Answers to Your Questions

2023-07-17. Religion. Rating 3. ID 2283.

I am a member of an atheist group on Facebook, and we are constantly being trolled by believers in various religions (mainly Christianity) who think they are "destroying our religion of atheism" or something similar.

Initially, I countered their points in a reasoned way, just to show them why they were wrong, but the same old nonsense appeared over and over again, as if they have learned nothing. Of course, that is exactly what the situation was, because they never consider anything contrary to their beliefs seriously.

So I thought, why not write a blog post on this subject, that I can refer these people to, so they can ignore that, instead of ignoring my Facebook comments! In addition, this could act as a summary of my current thoughts on religious ideas, and other "big questions", or what the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy calls the question of "life, the universe, and everything".

So let's get the most common one out of the way first: is there a god?

Well, I err on the side of skepticism in all things, including this. My initial assumption on everything is that it doesn't exist, until evidence is shown which makes assuming the thing does exist seem reasonable.

Note that this doesn't involve absolute 100% proof of existence, because I don't believe that sort of proof exists, outside of formal logic and maths. In other words, nothing about the real world can ever be proved beyond question, but to make discussion on these things possible, I approximate truth by saying I believe something if the evidence is good enough to being close to a proof.

So I think evolution is true although I don't think it is proved. I would say the evidence equates to 95% proof, which is good enough for it to be an explanation which I strongly suspect will never be disproved. And similarly for the Big Bang. I think proof of that is 80%, which is good enough to say there are major elements in truth there, but that some of the details or interpretation of the results might change over time (see later).

So I don't think there is single good piece of evidence for a god's existence. There are anecdotes, and conflicting results of studies though. For example, people say miracles have happened which fit a religious view, and contradict current science. But when we study these miracles objectively we see nothing, so my assumption would be that the person experiencing what they thought was a miracle misinterpreted what happened, or deliberately or accidentally exaggerated the facts, or that some other mundane explanation applied.

Other results are conflicting, some positive, some negative, and some showing no effect. For example, studies of whether prayer helps sick people show that sometimes prayer makes people better, sometimes worse, and sometimes it makes no difference. The only fair conclusion from this is that there is no effect. That doesn't mean there is no god, but it does exclude one possible source of evidence that there is.

I could go on about that subject all day, but let's move on: how did life originate?

Here we have to distinguish between two related questions: how did life got started, and how did all the different varieties of life we see today, including extremely complex varieties, come about?

As I said above, there is no reasonable doubt that evolution is the explanation for the variety of life we see today, but that doesn't help so much with how it got started.

The problem is that life started on Earth billions of years ago, and initially really just took the form of self-replicating molecules. So there is nothing that we could expect to see in the fossil record today. This means that exactly how life got started here might always be a mystery, because all the evidence is permanently destroyed.

So the answer is currently we don't know, and may never know with any level of certainty. But recent discoveries of organic molecules, including the nucleotide, uracil, in space and in samples of meteorites, show that the building blocks are life are synthesised by natural processes in space. Uracil occurs in RNA, the molecule which builds proteins based on the information contained in DNA. In fact RNA is the information transmitting molecule in viruses, so there is a very feasible path where naturally synthesised molecules might form more complex ones with the ability to replicate themselves, and that's really all that is necessary for life to get started.

So I think that some humility is necessary here, by saying that we don't know how life started, but there are numerous clues about how it might have, so this is really a matter of the evidence being lost rather than it not existing.

The origin of life is a big question, but the origin of the universe is even bigger, so what are my thoughts on that?

Well it seems to me that there can't have been a time when there was literally nothing; not even quantum fields, or the laws of physics, because then there really is both nothing for the universe to be created from, and no causal mechanism where it could have been.

So I think the greater universe, or multiverse if you prefer, must be infinite in space and time. There is no doubt that something happened 14 billion years ago, during that event that we call the Big Bang, but I don't think that can be where literally everything started.

Again, the evidence for what actually happened might be lost, both because of the effects of that long period of time, but also because of the chaotic start the universe had, in an apparent singularity which destroyed any information which might have existed earlier.

Multiverse theories might sound like science fiction, but that isn't entirely the case. I freely admit they are speculative, but the concept arises naturally from both string theory and inflationary theory, so it doesn't exist entirely without context. I do have to say here that whether string theory has any merit is highly debated, although inflationary theory is widely accepted.

So I say the multiverse has always existed and our universe is just one of infinitely many which "split off" from the greater multiverse, which is composed of an infinite number of universes, all appearing and possibly disappearing after a few hundred billion years.

Yes, I know this is highly speculative, but the speculation is based on known physics, and there are potential ways it might be confirmed or disproved, such as looking for the signatures of collisions with other universes in the cosmic microwave background.

The next question is: why is our universe apparently fine tuned to allow life?

Many people answer this by pointing out that only a very small percentage of the universe is suitable for life to exist, at least in the form we know it. So the interior of stars are too hot, interstellar space is too cold, and even most planets aren't particularly hospitable. This makes it look like the universe actually isn't fine-tuned for life.

But the tuning argument should be seen as being pertinent to a deeper level than that: if certain physical constants, such as the electric charge of the electron, and the ratio of the mass of the proton and electron, were much different than they are, we couldn't even have atoms, making stars, planets, and any form of life unlikely.

So how are we lucky enough to have a universe where life can exist? Well, there are possible explanations: there might be reasons we don't currently understand which mean that the constants have to have the values they do, for example. But my favourite brings back the multiverse theory I mentioned above.

If there are an infinite number of universes (or even a very large number, like the 10^500 predicted by string theory), all with slightly different laws and constants, then there must be some where the conditions are right for life, purely based on probability. But what are the chances that ours would be the one with the right conditions? Well since you asked, the answer is 100%, because here we are. If this universe didn't have the right conditions, we would be living in a different one, and asking the same question.

Another interesting speculative theory says that universes are produced sequentially: they expand, then contract back down a point which creates a new Big Bang and another universe, which might have different laws. Since the discovery that the universe is increasing its rate of expansion, meaning it will never collapse, this theory is not as popular as it was, but there is an alternative where new universes appear from black holes in the previous universe, which doesn't require cosmic collapse.

Again, this stuff is highly speculative, but it doesn't necessarily involve any new theory which contradicts existing scientific understanding.

Here's another question: what is consciousness, and how does it arise?

Some people use consciousness as a reason to believe in dualism: that there is a "spiritual" world as well as the everyday physical one, but I don't believe this is necessary.

One problem with discussions of consciousness, is defining what it means, but whatever that definition might be, I think considering it as an emergent property of a complex, functional brain is sufficient.

Emergent properties happen elsewhere, when simple phenomena lead to more complex ones, which seem to be at a higher level than the original. For example, an ant colony exhibits very complex behaviours which would not be expected given the simple activities of the individual ants. The comparison between ants and colony behaviour, with neurons and consciousness should be apparent.

So it seems that simple neural networks might gradually get more complex until they reach a point where consciousness emerges. A bacteria wouldn't be conscious, and a worm probably wouldn't be, but a dog or dolphin would definitely have some form of it, and humans definitely do, as we can all attest to.

Finally the biggest question of all: why is there anything?

I've often wondered why is there a universe, why are there natural laws, and why does anything exist at all? This arises because it is natural to believe that nothing exists until it is formed by some process, but why should that be? Surely it is just as reasonable to say that existence is the default state; that a multiverse has always existed and always will.

The fact that this is even a question might be more an indication of the wrong way to think about it rather than anything genuinely deep.

So those are my answers to the "big questions". If you are a religious person who I directed here, and you actually made it this far, thank you for your dedication! If you still think a god is a better explanation, then I have to say that all the objections to apparent issues with the naturalistic view can also be applied to a theistic one: how did god make life, how did he evolve it, where did he come from, why are his wishes conducive to creating life, what or who made god, and why does a god exist at all?

Claiming there is a god really gets you nowhere, because you just push all the questions back one step, making the whole situation even more complex and problematic. Believe in a god if you wish, but don't try to support your beliefs by using the arguments I've covered here.

I Expect More

2023-05-15. Religion. Rating 3. ID 2273.

Religion is one of the most controversial subjects I participate in debates on, although I do that a lot less now than in the past, because I now mainly object to the modern "religion" of political correctness (AKA wokeness) which is the most harmful trend in modern society.

But I still come across religious material on-line that I feel I need to respond to. Some of it is just really silly, and easy to refute, but occasionally I come across material which is more rational, and requires more effort.

And that's what I want to do here. Specifically, I want to reply to a recent blog post I read, called "Top 10 Most Common Atheist Arguments, and Why They Fail". I don't want to repeat the whole text of the original post, but I will try to list the main points, in summary, then respond to them.

Claim: 1 There is no evidence for God’s existence.

This is the most common reason I give for being an atheist, but the blogger seems to think this point can be contradicted quite easily, by proposing an immaterial god. He claims that atheists tend to look for physical proof, but that is a category error, because god is not physical. The fact that no physical proof exists does not disprove god, so shouldn't be used to support atheism.

First, I really don't know what a non-physical god would be, but it doesn't really matter, because almost all religious believers claim that their god either has, or still does, interact with the real world in some way. For example, he might answer prayers, or help his followers when they need it, or he might have created the universe, or designed living things, or something along these lines.

If a god interacts with the real (physical) universe in some way, then we can use the tools of science to detect that interaction, even if it was only in the past. If he doesn't (and never has) interacted with the universe in any way then he effectively doesn't exist, and all claims for existence or non-existence are pointless.

Claim: 2. If God created the universe, who created God?

I do use this question sometimes to counter the "first cause" argument I get from religious people. They claim that everything needs a cause, meaning the beginning of the universe needed a cause, implying an eternal presence which must be a god.

The blogger claims this is a "peculiar argument" but I really can't see why. He claims god is understood to be "the source of His own being" and only a god can have that characteristic. But why? It's very convenient to make this claim, but it's really just a case of special pleading. In other words, he is saying everything needs a cause, except god, who can be his own cause.

Well, I can play that game too. I can say that the universe can be it's own cause. Causation proceeding backwards in time is not completely ruled out by the laws of physics, but I can make an even simpler argument than that: the universe we live in is just part of a larger multiverse, which is infinite in space and time. Sure, this is speculative, but it is an idea being taken more seriously by cosmologists, and not because it solves that tricky origin problem, but because it is a natural atribute of some theories, including string theory.

Claim: 3. God is not all-powerful if there is something He cannot do. God cannot lie, therefore God is not all-powerful.

The blogger makes a vague ontological argument here, but it's really just playing with semantics. However, it doesn't really worry me too much, because this is a claim that I, and few other atheists I know, make, so there's really nothing to defend here.

Claim: 4. Believing in God is the same as believing in the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The blogger claims that anyone making this claim is really proving the opposite, because claims about the existence of god and the mythological figures he listed are really very different in terms of their sophistication and the commitment of the believers. In fact, I think I would agree. There is a difference between these, and it's not an argument I would usually make. So, again, I don't feel as if I need to defend this claim.

Claim: 5. Christianity arose from ancient and ignorant people who lacked science.

Here he claims here that the ancient people weren't unsophisticated or ignorant. For example, the virgin birth was well understood to be a miracle by these people, because they understood how conception and birth work. He also claims that other (unspecified) stories in the Bible (because this is primarily about Christianity, not religion in general) show the same level of knowledge.

I really can't agree here, I'm afraid. For every story which is claimed to show a level of sophisticated knowledge, there are others which show the opposite. And I know there are excuses for all the obviously false stories in the Bible, but that really is not a strong position to argue from. It's like saying when the writers (whoever they were) get something superficially right, they are geniuses, but when they get it wrong it's because we are misinterpreting it, or it is metaphorical.

Sorry, but you can't have it both ways, and simple knowledge of the birth process leading to surprise when a virgin birth occurs (which we have no good reason to believe even happened) is a lot different than knowing about the origin of the universe, the basic structure of the cosmos, relativity, quantum theory, and all the other truly sophisticated knowledge we have today.

Claim: 6. Christians only believe in Christianity because they were born in a Christian culture. If they’d been born in India they would have been Hindu instead.

In this instance the writer claims this is insulting to religious people, who atheists claim cannot see past their own upbringing, which he seems to see as insulting. He goes on to point out that there are exceptions to this rule, for example Jewish communities which exist in countries where other religions are dominant.

Whatever the exceptions, there is no doubt that, for the vast majority of people, the religion which is prevalent in the community they were born into (and that could be a smaller community within a country) is the one they tend to follow for the rest of their lives. The vast majority of people born in the Middle East are Muslims, the majority in India are Hindus, and in the US people tend to be Christians.

How anyone can argue against this simple fact is quite astonishing, because the trend is so clear, and some exceptions, especially amongst more sophisticated believers, like Jews, doesn't significantly weaken the overall argument.

Claim: 7. The gospel doesn’t make sense: God was mad at mankind because of sin so he decided to torture and kill his own Son so that he could appease his own pathological anger. God is the weirdo, not me.

The blogger acknowledges this is an effective claim against some classes of believers (he says "certain Protestant sects"), but he claims it is not effective against "the Orthodox Christian faith" because they have "no concept of a God who needed appeasement in order to love His creation".

I really cannot understand what he is getting at here. I do find the story of God's sacrifice of Jesus to "save" us sinners to be incredibly bizarre, and nothing he says in his material makes it any less bizarre to me. However, this is really a theological claim, so anything goes, and one opinion is as good as any other.

Claim: 8. History is full of mother-child messiah cults, trinity godheads, and the like. Thus the Christian story is a myth like the rest.

He correctly points out here that many fake stories don't prove that everything of that type is also fake. It could be that the Christian story is true, while all the others are myths. As an analogy, a hundred counterfeit coins don't prove that a real coin has no value.

He also claims that the myths could be imitations of the great, true story, and "anything beautiful always has replicas". The fact that many of these myths pre-date the Bible stories he tries to explain through some vague notion of "permeating through the consciousness of mankind on some level regardless of their place in history". Is he saying the idea travelled backwards in time?

It is entirely possible that all the myths are fake except for the one he prefers, but what justification does he have for saying that? To go back to the analogy: if I handed you 10 indistinguishable coins, and told you one was real, why would you believe me, especially if another person, who happened to like a slightly different coin, assured me with equal certainty that his coin was the real one?

Claim: 9. The God of the Bible is evil. A God who allows so much suffering and death can be nothing but evil.

He tackles the classic "problem of evil" after admitting it is one he finds the most legitimate. This is interesting, because it is a very philosophical or theological argument, rather than one based in science, empiricism, or rationality, and this might show us how he thinks (a more "emotional" style, rather than "rational").

He uses the old trick here of saying that the atheist invoking the idea of good and evil (words which he correctly points out, have religious overtones) here sort of implies that there must be a source of those judgements, which is logically (according to him) a god.

But there are other ways that these might rise. For example, people living in social groups tend to agree on certain norms which make their lives run smoothly. Note that there is no absolute good and evil here, and we might expect those to change over time, unlike a pronouncement from god, which is likely to stay the same.

So the fact that religious texts often allow or even encourage slavery, and don't treat women as equals to men, and have very little to say about "modern" issues like environmentalism really support my view that good and evil are agreed on standards arising from societal norms, rather than absolute dictates of a god.

