The Tooth Fairy Has Greater Believability Than God

There’s a hundred times over more evidence for the existence of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny than there is for an almighty deity, oft called God. It’s rather disquieting that there’s massive amounts of evidence for what we don’t believe in, what we know is make-believe, yet no evidence at all for the reality of what multi-millions of individuals accept without question. Something is screwy somewhere.

What’s the reality of God vs. the reality of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny? Its child’s’ play really!

GOD

When it comes to deities, God (and Son) are pretty much the new kids on the block, which is really odd if you think about it if God is the one true god and has been here since, well, “In the beginning”. Polytheism has a far longer history and timeline than monotheism and even the first (and rather short lived) go at quasi-monotheism in Ancient Egypt had the Sun playing the role of Mister Big (the Aten). Religious scholars can trace the evolution of belief in deities from place to place and culture to culture and time to time. I like to think that God was created in the image of Zeus* who in turn was created in the image of even earlier deities that were worshiped by those earlier societies and so on back through the centuries, so far back in fact that one can trace unnamed fertility goddesses back into prehistoric time via artifacts that clearly had the same sort of meaning as today’s Christ-on-the-dashboard.     

SANTA CLAUS

What more can one say about Santa (or Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas or Kris Kringle) that hasn’t been stated hundreds of times before. Come Xmas time, indeed even months before Xmas, Santa and Santa’s image is everywhere. You’d have to be a hermit living in a cave somewhere out back of beyond, in Whoop-Whoop or some such place in order to escape Santa’s hype, or the hype about Santa. 

This character of originally and essentially European folklore can be traced back to the fourth century CE and can just about give God a run for the money in the longevity stakes

We all know what the modern Santa does and what products Santa is associated with and how Santa helps the shops bring in an extra buck or two or twenty. But at least Santa is an in-your-face sort of guy, not afraid to mix it with the kiddies (and should get a Victoria Cross, Medal of Honor, or similar medals for bravery above and beyond the call of duty).

On the other hand, kids don’t get to sit in God’s lap while at the shopping mall or department store. There’s no images of God on Xmas cards (or any other Xmas merchandise for that matter) so God’s pretty shy. Kiddies get no presents under the tree from God. God doesn’t stand on street corners ringing bells and collecting for charities.

THE EASTER BUNNY

The Easter Bunny (or Rabbit or Hare) that brings Easter Eggs to good little boys and girls is an ancient German tradition that predates the late 1600’s. So the Easter Bunny is certainly not a modern invention by the manufactures of chocolate in order to up the obesity rate.

The Easter Bunny is a tad more elusive than Santa though there have been occasional sightings around the Easter period of giant bipedal rabbits. Authority figures assure skeptical kiddies that the Easter Bunny is really real. Proof of that fact resides in all those Easter Bunny statues carved in and out of various kinds and brands of chocolate. Some Christians might call that idolatry; most call it tasteful, even yummy.  Then there are all those stuffed and cuddly Easter Bunny toys (more idolatry) and EB images appear on all sorts of Easter-related merchandise and goodies. So there’s lots of evidence that the Easter Bunny (or Bunnies) exist.   

On the other side of the Easter coin, God doesn’t provide yummy Easter treats; there are no cuddly stuffed God toys for young girls (and boys) to hug and snuggle up to in bed at night. God doesn’t sanction His image to be used at anytime in anyplace, far less the marketplace. IMHO I think God is ashamed of how He looks. God probably looks very old; very wrinkled; very gray and probably very naked.

THE TOOTH FAIRY

The Tooth Fairy is rooted in folklore that goes back to ancient Europe and Northern Europe (the Norse countries), spreading throughout at least primarily English speaking nations, so like Santa and the Easter Bunny, is hardly a new concept.

The Tooth Fairy is also a bit more elusive than Santa, but we have her (?) existence on record as testified by authority figures (i.e. – mom and dad) and the kids see the proof of the pudding next morning as in whatever the local exchange rate is between tooth enamel and the coinage of the realm.

God doesn’t give a royal stuff about your kid’s loose tooth and certainly isn’t going to give the kid so much as a red cent or even a wooden nickel for it.

In short, God can’t apparently be bothered to show His face and interact with humanity, especially the little children – although in retrospect, He’s perhaps showing good sense. Who really would want to interact and associate with all those hoards of noisy, screaming, drooling, smelly, foulmouthed, brats!!!

CONCLUSION

There’s no evidence for the existence of God, yet there is massive amounts of evidence for the reality of the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and especially Santa Claus. But we know that the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and especially Santa Claus are fictitious or mythological and have no basis in reality. So, from all of that, what can one conclude about the existence of God? What odds there really is a bona-fide supernatural deity who can’t be bothered to show up at the shopping mall and let little I’ve-peed-in-my-pants kiddies sit is His lap? What odds there really is a bona-fide supernatural deity who can’t be bothered to show up at Easter and give those little I’ve-crapped-in-my-pants brats a colored hardboiled egg or two? What odds there really is a bona-fide supernatural deity who doesn’t seem to give a damn about all those baby teeth from those little I’ve-spewed-all-over-my-pants babes-in-the-woods; He who can’t spare a bit of Holy Change?

* However, it is far more likely that the God of the Old Testament morphed out of the various Mesopotamia gods and was in transition from the ones to the other via that first monotheistic religion, Zoroastrianism. 



