiritualist folk please talk plainly without the mumbo-jumbo? We in Science use jargon, it's true, but each term has a very well-defined meaning, not something that sounds like it was pulled from the posterior. If we didn't, journal articles would be books and even more boring to read than they are now.

As I continue to read this I am getting more and more irate. He's not being mystical? He is suggesting that the Gaia hypothesis is responsible for a high schooler's understanding of Relativity in all but name! I think a simpler explanation might be that after a small number of people study and understand the implications of new and revolutionary ideas like Relativity, the concepts can distilled into simpler, more intuitive forms that others can grasp. This is dissemination of information, NOT evolution.

"The same holds true for today's five-year-olds who can navigate through a computer better and faster than many adults of an older generation. We assimilate difficulties, solve them, and move on to a new future as more evolved humans. The evolution of the wisest holds that this cannot be a random process." Yes, it is not random, but it isn't due to some mystical bullshit either. Children are exposed to technologies at a young age, so of course they will be able to handle technologies at a younger age. These are their formative years. But the same type of problems that you have with computers, Deepak, will happen to them with some other new gadgetry. What time is it at Deepak's house? "12 o'clock! 12 o'clock! 12 o'clock!...."

"When asked if he found the cathedrals of Europe inspiring, Mark Twain answered to the effect that the architects forgot to build inspiring people to go in them. We risk leaving the same legacy to the future. What will save us is self-awareness, the key to evolution of the wisest." Wait a minute... Evolution of the wisest? What the....? Is Chokra thinking that evolution can be hijacked in any manner that he sees fit? Get a grip, Deepak. Evolution doesn't work that way. Evolution doesn't care about you, your beliefs or (and especially) your views on what path it should take. Cold and indifferent, but that's just the way the universe is. And, by the way, most members of H. sapiens are already self-aware. So what the hell does that mean? He promises to talk about that in a future post. I await with bated breath...

This is TOO funny.... (Unless you believe in ID)

Ken Miller, one of the star witnesses for the plaintiffs at the Kitzmiller trial, sent this email in response to one from William Dumb- I mean, William Dembski asking for contributions for an animation on ID. It's too funny! Just what the hell was Miller doing on Dembski's email list, anyway? Somehow I don't think Ken is on Dembski's Xmas card list....

Life is a bed of roses if only you have faith.....

Once again, Pharyngula supplies my blog material. One More Soul has created a eloquent picture of the usual misconceptions and lies about the non-religious and the delusional self-image religious people maintain. Isn't the symbolism lovely? Does it not paint a pretty picture of how religion automatically gives you the 50s sitcom lifestyle? So this is what I've been doing wrong all these years? Wow! Religion solves everything!



Hate to burst your biblical bubble, but....

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin.... Let's look on the left side first, being a proud member of that group. I've always found dandelions to be happy flowers. I see so many of the unsupported stereotypes of living a life in the absence of a god. So contraception causes single-parent families? Weird. I would have thought that it would help PREVENT such things. Lust is bad? I guess we're supposed to be emotionless and sexually impotent in our relationships. Isn't that so Dick Van Dyke Show-like? Poverty/crime/poor health/poor education increases without religion to keep you on the straight and narrow? Interesting idea, but WRONG! These things actually increase with increasing religiosity of a society, as Michael Shermer has pointed out in the latest issue of Scientific American. Go to any prison and you will find it full of religious people (say hello to Dr. Dino while you're there...), but you'll be hard-pressed to find any atheists. Artificial reproduction technologies are bad? And really, how are the 'anti-life'? So couples incapable of having children aren't allowed to experience the joys of childbirth and parenthood? That's a little harsh, don't you think? The morality of this proscription is dubious. Infanticide/Homicide/Suicide... No, no Xian has EVER done those... (to avoid Poe's Law invocations, this is sarcasm). I am also in favor of assisted suicide under strict guidelines (which is a bit of a Pandora's box to open, but religious dogma won't even allow for debate on the subject). And let's dispel that myth of religion resulting in longer marriages, shall we? Atheists, not Xians, have the lowest divorce rate of any group. By 'Lethal Experimentation', I presume the subject is stem cell research. If I've said it once I've said it a million times: blastocysts are not people!