Claim: 10. Evolution has answered the question of where we came from. There is no need for ignorant ancient myths anymore.

The blogger claims this might be the most popular argument against religion today, and generally speaking that is probably right. But he finds the creation versus evolution debate extremely boring and makes no real comment on it, so he goes on (quite rightly) to discuss the bigger underlying picture: whether the advance of scientific understanding reduces the need for religion.

He claims that science has no answers to the "big" questions: "what does it mean to be human, why are we here, what is valuable, what does it mean to love, to hate, what am I to do with guilt, grief, sorrow, what does it mean to succeed, is there any meaning and what does 'meaning' mean, and, of course, is there a God?"

This is a fair point, but I would point out that there is a branch of human endeavour which is more suited to those than either science (which mainly concentrates on the physical world) and religion (which starts with the idea that god is real and that he has certain known attributes, so is unlikely to arrive at any truly useful conclusions).

That is, of course, philosophy, and these questions are exactly what it is for. I would say that religion might be able to contribute in some way too, but it isn't necessary. And science can make useful contributions to these questions. For example, the meaning of being human depends on our origin. If we are god's unique creation it implies a lot compared to being the product of evolution, and being one species amongst possibly billions of similar ones throughout the universe.

Additionally, he claims that science's answers leave further questions open. For example, science discovered the Big Bang, but what caused that? Unfortunately (for him) saying it was god is just playing the old "god of the gaps" game. Many other gaps have been filled by science, and this one probably will one day too, leaving one less reason for god to exist.

So, even though this person is worthy of some respect, in that he gave fairly cogent arguments compared with many others I have come across, it is still ridiculously easy to dismiss them either as not being one a skilled atheist debater would use (and therefore being a straw man attack) or lacking any genuine persuasive power apart from for other believers, which might be his target audience.

He might be able to fool them, but I expect more.

Evolution from Junk

2022-11-07. Religion. Rating 3. ID 2247.

I can't believe that I have to make this blog post in the year 2022, but I do. I have recently come across several individuals or groups who still reject evolution. In most cases this is because of religious beliefs, but there are other reasons as well. I used to do a lot of religious posts, but have moved more into politics recently. However, here is a defence against the most common argument religious people use against evolution.

Here's what they say: "How can you believe that human life, with all its complexity, arose through random chance? It's like a hurricane went through a junk yard and a fully formed 747 was left behind. The chances of that happening are basically zero, yet life is so much more complex. Atheists are the ones who really rely on faith."

There are other variations on this theme, but basically it always come back to it being impossible for something incredibly complex to be created through random chance. Of course, there are also other arguments against evolution, but this is the most common one, and something which superficially seems to make sense. Except, of course, it doesn't. Allow me to explain why...

First, evolution is a fact by any reasonable definition of the word. We see evolution in the fossil record and in species as they change today. What most people think of as "evolution" is actually the theory of evolution by natural selection. This states that existing species change through environmental factors acting on mutations which are beneficial at a particular time and place.

So if I ask a creationist (or other anti-evolution type) if they believe the science behind genetics - that attributes of one generation are passed on to the next through genes - the usual answer is yes. If it isn't, I don't know what they might be thinking!

Next I ask if that process is perfect. Considering that no natural process is perfect, and that we can clearly see mutations as they happen, almost everyone again says yes.

Then I ask if mutations might be helpful, just by chance. This one gets a bit more resistance, which is fair enough. But I explain that a "good" or "bad" mutation is meaningless in absolute terms. What is a bad mutation in some situations might be a good one in others. The classic example is sickle cell anemia. This causes red blood cells to be deformed, which is usually a significant disadvantage to the individual because the cells don't carry oxygen as well. But if there is a lot of malaria around it can be advantageous overall because malaria cannot easily infect a sickle cell. So despite the disadvantage in most situations, it can be beneficial too.

At this point, if the person accepts all of this they already basically agree that evolution is true, but there is one significant problem we have to overcome. Many creationists say they accept "microevolution", which causes small changes, but not "macroevolution" which results in new species. But those words aren't really particularly meaningful in science, and macroevolution is just the result of a series of microevolutions (if you even accept the use of those words).

Then there is the issue of time. Young earth creationists claim the universe is much younger than science says it is. At the extreme are those who say the world (in fact the whole universe) is only 6000 years old; an interpretation which follows from one (quite reasonable) reading of the Bible. Others say 10,000 and various other numbers, which are all well short of the scientific age of 14 billion years, for the universe, and 4.5 billion for the Earth.

There are numerous ways to establish the age of the Universe and Earth, all of which depend on different branches of science, and they all agree remarkably well. These include radioactive decay (chemistry); the processes of star formation (astronomy); the formation of geological features (geology); the time it takes light to transit long distances (astronomy again); and the cosmic background and recession of galaxies (cosmology). And this is just a small sample. If there was a major problem with the estimated age it would show up with anomalous results in at least one of these fields, but it doesn't.

So evolution has had billions of years to take place, but is even that enough? Actually, no, it isn't. There is another factor to be considered: that is that the evolution of life is like a huge experiment, carried out in parallel trillions of times simultaneously, in event living cell on the planet.

And another point the opponents of evolution seem to forget is that evolution proceeds in small steps, and the successful changes are maintained as a basis for the next step. We see these steps in many places in the fossil record. Sure, there's not necessarily a step by step explanation for every complex structure we see today, but the fossil record is incomplete and we shouldn't expect to have all the answers. And even without fossils, we see more primitive structures in some living organisms today where evolution hasn't proceeded in the same direction as others, because they might live in an environment where evolution of that structure isn't advantageous.

Finally, evolution doesn't have an end goal, beyond survival of genes. It is purely by chance that the life we see today takes the form it does. There could have been a mutation in a certain environment in the distant past which favoured a body structure completely different than what we have today. Evolution producing humans (or any other species) exactly like they are today is unlikely, but producing advanced life in some form is completely plausible.

So let's put it all together and modify the "747 from junk" theory I mentioned at the start, and which the creationists seem to like.

Imagine a trillion junk yards, all being continuously hit by hurricanes for billions of years. Imagine if a couple of pieces of junk stuck together purely by chance and they had some advantage. Take that piece of junk and repeat the process, over and over. Now tell me how you could *not* get a 747, or an iPhone, or a human out of that. Think about it. Evolution is inevitable.

Atheism Debunked

2022-06-15. Religion. Rating 3. ID 2223.

I like to read and view a variety of opinions from people with different political, philosophical, and even theological perspectives. When people see me reading material from right-wing commentators they sometimes assume that I'm some sort of far-right nutter, but that isn't true at all. I simply want a perspective which differs from the overwhelmingly left-oriented material from most mainstream media.

One of the commentators I find quite well informed, and fairly rational, from the right is Ben Shapiro. I agree with a lot of his points, especially those which criticise the more insane aspects of leftist and politically correct dogma, but there are other opinions of his I don't think are as reasonable. The same applies to Jordan Peterson, and other controversial figures from many parts of the political spectrum.

In fact, the area where I most disagree with conservative commentators is religion. Many of these people are overtly religious, and others have unusual perspectives about religion which I really just can't make much sense of (Peterson is the main offender in this).

I listen to Ben Shapiro's podcast, "Debunked", and I think it lives up to its name in many cases. Shapiro admits he approaches these subjects from a conservative viewpoint, so I'm not expecting a balanced approach, but I get the other perspectives elsewhere. Unfortunately, there was one episode recently which I thought was poorly argued, and its subject was debunking atheism!

Here are some of Shapiro's (who is a conservative, traditional Jew) opinions on religion, and my reaction to them...

Point: In his introduction, he claims that there is no way to blame people who don't believe in god if they experienced personal pain which they might have expected a god to prevent.

Reaction: This is very condescending, really. Many religions do claim that their god will help with personal and other problems, and they are encouraged to pray for help for themselves and others. When this fails, it's OK to question the nature or even existence of god.

Point: He claims that expecting to understanding the mind of god is unreasonable, and if we did, we would be like gods ourselves.

Reaction: This is just a bit too convenient for me. Many religious people make claims about the nature of a particular god, and those seem to contradict reality. If we are going to take the concept seriously we need to expect top have some level of understanding, although it would never be complete.

Point: He says we are right to feel angry, and struggle is part of religion, and it is more fulfilling being part of a religion, than thinking universe has no purpose.

Reaction: What is more fulfilling varies from one person to another. I would feel very unfulfilled if I took a religion seriously, because I just don't think that way. I am perfectly happy taking a scientific perspective instead. It's better to know half the truth, than all of the fantasies.

Point: According to atheists, god is unnecessary, and the universe just is, and we just are, and there is no reason to support the existence of a creator or higher power.

Reaction: While I would say that different types of atheists have different views on this, it is not a bad summary of the more common opinions. That is exactly what I think: we can explain what we see better without a god, so why invent one?

Point: Atheism is more than agnosticism. Agnostics think it is impossible to know if a god exists. You can be religious and also be agnostic. Atheism is specifically against god.

Reaction: These two words are used quite loosely. I call myself an atheist, but I don't claim to know for sure there is not god, and I am not "against" god. How could I be against something that I think doesn't exist?

Point: He disagrees with the often made point that religion corrupts; for good people to do wicked things takes religion.

Reaction: Religion is undeniably one reason that some good people do bad things, but there are others as well, such as political ideologies. So the statement is over-simple, but still contains some truth.

Point: He claims that all of the following atheistic points are untrue: religion blinds people of the truth around them; science opposes the idea of a creator; faith and reason can't be reconciled.

Reaction: Again, I think there is an element of truth in all of these, so I disagree that they are all false. In particular the last one is highly suspect, because many religions place a high value on faith but science specifically rejects it. I know many religious people claim they believe through applying rational arguments and logic, but I think that is a very superficial application of those principles, and is a justification for underlying faith in the vast majority of cases.

Point: All objective truth claims, which are independent of human minds, must originate elsewhere, and this must be the mind of a god.

Reaction: This is a difficult claim to evaluate, because it is just so vague. It is very difficult to understand what the ultimate source of the laws of physics might be, but by saying they come from a god we are really no better off than saying they originate as an inherent property of physical reality. Maybe if he told us what sort of god he had in mind, it might be easier to comment.

Point: According to evolution our thinking should be linked to what is beneficial to enhance survival. Shapiro claims it isn't. For example, he asks what is the evolutionary purpose of knowing the truth that 2+2=4?

Reaction: Understanding basic maths creates a clear evolutionary advantage. And the more advanced math we use today is best explained as an emergent property of a brain specialised in general reasoning. Evolution could provide a big, general purpose brain to aid in survival, and a few hundred thousand years later someone might use that ability for unique reasons.

Point: Morality claims make no sense without a god. What justification is there in believing that humans have inherent worth? Non-religious philosophies, like consequentialism make assumptions with no solid justification.

Reaction: Yeah, sure. I agree that without religion morality is subjective. There is no objective right and wrong. But just because it might be convenient for arguments like this, it cannot be used to justify believing a god exists. In the past religious morality would not match what we believe today. Religions justified slavery, seeing women as second best, engaging in war with the enemies of the god. None of these are seen as moral today. Like it or not, morality is subjective.

Point: Materialism doesn't seem to allow free will. If we have free will there must be some other process at work which is beyond the material, scientific understanding of the world.

Reaction: Free will is a tricky concept. It is hard to know whether we have it or not, and if we have it to what degree, and what it even really means. It's entirely possible to feel as if we have free will but at the deepest level we don't. Compatibilists would argue that free will is possible even in a deterministic universe, although I'm not sure I believe them.

Point: Some people say that belief in a god is illogical, and that atheists have monopoly on legitimate knowledge about the real world, but Shapiro rejects this, saying logical arguments can be made for belief in a god.

Reaction: I agree that you could make that logical argument, but you could make one for many things we now strongly believe are untrue. That is why we have empiricism in science: to discover which ideas that make sense logically are actually true in the real world. But no empirical experiment I know of supports the existence of a god.

Point: The first cause argument, first attributed to Aristotle, states that there must be an original prime cause for everything. If we follow science we inevitable get an infinite regress, but we could solve this problem by saying there is a first cause and we could call it a god.

Reaction: First, not everything has a cause. In the quantum world some processes occur with no cause. Why could the universe not originate that way? Alternatively, there is increasing support for a greater universe, or multiverse, which might be infinite in size and in time, removing the need for a cause. In addition, saying the universe needs a cause, but god doesn't, is really just another case of special pleading.

Point: Science is incomplete, and requires axioms outside system of the system. Goedel showed us this applies to certain classes of mathematical systems and can never be avoided.

Reaction: Sure, we can never trace the ultimate origin of anything, but how does god help? Is god the ultimate origin? If so, why can't a physical process or law have that same attribute? And, as I said above, evidence is beginning to increase supporting an eternal universe, either through one universe expanding, then compressing, and that cycle repeating, or through universes "splitting off" from a greater (possibly infinite) multiverse. Why is there a universe? I don't know, but why is there anything? Why is there a god (assuming there was one)?

Point: Evolution allows a guiding hand. Maybe evolution is true, but it is guided by a god.

Reaction: Well, if it is being guided by god, he sure is doing a bad job of it. Almost every species ever to exist is now extinct (by the way, this has nothing to do with global warming or microplastics; it's just an inevitable consequence of evolution) and existing species have numerous flaws where evolution has produced something which is "good enough" but far from perfect.

Point: Genetic information transmitted though cellular processes looks a lot like intelligent transmission, and information is always there because of intelligent intervention.

Reaction: Information is transmitted through natural processes all the time. If it was being transmitted through intelligence would it not be more accurate? The major driver of evolution is errors in data transmission. We don't allow these errors in intelligently controlled systems, like the internet, why would god allow them?

Point: The Big Bang looks a lot like Creation.

Reaction: No, it doesn't; there is almost no similarity at all. The basic events are different, so is the timing and order of events. Any similarity is very superficial.

Point: The fine tuning argument. If any of several basic constants, such as the strength of the force of gravity, was any different, life and maybe even the universe as a whole, would not be possible.

Reaction: To me, this is one of the more interesting arguments that religious people use. This is a genuine mystery, but throwing the supernatural in as an explanation is really just another "god of the gaps" argument. Other gaps previously filled by god have now been explained better by science. There is no reason to think this one won't be as well.

Point: Why are we conscious and what is consciousness? We have no idea, and many scientists admit this is one of the greatest mysteries.

Reaction: Well sure, I agree. What is consciousness and where does it come from? Currently, the best explanation seems to be that it is an emergent property of a brain of sufficient complexity. We can manipulate people's conscious experiences using drugs, electrical stimulation, etc, so a physical basis for it does seem to make sense.

Point: The problem of evil is often used to reject a god, but we have no right to expect to understand a god's thought processes, motivations, or actions.

Reaction: I agree that the existence of evil doesn't really tell us much about whether a god exists or not. Either he might not care about us enough to help, or maybe the bad things happening are for a greater purpose. It's really a non-issue either way.

Point: Does the fact that some religious people act badly disprove their religion? All philosophies have proponents who act badly, and this must be seen in the context of what the religion really teaches.