Erik Rush And Jim Garrow: Equals In Idiocy

There are those from all walks of life who hold extreme world views of the political, economic, religious, racial, ethnic, sexist, paranormal, environmental or climate change, etc. kind, even if those worldviews would be deemed irrational to 99 and 44/100ths percent of everyone else. Okay, if they sincerely believe in that worldview, even if extreme, well different strokes for different folks. It would be a very boring world if absolutely everybody agreed on absolutely everything.

However, extremists can cross the line between what’s extreme yet rational (to them) and what’s extreme and deranged. There are numerous people who are intelligent enough to spout off nonsense while knowing its nonsense. Unless they have a hidden agenda, that’s crossing the line between rational behaviour and a rational albeit extreme worldview and what really should be considered irrational even deranged behaviour and an irrational worldview even to them. Hidden agendas however often rear their ugly heads and include drawing unwarranted attention and publicity to yourself because you like to get public recognition that you are a Mr. Big, in the manner that some people confess to crimes they couldn’t possibly have committed in order to get into the headlines, on the news, and get their five minutes of public recognition sunshine.

Even so, irrational behaviour and extreme worldviews are usually harmless in the broader arena, but not all the time. Some of these are often featured on the People for the American Way project they term the Right Wing Watch. While the Right Wing Watch [RWW] website can be very entertaining – who doesn’t like being entertained by funny clowns* – some clowns can also be very disturbing.  Consider the following two irrational, IMHO, idiots with deranged worldviews.

ERIK RUSH

What do you tend to make of someone who is reported to hold the following views according to the website Right Wing Watch?

Conservative WorldNetDaily [WND] columnist and frequent Fox News guest Erik Rush is the name and being whacko is his game. For example:

“Erik Rush thinks Obama ‘murdered’ everyone on missing Malaysia Airlines plane.”

“Erik Rush: Founders would kill ‘the radicals in our government’.”

“Jim Garrow and Erik Rush call for executions of elected officials by hanging, firing squad.”

“Erik Rush: Obama is murdering critics.”

“Erik Rush: Obama is ‘enslaving’ white people.”

“Erik Rush: Government officials should be ‘hanging from D.C. like fruit’.”

“Erik Rush: Obama might be on drugs.”

“Erik Rush wonders if South Africa was better off under apartheid.”

“Erik Rush: Remove Obama from office ‘by any means necessary’.”

“Erik Rush: People who criticize me belong in jail.”

“Garrow & Rush: Obama should be tried and executed over mythical EMP plot.”

“Erik Rush: Obama is just like Damien from The Omen.”

“Erik Rush: Obama a Communist operative and ‘evil incarnate’.”

“Erik Rush wonders if Obama is in a satanic cult.”

“Erik Rush: Obama will begin staging hate crimes.”

“Erik Rush: ‘Insurrection’ needed before Obama begins ‘herding people into cattle cars’.”

“Erik Rush: Civil war needed to overthrow Obama before he imposes ‘the cruelest

totalitarianism’.”

“Erik Rush: ‘Narcissistic sociopath’ Obama using shutdown to ‘usurp complete power’.”

“Erik Rush: Navy Yard shooting carried out to prevent Obama from being arrested for treason.”

“Erik Rush: Obama engaging in triple cover-up of Benghazi.”

“Erik Rush links Obama to Okalahoma murder.”

“Erik Rush: Africa and India colonized because their people seemed ‘only a few steps out of the trees’.”

“Rush & Wiles: Obama’s civil war starting any day now.”

“Erik Rush: Obama is murdering everyone and I don’t need evidence to prove it.”

“Erik Rush: Muslim immigrants will be ‘Obama’s cutthroat foot soldiers’ & ‘incite the chaos that will necessitate martial law’.”

“Erik Rush: Journalists, who should be in jail, must stop Obama’s ‘tyranny’.”

“Erik Rush: Obama likely ‘orchestrated the attack’ in Benghazi and ‘deserves to be occupying a cell in some federal penitentiary’.”

“Erik Rush: Obama will allow terrorist attacks to declare martial law.”

“Erik Rush: ‘We have far more human garbage in this country than we ever ought to have tolerated.’

“Erik Rush wasn’t joking when he said kill Muslims.”

“Erik Rush: Kill all Muslims in response to Boston marathon attack.”

“Erik Rush: Same-sex marriage is an ‘anti-theistic, christophobic design of the Radical Left’.” 

“Erik Rush: There is a 50% chance Obama will cancel the 2016 elections and become a dictator.”

“Erik Rush: Obama and allies ‘merit being removed by force of arms’.”

“Erik Rush warns conservative leaders secretly support the imminent Obama dictatorship.”

“Erik Rush suspects Obama will classify Christians as ‘mentally ill and ship them off to an asylum’.”

“Erik Rush: Supporting gay rights like ‘capitulating to a developmentally disabled child’.”

“Erik Rush: ‘Street hustler’ Obama is building a ‘Communist state’.”

“Erik Rush: Obama emulating Stalin to pursue his ‘totalitarian end game’.”

“Erik Rush warns we will all soon ‘bow to Communist overlords’.”

“Erik Rush: Obama may cancel 2014 election to help bring ‘this nation under the heel of Communism’.”

“Erik Rush: Chinese military building bases in U.S and pushing new gun laws.”

“Erik Rush: ‘Supernatural evil’ and ‘mind-control’ behind rise of the Left.”

“Erik Rush: Obama bringing about the Apocalypse.”

“Erik Rush suggests Founders would hang ‘evil’ Obama for seeking to ‘enslave us’.”

“WND [columnist Erik Rush] floats armed resistance to Obama administration.”

“WND [columnist Erik Rush]: Gun violence part of Obama’s Marxist plot.”