Now the thorny right side. It grieves me that they used a plant that I actually have a passion for. Oh well. I personally do not believe that altruism even exists. At some level the giver receives something back. Some may disagree here, and that's ok. There's lots of other stuff to look at. Most of the items listed have no need of religion at all, like caring for others and strengthening social structures. Indeed, religion hinders the latter since it promotes a within-group mentality, treating those outside the group as exactly that- outsiders. And just what the hell is 'Fertility Appreciation'? I mean that. I have no idea what that means. By 'Natural Family Planning', do they mean, like, Catholic Roulette? How is that ethically different from using contraceptives anyhow? The intended end result is the same. One just happens to be better than the other. This just doesn't stand up to any scrutiny. Religion leads to 'Security for Women and Families'? Sure, if women like subservience to the pater familias. This is the 21st century, so please join the rest of us there.

I'm sorry, but the Bible does not have much relevance for today's complex ethical issues. The Bible was written in a time where the word 'technology' simply didn't exist. Indeed, the Bible contains many things (slavery, genocide, rape, etc.) which were acceptable in its time that we revile today. (If you want examples, just go to The Skeptics Annotated Bible.) New moral and ethical values must replace the outdated (and at times frankly vile) model presented by religion. For more reading material I suggest Marc Hauser's Moral Minds or Michael Shermer's The Science of Good & Evil.

Besides, I like dandelion wine.

The same tired old arguments...

I'm a little perturbed this morning. I came across a book on Amazon.com that I thought might be interesting (God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist) and noted a critique by someone named Michael A. Corey, PhD. The same tired old arguments. He writes,

"Where do the laws of nature come from?

The above-stated question is purported to have been answered by the author himself, but it is this very question that shows that there HAD to have been a Higher Power at work in the nascent universe, because modern cosmology has clearly demonstrated that the laws of nature all materialized instantly just a few microseconds after the initial Bang. In other words, these life-enabling laws didn't gradually evolve randomly by a process of natural selection over eons of cosmic time. Instead, they emerged out of the Big Bang almost instantly, fully formed and fine-tuned to produce intelligent life some 14 billion earth years later. This is a fantastic cosmic feat that modern science simply cannot account for in the absence of an Intelligent Designer, who would have single-handedly fine-tuned these natural laws before the Big Bang ever happened. I do not see how a non-theistic explanation could ever do justice to this utterly remarkable fact of modern cosmology. In short, if the author has an effective counterargument for the origin of the laws of nature, let's hear what it is. I seriously doubt that he even has one!"

There are a lot of things wrong with the above statement. For instance, the false dichotomy that I so often see in fundamentalists' arguments that if Science has no answer then it must be due to the supernatural. Phah! Learn how to reason. This was something well pointed out in the Kitzmiller decision authored by Judge Jones. Desperate and outrageously fallacious reasoning, if I can even label it as reasoning to begin with. I have little patience for such inanity.

Next. This backwards idea that the universe was fine-tuned for life. Let's try again, but put the words in the right order... It is LIFE that is fine-tuned for the universe we find ourselves in, not the other way round!

But it's so obvious that there must have been a designer! Oh, my, us silly scientists! How could we be so obtuse and myopic? The veil hath been lifted from mine eyes!

C'mon, dude. If it was so obvious (or even true) we'd drop Science altogether and bow down and pray with you. We're interested only in the truth, no matter where it leads. Unless, of course, it's all been an atheist plot to take over the world and rule hedonistically for all time! Mu-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha!

As to the original question he posed, one of the posters correctly replied that "the laws of physics can be derived from very basic concepts such as symmetry and gauge invariance." Boom.

Michael A. Corey, PhD. Notice any similarity to Kent Hovind, PhD (who is Hovind)? Why is it people that get their unaccredited degrees have such a need to have them taken seriously? Bet (like Hovind) that he's listed in the phone book with his degree. I'm not. And just how does a PhD in the "Philosophy of Science and Religion" qualify its holder to be taken seriously on scientific discourse? Funny, I didn't see one single degree in Science available on The Union Institute website....

But you know what really bothers me about this? He can't have read the book! It won't be out till January.

You've moved me to buying it, Michael. I'll review it and let you know if you should buy it, too.

This game should be "Left Behind" on the shelves...