Reaction: Yes, there have been many bad and good things done by religious people, and many bad and good things done by people who follow other philosophies. This just seems to show that religions are no different from any other system of belief.

Final point: The biggest problem with atheism is that it has no moral framework. Any beliefs of this sort are subjective, and no absolute moral claims can be made.

Reaction: Sure, atheism is just the belief that there is no good reason to think a god exists. It makes no moral claims because that is not what it is about. It does follow from atheism that moral claims based on the alleged wishes of a god have no good basis in fact, and should be treated carefully. Given the "moral" rules of religions in the past, this seems very sensible.

Yeah, so sorry Ben, but you've got it very wrong this time. None of those arguments are particularly convincing, and you really should know how easily they can be refuted. Better luck next time!

The Ten Commandments

2022-03-24. Religion. Rating 3. ID 2210.

I used to spend a lot of time engaged in religious debates, but more recently I seem to have drifted more into politics when it comes to controversial commentary. But I have had a couple of incidents recently where I have debated religion, and an interesting little meme recently appeared in my Facebook feed on this same subject - no doubt, just a coincidence, eh Zucky?

The meme involved the Ten Commandments treated as a school project and with comments and a mark from a teacher. And yes, I know there is more than one set of commandments, but this is the one most commonly used by Christians so I will stick with it.

Here are the commandments, translated to modern English, but preserving most of the original intent, I believe...

1 You shall have no other gods before me
2 You shall not make for yourself an idol
3 You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God
4 Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy
5 Honor your father and your mother
6 You shall not murder
7 You shall not commit adultery
8 You shall not steal
9 You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour
10 You shall not covet

Here's the overall mark and comment from the "teacher": 3/10 Needs improvement!

And here are the individual comments on each of the commandments...

1 to 4 These are very egotistical, and frankly, disturbing. I'm scheduling an appointment for you with the school counsellor.
5 What if your parents are abusive? Do they still deserve to be honoured?
6 Good! Though I am concerned this was not higher on the list.
7 Excellent!
8 Good.
9 Again, what if your spouse is abusive? And even if they're not, this is hardly worthy of the top ten.
10 This is essentially a thought crime. It is impossible (and completely immoral) to police people's thoughts.

So the commandments can be classified into 2 categories: those which are so obvious they are unnecessary, and those which are wrong, or even evil, and therefore also unnecessary.

But the situation is far worse than even that, because the commandments which should be there and aren't are in many ways a bigger problem.

For example, where are the commandments telling us that we shouldn't really have slaves; or that we should treat everyone the same irrespective of their gender, race, etc; or that we should not mistreat animals; or that we should take care of the environment? Apparently, those aren't as important as not making idols!

To be fair, in the New Testament we have the Golden Rule: "treat others as you would have them treat you", which is a sort of meta-rule which could arguably cover those extra situations, but I would have preferred to have them spelled out for people who are more morally challenged!

I should point out at this stage, that the golden rule did not originate in the Bible and had been in existence for centuries before that, so even here Christianity has no special claim to being a source of morality.

But just imagine how much better the world could have been if Christians, for the last 2000 years, had a better list of guiding principles? We could have eliminated slavery, racism, and misogyny centuries ago! But, of course, we wouldn't have, because so many of the actual commandments have been ignored anyway.

In fact, for the majority of people - maybe for them all - the Commandments are only followed if they fit with the person's personal moral code anyway. They might say they follow the Commandments, but then choose to interpret them according to their own standards.

For example, the commandment not to murder might not be quite as simple as it seems. Murder has a common meaning, a legal meaning, and a technical meaning. Which should we use, and does every situation neatly fit into any of these? Obviously not. Is killing in self defence OK? How certain do you have to be that it is a matter of kill or be killed? What about in wars? And is there a difference between a just and unjust war?

And there is one other complicating factor here too: that is the use of the word "murder" as a translation from Hebrew. In the past the translation has often been "kill" rather than "murder", but I guess that caused a lot of problems, not the least being the numerous occasions when God told his followers to kill their enemies.

According to one source, the Hebrew word also covers causing human death through carelessness or negligence which is not usually covered by the word murder. So it seems that interpreting the exact meaning of that commandment is difficult, and a similar argument could apply to the others.

Finally, there is the issue of whether the Ten Commandments have any validity given that the story of their origin is almost certainly not true. Almost no serious historian thinks the Exodus story is even close to true, so the whole thing seems to be a myth. Myths can have some value, but we have to remember that they are written by people, not a god.

So the Ten Commandments are not the word of God, they are open to all sorts of translation and interpretation problems, they include stuff that is irrelevant to real morality, they miss out stuff which is relevant, and they were written thousands of years ago. They do not seem like a good basis for any contemporary moral code.

On the other hand, Christianity is an important part of Western history, and it is still important, to a lesser extent, today. Many of our laws, traditions, and philosophy has some basis in it, so it shouldn't be completely ignored.

The way I look at this situation is to treat it like a more poetic form of philosophy (as opposed to a more technical, logical philosophy). I don't want to ignore Christian teaching completely, but I reserve the right to be critical of it, and I will only use it on an equal (or maybe lesser) footing to other philosophical ideas.

Finally, the question I am often challenged with: if you don't believe in a god to provide moral standards, where do they come from? I don't think there is any objective, absolute morality. Instead, I think morality changes with time, and is really just a consensus of opinions, from society as a whole.

At one point it was moral to keep slaves, as long as you didn't mistreat them too badly. In fact, the Old Testament has several tips on what you can and cannot do with your slaves. But today we reject slavery under any circumstances. Morality has changed; it isn't absolute.

A similar argument could be made about the equality of women. Many religious rules are clearly misogynistic when viewed in comparison to today's principles, so again moral standards have changed.

So anyone who thinks the Ten Commandments should be taught in schools (for their moral qualities, rather than as an example of ancient literature) should think again. Teach them along with other ideas from moral philosophy, ideas from other religions, and ideas from political theory, but not as the final answer to moral questions. For that, they are worse than useless.

God and Suffering

2021-04-28. Religion. Rating 3. ID 2123.

I just noticed that I have been concentrating on politics a lot recently, in this blog. It has been a while since I did a good, old fashioned, anti-religion rant. It usually takes some sort of event to trigger my rants, and yes, you guessed it, such an event has just occurred. So note that I don't criticise religion unless it gives me good reason to; in other words: they started it!

The local Jehovah's Witness group (in fact a member of that group called Elizabeth) posted a hand-addressed and hand-written letter which arrived in our mailbox recently. I have to admit, I am quite impressed by the degree of effort she put in. Not only did it cost them postage, but both the envelope and letter itself were hand-written. I'm not being sarcastic here; I am genuinely impressed!

And the subject material of the letter is also very interesting. It is the old philosophical - or maybe theological - question which has interested me for years: why does God allow suffering? Of course, I see no reason to think a god even exists, and I certainly reject the existence of the Christian god, but this is more a matter of intellectual interest, rather than a discussion of reality.

So that sounds like a good start, but unfortunately, things did go a bit down-hill from there. The entire argument explaining the "problem of evil" (why bad things happen to good people, while bad people often do well) is left to some Bible quotes.

Clearly these people don't really have much understanding of their target audience. If I am prepared to use the Bible as a serious source of knowledge I am probably already quite committed to Christianity, but I get these impression the JWs are really going after converts, in which case the object of their admonitions might not take the Bible too seriously.

If I wanted to convert a Christian to Islam would I ask them to read the Koran? if I wanted them to give up religion and accept science, would I ask them to read the Origin of Species? Well, I might, but I suspect my success rate would be very low.

But, that aside, I am always ready to look at other people's perspectives, so I did look up the Bible references they gave, and here they are...

Regarding the world's current problems (I think she means COVID), she listed Isaiah 33:24 which states "No resident will say I am sick". Elizabeth added that we all look forward to that time. The actual verse from the NIV is "No one living in Zion will say, 'I am ill'; and the sins of those who dwell there will be forgiven."

Zion was a small area of ancient Jerusalem, so it is a bit of a stretch to say this might be applied to the whole world. Also, the book of Isaiah was theoretically written in the 8th century BCE. As far as I know, the promise still hasn't been fulfilled almost 3000 years later. How much longer is it going to take?

She then asks "Will suffering ever end?" and refers to Revelation 21:3,4 where God promises that all suffering will end. Here's the exact quote: "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.'"

Revelation is a difficult book to interpret and it is not clear exactly when this event will happen. Elsewhere in the Bible, it strongly implies that the end times will occur within the lifetime of the people who lived at the same time as the purported writer. Yet, thousands of years later, we still have nothing.

God gets fairly vicious with those who disagree with him too. A few chapters later he says: "But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars - they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur."

Elizabeth continues, by saying that "Jehovah's Witnesses care about neighbours, and want the best for them." and "I hope we can talk personally; get in touch if you have any Bible questions."

As I have said in the past, anyone who really believes this stuff, and is especially concerned about the prospect of the "fiery lakes", is quite right to try to convert others. It's really no different from Greta Thunberg trying to save us all from climate change, or a politician enacting new policies to avoid financial chaos. I defended Israel Folau who was cancelled for his Christian beliefs about homosexual lifestyles. I think he is wrong, just like I think Elizabeth is wrong, but they are both doing what they think is right, so they get credit for that.

Just to cover God for any existing problems - before he finally gets around to to fixing them all - it is claimed that he does not cause suffering, and the verse supporting this is James 1:13. It says: "When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." (NIV, verses 13-15)

But many causes of suffering have nothing directly to do with sin (even if it existed), and there seems to be no relationship with the degree of sinfulness and the degree of suffering. Do people get hideous cancers because they have sinned? Did God design the parasite which bores its way into the eye to punish sin? He sure is a sick tyrant if he did. Can we find a better god, please?

But, despite all of this, God feels for us when we suffer. The suggested verse supporting this is Zechariah 2:8, which says: "For this is what the Lord Almighty says: 'After the Glorious One has sent me against the nations that have plundered you - for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye - I will surely raise my hand against them so that their slaves will plunder them.'"

This is typical Old Testament stuff. If some of God's followers suffer in any way, God will make the people responsible suffer even more. This seems to create more suffering, not less, although it does apportion it more to the bad (according to God's definiton) than the good, at least.

And to reinforce the idea, there is hope that all suffering will end, in Psalm 37:9-11, it states: "For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land. A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found. But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity."

Note the phrase there: "a little while". This psalm is attributed to King David, who lived about 1000 years BCE. It hasn't happened yet, 3000 years later, has it?

Finally, there is a section titled "Can we believe Bible?" That's a good move, because I did mention above that lack of confidence in the Bible is a good reason to reject this person's arguments. But the references given had nothing to do with the accuracy of the Bible, instead they were more sections explaining how God is not responsible for suffering, and cares about the people who do suffer.

So unfortunately, it looks like suffering is not going away any time soon. I would suggest a non-Biblical quote which might be more helpful; that is: "God helps those who help themselves". This is a motto that emphasises the importance of self-initiative and agency, which originated in ancient Greece as "the Gods help those who help themselves". Note that the Bible does have a verse with a similar sentiment: Deuteronomy 28:8 states: "The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to."

But also note that if you help yourself then you don't really need a god any more, which is just as well, because you won't get any help from him anyway.

So, I'm sorry Elizabeth, but it looks like we need to continue to cope with suffering while relying on ourselves to reduce it as much as possible. We don't need religion for that, we need rationality and science, and I can give some good Richard Dawkins quotes to support this!

A Different Guy Now

2020-10-30. Religion. Rating 4. ID 2085.

Note: I wrote this post a few weeks back and didn't publish it, because I thought it was unnecessarily negative. But recent events have encouraged me to bring it back. What were those events? The latest Islamic terrorist murders in France, which has lead to Macron as describing France as "under attack". Here's the post...

Often the behaviour of new converts to an ideology reveal the starkest truths about that belief's true nature. This is never more true than when the ideology is a religion. Read this blog and you will see that I am no friend of religion in general, but I particularly find Islam problematic, at least at this phase of its evolution. Note that I fully agree that other religions (and non-religious ideologies) also have their issues, and arguably Christianity has been even worse in the past, but I am talking about now.

The "new convert" I am going to discuss in this post is Yusuf Islam, previously known as Cat Stevens (a stage name; his real name was Steven Demetre Georgiou), who was a well-known folk-pop singer from the 1970s. Just an aside here: why do all these people need to name themselves after their religion - do they really have that little personal identity?

Steven's (I'll use that name in this post) performed many popular songs with an emphasis on peace, spirituality, and other personal issues. In other words, he superficially seemed to be a peaceful, forgiving person, and there was no reason I know of not to accept that conclusion.

Here's an example of his apparent philosophy at the time, from his song "Peace Train": "Now, I've been happy lately; Thinkin' about the good things to come; And I believe it could be; Something good has begun; Oh, I've been smilin' lately; Dreamin' about the world as one; And I believe it could be; Some day it's going to come; 'Cause out on the edge of darkness; There rides a peace train..."

So now let's look at some of his comments and actions since his miraculous conversion to Islam. In particular, he supported the fatwa (and death sentence) against Salman Rushdie for the contents of his novel, "The Satanic Verses".

In 1989, while discussing his beliefs at Kingston University in London, Stevens said: "He [Rushdie] must be killed. The Koran makes it clear - if someone defames the prophet, then he must die." A significant change from "Peace Train", isn't it?

A short time later, in an interview on Australian television programme, he reiterated this belief in the following exchange: Interviewer: "You don't think that this man deserves to die?" Stevens: "Who, Salman Rushdie?" Interviewer: "Yes." Stevens: "Yes, yes." Interviewer: "And do you have a duty to be his executioner?" Stevens: "Uh, no, not necessarily, unless we were in an Islamic state and I was ordered by a judge or by the authority to carry out such an act - perhaps, yes." No sign of him backing away from his extremist views there!

But, later he did try to reverse direction, when he described the exchanges as "stupid and offensive jokes" made "in bad taste", but "part of a well-known British national trait... dry humour on my part." This seems unlikely to be genuine, and apparently he lacks even the honesty to take ownership of his true beliefs.

On the same program he said he would prefer to see Rushdie burned in person, rather than just an effigy being used, and that if Rushdie turned up on his doorstep asking for help he would call the Islamic authorities to deal with him instead. He also later recanted on those statements, again using the excuse that it was humour, possibly in bad taste - gee, do you think?

On his web site, he wrote that he never called for the death of Rushdie, and didn't support the fatwa, although "the book destroyed the harmony between peoples and created an unnecessary international crisis." While it might be possible to twist the truth sufficiently to reach this conclusion, it would require a significant amount of self-delusion to do it.

To be fair, I do need to show the more positive comments he has made, including following the 11 September attacks on the US. He said: "I wish to express my heartfelt horror at the indiscriminate terrorist attacks committed against innocent people of the United States yesterday. While it is still not clear who carried out the attack, it must be stated that no right-thinking follower of Islam could possibly condone such an action. The Koran equates the murder of one innocent person with the murder of the whole of humanity. We pray for the families of all those who lost their lives in this unthinkable act of violence as well as all those injured; I hope to reflect the feelings of all Muslims and people around the world whose sympathies go out to the victims of this sorrowful moment."