“WND [columnist Erik Rush] warns of martial law during Obama’s second term.”

“WND columnist [Erik Rush]: prosecute liberals, journalists for treason.”

“WND columnist [Erik Rush] warns gay rights advocates will bring about the next Holocaust.”

I’m sure the Secret Service has this guy as a person of interest and on their ‘to be watched very closely’ list.

JIM GARROW

Then there’s Erik Rush’s sidekick, the even wackier Jim Garrow, oft interviewed by Rush. Here are some of Garrow’s offerings as reported by the Right Wing Watch [RRW].

“Garrow: Obama blew up missing Malaysia airlines plane.”

“Jim Garrow and Erik Rush call for executions of elected officials by hanging, firing squad.”

“Garrow: Get out of US before Obama tries to ‘wipe us out’.”

“Garrow: Obama will soon implement Sharia law and kill people by guillotine.”

“Garrow: Put Obama ‘in chains and under arrest’.”

“Garrow: Obama should be ‘put down’ like a ‘rabid dog’.”

“Totally stable Jim Garrow is angry that we’re [RRW] making him look ‘crazy’. “

“Garrow: God stopped Obama/Satan from killing me!”

“Garrow: Anti-Obama ‘coup is very close,’ ‘it’s time to revolt’.”

“Garrow: Obama will have you ‘wiped from the face of the earth’.”

“Garrow: Obama deserves to be killed for treason.”

“Garrow: Obama is ‘mentally ill’ and preparing to implement martial law.”

“Jim Garrow and Pete Santilli now openingly calling for military coup against Obama.”

“Garrow: Obama part of Arab-Chinese-Communist conspiracy, [Obama’s] children need DNA test.”

“Garrow: Obama tried to kill me!”

“Garrow: ‘Your days are numbered Bathhouse Barry” as guerrilla war against the government is about to begin.”

“Garrow suggests Obama had Hawaii health director killed as part of birther cover-up”

“Jim Garrow claims Reagan almost nuked Mecca and God stopped Obama from nuking US.”

“Garrow and Rush: Obama should be tried and executed over mythical EMP [electromagnetic pulse] plot.”

“The Obama-Soros conspiracy to nuke America and kill 300 million people exposed [by Jim Garrow]!”

“Garrow: Breitbart’s ‘big mouth’ got him, Michael Hastings and Tom Clancy all killed by President Obama.”

I’m doubly sure the Secret Service has this guy too as another person of extreme interest and definitely on their ‘to be closely watched’ list.

But surely Rush and Garrow can’t sincerely believe the bovine fertilizer they are spouting off. This is surely just a grab for attention. If Rush and Garrow sincerely believe in their own rhetoric, and in their rationality (they are not just play acting in order to bring attention to themselves for its own sake) then they are very dangerous individuals indeed.

* Not funny ha-ha but funny peculiar. Those peculiar and even frightening  extremist/fundamentalist Right Wing clowns like Congresswoman Michele (the end times are near) Bachmann; David (pseudohistory is my stock-in-trade speciality) Barton; Glenn (I do keep on rambling on) Beck; Senator Ted (the new messiah) Cruz; Gordon (anchors aweigh and let us pray) Klingenschmitt; and Sarah (green eggs and ham) Palin. 



Have You A Soul?

There would be few among us who would deny the existence of a soul; specifically their soul; probably of supernatural origin; and their ticket to an eternal afterlife – somewhere. But no matter how you slice and dice the concept, you open up a can of worms at every turn. And once those worms get loose, it’s near impossible to re-can them.

The concept of a soul tends to be one of those ideas shared across each and every culture, every society, every religion, nearly every philosophy, and from each and every historical period since recorded history began right up through and including modern 21^st Century times. As such, it is a concept that one has to come to terms with as one could hardly call such a universal concept trivial.

However, it must be noted that cultures of any kind can be very, very wrong. For example, the ancient Egyptians thought that the heart was the be all and end all of what made you, you and thus was left inside their mummies. The heart was your soul. The brain (mind) on the other hand was a worthless structure regarding the afterlife and was pulled out of the deceased and discarded.

Then there are the old standbys, no longer credible, that the Sun went around the Earth, the centre of the cosmos; the Earth was flat; the Earth was created in 4004 BC; natural disasters weren’t natural but supernatural; the atomic theory was nonsense; there were only four elements (air, earth, fire & water); racial and cultural superiority are obvious (if you were of that race or culture), and there are hundreds of other examples that proved really wrong that came from all possible walks of life.

Whether or not the concept of a soul proves to be another analogy to that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow remains to be ‘seen’.

Fundamental Characteristics

The generally accepted criteria part and parcel of the soul is: Only human beings have a soul. The soul is the essence of what makes you, you. The soul is alleged to be indestructible. The soul is separate and apart from the physical body (which has mass, takes up space and uses energy). The soul is immortal (starts at conception and goes on everlasting from that point) and according to some eternal (what would become your soul pre-existed your conception). There are many variations on the theme of the soul. Some say animals, even non-living things like mountains have a soul, but the above tends to be the norm. Some say you have more than one soul, a yin soul and a yang soul for example. The nice thing is that you can claim whatever you want to about the nature of your soul, or even the soul, and odds are nobody could contradict you with solid evidence.

Can of Worms: So what happens to all those immortal souls if the cosmos has a finite lifetime or lifespan?

The Nebulous (Non-Physical) Soul

If the soul is nebulous or incorporeal, that is it has no mass and uses up no energy and takes up no space.