I was in a video game store some time ago and saw on the shelf in the 'Coming Soon' section something that made me groan aloud: 'Eternal Forces'. A game based on the 'Left Behind' series, a rather popular religious series of novels relating to the Rapture. Popular? I dunno. I certainly do not know anyone that has any of them (same for anything by that wacko L. Ron Hubbard, perhaps the most boring science fiction novelist in history but his books seem to be always on best seller lists even though no one has any), but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

I really can't imaging a religion-based video game having any appeal, being a hard-core Grand Theft Auto fan myself, but then I read a review on the game's contents (CTV news story and The San Fransisco Chronical). If there's violence in it maybe it ain't all that boring.

But trust a fundie to take all the fun out of violent games. "Our game includes violence, but excludes blood, decapitation, killing of police officers,'' the company says on its website, noting that a player can lose points for "unnecessary killing'' and regain them through prayer. Wow. Prayer works just like in real life! The ol' "I-killed-someone-but-it's-okay-now-because-I-prayed-about-it" trick. So much for love in fundie Xianity, but then, that goes without saying. I wonder, though, if killing atheists gets you bonus points in the game... Wouldn't surprise me.

Worse, you can't win if you go 'dark-sided': Players can choose to join the Antichrist's team, but of course they can never win on Carpathia's side. Now if that just doesn't suck.

"Part of the object is to kill or convert the opposing forces,'' said the Rev. Tim Simpson of Jacksonville, Fla., who heads the Christian Alliance for Progress. "It is antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.'' Is it? I could quote a few passages here to the contrary, but at least there is one Xian organization out there that is fighting the good fight. The Christian Alliance for Progress was founded in response to the growing Xian right.

Wal-Mart demonstrates the moral superiority they've always had: "The product has been selling in those stores,'' said spokeswoman Tara Raddohl. "The decision on what merchandise we offer in our stores is based on what we think our customers want the opportunity to buy.'' So, we should have a market-driven morality, eh? How Republican. Sounds like the mission statement for Halliburton. I want a George Bush voodoo doll, and I'm sure a lot of other people want one as well, but I can't seem to find THAT in a Wal-Mart.

In response to their critics, CEO of Left Behind Games Troy Lyndon replies: "They're good-minded people,'' he said. "They want to keep us from making games that are jihad in the name of God.'' This is not something an imam in the Middle East is saying, but a fundamentalist game developer (I would never have thought I could string those words together...) in California! And people say religion doesn't spawn violence?!? The gaming company's president Jeffrey Frichner said the game does not endorse prejudice. But "Muslims are not believers in Jesus Christ" -- and thus can't be on Christ's side in the game. So you get to mow them down, too. Ann Coulter would be proud.

Another critic, author Frederick Clarkson, is spot on: "It becomes a tool of religious instruction,'' he said. "The message is. ... there will be religious warfare, and you will target your fellow Americans, people from other faiths, people who you consider to be sinners.''

I've said that I am a hard-core fan of the Grand Theft Auto series of games. Does this make me hipocritical? No. I enjoy playing them, but I do not even for one moment relate the cartoonish violence in GTA to reality. Hollywood action films are no different than GTA in their subject matter, not to mention much more graphic in their violence, and are the greatest influence on their story lines.

So what's the difference? The difference is that people that play this game are generally going to be believers in the Rapture. This game represents a scenario that they believe will actually play out in the near future. This is their future reality and a game like this simply serves to reinforce their intolerant beliefs that they are our moral superiors and that violence against all others is not only okay, but commanded by God. This game is more like a religious terrorist training manual than a form of entertainment. It would not surprise me in the least if this game shows up in 'Jesus Camp II'.

But Plugged In, a publication of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, gave the game a "thumbs-up." The reviewer called it "the kind of game that Mom and Dad can actually play with Junior -- and use to raise some interesting questions along the way." Isn't that just heart-warming? Now Mommy and Daddy can play Religious Rambo with little Johnny....

Gamespot.com gives this game a 3.4/10. Guess fundies really CAN'T write good game software.

UPDATE: It gets even worse. I read one user's review at gamespot.com: "women cannot be any unit except a nurse. Want to preach the Gospel and convert other people to your side? You need a man."

Or, how about this? "All the good units are white. Full-white mayonaise-eating Cuacasians. That's not to say there are no African-Americans in this New York City, there are. But they are the "evil musicians". All of them are black. They play guitar riffs which were about the only cool sounds in the game but are labeled as "the Devil's Music" in the game."

And this piece of trash if rated "T"?!? How progressive....