Unfortunately, he seemed to miss the link between believing the peaceful passages in an old book, and believing the more violent parts of that same book.

On another occasion he made a fair point, saying that incitement to violence is not solely an attribute of the Koran, and that there were plenty of murderous injunctions in the Old Testament as well. This is true, but surely that should be more a more a point against the unthinking acceptance of both books rather than a defence of either.

Stevens was refused entry into the US in 2004 because his name was on a terrorist watch-list. Of course, this lead to a lot of criticism of the policy (this was while George Bush was president, so these issues pre-date Trump) but I think it wasn't totally unjustified, given some of his beliefs revealed through those comments.

One commentator said this about the situation: "Because he's not a good guy. It may be that he once sang 'Peace Train'... but he hasn't been Cat Stevens for a long time, you know. He's a different guy now."

So, what am I trying to say here? Well, I think religion can be a source of a lot of intolerance and violence, but I concede that isn't inevitable. Many people say that violence which apparently originates in religion is really from another source and religion is just used as an excuse. Well maybe, but you might say the same thing about any ideology, including extreme political views.

Stevens seemed like a peaceful, positive person until his conversion, when he became intolerant, unthinking, and dishonest. Is that religion's (in this case, Islam's) fault? Well, surely it must be at least partly the cause. Do the positive attributes of religion outweigh the bad? That's difficult to say. All I will say is that we need to be very aware of the bad side of religion, especially those religions which have greater political power at this point in history.

Nothing Fails Like Prayer

2020-06-30. Religion. Rating 3. ID 2065.

On March 18 2020 the Pope announced that he would ask God to stop the coronavirus pandemic. Unfortunately for him, that was roughly the day that the rate of new infections started increasing exponentially. Maybe it would have been better if he had just stayed silent. Apparently God must have misheard him and instead of stopping the pandemic he started it spreading even faster.

But what good is religion if the leader of the biggest church in the world can't do anything about the biggest threat facing humanity today? And this is not a threat which only affects bad people, or irreligious people, or any group where we might say they deserve the suffering this disease brings. In fact, less privileged groups seem to be affected more. Sure, there are international travellers - including those poor victims on cruise ships - who are more affected because of their affluent lifestyles, but in general it is the poor who are suffering disproportionately.

It seems to be that this is completely contrary to what we might expect based on the commonly accepted message of Jesus. He was a defender of the poor and weak in society. And he claimed that subservience to his leadership would bring protection and other benefits. Apparently not.

They say there are no atheists in foxholes, but I would say there are no believers in a health crisis. Both of these statements are literally wrong, of course, because there are both atheists in foxholes and believers in health crises, but there is a wider point to be made here.

Let's examine these claims. First, there are no atheists in foxholes. This is saying that when a person is in imminent danger and under attack from the enemy (presumably sheltering in a foxhole) they might be tempted to pray to a god they have previously rejected. I'm sure that happens, but I also know some people refuse to succumb to superstition no matter how great the danger is. So there are atheists in foxholes. In fact, there are several organisations with that name for atheists in the military, and numerous personal narratives from people in extreme danger who maintained a strict atheistic attitude.

And the opposite also applies. There are many believers who refuse the assistance of science when they are in a situation of obvious harm. There are many stories of highly religious people refusing scientifically based ways to avoid coronavirus. And there are many who have gone on to catch the disease, and some who have died.

So it might seem that the two situations are equivalent: the refusal of atheists to accept the help of a higher power, and the refusal of religious people to accept science-based solutions and to rely on faith instead.

But, of course, they aren't equivalent. Belief in a god, and attempts at summoning help through prayer never works, except perhaps to make the person feel a little bit better because they are doing something in a situation where there might not be other options. So you might say a "placebo effect" of sorts is in action here. And relying on divine help often leads to the person not seeking other solutions which might be more efficacious. We constantly hear stories of people dying from preventable diseases because they preferred faith healing to real medical treatments, for example.

So prayer is an epic failure in every way (except the occasional success through the placebo effect). I was going to say that any other belief which failed so badly would be rejected, but that actually isn't true. There are many other completely ineffective beliefs which have not been abandoned: homeopathy immediately comes to mind, but there are many others. So exclusively picking on religious people and their faith in prayer is unfair.

So I'm not sure what the Pope was thinking when he announced that attempted request for help from God, and I don't know what he is thinking now that it has so epically failed. Maybe he has fallen back on those old standard excuses: God works in mysterious ways and we can never understand his actions, or we haven't tried hard enough to please him so we don't deserve his help, or God gave us free will and diseases are just part of that.

If these are the sorts of excuses he finds himself accepting you really do have to wonder at his degree of sophistication in the understanding of basic philosophy and theology. He is an intelligent person, so you might also wonder if maybe a small amount of doubt creeps into his mind. God says he will help if we pray. We need help. We pray. But there's just no response. It's like a supernatural version of "your call has been disconnected", or "your call is important to us, please hold", followed by endless musac.

You also wonder about other religious leaders who claim they are protected from the virus through the power of Jesus, then go on to catch it, and die in some cases. How do they (and their family in the case of the fatalities) justify that failure? Presumably they just fall back on the same old banal excuses I mentioned above. At least you can partly understand that in relatively unsophisticated people.

But the Pope? Surely he must have some doubts by now, because nothing fails like prayer.

Postscript: While I indicated above that prayer is highly unlikely to be effective for anything, I still think it is worth testing its efficacy. So, a physician in Kansas City who wonders whether prayer might make a difference, and who launched a scientific study to find out, gets my support. Looking at the description of his methodology it looks OK superficially, so this is potentially a useful contribution. Other similar studies have given negative results, so I don't have much hope for a positive outcome, but I disagree with the commentators who are condemning the idea. It's a hypothesis which can be tested using properly blinded experiments, so why not?

The Pope's a Millionaire

2020-04-17. Religion. Rating 3. ID 2038.

While I explore the internet, especially on social media, I often come across witty cartoons, pictures, and quotes which might have deeper meanings and allude to the most interesting problems in various spheres of human knowledge. As you might know, from previous blog posts, I find many philosophical subjects interesting, and even though I have no formal knowledge of philosophy that doesn't stop me from making my opinion known on these topics!

So, the latest item of this type showed a picture (obviously fake) of the Pope participating in the TV game show "Who wants to be a Millionaire". The question he needed to answer was: "What is God's role in the COVID-19 outbreak?", and the possible answers were...

A: Unaware it is happening.
B: Aware, but unwilling to stop it.
C: Aware, but unable to stop it.
D: Deliberately caused it

Hopefully my readers will recognise this as a variant of the classic problem in theology: the problem of evil. If you aren't familiar with this, here is the definition from Wikipedia: "The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God. Or as the first known presentation by the Greek philosopher Epicurus, as attributed and made popular by David Hume, puts it: Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then from whence comes evil?"

Before I comment I should emphasise that this problem is not represented very well by its name. The word "evil" here often implies intentional, deliberate harm, but the problem is as much about suffering caused by any event, even those not caused by any person. Natural disasters, such as hurricanes, pandemics, and droughts would be in this category, in contrast to events which might be more traditionally associated with evil, such as murder and wars.

So let's just go through this step by step. Here are the arguments generally used to outline the problem...

1. God exists.
2. God is omniscient (he knows about everything).
3. God is omnipotent (he can do anything).
4. God is good (he wants to help the conscious entities he created).
5. Bad things happen unnecessarily (at least, apparently unnecessarily). Call this "evil".
6. All 5 of the above cannot be true simultaneously (God knows about evil, can stop it, wants to stop it, but doesn't).

Of course, there are numerous objections to the above logic, so let's go through those and see if they make much sense...

1. Maybe what we perceive as "evil" is just God working in some mysterious way which we (as limited humans) cannot comprehend. This is known as "skeptical theism", and states that any bad event which happens might be necessary to prevent an even greater bad event we are unaware of. In other words, God works in mysterious ways.

I find this extremely fatuous, and a clear example of "special pleading" (this is an informal logical fallacy where the person making the argument applies special conditions to one situation which would be unacceptable anywhere else). For example, if we wouldn't excuse a political leader who is causing suffering amongst his people for some unspecified greater reason, then we shouldn't allow God that privilege either.

And if God is omnipotent, surely he can prevent both the immediate lesser bad event, and the greater one. Also, he created the universe the way it is, so is ultimately responsible for both the lesser and greater evil.

2. If God gave use the gift of free will, why would we expect that sometimes bad things might result from that freedom? If God controlled every little aspect of our lives to protect us from every possible evil, then we might see that as being the ultimate oppression.

While free will might be an excuse for evil inflicted by other humans, such as one human murdering another, it really cannot be applied to natural events. For example, a storm which kills a thousand people cannot be reasonably seen as the result of us having free will. If we really had free will we could use it to stop bad, natural events, but they happen whether we want them to or not. And while some natural disasters are linked to human activity (and are therefore influenced by free will) that doesn't apply to everything.

And I doubt whether anyone would want God interfering with every little trivial aspect of their lives, but I think most people would appreciate a little bit of help in relation to bigger events that they have no control over. Think of it like a parent who intervenes in a child's life where necessary, while still allowing that child to be independent as much as possible. If most parents can achieve a good balance here, why can't God?

3. God might use bad events as a test of humans, or as a means of spiritual growth (sometimes know as the "Irenaean theodicy"). People often report being more aware of the important aspects of life after a dangerous or traumatic event. Maybe this is just a subtle aspect of God's way of making us better.

I find this argument quite insulting to people who suffer genuine adversity, or even death, as a result of evil. If a young child gets cancer and dies before their first birthday how does that increase their spiritual growth, especially in comparison to what they might have achieved if they had lived a full life?

But maybe we just can't see the bigger picture here, because God is so mysterious and subtle in his actions. This is just another case of special pleading, isn't it.

4. If our lives on Earth were just a small part of a much greater afterlife, then any suffering which occurred during this brief interval might be seen as unimportant compared with an eternity in a perfect heavenly afterlife (no less than Thomas Aquinas originated this "afterlife theodicy").

Even if the evil which might occur before the afterlife seems trivial we still should wonder what is the point. Surely a good life and a good afterlife is better than a bad life and good afterlife. So why doesn't God give us both?

And if a child suffers and dies before attaining the required attributes needed to get into a "good" afterlife, what happens then? Does it matter? if it doesn't, why do we have any time on Earth at all? Why not just go directly to heaven?

5. Yet another approach is to deny the existence of evil. If what we perceive as being evil in fact isn't, then the problem goes away.

Clearly the word has no good universal definition. The OED gives this: "profoundly immoral and wicked, harmful or tending to harm". Unfortunately this only shifts the definition onto other words with poor definitions, like "wicked". But people know evil when they see it in other areas, such as repressive and violent political leaders, so denying the same, admittedly loose, meaning cannot apply to God is just special pleading again.

6. A different approach involves not attempting to deny the truth of the argument, but to turn it around as being a proof of God rather than a denial of his existence (this sometimes known as the "defensive response"). This argument says that in order for evil to exist we must have an objective moral standard to judge against. That moral standard can only be provided by a good God.

But there are numerous ways that a moral standard might arise without a God. For example, the consensus beliefs of a society might be thought of as a moral standard. Sure it's not objective, and it's not fixed, but we have good evidence that moral standards do change, whatever their origin. For example, slavery is not condemned in the Bible, and Christians were partly responsible for both the origin and ultimate end of slavery.

7. Logically we might assert that a reason for the existence of evil, along with an omnipotent, omniscient, good God might exist, but we haven't discovered what it is yet.

This is just a variation on point 1, above, and can be rejected on similar lines. In fact, this seems like the ultimate admission that there is no good answer to the paradox, because saying "there must be an answer, we just don't know what it is" could be applied anywhere, and would rightly be ignored as a serious proposal.

8. The nature of omnipotence has been questioned. Clearly true omnipotence doesn't exist, because we can imagine scenarios where some actions are impossible. For example, what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? God can't have absolute power in that case no matter what form his omnipotence takes.

I have heard this put in a more humorous tone like this: "Can Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself can't eat it?" Critics might say this is just playing with words, but maybe there is an analogy here with God's omnipotence. Maybe we are expecting omnipotence to take a form which makes no logical sense.

But it's very difficult to think of how that might work in this case. If God is good and has sufficient power to create the whole universe then surely stopping the occasional hurricane, earthquake, or famine isn't too much to ask. Yet again, we should compare this with what we would expect from a political leader, and consider whether special pleading might be involved.

9. Yet another approach suggests God might have created the universe, then left it to run without any further interference. Maybe the universe started off perfect, but because of the free will given to humans it has deteriorated since, which God just allows to happen because "his job is done".

This contradicts many of the major religions of the world which clearly state that God has intervened on numerous occasions, and might still do so. Also, why do natural disasters exist, which must be a consequence of the original design of the universe, which God is responsible for?

And it seems like God would be acting like an "absentee parent" in this case. We would criticise a parent for abandoning their child. Why would we not equally criticise God for abandoning his creation?

10. Finally, some of the basic assumptions of the model can be denied. For example, God might exist, but he might not be good, or he might not be aware of every detail of every event in the universe, or he might not have the ability to make any arbitrary change.

Again, most religions insist their God is good, so this idea contradicts most real religions. Also, if God isn't good, why would we take any notice of his wishes? Would he not be an enemy rather than a source of inspiration?

A variation on this is presented in the concept of "The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent" in Kurt Vonnegut's novel, "The Sirens of Titan". In that church, God doesn't care, and the catch-phrase is "I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all".

But this is essentially indistinguishable from a universe where there is no God, expect maybe as an originator of the universe. And that is a somewhat more sophisticated argument which is sometimes offered: that is, that God created the universe and did nothing else. As I said, this contradicts most actual religions, and is open to the argument about whether a good God would not intervene when he could.

From these points, it seems clear that none of these explanations are really very convincing, so let's go back to my original list of steps in this argument...

2. Maybe God isn't omniscient. But even if he doesn't know everything, surely he knows enough to fix some of the bigger problems causing suffering, or he's a pretty second-rate God.

3. Maybe God isn't omnipotent. The same argument applies here: absolute omnipotence isn't required to remove some of the more significant sources of evil. Again, a God without ultimate, or at least extreme, power doesn't seem like much of a God.

4. Maybe God isn't good. Goodness seems like a prime attribute in most religions, and if there is a God who is neutral or evil, why would any religion want to revere him?

5. Maybe there is no real evil. I have covered above why this makes no sense.

So that leaves us with: 1. God doesn't exist. This is not only the best explanation, based on what we know about the universe, but also the most generous to God. God isn't ignorant, incompetent, or evil. He just doesn't exist. Problem solved!

And there's one other suspicious aspect to this whole argument: why would the Pope want to appear on a show like "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" With all the cash the Catholic Church has, he is one already!

Religion is Useless

2019-07-16. Religion. Rating 3. ID 1990.