Can of Worms: If the soul is your ticket to the afterlife, yet your soul is a non-substantial ‘substance’, then you exist in the afterlife as a non-substantial ‘substance’ (a contradiction in terms) which would mean you would be deaf and blind since you wouldn’t have ears or eyes; not even a brain to receive or neural networks to carry sensory signals. Of course you couldn’t touch, taste or smell either. If you didn’t have a physical brain; no neural network, with no neural chemistry to support this non-existing infrastructure, could you honestly claim (not that you could of course) to be you? Where would your personality, memories, emotions, creative abilities, etc. be housed, all of which require a substantial substance. Even ghosts*, assuming such things, are corporeal since they can be seen and heard and thus must be comprised of matter and possess energy. 

The Physical Soul

Some have suggested that the soul weighs about 21 grams but such claims have never been verified to the satisfaction of the wider based biological, medical, and theological communities. But if the soul has mass, then the soul is a physical thing.

Can of worms: If the soul is physical and has structure, modern medicine would know about it. Since modern medical textbooks don’t mention and place and identify and label the soul as an anatomical structure, it isn’t.

If the soul is biochemistry that’s disbursed through X (presumably the brain) then it would be subject to being altered by other chemistries resulting from aging, injury, drug use, sleep or lack of sleep, and all of the other solid, liquid and gaseous substances you ingest and excrete. That actually makes a bit of sense since the essence of you naturally changes over time but can also be altered by you accidentally or deliberately.

Can of Worms: If the soul is just chemistry then the ‘soul’ doesn’t go anywhere when you die. But at least chemistry is immortal, or at least the basic fundamental building blocks (i.e. – electrons, quarks, etc.) that make up chemistry are.

Origins of the Soul

Presumably your father’s sperm cell didn’t house your soul (or even half of it) and neither did your mother’s egg cell, so at conception you were soulless. Presumably therefore, if one accepts that conception is the beginnings of you and that you have a soul, presumably a soul was somehow naturally or supernaturally (usually the latter) a part of the conception process. Sperm and egg meet – no soul. One nanosecond later, the newly formed zygote now has a soul. Or, perhaps the acquisition of a soul in slightly further on down the track to allow for identical twins to have non-identical souls. Regardless of exactly when in that nine month gestation, before the baby pops out of the womb, it has acquired a soul.

Can of Worms: Say one has a five month old foetus, who received his or her soul at conception (by whatever means, natural or supernatural), but who is spontaneously aborted (naturally) at five months. Now presumably Christian theologians will tell you that five month old foetus went to Heaven. Now I ask, what does an eternal five month old foetus do in Heaven? Of what possible use is Heaven to a five month old foetus? I mean the foetus has no command of any communications ability (i.e. – language). It cannot read or write. It has no conception of good and evil or of sin. It knows bugger-all about religion and theology and God. It could not recognise any of its relatives like its natural parents when they go to Heaven. Would you like to spend eternity as a five month old foetus? The same could be said about a five day old blastula or a five hour old baby.

Evolution of the Soul

The self-aware you that is you changes over time; over the duration of your lifetime. Therefore, your soul, assuming a soul of course, must change over time. Therefore, if you get a soul at conception – by whatever means going – it must be a book of blank pages that can be written and written over again and again as you naturally change until the definite version is completed – at the moment of your death when change is no longer possible.

Can of Worms: Again, if the soul is incorporeal, how can it change (i.e. – evolve)?

Disposition and Fate of the Soul

Okay, you’ve kicked the bucket. Now what?

Can of Worms: See conclusions directly below.

Transmigration of the Soul

The equation isn’t one soul for one individual. Souls are too valuable to waste and so it’s one soul for many bodies, each in turn. The soul travels from body to body. As one body dies, the soul migrates to a newly formed body. Some suggest this is an ever upwards process from lower life form to higher life form. Others suggest that the playing field is level or that if you haven’t performed deeds up to expectations your soul can go downhill.

Can of Worms: That would mean that the contents of one’s soul get wiped clean or deleted between the time it leaves the newly deceased body and the time it enters a new body. How that happens isn’t clear whatsoever.

Conclusions

The soul, especially in connection with an afterlife, makes little actual sense at all. How can a something soul actually be nothing physical? If your soul is incorporeal then your so-called Heavenly afterlife is akin to being eternally asleep, comatose, in a vegetative state (i.e. – a ‘dead’ afterlife, for all practical purposes).

If your something soul is something physical then it stays with the body when you die – there is no mind (i.e. – soul) body duality.

* Ghosts have nothing to do with the soul since after death the soul resides in either Heaven or Hell or Purgatory. Ghosts are terrestrial – obviously.



Life After Death For Microbes

When you kick-the-bucket in this terrestrial abode and head off into that great eternal afterlife located in an even greater heavenly abode somewhere beyond the Pillars of Hercules (or equivalent), no doubt you expect an everlasting existence interacting with deities and of course your fellow, albeit also deceased, humans. But what about all the other terrestrial life forms (animals and plants). Don’t they too deserve their slice of the afterlife pie? No fear. You’ll find them too out back of beyond, or wherever ‘heaven’ resides.  

According to most religions, after your demise, you enter into the afterlife phase of your ‘life’. And apparently you will be sharing that afterlife with some rather exclusive company, just your fellow human beings*. There will be no other life forms present in Heaven, Hell or Hades, be they companion animals (pets), butterflies or vermin**. But if you stop and think about it, that’s nonsense. If you have an afterlife, all living things have an afterlife. 

Okay boys and girls, run this bit of wisdom past your local clergy.

Let’s be clear from the outset, you are not an organism. You are a colony of organisms. You call these individual colony members or organisms, cells***. Your body’s cells are living things in their own right.

Now chances are, you believe in an afterlife when you die, an afterlife that’s still within the physical realm of matter and energy. A non-physical afterlife would be hell indeed, since you couldn’t see, hear, touch, taste or smell, and all your lifetime memories, your personality, your creativeness, all encoded in your neurochemistry, your neurons, your brain cells, would go poof. Thus: that physical you, that’s now in a physical afterlife, is still a colony of unicellular living things or organisms. If you head to the afterlife, so do all the individual living cells that made you up, including sperm cells, eggs cells, blood cells and those all essential neurons.

The logical upshot of that is that each and every single-celled micro-organism, microbe, bacteria, etc. when it dies, goes to ‘heaven’, or whatever realm(s) you think houses the afterlife. For lack of something more suitable to label this location, let’s just equate afterlife with ‘heaven’.

Thus, every multi-cellular organism, in reality also a colony of single-celled organisms, goes to an afterlife upon their demise. Jellyfish, sponges, clams and oysters, snails and slugs, ants, newts, frogs, mackerel and  minnows, ravens and robins, pussy cats and puppy dogs, whales and dolphins, apes and monkeys, even plants go to a ‘life’ after death. So presumably, when you mow the lawn, all those soon to be dead grass cells will go to ‘heaven’. But at least when you get to ‘heaven’ any lawns there won’t need mowing – you couldn’t kill off anything that was having an eternal afterlife now could you? So, how cows and goats and horses get nourishment in ‘heaven’ would be a mystery.

Of course maybe you don’t need nourishment in the afterlife (so much for beer and pizza nights). That would solve a lot of problems, like the need for lions in their afterlife to kill lambs in their afterlife, but why then drag all of your digestive systems including blood circulation, liver functions, kidney functions, etc. along for the afterlife ride?

But then you can’t discriminate. Digestive cells are just as deserving of an afterlife as your (required) brain cells and neurons and nerve cells and sensory organs like eyes and ears. So in your afterlife you carry a lot of now useless baggage along, like your lungs. You no longer need to breathe in order to provide oxygen to your now immortal cells.

Further, any cell that’s part of a multi-cellular organism that expires before the rest of the colony of cells goes to ‘heaven’ or whatever (or should that be wherever?). Anything defined as alive, when it dies (as all things must even if it’s a bacteria that reproduces asexually generation upon generation), has an afterlife. That’s the logical upshot of believing that you have an afterlife. It makes no sense that your brain cells should accompany you to a ‘life’ eternal, yet a chimpanzee’s brain cells don’t because a chimpanzee doesn’t.

The proof of that pudding is that some animal cells, in the form of organs and tissues, can get transplanted into humans. Some body parts from pigs I believe are compatible for human transplantation, like heart valves. Now when the human who received that animal transplant dies and goes to ‘heaven’, isn’t it logical that the donated animal body bits go along for the afterlife ride?

As another little titbit offered up, consider the fact that 90% of you is not you at all. There’s all those trillions of bacteria and worms and mites and other hangers-on that live in your mouth and nose and guts and blood stream; those that are in your hair and on your skin thriving as parasites or even as symbiotic organisms. Most of these critters will die with you and go with you to ‘heaven’.  

Besides, you wouldn’t want to go to your afterlife without having all of your previously departed companion animals present to greet you at the Pearly Gates, now would you? And of course ditto for all those pets you now have whose demise will follow yours. You’ll want to be reunited with them too.

On the other hand, if pets ‘survive’ into the afterlife, and ditto microbes, then so will black plague bacteria, sharks, scorpions, man-eating tigers, icky spiders, cockroaches, rats, cobras, and any and every other nasty you can conjure up. Your own afterlife might not be so heavenly after all!

Now I keep talking about ‘heaven’ and not ‘hell’. Why? Because it would be difficult to argue that any biological cell can be or is sinful or evil. Therefore, all cells go to ‘heaven’ and by implication you must go to ‘heaven’ since none of your body cells deserve to go to ‘hell’!

On the other hand, maybe there’s no such thing as an afterlife, a ‘heaven’ or a ‘hell’ to spend eternity in, for anything from humble bacteria to the decidedly un-humble human.

The absurdity of it all! Not that the concepts that microbes have an afterlife, rather the concept that there even is an afterlife.

*That’s good to be with your friends and loved ones forever. That’s bad if it’s your ex, your mother-in-law, and your old supervisors that would just as soon fire you as look at you.

**That’s good – no pesky flies, mosquitos, cockroaches and rats. That’s bad – no pretty flowers, no good fishing (catch and release only of course) and no songbirds.

***Thus, when you die (i.e. – declared medically dead), you don’t really die in absolute totality in the interval from one heartbeat/breath to the lack of what would have been your next heartbeat/breath; you aren’t completely dead, since not all of those cells that make up you die at the exact same time that medical science says you have kicked-the-bucket. Of course all those not quite yet dead cells will shortly follow suit, but all up, unless you were at ground zero at Hiroshima or Nagasaki (or equivalent), the snuffing of all of your cells is a drawn out process, not something that’s instantaneous.