Recently I have seemed to be concentrating more on political commentary than other subjects, and it has been a while since I did one of my infamous anti-religion rants, so maybe it's time to restore some balance and launch a no doubt futile attack against religion. I say "futile" because it doesn't matter how many good, or even indisputable, points I make, religious people will go on believing anyway. But this blog is as much about arguing my own thoughts with myself as it is trying to persuade others, so here goes.

The title of this post "religion is useless" is probably a bit too strong, because my argument is that there are no aspects of religion which aren't better handled by other forms of human endeavour, rather than religion having no benefits at all. But using that same argument you could say religion has negative value, because it is used as a substitute for those other forms of knowledge, which would give better results if they were allowed to prevail over religion. In that case you might also say that "religion is useless" is too weak!

If things are still a bit unclear, please be patient. I will now list what I see as the main functions of religion, what I suggest as an alternative, and why those alternatives are better...

1. As a source of knowledge about, and explanation of the real world. This has traditionally been a major reason for religion existing. People couldn't explain why the world was the way it was, so invoking a god as an explanation was not only a simple explanation, but also made some sense. Because humans created complex objects and looked after crops and animals, it made sense that the world was made and maintained by an intelligent entity too.

So asking how the world started, when you have neither the knowlege nor the techniques for examining that question objectively, naturally lead to the idea that it was created by someone, and that level of creation required a god.

But as more information became available that idea became more and more doubtful, and as science took over from religion as a source of knowledge about the physical world, especially during the Enlightenment, the role that religion had for acquiring this sort of knowledge became redundant.

If we want to know something about the real world we don't turn to religion any more - at least most of use don't, because there are still relics of a bygone era, such the creationists - we use science instead. Religion has been superseded for this function, because it just makes sense that the methodology of science (hypothesise, test, revise) is better than the methodology of religion (read an old book or listen to a religious leader, mostly uncritically). Plus, science gets results, as clearly shown by modern technology.

2. As a source of moral guidance. Many people still see religion as the only, or at least the best, source of instruction on how we should behave. What is morally right and wrong is less obviously a question for science than other, more tangible, questions like "what is the Sun made from?"

Some people say that science can be used to establish moral standards, but even a science advocate like myself, has some doubt about this. For example, we could establish utilitarianism as the best way to say what is "good", and then go on to measure the happiness of people as we manipulate actions on how society works.

But there are numerous issues with this approach: first, what methodology do we use to support utilitarianism as the correct framework to begin with? And what factor should we optimise? Should it be happiness, or pleasure, or lack of suffering, or wealth? And how does lack of a positive measure factor into the situations where that measure is maximised? For example, does one really happy person balance out two who are moderatley unhappy? And, even if we can get past these issues, is there a good way to make a quantitative evaluation of them?

You could make a case to say that all of these criticisms might be aimed at other ways of dealing with the problem, too. But there is another system which is arguably better suited to such a task, and it isn't religion. It is, of course, philosophy.

If the moral laws of religion really did come from a god, a case could be made to say they should be obeyed. But , if they (as really seems to be the case) were created by humans and just claimed as being divinely inspired, then they have no ultimate authority at all. And even if they did come from a god, there are numerous philosophical and practical objections to blindly following them.

For example, there is the classic question of whether a law is automatically good because god says it is, or whether god imposes laws because they are already inherently good. The automatic acceptance of religiously imposed laws breaks down in both circumstances (which I don't have space here to go into in detail, unfortunately, but I discussed in a blog post titled "A Fool's Game" from 2015-01-11).

So I would claim that issues such as this are better handled by philosophy, which does have some formal methodology and checking, than religion, which tends to deal uncritically with "revealed truths".

3. As a source of social advantages. I see two major reasons for religion being accepted as a useful thing, even by atheists and other critics. The first is that there are numerous religiously inspired organisations which do good in the world, through charitable giving or unpaid work in communities. And the second is that religion provides a useful social core to many people's lives.

But, as you will probably gathered by now, I think these can also be better provided by other mechanisms. As well as religious charities there are non-religious ones which do as good a job, or a better job in many cases. For example, the philanthropic work of Bill Gate's charitable organisation is driven by a real evaluation of what can do the most good, where many religious work is more based on tradition or optimal public exposure.

And there are many social mechanism where people can build a sense of community without religion, although I do admit that my case here is less strong than in the other areas I have already covered.

So, there you have it: that's my argument is that religion really is useless.

The task of replacing religion in category one above is basically already complete, with only a few misfits, such as creationists, hanging on to the old way of looking at things. No religious knowledge about the physical world remains in any meaningful sense. Even people who ostensibly reject science in favour of religion don't really act that way. They use the products of science and accept they work even though that contradicts their dismissal of the same scientific theories which the devices they use are based on.

In category two the task is well advanced, because while many people still claim our laws and moral standards are based on Christian morals, they really aren't . Sure, many religious ideas happen to coincide with laws (don't murder, steal, etc) but that is more because the religious morals and the societal rules are both based on basic human social norms. I do admit that some laws from the past came directly from religion, but only those that suit more modern standards have been allowed to remain, and I could find far more moral rules from the Bible which have been ignored than those which have been followed.

Category three is less well advanced and many people still get value from either simply identifying as religious, or in actively participating in religious practices. This is also changing as more and more countries become dominated by secular customs and beliefs, but religion is far from finished in this area, although the end result seems inevitable.

If or when religion disappears completely will the world be a better or worse place? Well, that is debatable, and even I would feel that something has been lost, even though I think my argument for alternatives is sound. But, it's not going to happen any time soon so I guess the question is moot. I guess I'll accept religion as a part of society for a bit longer, even though it is useless!

Are All Extremists Equal?

2019-04-24. Religion. Rating 5. ID 1976.

I recently got involved in a short argument about the values of different religions. I can't remember how the subject started (I'm fairly sure I wasn't deliberately stirring up trouble) but at one point my opponent said, in relation to Islamic terror attacks, that all religions have their extemist elements. Well sure, they do, but I commented that some religions have far worse extremists than others and that might easily be related to some of the underlying values of the religion.

To make my point I asked her to compare the number of people killed and captured during Mohammed's military campaigns described in the Koran, with the number of deaths Jesus was responsible for as recorded in the Gospels. She got really upset, refused to answer, and left my office. That's why the debate was short, I guess!

She was right that every group is composed of a series of individuals with varying degrees of dedication or enthusiasm towards the core beliefs of the group, and with different ideas on how the group's beliefs should be supported or expanded. So you could say there are always extremists and moderates, and you might also say that there is usually a rabid lunatic fringe in each group.

And this is often used as a defence of some sections of society, especially relating to Islam at this point in history, as well as a way of attacking other groups, such as conservatives. The implication is that every group has its extremists and that those extremists are roughly as bad as each other. But - as you are surely aware by now - I'm going to show that this isn't true.

In fact it should be obvious that it's not true. It should be fairly clear that Islamic extremists are the biggest concern for the world today, because their form of extremism is both the most prevalent and the most radical. It involves deliberate harm and violence to others, with little consideration about how guilty those victims are of any of the claims the extremists make against them.

And a spectrum of varying extremism exists for every other group, down to the point where some do very little harm at all. I agree, it's not simple in many cases to get a true representation of the motivations of an extremist. Sometimes their reasons for carrying out an extremist act involve some politics, religion, and often some personal experience which has turned them against the world. But, I think there are clear trends in the big picture, and these complications are too often used as an excuse.

It is also difficult to come up with an objective scale of how harmful different forms of extremism are. But I still think there are broad categories which extreme activities might be classified into, from violence and murder at one end, to vigorous debate at the other.

So now I will list off a few groups, and briefly discuss the form their extremism takes...

Islam. As I said above, I think this is the biggest problem of this type faced by the world at this stage of history. Islamic extremism is violent and designed to cause maximum harm and fear. It is also well organised, and often involves large coordinated groups of people. And it is clearly motivated primarily by religious ideology, which generally results in the most dangerous and unthinking beliefs. As well as this, some surveys show significant support for violent action from so-called moderates. Should we use this to condemn all Muslims? Of course not, but it is a point we should be aware of.

White Supremacy. This is a difficult one, because this term is used carelessly to encompass many different belief systems. It is also used as a trendy catch-phrase by many people to describe anything which isn't, in their opinion, politically correct enough. There have certainly been some terrible events perpetrated by people associated with this group, the recent Christchurch Mosque Attack being the most obvious, but there are some significant differences between that and Islamic terrorism. First, these terrorists tend to be individuals with no cohesive organisation behind them. They also tend to indulge in less symbolically radical forms of violence (shooting as opposed to beheadings, etc). And for every person a white supremacists kills there are probably hundreds killed by Islamic terrorists.

Christianity. While the world's biggest religion has an extremely troubling past, it is relatively benign today. Countries based on Christian culture, even if they are not particularly religious today, seem to be more peaceful and prosperous than most others. And the worst reports of Christian terrorism seem to relate to relatively isolated events, like attacks on abortion clinics, or to anti-social behaviour like hate speech (from Westboro Baptist, for example) rather than mass murder and destruction. Also, the lack of support for radicals amongst the moderates in Christianity seems to be more genuine.

Other religions. There are certainly valid reports of atrocities committed by Hindus and Buddhists, amongst others, but these seem to get lost in the greater flood of Islamic terrorism.

Conservatism. Conservatism can be a bit tied up with the white supremacy and Christianity categories above, so there is some overlap with violence motivated by those beliefs, but in general they seem to be only moderately problematic. Interestingly, there are a surprising number of mass shootings in the US done by non-conservatives. For example the Fort Hood shooter (who was also a Muslim), Virginia Tech (a Christian who used religious imagery), Colorado theater, the Connecticut school, and maybe Columbine. Of course, gun violence is more often associated with conservatives, and that's probably fair. Again, notice how the overlapping ideologies can be a problem here.

Liberalism. Liberals today seem to be full of self-righteous indignation about the smallest issue, but generally the worst they are likely to indulge in is trying to get their opponents banned from speaking, or to get them fired, or to publicly shame them, often for things they have no need to be ashamed of. So liberals are pretty good in general (but see the list of mass shooters who were Democrats above, and note the damage done in protests after Trump won the election), and their main problem is lack or rationality rather than a propensity towards physical violence.

Feminism. To be fair to my second least-liked belief system (next to Islam) they don't generally get involved in physical violence. But there have been many people's lives ruined by unsubstantiated and trivial claims made by feminists, so they are responsible for significant societal harm, even if that cannot really be compared with the real terrorism inflicted by the first few groups in this list.

Atheism. I admit to being biased here (being a member myself), but atheists don't seem to indulge in much extremism at all. When the opponents of atheism often point to Richard Dawkins as a "strident" or "ideologically blinded" member of that group then you really have to wonder at how bad things could possibly be. Dawkins is generally very polite and reasonable even when a certain amount of frustration creeps into his debates. And if debates and verbal criticism are the worst form of extremism in a group I think that group should be proud!

So in answer to the question, "are all extremists equal?" I say, of course not. It's patently absurd to even consider making that claim. And that does affect the rest of the group as well, because the extreme fringe always reflects some of the values of the group as a whole.

So if anyone says something like "they have problems, but every group has its extremists" remember they're suggesting that a murderous lunatic prepared to blow up himself and any other person around him is in the same category as a mild-mannered university professor. I would say, anyone who supports that view is not only living in a fantasy world, but they are also making the problem far worse.

Two BS Prayers

2018-11-01. Religion. Rating 4. ID 1944.

Many people would say that the New Zealand government needs all the help it can get, and praying might be a reasonable option, since it is often something people do when they have no real ideas available to them. But on the other hand, it does seem rather archaic that parliamentary sessions, in a modern country like ours, still start with a prayer.

But at least the current prayer doesn't mention any particular god, prophet, or other religious character, so it is a more generic plea for help to whatever forces might or might not exist. In fact, this is a recent change, and the main subject of this post. And, judging from the general performance of Parliament in the past, there is little sign that the particular god previously favoured was helping much, so maybe the change is actually irrelevant.

So enough of these snide comments denigrating both religion and politics (they're such easy subjects to ridicule). What exactly has happened and what are my thoughts on the subject?

Trevor Mallard, who is the Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives, has changed the official prayer used when opening Parliament. Previously it was specifically Christian, and mentioned Jesus, but now it is more generic and doesn't mention any particular religious figures. The idea was to make the prayer more inclusive of the increasing diversity of religious views in New Zealand.

Needless to say, some Christians are not happy with the change, and a recent protest involving around 100 people (not a bad turn out for a New Zealand protest in bad weather) made this indignation clear to the relevant figures in our government.

The protestors want mentions of Jesus and the Christian god returned to the prayer for a variety of reasons. So let's look at these reasons and see how much sense they make...

First, they think we should return to the old, Christian prayer because New Zealand was traditionally a Christian country. Well yes, fair enough, this is true. But Christianity's dominance here is now over, because over half of the population are not religious, and only about a third are Christian.

These statistics come from research reported in a document "Faith and Belief in New Zealand" commissioned by the Wilberforce Foundation, a faith based (and I suspect primarily Christian) organisation. So this seems fairly credible, especially since the official New Zealand census has shown a consistent change towards less support for religion which trended towards this result.

So it seems that, based on current beliefs, we really shouldn't have a Christian prayer since, currently in New Zealand, there are twice as many people who aren't Christian as those who are.

In fact, it is worse than that, because, of the 33% who profess to be Christian, only 9% are "active" and only 16% go to church at least once per month. So I suspect many people report themselves as Christian even though by any reasonable measure they are non-religious.

As Christianity, and religion in general, becomes more irrelevant to the people you could make a case to say that it should have less relevance to the country's leaders too. But, to be fair, that wasn't what the protestors really said. They said it was important in the past, which is true. The only question is: now that it isn't so important, should our previous practices change to reflect that? I would say yes, but a contrary case could be made.

But now on to the second reason. The protestors claim that the principles and values of the country are based on "Christian-Judeo" roots.

Again, a case could be made both ways on this point. It is difficult to argue that Christianity, which was so dominant in every facet of life in the past, could not have had significant impact on our values. But equally, many of our founding principles don't come from Christianity, and many that do are equally prevalent in other beliefs, often in those that pre-date it.

For example, democracy itself originates primarily in Greek thought, not Christian. In fact, the Bible is a rather anti-democratic document in many ways. If we really did follow the principles there, I think our society would be very different. Note that this is a difficult claim to objectively evaluate because the Bible has so much contradictory material that completely contrary views can be equally well supported.

So again, there is some truth in the idea, but it is not a particularly compelling argument. And even if it was accepted that some principles were based on religious thinking, how does that lead to the need for a prayer today?

The third claim is that other religions want Jesus' name left in, and people want to know what god are we talking about in the prayer.

It's hard to say how useful this statement is, since it's just an opinion presented by a person at a protest with an obvious extreme view. If there were any real stats on this it would be more interesting. My anecdote is that most people would either want the prayer thrown out altogether or changed to a more generic form like we now have, out of the principles of inclusivity and fairness.

So this claim really doesn't have much going for it, although if there was any real data on the idea it could be very relevant.

The fourth claim is that the speaker has no authority to make this change, and that the protestor (and by implication most other people) don't share his atheism.