Science vs. the Religious Right: Part Two

The religion vs. science debate should have been settled and confined to the dustbin of history multi-generations ago. The fact that it still rages today sits squarely on the shoulders of those diehard never-give-in right wing religious fundamentalists who just keep on keeping on about how the ‘goat-herders’ who penned the Bible deserve all the Nobel Prizes for getting the science really right. No doubt the non-existent validity of the debate will continue to rage for generations to come.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

IN ADDITION

The Earth is the centre of the Universe (or firmament) and the Sun goes around the Earth and that religious point of view got lots of people who suggested otherwise into lots of trouble.

Scientists can’t determine the age of the Earth, nor can they determine what the origin of life was, for the extremely simple reason that they weren’t Johnny-on-the-spot and therefore actually present at the exact time and place of the happening.

Homosexuality/lesbianism is a free-will choice and has nothing to do with genetics or biochemistry or neurochemistry. You aren’t born gay any more than you’re born an astronomer or a criminal. Homosexuality is encouraged by the powers-that-be as a ways and means of population control. Satan also inspires and encourages homosexuality to cause the participants to be in direct disobedience and in defiance to God and God’s laws. Further, there are clear connections between homosexuality and paedophilia and bestiality, etc.

Fossils are a deliberate deception by Satan; or a deliberate deception by God in order to test your faith; or proof of that universal flood – take your pick.

Non-avian dinosaurs and human beings coexisted, religious fundamentalists citing fossil dinosaur and human footprints check-by-jowl embedded into rocks (in Texas). Dinosaurs were therefore on Noah’s Ark (which means Noah’s Ark had to have been just a tad larger than the Bible says it was).

There was no evolution by natural selection, just intelligent design and creationism by a Creator God. God created all species as is. Humans did not evolve from apes. Teaching and accepting evolution is apparently an evil Jewish plot according to some! Further, evolutionists support abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research.

There are no ‘natural’ disasters only acts of God (as in displays of God’s wrath). It’s been claimed by those Right Wing religious fundamentalist types that whenever God is pissed off, He sends His wrath via a ‘natural’ disaster. So, any tornado or hurricane or blizzard or earthquake or wildfire, etc. isn’t really ‘natural’, rather its an Act of God’s punishment. However, it’s rather amazing that tornados tend to happen in roughly the same areas at roughly the same time of year; ditto hurricanes; ditto blizzards; ditto wildfires; ditto floods. You don’t tend to get massive earthquakes other than in well known fault zones and thus earthquake prone areas. You don’t get volcanoes erupting in areas not known to be tectonically active. Now if ‘natural’ disasters were really Acts of God, you might expect God to produce the occasional blizzard in Southern California in July; or how about 40 straight days and nights of rain in Death Valley; New York City becoming ground zero for a massive earthquake or volcanic eruption; a tornado outbreak in Alaska in January; or wildfires in areas of high rainfall and high humidity. If ‘natural’ disasters are Acts of God, why doesn’t God have an asteroid striking Chicago or a comet spanking Las Vegas or for that matter institute a massive solar flare or coronal mass ejection to blanket the entire US of A?  Even more central, why does God have to hide behind Mother Nature’s skirts in the first damn place? Why doesn’t God take a leaf out of His earlier wrath-filled up-yours and smite the first born?

Environmentalism (i.e. – the Green Dragon) is out to destroy Christianity, destroy America and replace it with fascist tyranny! In fact, the ultimate objective of environmentalists is to kill off 95% of humanity! After all, didn’t God say to humanity to “be fruitful and multiply” and subdue the earth and take dominion over the earth (and basically rape and pillage – Genesis 1:28) which has any greenie spitting chips!

Stem cell research is equivalent to Nazism.

We’re well aware that some fundamentalists reject vaccinations and blood transfusions and will allow their child to die rather than allow any medical procedures that they see as ungodly and against Biblical teachings. 

Anything fundamentalists don’t like, like say birth control, will be linked to anything and everything nasty, like AIDS, and by extension, all disease is caused by sinful activities. In a similar fashion, if you accept any ungodly tenants, like evolution, you are way more prone to be antisocial and of criminal intent. Mass murderers are all Darwinists.

In a variation of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, one finds fundamentalist Christians supporting Islamic fundamentalists (otherwise strange bedfellows) since the latter do not accept and undermine Darwinian evolution.

Any normal museum that exhibits anything on physical or cultural anthropology that doesn’t reflect and give credit to the Almighty and God’s holy word is just asking for trouble.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

There’s more that you probably didn’t know.

According to Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association:

* The laws of thermodynamics are detailed in the Bible although Fischer tends to muddy the waters by mixing up the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

* Jesus is the entity that holds together the nucleus of an atom. [What held the nucleus together before the birth of Christ isn’t related by Fischer, assuming there even ever was a supernatural Christ of course.]

* Only God can alter the climate. Humans have nothing to do with any global warming. Global warming is pure junk science. Further, God created fossil fuels for the benefit of mankind and so to refuse to use them (in favour of renewable sources like wind or solar energy) is an insult to God. Trying to prevent climate change is anti-Christian.

If you have a spare couple of weeks, tune into the Right Wing Watch (RWW) website, or his videos on YouTube for tons more Fischer idiocy.

Bryan Fischer isn’t the only rather fishy fundamentalist going.

Just touching a very few of the highlights (via the RRW) from the patriarch of the extreme religious fundamentalists, Pat Robertson, and so-called self-proclaimed prophet Cindy Jacobs, is more than enough to make any scientist turn in their lab coat and head for the hills. Again, you can few more of them (if you must) on YouTube – far better on an empty stomach however  

PAT ROBERTSON

“[Robertson’s] 700 Club: Climate change helps environment and civilization, SUV owners treated like witches.”

“Robertson: Expect natural disasters and divine wrath over Middle East peace talks.”

“Robertson: Environmentalists may cause the deaths of ‘a couple billion people’.”

“Robertson lashes out at ‘doctrinaire’ environmentalist ‘fanatics’.”

“Robertson dismisses ‘nutty,’ ‘true believer’ climate scientists.”

“Pat Robertson blames drought on Americans who ‘ignore the laws of God with impunity’.”

“Robertson: Scientists ‘can’t speculate about the origins of life’.”

“Pat Robertson says Satan is behind homosexuality and abortion rights.”

“Pat Robertson says people could have stopped deadly tornadoes through prayer.”

“Robertson calls Oklahoma earthquake a sign of the end times”

“Robertson suggests crack in the Washington Monument was a sign from God.”

“Robertson: Asteroid will destroy the Earth.”

CINDY JACOBS

“Cindy Jacobs heals broken cheek bones and her own tumours.”

“Cindy Jacobs’ prayers can cure insanity.”

“Cindy Jacobs’ five-year-old daughter can stop tornadoes.”

“God miraculously made a pair of Cindy Jacobs’ shoes last for years.”

“Jacobs warns Obama’s ‘anti-Biblical’ policies have led to ‘floods and fires and more’.”

“Cindy Jacobs: I have the power to revive dead children.”

“How Cindy Jacobs reversed a hysterectomy.”

“[Jacobs]: We are seeing natural disasters ‘because sin has reached Biblical proportions.”

“Jacobs: The DC earthquake is a sign from God to share the gospel.”

“Jacobs: God is using earthquake to break Japan’s pagan idolatry.” 

“Jacobs: Birds are dying because of DADT [Don’t Ask Don’t Tell] repeal.”

“Jacobs and Pierce issue warning that CA [California] will be destroyed by earthquake if Prop 8 is struck down.”

“When Cindy Jacobs caused Washington DC to flood.”

On that note, I might just head for the hills myself!



Science vs. the Religious Right: Part One

The religion vs. science debate should have been settled and confined to the dustbin of history multi-generations ago. The fact that it still rages today sits squarely on the shoulders of those diehard never-give-in right wing religious fundamentalists who just keep on keeping on about how the ‘goat-herders’ who penned the Bible deserve all the Nobel Prizes for getting the science really right. No doubt the non-existent validity of the debate will continue to rage for generations to come.

There are those religious fundamentalists who claim that all you need to know about science is contained within the Old and the New Testaments of the Bible. Not only is the Bible a religious text, an historical document, but it’s a science textbook too chock full of astronomy, geology, meteorology, biology, medicine, etc. And should there ever be a disagreement between nerdy white-coated scientists in jeans and God Almighty’s holy word, well it’s a no-brainer; no contest – God always wins – in God we trust not nerdy Einstein-types. Any science that undermines your faith in God, etc. is a false science. Real science proves the bona-fides of the Bible.

The fact that such Right Wing Christian fundamentalists say this with a straight face and sincerely (apparently) believe this claptrap is actually a tad frightening. In any other context they appear to be intelligent, articulate, sane and rational beings! But then again, how many people have been taken aback to find out that their wonderful and lovely next door neighbour was a serial killer, kidnapper, paedophile, or a closet white supremacist pseudo-Nazi.     

Fundamentalists though in general, when pressed, admit they aren’t scientists, but that doesn’t stop them from bucketing any science that rubs their personal worldview the wrong way. One common argument is that science is fundamentally limited since it can only explain the natural, whereby supernatural philosophy (i.e. – Right Wing Christianity) explains all. The natural in their opinion or belief is just a minor subset of all things supernatural.

SCIENCE vs. RELIGION

There has been quite a number of various religious vs. scientific issues hotly debated over time.

The Earth is (religion) or is not (science) the centre of the Universe. Science won that issue.

The age of the Earth is less than 10,000 years old (religion); way, way, way more than 10,000 years old (science). Science won that debate too though diehard religious fundamentalists haven’t conceded any ground.

Most recently, starting with Charles Darwin in 1859 (“The Origin of Species”) down to the Scope’s (Monkey) Trial in 1925 and ongoing today is that Homo sapiens were made in God’s image (religion) vs. Homo sapiens were the product of natural (Darwinian) selection and evolution from primate ancestors (science). Creationism is pure science; evolution is junk or false science according to the religious right. The names that fundamentalists call evolutionists would make many a blue-water sailor blush!

It’s that most recent issue, evolution (science) vs. creationism/intelligent design (religion) that mainly dominates the debate today. You could make a journalistic career just following, covering and reporting on the ever ongoing battles between creationists, educational institutions and authorities, politicians, and scientists over whether science curricula and textbooks should be giving equal space to God and intelligent design vis-à-vis Darwinian evolution.

But intelligent design is absolute nonsense upon reflection. God, the so-called intelligent designer, places the female sex organ sandwiched right between the two waste elimination orifices. That’s intelligent? And the male sex organ does double duty sharing a common tube as a liquid waste elimination apparatus. That’s intelligent? Speaking of tubes, how often has the food/drink you inputted ended up doing down the wrong tube – the windpipe instead of the oesophageus? Painful, isn’t it? It’s also potentially lethal – people have choked to death. So, is that intelligent designing in operation? 