There are so many problems with this that it is hard to know where to start. But firstly, it looks like the Speaker might have the authority to do this (although that is debated) because he is in charge of the administration of the House. Secondly, how can having a prayer lead to him being called an atheist? Presumably an atheist wouldn't want any prayer. And thirdly, I haven't seen any information to indicate what religious beliefs Mallard actually has, and I would hope he would make decisions independently of those anyway.

So there seems little merit in this claim, although an argument could be made (and is made by Winston Peters) that a vote by the members of the House would have been a better way to decide the matter.

Finally, there is this: the new prayer should have been authorised by a referendum, this is the land of freedom, we need to acknowledge choice, and that our choice was taken away. This is quite a claim, so let's start at the beginning.

Referenda are extremely expensive to run and are generally used to decide on (or at least get an indication of, because they aren't usually binding) matters which affect everyone. The new prayer only directly affects the members of Parliament. Why would the whole of the country want to vote on such a minor matter, and how could the expense be justified?

Anyone who offers rhetorical points like "this is the land of freedom" should be treated with a good deal of skepticism. Is it? And even if it is, doesn't a prayer which is more inclusive grant more people the freedom not to be affected by a prayer which is only meaningful to a minority? It seems that the protestors want to decrease freedom by imposing their views on everyone.

Then there is this: we need to acknowledge choice. Well yes, we do. People should have the choice not to participate in a ritual belonging to an increasingly irrelevant religion. Again, the protestors seem to be contradicting their own points here.

And finally: the choice was taken away. What choice? There was no choice because there was only one prayer which belonged to a minority group. Another contradiction. Even by the standards of most religious people this argument looks very irrational.

But there was some rationality at the protest too, because outside Parliament grounds, a small counter-protest of 15 atheists heckled the Christian protesters. Dave Seyb - presumably a Pastafarian because he was wearing a colander on his head - yelled "Equal rights for all mythical creatures." Seems fair.

The last time this issue arose (in January this year, shortly after the new prayer was introduced) an informal poll (by news source, Stuff) revealed and exact 50/50 split between those who wanted the old prayer reinstated and those who either preferred the new one or wanted no prayer at all, so this clearly a difficult issue.

But, all that aside, maybe you would like to decide for yourself. So here are the two prayers...

The previous prayer:

Almighty God, humbly acknowledging our need for Thy guidance in all things, and laying aside all private and personal interests, we beseech Thee to grant that we may conduct the affairs of this House and of our country to the glory of Thy holy name, the maintenance of true religion and justice, the honour of the Queen, and the public welfare, peace, and tranquility of New Zealand, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

The new prayer:

Almighty God, we give thanks for the blessings which have been bestowed on us. Laying aside all personal interests, we acknowledge the Queen and pray for guidance in our deliberations, that we may conduct the affairs of this House with wisdom, justice, mercy, and humility for the welfare and peace of New Zealand. Amen.

I mean, they're really both the most atrocious BS, so who really cares?

Jesus Says "Me Too"

2018-05-02. Religion. Rating 4. ID 1913.

As any regular readers of my blog will clearly know by now, I am no great fan of political correctness. I do need to emphasise that the phenomenon of PC is often linked to genuine issues which we all should be dedicated to resolving, but it is the mechanism of political correctness: the concept creep, the unquestioning adherence, the simplistic generalisations, and the tribalism, which is the problem.

So often giving a social issue the old PC treatment just reduces it to a farce, and while the people who love PC for its own sake (such as our old friends, the social justice warriors) thrive on it, they really just become an increasing isolated minority group making more and more noise about something no one else really cares that much about.

And so we have the "Me Too" movement. Undoubtedly there are times when women (and some men) have been treated badly, and this might occasionally extend to illegal sexual abuse and rape, but the Me Too movement encourages everyone to jump on the bandwagon and trivialises the whole thing.

As I said, I am sure there are genuine cases where people have been real victims, but I am equally sure there are many cases where people have seen this as simply a way to gain some fleeting fame, to feel the inclusivity of being part of a group they perceive as being persecuted, or just to simply jump on board the latest PC sideshow and virtue signal to their friends within the same sad echo chamber they exist in.

So when I hear someone proclaiming "Me Too" I wonder whether what they are really saying is "yes, let me be part of the latest trendy leftist fad too". Let me say again, before I am criticised as a misogynist, or a privileged white male, or whatever else the latest trendy insult is, I fully accept there are real issues here, and the original purpose of Me Too might have been quite genuine, but it doesn't seem that way any more.

To demonstrate how truly ridiculous this has become, I just heard that a theologian has claimed that Jesus was also subject to sexual abuse, and therefore deserves to be part of Me Too. This really does seem like an extreme case of everyone wanting to get on the old PC bandwagon. Actually, when I say "everyone" I really mean just those who subscribe to the victim mentality the politically correct left love to inflict on society as a whole.

So here's the argument: in Mark 15 16-24 the crucifixion of Jesus is described. Here's what it says, according to the NIV (which uses plain English and best suits the style of this blog). If you prefer other versions of the Bible feel free to look up parallel translations. You might also be interested to read the other gospel writers slightly contradictory accounts...

16 The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers.
17 They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him.
18 And they began to call out to him, "Hail, king of the Jews!"
19 Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him.
20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.
21 A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross.
22 They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means "the place of the skull").
23 Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.
24 And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.

Apparently this describes a case of sexual abuse, where Jesus was stripped three times. Your interpretation of the text may vary. But so what? Clearly this actually describes a hideous torture that no one should have been subjected to, yet many people were. Some imagined connection to Me Too just seems so obviously self-serving that I find it quite insulting, even as a non-Christian.

Christianity has a history of invoking a sentiment of persecution which has been used as an element of bonding for its members. If you are a Christian and you know you are being repressed by another group it tightens the bonds within the group and makes it stronger. If the originator or your religion was persecuted then the effect is even stronger.

Now it might make sense for a modern Christian theologian to reinforce that feeling of repression by latching on to its modern equivalent: the Me Too movement. Yeah, that's a nice try, but I doubt whether there will be many takers on that one. After all, Christianity is the most dominant religion in the world, so just like all the other dominant groups (whites, males, Americans) it cannot be allowed into the exclusive club of the downtrodden.

What a world we live in. A serious academic thinks Jesus was the victim of sexual abuse. But wait, since Jesus was from the Middle East, maybe his skin tone was quite a bit darker than most portrayals show. I think I see an opportunity here: hey Romans, don't kill Jesus: Black Lives Matter!

Lloyd Geering

2018-03-24. Religion. Rating 3. ID 1907.

Lloyd Geering is a famous New Zealand theologian. Actually, that isn't necessarily much of a claim because my country isn't exactly famous for its religious belief or its theologians, but Geering is still a pretty interesting character. He is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, and recently turned 100.

Maybe the most famous aspect of his life was an incident where he faced charges of heresy (or, more accurately, disturbing the peace of the Church, and doctrinal error) in 1967 for his controversial views. He is the only person to have faced that charge, and it was withdrawn after an agreement was reached.

The Church might have decided it would be best to avoid the whole issue after Geering addressed the Presbyterian General Assembly for 90 minutes, disputing the belief that God created the Earth and is still watching over it, and claiming that Jesus’ remains are still somewhere in Palestine.

It's pretty moderate stuff, really, and shows just how far we have come since then. Today we would think very little of that sort of claim. In fact it might be more worthwhile to discuss whether Jesus even really existed, making the claims of what happened after his death somewhat irrelevant.

But now I should move on from that incident to some of the opinions he presented in a recent interview I listened to. I have to say that the majority of what he said made perfect sense, but there were a few things I disagreed with. So let's look at some of his thoughts...

He initially became interested in religion when he joined a student Christian group at Otago University. He did this primarily for the social benefits, rather than any true religious interest, but that grew later.

I have often said that churches are a great place to meet people and establish social connections. This has nothing to do with the existence of any supernatural entities, of course.

He initially saw god as a mystery beyond human understanding, but later realized that god is not a supernatural being, but an important word or concept created by humans.

I guess there is a lot of truth in this. Obviously, as an atheist, I think god is a human invention, but the idea that the concept of god is important, even if it has no real physical existence, seems fair. The word "god" is often used by completely non-religious people, including myself. And it features in 8 of the quotes I have from Stephen Hawking (also an atheist) including stuff like "God not only plays dice, He also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen." Clearly god is a useful metaphor.

He thinks faith is an attitude of hope or trust in the future, and in friends. He tries not to undermine the faith of others, but has said that "god is over" in his books.

If people choose to read his books they should be prepared to have their faith challenged as well, I guess. But I think defining faith in the way he does just avoids the real issue. The sort of faith people have in religious teachings is far beyond simple hope or confidence. It is an often unshakeable belief in something, even though that belief would be absurd in any other context. I think he over-rates faith in this way, but so do most other people.

After the heresy trial he realised that the church is really just another human organisation, and primarily intent on maintaining itself. He thinks the church hasn’t kept up with theology.

I have discussed theology with several people and this seems to be true. I guess we shouldn't be surprised about this because in most fields the academic, theoretical branch (like theology) is generally ahead of the more mundane, day-to-day implementation of that field (the church).

But it seems apparent that churches are less driven by theory and by new information than other organisations, and change happens very slowly, so I guess the practice of religion is likely to be more behind the theory that in other areas. And it seems that the practice is changing so slowly that the whole idea of religion is being rejected. Good thing too!

He thinks people have realised that the secular world is OK, but use Christian tradition to draw upon. He goes to a church called St. Andrews on the Terrrace. When asked, what is the point he says it is to join other people, who are more tolerant of gays, etc. He says that churches were opposed initially to all the great forward steps, and were regressive, but they didn’t use to be like that, before the 18th century. The church is opposed to the secular world, but the secular world is a natural extension to Christianity.

So, where do I start? It is true that our modern science-based, secular societies did originate from Christianity dominated societies, but I don't think that implies that we should thank Christianity in many ways for what we have today. It is more like we progressed to where we are despite Christianity, not because of it. And he is right that churches, in general, are opposed to progress, but (again in general, because there are exceptions) I cannot see how it has been any better in the past.

He says the central doctrine of Christianity is that god became human, but god is just people’s highest ideas or values, such as love, justice, honesty, and purity. There is only one world, the physical world. The world of thought allows us to interpret reality, through the concept of god, which has no real existence.

I always feel like this tactic of defining god as some sort of immaterial human trait or other poorly defined concept, is a bit disingenuous. God has a specific meaning for most people: a supernatural, conscious entity. If Geering thinks there is some sort of conceptual idea common to humans which is an important force in our progress then he should use a different word to describe it, to avoid confusion.

He was asked: in the past god stopped us being too hubristic. What stops us now? He says use the example of Jesus. He was a great teacher of wisdom, lived life to full, and accepted others. God is in us as a set of values. In the past the notion of bad people getting their comeuppance in the next world provided some comfort for many, but that is not Christian. It is Biblical. The Bible is an important set of human writings, but shows prejudice, is fallible, and parts of it are wrong. We should also recognise that it contains a lot very valuable content too, and is of huge cultural importance.

It is true that Christianity does prevent hubris in many, but I think the price is far too great, because the message that everyone is a sinner and barely worthy of God's forgiveness is a particularly damaging one, I think. I do agree about the Bible though: it is an important source of cultural detail, it is hugely compromised (especially in the Old Testament), and also has some fairly good positive philosophy. But in the end, it is just another work of mythology and should be treated as such.

When asked about his attitude to "new atheism" he says he agrees with a lot of what Richard Dawkins says, but thinks he is too extreme and doesn’t realize how important the concept of god is. He thinks that concept has caused a lot of trouble, but has done more good.

I always find Richard Dawkins extremely reasonable, except when severely tested by great ignorance, but I guess the fact that he dares to clearly say what he really thinks can be challenging to some people. Dawkins actually gives Christianity too much credit, in my opinion, because he concentrates far too much on the positivity of the New Testament without acknowledging the bad aspects.

And whether Christianity has done more good or more bad is very much open to question. I don't think there is a clear case either way. I would tend towards saying the bad outweighs the good - especially because of its contribution to the Dark Ages, and the numerous atrocities carried out on its name - but I am open to alternative views on this.

Geering calls himself a non-theist. There are many definitions of god. The idea of a single god occurred 2500 years ago, and the opening lines of Genesis represent a dividing line in culture, because it was the first example of monotheism. The idea also lead to modern science.

It does seem that early Judaism was the first definitive example of monotheism, although there were many religions before that which had similar ideas. I'm not sure why that is so significant though, because supernatural belief in one or many deities still has the same negative consequences. And I always have problems with the idea that science came from Christianity when clearly it came from Greek philosophy and was actually repressed by Christianity.

He has faith in the human species, more so now than in past. He thinks things are getting better, and thinks we should have more confidence now than at the start of the 20th century. He says nationalism is weaker now, we have a global community, there was no World War 3 (and nukes helped prevent that), and that we are now more accepting of differences in cultures, gender roles, etc.

I tend to agree that things are gradually improving, apart from a few rather obvious issues we have today. This is mainly due to religion being abandoned I would have thought, so I'm not sure how this fits in with his other hypotheses.

Finally, prayer. He never prays - it is not even an option - but he does meditate. On the other hand, he thinks prayer is a form of meditation, that confession is self-reflective, and that we answer our own prayers.

Sure, there are positive benefits to prayer, but there a lot of negatives as well. While prayer can give people subconscious motivation to get things done, it can also give them a reason not to do anything, because "God will handle it for them". And if he doesn't? Well, God works in mysterious ways!

So I think Geeing has some interesting ideas, and a lot of them are quite rational. But he still has that underlying predisposition towards seeing Christianity as a source of positive influence. If he approached his ideas of how the world works from a more neutral starting point I think he would give religion a lot less consideration.

Still, he is just a theologian, so I think I can be generous to give him a pass mark!

Evil Jesus

2018-02-07. Religion. Rating 4. ID 1899.

I have heard many atheists arguments diminished by an admission that the teachings of Jesus are inherently good and that, even if he never existed in any form recognisable from the New Testament, at least the thoughts attributed to him are beyond reproach.

Well, here is my deeply meaningful, intellectual, theological response to this idea: bullshit!

Sure, there is stuff in the NT which can be seen as being really positive, but I think the overall tone and message is quite negative, although I fully agree that the tone can be interpreted in more than one way, and this can easily lead to totally contrary conclusions.

This is very much the problem with theology and some philosophy too. If we just look at the thoughts of an individual person, whether it be Jesus or Wittgenstein - especially when they are presented in metaphors and imprecise language - it is very easy to take whatever meaning you want from them.

But I also think there are parts of these people's thoughts which cannot be honestly misconstrued, and I think in Jesus' case this is both unmistakable and deeply flawed.

The fact that many modern Christians are quite moral people and exhibit quite decent behaviour overall is more to do with changing ethical standards, mostly separate from theology, than anything which is specifically part of a religion. They know what is right and look for a message in the NT supporting that view. When slavery was considered OK that idea was found to be supported by Jesus, but once social norms changed and slavery became unacceptable, a different message was found to support that.

My point is (and this is one I have made before) that religious texts are like Rorschach Inkblot Tests: the pattern is in the viewer's mind, not on the object being viewed (whether it is an inkblot or the Bible).

But some inkblots, along with some texts, do have an obvious meaning which requires some effort to get past and be ignored, and the New Testament, contrary to common claims, can easily be seen as an exhortation towards hate rather than love.

So what are the negative messages portrayed by the character of Jesus in the NT? Well there are three I want to concentrate on here: the idea that people must accept Jesus as their saviour or face eternal torment in Hell, that this life is unimportant compared to what you will get in Heaven after death, and the eschatological message which warns of signs of end-times eventually resulting in the return of Jesus and eternal happiness for the select few.

I know some people will debate whether these messages are genuine, and others will say they are real but should be seen as positive rather than bad, while others will say something like "sure that is true, and they may seem bad, but those are God's rules and we have to live by them".

In this post I want to concentrate on why these things are bad, rather than try to justify them in the context of the Bible, so let's just say these are either the only fair interpretation, or at least one very viable interpretation of the Bible, especially the NT.

In previous posts I have discussed why I think the Christian dogma of salvation through Jesus is evil. Basically my argument is that God gives us free will, yet punishes us when we use it. It's sort of like walking up to a voting machine (where they have them, like the US) and pulling the lever for the "wrong" party resulting in a safe falling on your head and killing you.

And it's like there's a sign in the voting booth saying "you can vote for either party, but if you choose the wrong one you will die in a horrible accident". Not only that, but both parties claim they are the one you should vote for to avoid the horrible punishment. And people who don't vote are treated even worse than those who do!

And just as the final icing on the cake, we are supposed to praise and thank this god for the system he has created, because of the claim that he has offered an escape from an evil rule he created. Gee, thanks God, you're so thoughtful, but why not just make it 100% clear which is really the right party, or give us real free will and forget about the punishment for using it!

The idea that this life is unimportant compared with what might come later is also very harmful. All the evidence indicates we only have one life, so any dogma discouraging people from not making the best use of it has got to be seen as really negative.

I suppose you could make a case to say that people are more likely to be accepting of their place in life, and experience a lot less stress as a result of believing in a better life after death. But this is also very harmful because it stops people from striving for something better. And the temptation for a political elite to use this superstition to keep the "lesser ranks" under control is a very insidious problem.

Finally there is the "end times" problem. If people think the world will soon end, and their current lives will be replaced with a far better one in heaven, then they are unlikely to get involved in any long term projects to make the world better. For example, why try to reduce climate change when the main effects won't be obvious for 50 years and the Rapture will have already happened by then making the whole problem irrelevant? This is a genuine issue because there are politicians who have made this exact point.

But it gets far worse than that, because many people not only expect Armageddon at any time, but they would like to try to speed up the process. They have been waiting for the final battle between good and evil for 2000 years and they can't wait much longer for that final destruction. Anyone with this belief isn't going to hesitate to use the nuclear option, or to start wars in politically sensitive areas of the world.

It is clear that these criticisms don't just apply to Christianity, of course, because it is obvious that Judaism and Islam (and probably other religions I know less about) are possibly even worse on some of these points.

But I have picked on Christianity for two reasons: first, it is often seen as the most forgiving and peaceful religion, where a case could easily be made for the opposite; and second, it is the most dominant religion in the world today, especially in the most dominant country. Whether Donald Trump really believes all the Christian BS he seems to espouse is highly doubtful, but the fact that he has to pretend to be a believer is telling in itself.

The Doomsday Clock is currently set closer to midnight than for any time since the Cold War. I'm not saying we can blame this completely on religion, and especially not on any particular religion, but those irrational and evil ideas can't be helping. Thanks a lot, evil Jesus!

Genesis Version 2.0

2017-11-27. Religion. Rating 3. ID 1886.

Chapter 1: Prologue

Yahweh needed a purpose. He was the most powerful entity in the metaverse, yet what had he ever achieved? It was time to do something great, and the only thing which would be worthy of his abilities was to create a universe. In fact it seemed like this was his entire reason for existing. Yahweh performed the calculations and determined what would be needed.

And he started creating...

First, he created a planet where he could experiment. It was covered with water because that was the basis for the chemistry he had decided to use. Despite the water, he called it Earth.

Then he created light, because, obviously his new universe would need to be visible to everyone, including the various conscious entities he might create.

But he realised the light might hide most of the magnificence of the universe he was creating, because the stars and galaxies - which he would soon create - could only be appreciated in darkness. So he decided to stop the light regularly and made darkness.

Then he built a realm where his creations could be brought to so they could interact with him. While he wanted to remain mostly seperate, some intervention might also be needed. This was hidden from everyone except him, and he called it Heaven.

And he needed some dry land so that there would be another habitat for the various species he would bring into existence. So he caused the waters to recede and uncover the solid earth.

And Yahweh was happy so far with what he had done. He thought it was good.

With the basics out of the way, it was now time to start on the interesting stuff. He needed some organisms capable of using the light to make energy for themselves, and ultimately all living things. These would be plants and he devised a clever trick he called photosynthesis to allow them to do this.

Again, Yahweh saw that things were going according to plan. This was good.

But at this point he realised he had made a small mistake. The light had no obvious source and he didn't want his part in making this universe to be too obvious. So he created the Sun to be the main light source, and just for some added interest, a Moon as well. Of course, not being content with a single solar system, Yahweh created a few trillion galaxies of hundreds of billions of suns, for no real reason except to show just how powerful he really was!

After that he considered the universe so far wasn't yet great, but it was good.

Now was the time to create animals to populate his world. He made many species to live in the seas and fly in the sky, then he made animals to live on the solid ground. And here he used his most subtle and clever idea: the animals had a fixed life-span, but could reproduce with minor variations in the next generation. He figured this should create many interesting new forms in the future.

So yes, Yahweh also thought this was good.

Finally it was necessary to carry out the final step: to create an intelligent species modelled, somehow, on himself.

And that was it. His universe was completed. Yahweh congratulated himself, pronouncing it "very good"...

Chapter 2: A Lesson in Theology

Dan looked up from his control console, turned to his colleague, Jerry, and said "any idea what's gone wrong?" only to receive an exasperated shrug in return.

The power use had been far over what they expected for some time now, and no one seemed to be able to figure out why. The initial testing should have been carried out at a low level of computation, and that would have meant low power use too - at least as low as a computer with a quadrillion bytes of storage could be expected to use.

If things didn't get better soon they would need to call the old man himself. He designed this contraption so maybe he could get it to respond to basic instructions. But Dan didn't want to do that yet because he was treated like a modern prophet by his colleagues, and his reputation was on the line. They would work on regaining control and bringing the power down for a bit longer before calling for help.

He said "Do you know anything about the old man? He created this thing but I've never seen him around here. He seems to live in his office upstairs but we never see him - it's almost like he's invisible. And he really is an odd one - I heard he still believes that old religion that was popular 50 years ago. Do you know anything about that?"

Jerry knew he was being baited about his "useless" qualifications but replied, "You know I did a theology degree, don't you. That's why I work in IT. But yes, you're right, he still believes in a religion called Christianity, which was very big a few decades ago. It was an odd mixture of traditional superstition, sacrifice, and strange rituals, and had some quite interesting ideas about pacifism and tolerance, too."

"Well it's all crazy as far as I can tell," observed Dan, "what use could it be in solving problems like what we have here now?"

Jerry saw his opportunity to tease his friend a little bit, and said "Why do you think he gave the computer the name he did? Does the name mean anything to you?"

Dan looked indignant, but said "Well, he called it YAHWEH, which stands for yottabyte analytical hypothesiser with extended heuristics. I've never heard the name before in another context, but it seems to make a lot of sense to me, after all that's what it does. What exactly are you trying to suggest?"

Laughing, Jerry said, "Did that name ever seem a bit contrived to you? I mean, sure it has a yottabyte of memory and heuristics are an important part of its super-intelligence, but the rest seems more made up to fit the name, rather than the other way around. I know there is an old tradition in IT of doing this, but why would he choose the name of the old Christian God?"

Dan wasn't convinced so he replied, "Well you could be right, but so what? Even if he named his computer after the god from his old fairy story, that doesn't prove anything, except that he is even crazier than we previously thought."

Jerry decided to take a different tack. "You know he is also interested in the ideas of the philosopher Nick Bostrom, don't you. He specifically warned us against super-intelligent computers, but here's another thing he is well known for that might interest you: he also had an argument, which he didn't necessarily believe himself, that our universe is a simulation running in a super-intelligent computer in another, presumably real universe. It was called the simulation argument."

By now Dan was starting to look a lot more uncertain, and said "You don't think that's what the old man is up to, do you? I mean, is this computer running a simulation of another universe? Does it really have the capacity to do that? Has it just created its own universe, with living conscious people like us? With a name like that, maybe it really does think it's a god."

Jerry looked thoughtful and said, "If it had created a universe with conscious simulated life do we have the right to terminate it? After all, if Bostrom is right, we could be part of a simulation too. How would you like if it the computer our universe is being simulated in was reset?"

But Dan wasn't accepting any of this. He argued, "That's the problem with theology, you can make a story full of intersting details but without a scrap of evidence to support it. Surely you don't think we will ever need to make that decision, do you?"

Jerry glanced down at his console and suddenly went pale, he whispered "I don't know, but I just found the name of the program it's running. It's called Genesis..."

Good or Bad

2017-11-19. Religion. Rating 3. ID 1885.

While I'm in the middle of a phase of religion bashing I thought it might be a good time to resurrect (an ironic choice of word) the old subject of religion in schools. This has appeared as an issue in the media here a few weeks back, so the subject is topical.

In the past, I have sort of shrugged off the issue saying something like, the young people nowadays are too smart to be taken in by some blatantly transparent myths and are likely to consign religion to the same category of fiction as the Lord of the Rings, or Game of Thrones.

This is no doubt true in most cases. Because, there is certainly reason to think that our civilisation's childhood, where it relied on ancient traditional stories as a basis for cultural identity, is now starting to reach a conclusion, and we are growing up and abandoning the imaginary invisible man in the sky.

Here in New Zealand the "no religion" group is about to reach 50% of the population. Additionally, as I have said in the past, most people who indicate Christian as their religion on the census don't really have any commitment to that belief and never attend church, read the Bible, or even really know much about it.

But it's when previously powerful belief systems are threatened that they can become most dangerous. It's a bit like a wild animal's attack reflex when it's cornered. So we should be especially careful now that churches don't make a last ditch stand before they are consigned to the rubbish heap of bad ideas like all their predecessors. And maybe even more worryingly, we need to be careful that even worse religions, like Islam, don't fill the void left by Christianity.

As I said above, most kids will not be taken in by the silly stuff they are taught in Bible in schools. But it is not the well-balanced, sensible, practical majority we need to worry about. It is the out of touch, emotionally and intellectually immature minority which are most at risk.

As I write this I realise that perhaps I have "shot myself in the foot" to a certain extent, because you might make a case to say that it is those who are not coping well who might have most to gain from joining a church and getting extra support and friendship.

I'm sure that there are some people who actually are better off joining a religion, and I have never argued for complete eradication of religion - at least I can't recall an occasion, although I might have done during one of my more extreme rants! On the other hand, there might be more appropriate groups than a church those people could gain even more from, without the need to resort to superstition.

At this stage it is apparent that I am still conflicted on this subject. Don't misunderstand, I am totally committed to the idea that religions are fake and have little purpose beyond that which can be provided far better by other knowledge systems (science for facts, philosophy for values), but fake stuff can still have value for certain people.

In the final analysis, this subject is just like every other: it is not a matter of black and white, or good and bad, just like I have so often said in past blog posts. I think that if kids were taught positive philosophical beliefs or given instruction in comparative religion in schools that would be of far more value than simple indoctrination in the dominant religion of the time, but maybe traditional Christian instruction - as along as it is controlled and doesn't turn into aggressive proselytising - is OK.

Unfortunately the temptation to regress to aggressive conversion - with the threats of torture in Hell for unbelievers, etc - is just too likely according to many reports in the media. So maybe it would be be best just to expel religions from schools because of current bad behaviour.

Well, this blog post has certainly turned out to be one of my most indecisive ever! So, in summary, religion in schools. Good or bad? Well, yes... yes, definitely good or bad.

Revolting and Primitive

2017-11-01. Religion. Rating 5. ID 1883.

I like to get involved with controversial topics when I debate people on-line. This sort of makes sense because what sort of interesting debate are you going to have over something that isn't controversial? When it comes to controversy two topics tend to come to the fore: politics and religion. And if you read this blog you will see these are two of my favourite subjects!

The "discussion" I want to consider here was about who is to blame for the anti-immigrant sentiment which is giving right-oriented politics traction in various parts of the world (the US and Europe in particular).

My hypothesis was that moderate governments have been too lenient - largely through a propensity towards political correctness, and a wish to implement a quick and easy boost to their economies - regarding Muslim immigration into countries like Germany, the UK, and France.

So I made the following somewhat inflammatory remark on the subject: "I'm sure many Muslims are nice people but Islam is a revolting, primitive religion, and you can't blame people for being worried about it. If moderate parties won't control the power of Islam then people have to vote for more extreme parties. It's unfortunate but you can only blame the moderates."

Notice that, while this could be seen as controversial, I am sticking to my standards of criticising ideas rather than people. I genuinely believe the bit about many Muslims being nice people, because I know some, and they are. But that doesn't detract from the second idea that the Islamic religious/political belief system itself is not so nice, although "primitive" and "revolting" is possibly a bit on the extreme end of the potential range of criticisms!

Of course, the SJWs immediately jumped on their band-wagon (do they ever leave it?) and criticised me by saying something like "it is you who is revolting and primitive".

And that's exactly what I wanted, because I replied with "yes, I often blow myself up and kill innocent children, I don't let women participate as equals in society, I use stoning and amputation of limbs as a punishment, and I support the death penalty for apostasy".

Strangely, the SJWs seemed to shut-up after that, although I did get a couple of messages of support!

Often in that situation I would get some reasonably fair counters to my point. People might say I am choosing the worst aspects of Islam and ignoring the best. Or they might say someone who supports those ideas is not a true Muslim. Or they might say other religions and belief systems are just as bad.

I don't believe any of those ideas hold up to much scrutiny, but at least they are orders of magnitude better than the simple-minded ad hominem I got.

But enough of that indignation at being castigated in such insulting terms, because, as I said, that was exactly what I wanted. What about my response to the possible reasonable responses I listed above?

What about the criticism that I am concentrating on the worst aspects of Islam? Well yes, I am in a way, because those are the aspects which affect me, and the culture I most identify with. If there were a lot of positive aspects which I felt an affinity for I would have mentioned those, but quite honestly I cannot think of anything, except for the very general wish for more diversity to make life more interesting.

Remember that I am criticising Islam here. If I was asked to give my opinion on an individual Muslim I would very likely say that I liked them, because there is so much more to most people than their religion. But for some people there actually isn't much more. The people who are prepared to kill themselves and others for their religion are very much defined by it. This gets back to my oft-repeated idea that "religion is OK, as long as you don't take it too seriously"!

But what about the second point, that the people committing atrocities around the world are not motivated by religion, or aren't true Muslims? This is probably the most pernicious lie that the PC left tell themsleves. We know these people are directly motivated by their religion because they tell us they are. And there aren't many ideologies, apart from religion and it's promise of entry into paradise after death, which people are prepared to die for.

And then there's the idea that other religions (and other "belief systems" such as political ideologies and even atheism) are just as bad as Islam. But are they?

Look at a list of who is responsible for most of the revolting and primitive (there are those words again) acts around the world. In almost every case these are directly motivated by a belief in Islamic religious and political doctrine, including the idea that those who sacrifice themselves for the cause will be admitted to paradise in the after-life, the idea that non-Muslims can be killed or enslaved, and the wish to initiate a final battle where Islam will emerge dominant.

Do we see that from Christians? No, not any more at least, because Christianity has been tamed by modern secular politics. What about Buddhists? Well disappointingly we do to some extent, but not in such a wide-ranging way. Do we see it from atheists? Of course not, because how can having no belief in a religion lead to acting on the associated dogma, because there is none! Do we see it from neo-Marxists or neo-Nazis or any other extreme political group? Again, no, not much.

So it seems to me that my criticism is fair and that none of the responses to it really make much sense, unless you are really desperate to find a way to defend an idea that you think you must defend, irrespective of it's true harm to the world.

So I don't regret my comment. As I said, it was on the extreme end of what I really think, but I think I made my point effectively, and that was my intention.

Some More Quotes

2017-10-02. Religion. Rating 4. ID 1879.

Occasionally I like to discuss some of my favourite quotes, usually from figures from science, history, philosophy, etc whom I admire to some extent. It has been a while since I did one of these, so let's have a look at a few good quotes I have seen recently...

Here's the first one. Quote 1: "The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion." - Arthur C. Clarke.

I don't think that religion should be totally rejected as a potential source of ideas around morality, in the same way as I would not reject fiction as a source. But the idea that religion is *the* source is absurd, insulting, and dangerous.

It's absurd because all the main religions of the world have been found to be hopelessly inadequate in their truth claims. it is insulting because very moral people can be shut-down just because they don't follow a particular religion. And it's dangerous because people stop thinking about what is really true when they surrender their critical thought processes to a religion.

Additionally, different religions, and even different sects within large religions like Christianity, have quite different ideas on what is moral and what isn't. The fact that many of these groups feel justified in killing each other over these, sometimes quite trivial, differences indicates that their overall claim to be the guardians of moral standards is questionable.

And religions have given support to many ideas in the past that we would now consider immoral, such as slavery, lack of equality for women, rejection of contraception and abortion, and many others. In fact, even today religions have far too much influence and hold back moral progress when they try to impose their doubtful moral standards on both their own members and others.

Just one last point on this before I move on. The tired old strategy the believers use when they say "how can we have morals without a god to impose them" is totally ridiculous. First, morality could easily be seen as an emergent property of the behaviour of a highly social species. Second, if a god created moral standards we would expect them to be more consistent amongst religions and not to change over time. And third, even if a god was required (one isn't) how does this relate to the childish fairy stories which are human religions?

On a related subject, I present quote 2: "So it's not God's fault for all the evil and bad things? Oh really? I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil. I the Lord, do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7)" - Anonymous

This one relates quite well to a recent debate I had on my blog with a religious believer. He thought his god was justified in torturing good people (like me) with eternal torment in Heil just because we couldn't believe in the god's existence. He is a good person, and he didn't like this "fact", but he still insisted on worshipping a god who is clearly immoral and evil.

How anyone could think that any religion which included this disgusting belief has any relevance whatsoever to morality is beyond me. And the fact that it is all fantasy and Hell doesn't exist is irrelevant, because these people would clearly be OK with any real torture for unbelievers as well.

Remember that all of this comes from the New Testament, the alleged teachings of Jesus, who supposedly espoused peace and forgiveness. It might sound very moral on the surface, but dig a bit and it's the same old crap as every other religion.

So having demonstrated how grossly immoral religion is, let's move on to how stupidly fictitious it is as well. Here's quote 3: "Science: Many different people study many different sources and arrive at the same conclusions. Religion: Many different people study the same source and arrive at many different conclusions." - Anonymous.

Of course, this cannot be taken too literally because there are disagreements in science, even over the same data, and there is some degree of agreement amongst religions, but the general principle is sound.

Science tends to converge on an agreed conclusion, but religion tends to split into more divergent ideas. For example, several theories on the origin of our universe have been tested and found lacking until the Big Bang was developed and is now fairly universally accepted. But at the same time religion has split into a number of mutually exclusive, irrational ideas. Even within Christianity there is a range from Biblical literalism to complete acceptance of science, and everything in between. And none of these are really based on any religious evidence, apart from Creationism of course, which is the one most obviously wrong!

Note that the agreed science, such as the Big Bang, is not always the complete truth, but because it is based on real observations it is always a good approximation to reality. Religion on the other hand rarely has any relevance to anything in the real world at all. It is just completely irrelevant as a source of knowledge.

I have a cartoon in my collection showing a man watching TV news with the following caption (AKA quote 4): "Atheists rioted in the streets worldwide today, reacting to a Danish cartoon depicting nobody with a bomb on top of his head."

This is a reference to the Danish Muslim cartoons which caused riots and at least 200 deaths worldwide in 2005. The point is that it takes a strong belief system for people to become so irrationally violent over something so trivial. As an atheist I just have a bit of a laugh at any cartoon mocking atheism, although I might feel compelled to point out why it's wrong.

I know that today most religions might protest any perceived insult, but would not generally indulge in violence. It's usually Islam which uses violence in these situations today, but Christianity was at least as bad in the past. But the point is that if you don't believe in fairy tales you won't feel so inclined towards violence to defend them.

Here's quote 5: "The difference between a cult and a religion: In a cult there is a person at the top who knows it's a scam. In a religion, that person is dead." - Anon

All religions are scams because that is a requirement for a religion to survive. Unless a belief system has a mechanism to ensure its proliferation it will die out. That's why many people compare religion to a virus of the mind. It's like a living organism feeding off a host to ensure its own survival.

Then there's quote 6, which is another cartoon which shows a sign outside of a church with the following text: "Gather together to shout down your doubts. Sunday 10-11."

I really think this is true. Most belief systems require some sort of reinforcement over time to ensure their followers remain loyal. Regular meetings with like-minded people must be a significant element in keeping people trapped.

Finally, here's quote 7. I saw this on Twitter, and it's a tweet from God, who says: "Stop praying. I'm clearly not listening." - God

Now I do have to admit that this probably isn't really God, but he makes a good point I think. I have another quote which says "nothing fails like prayer" and it's true. Imagine all the people in poor countries who have signed up to the religions (especially Christianity) introduced by European invaders over the past few hundred years. These people are often afflicted by natural and man-made disasters and they must offer a lot of prayers for help. And what do they get? Nothing. Or at least nothing beyond what the normal laws of chance would dictate. No, apparently God really isn't listening.

So those are my quotes for this post. They prove nothing in themselves, but I think they are effective ways to communicate the bigger truth behind the simple facades. That truth is that religion is just immoral, irrational BS.

Facts, Logic, Morality

2017-09-18. Religion. Rating 4. ID 1877.

I recently spent some time with a colleague discussing how to deal with a fundamentalist Christian's irrational ideas that he had recently become aware of. I have to say that this fundy keeps his crazy ideas pretty much to himself and is otherwise a perfectly pleasant and reasonable person, so there was no real need to try to "convert" him, but sometimes the need to try arises - such as in a debate situation - so I thought I might describe my technique here.

I have had varying degrees of success with this in the past, from complete rejection (because some people are never going to change their views) to moderate success (for example, a person admitting to changing his opinions, or one who was on the road to enlightenment: that is, believing the same thing as me, and I am fully aware of how arrogant that sounds).

But where I have had some successes it has never been using just one technique. In addition, it is never easy to tell which method of persuasion is likely to be effective for a particular individual, so I have created a three step process which formalises by debating technique...

Step 1. Use facts.

My first instinct when debating controversial issues is to use facts. In general the issues I support can be easily supported with good evidence. But most people who believe in irrational ideas didn't get to that point by following the facts, because there never are many supporting them. So it often follows that they can't be moved by using facts either.

In addition there are always facts on both sides. Sometimes the "facts" on one side are barely facts at all (hence the quotes) but many people will believe an extremely doubtful or weak fact if it supports what they want to believe, even if there are a hundred which are much more certain against them.

Step 2. Use logic.

When step 1 fails it is often useful to try a process of logic. A complex idea can be broken down into a series of steps which logically follow and are difficult to deny. There doesn't necessarily have to be any facts involved in this because logic usually transcends facts.

Step 3. Use morality.

If both facts and logic fail a good backup strategy, depending on the actual subject under discussion, is to use a moral or ethical argument. While morals vary from one person to another to some extent, there are common concepts shared by most people, including fairness, non-violence, and freedom.

So now I should give an example. Obviously I'm not going into details because half my readers won't have even got this far and are unlikely to want to read 20 pages on the subject, but I will use a very condensed version of how I would handle the issue. So here's an imaginary debate between me and a fundamentalist Christian...

Fundy: The Bible says that God created humans, so evolution cannot be true, and following events described there it makes it obvious the world is only 6000 years old. The Bible also says that it is the inerrant word of God and that the devil is always trying to find ways to deceive us with false truths. Without the Bible to guide us we will have no moral compass and there will be increased violence and evil around the world.

Me: You say that evolution cannot be true yet almost every expert in the world has concluded it is. Also there are many lines of evidence which anyone can understand which show evolution is an accurate theory to describe the variety of life on Earth. The age of the world cannot possibly be that short and I can show you evidence from geology, biology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, and many other areas of science to show it is almost 14 billion years. The time light has spent travelling from distance galaxies shows this, for example. Let's get these fact-based claims out of the way before we move on to the other stuff.

Fundy: But the Bible has been shown to be accurate, so how can it be wrong? Also there are many scientists who don't believe in evolution or an old Earth. Here is a list of URLs for you to look at. Not following the Bible leads to you rejecting God's offer of salvation and you just don't want to admit his authority.

Me: The Bible is full of errors if you are prepared to accept scientific and historical evidence. For example, there is no evidence at all of major stories like Genesis, the Flood, Exodus, etc. These so-called scientists you cite are not publishing in scientific journals so I would say they are not practicing scientists. In fact most of them work at Answers in Genesis. If they are only looking in one place they will never be able to look at all the evidence. Let's keep to facts and forget about God's salvation for now.

Fundy: You have your facts and I have mine. Many serious researchers are religious and you cannot reject their research so easily. Also science changes all the time. Who can tell when a new theory might come along and contradict the Big Bang or evolution? You say yourself that science can never prove anything with 100% certainty, so why are you so sure that science is right and religion is wrong?

Me: Instead of just offering an opinion on who is doing science and who isn't, we should look at a standard which is widely accepted. People who are engaged in science publish in reputable journals. Anyone who isn't doing that isn't really doing science. They might still be right, but based on past experience the scientific consensus is far more reliable than anything else. And you are right, we can never be 100% certain of anything, but it is still reasonable to accept a theory which is 99% likely to be at least a good approximation to the truth (like evolution), instead of one we can be 99% certain is wrong (like creation).

Fundy: You may say that but because you have no moral basis for your views they are really arbitrary. Without God to guide you and tell right from wrong, how can your views be taken seriously?

Me: Well this gets back to an old question in philosophy regarding the goodness of god. But first, let me say that using a god who probably doesn't even exist as the basis of your morality seems worse than admitting that we really don't even have a basis. And even if we pretend that your god does exist, how do we know he is good? Is it because he says so? And if your god is good, is he good because he's god, or is he god because he's good? In other words if we know he's good then there must be some external criterion to judge that against, in which case why do we need a god anyway? And if whatever he does is good because he's god then that seems a dangerous view to take because any dictator could make that claim.

Fundy: Wait, what? We know God is good because that's one of the reasons we know he's the one true God. Can you not see the logic in this?

Me: All I can see is a circular argument: God is good because he's God. How do we know he's God? Because he's good. How do we know he's good? Because he's God.

Fundy: You know, that is a ridiculous simplification of a position that theologians have been debating for centuries. Do you really believe you have the answer to such a deep and meaningful problem?

Me: Well, yes. I think it really is that simple. The only reason it becomes complex is because many people want to reach a conclusion that supports the existence of a god. If they just followed the evidence they would see that it's really quite simple: that there is no good reason to believe a god exists.

Fundy: The Bible talks about people like you who use false logic to try to lead believers away from the truth. You do realise that you are risking eternal damnation for your excessive pride and inability to accept the authority of God, don't you?

Me: I know that according to the narrative of the New Testament your god prefers to inflict people who refuse to accept his dominance with eternal torture. This is the same god who is advertised as being the "God of love" and who has a prophet (Jesus) who preaches understanding and acceptance. This seems somewhat contradictory to me.

Fundy: God gives you the choice of believing in him or not. If you don't accept his offer you deserve all you get. He sacrificed his son so that you could have this hope of salvation, yet you refuse to take it.

Me: It's not a choice I make. I simply cannot believe your god exists. Should I pretend to believe when I really don't? Would God not know that I'm not being honest with him? And if your god wants me to believe in him why doesn't he make his presence more obvious? Why do I have to rely on faith which I cannot force myself to do that?

Fundy: His presence is obvious to most of us. Why do you think that most people in the world are Christians?

Me: Actually, they're not. Only a third of the population identify as Christians and even then that is purely a matter of their societal norms. You are a Christian because that is the history of the country you were born in. If you were born in India you would almost certainly be a Hindu. If you were born in Iraq you would be a Muslim. It seems that the god you follow depends on your culture, not on which (if any) god really exists.

Fundy: Well you seem to have convinced yourself that these false beliefs are true. I have tried to show you the truth but your pride prevents you from accepting it. Don't complain when you end up in Hell.

Me: Am I a bad person? Have I been guilty of any terrible crimes? I donate to charities, I am a productive member of my society, I don't harm any other people. Why do I deserve eternal damnation from this "loving God" of yours?

Fundy: God is just, and he is only doing what you deserve. It is not for me or you to judge whether he is right or wrong - he is God and can do whatever he likes.

Me: So a person who spends his whole life torturing, killing, etc and then accepts Jesus as his saviour shortly before dying goes to heaven, but a person who spends his life doing good, but cannot accept the teaching of your religion because there is no evidence, suffers forever. If that is how your god works then, even if he did exist, I would not accept him.

Fundy: And there's the proof that you are evil.

Me: OK, let's leave it there. Thanks for the discussion.

As you can see, in the fictitious example above (but one based on real experience) the fundy isn't converted on the spot, but I would hope that amongst the points I made: that the evidence is against him, that logic is against him, and that an understanding of basic fairness and morality is against him; there might be something to make him a little bit less certain than he was.

Or, maybe, he might exhibit the backfire effect and just "double-down" on his beliefs because they are shown to be probably untrue. But the three pronged attack makes that less likely because I have found that the final argument (the unfairness of God's punishment) often gets through to people when the more rational points don't.

Whatever the end effect is, debating this way is fun, and any progress - no matter how small - is OK with me.