And if humans are God’s personal favourite intelligently designed creatures, why create other creatures and natural scenarios than render that intelligently designed human into a prematurely dead intelligently designed human? I mean if the Godly created bacteria and viruses don’t get you, the puffer-fish, scorpion and snake venom might instead, assuming the sharks, lions and tigers don’t have you for a midmorning snack first. And if life doesn’t end your life, there are tornadoes, earthquakes, lightning bolts, tsunamis, and a whole host of other meteorological, geological and even astronomical phenomena just waiting to put you six feet under. Conclusion: so much for a loving God looking after His favourite intelligently designed flock.

BIBLICAL ‘SCIENCE’

But let’s go back to the Biblical truth about all things scientific. We all know the standards:

The Bible is literally true; scientifically accurate. Science according to the Bible requires that:

* Life, the universe and everything was created in just six days somewhere roughly around 4004 BCE and any evidence to the contrary of an earth billions of years old (i.e. – radioactive dating; geochronology) is the work of that great deceiver, Satan.

* Adam was created from the dry dust of the earth despite that fact that a human is roughly 70% water.

* Eve was created from Adam’s rib which means Eve should have been, genetically speaking, a male.

* There was a universal flood which requires the creation (and later destruction) of an additional and massive inventory of water out of nothing in defiance of conservation laws.

* Noah’s Ark carried two (or sometimes more) individuals (male and female) of every (presumably bisexual) species. Okay, that’s fine, but that must include the New Zealand flightless kiwi bird; every species of Antarctic penguin; the Australian koala; and the dodo bird of Madagascar. Am I the only one who sees a problem here?

* Some Biblical characters lived in excess of 900 years, but such longevity hasn’t been observed in recent post-Biblical times so don’t get your expectations up, no matter how religious and God-fearing you happen to be.

* A bush refused to be consumed by fire, an obvious case of the application of high-tech fire retardant in use thousands of years ago.

* The Red Sea parted over a rather lengthy time period in order to allow hundreds of thousands of pedestrians to ‘cross with the green’ and then un-parted so that another set of pedestrians got run down by trying to cross against the sudden red traffic light. Such a phenomenon has never been witnessed since so a one-off report doesn’t have much credibility.

* The sun and moon stood still in the sky and thus for the duration the Earth ceased rotating on its axis.

* Unicorns exist (and no doubt so do Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy).

* Life actually begins before conception according to Jeremiah 1:5!

* Jonah lived undigested for three days in the belly of a large fish. Jonah must have had on hand an extraordinary supply of antacids in order to prevent being dissolved and turned into or assimilated as fish food.

* Mary reproduced asexually – the virgin birth – which means Jesus should have been born a woman, again, genetically speaking.

* Jesus walked on water in defiance of gravity. Newton and Einstein are not amused at this parlour trick!

* Loaves and (dead) fishes multiplied – the creation of something from nothing yet again.

* Presumably the lion will lie down with the lamb (and also presumably if the lion isn’t hungry).

* There were resurrections (life after death). That’s no big deal any longer in this modern age of medical ‘miracles’.

To be continued…



Round Three of Some Random Irreligious Thoughts

Sometimes you have a new thought, an idea, or eureka moment, but it’s not gutsy enough to expand into a reasonable length article or essay. So, here’s a third potpourri of thoughts that won’t exactly put me in a favourable light with any deities (if any) that are too good not to record, but with not enough meat available to flesh out. 

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* Despite anti gay, anti same-sex unions, anti marriage equality sentiments vehemently expressed ad nausea by extremists from the religious Far Right Wing, and endlessly going on and on and on about how the Bible states or defines marriage as between one man and one woman and thus the constitutional legality of gay marriage is a violation of God’s law, I fail to find any such Biblical reference or conformation. It’s certainly not one of the Ten Commandments!

I fail to spot in Genesis where Adam and Eve were actually married, or for that matter even in love. Adam and Eve were living in sin right under God’s righteous nose! Well one could suggest that Genesis 2: 21-24 suggests marriage since the word “wife” is used in the last verse, but that was a generality statement that is apparently nonsense since that same verse also uses the term “mother” and “father” before there ever was such a thing as parents or parenting. There is no place that says Adam and Eve were married or were husband and wife. There’s a sort of rehash in Mark 10: 6-9; Matthew 19: 4-6; and Ephesians 5: 31 whereby if you take the generality phrase, one not referring to any specific pair or twain of individuals, that phrase “one flesh” might be a synonym for “marriage”. However, since the Bible makes ample use of the word “marriage”, well it should just come right out and say “marriage is between one man and one woman” – but it doesn’t. 

Overall, marriage as defined between one male and one female might be implied in the Bible, but it is never specifically stated. However, that didn’t stop a lot of the upper crust patriarchs from practicing polygamy (Genesis 29: 15-30). 

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* Of all the various worldviews people possess, they seem most inclined to fight over their concept of God, not over country, not over politics, but over their religion. It’s been said there many times that while good people do good things and bad people do bad things, it takes God and religion to make good people do bad things.

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* Anyone who has made more than a cursory examination of the ‘ancient astronaut’ theory knows how incredibly popular the concept is. Ancient alien (was God as astronaut) books like Von Daniken’s “Chariots of the Gods” (and film) are bestsellers. In fact I understand that the History Channel’s documentary TV series “Ancient Aliens” is their most viewed and the best selling DVD they have put out. Then there have been sci-fi movies and TV series like “Stargate” that have picked up on the theme, as well as countless documentaries, websites, and articles. Collectively, all of this testifies that the idea has hit a very responsive neve indeed. People perhaps realise that there is something highly unusual, even anomalous about the human species, the origins of humanity and our ancient history that traditional religions and supernatural deities inadequately come to terms with, fail with plausible explanations, fail entirely with respect to these hundreds of enigmas. 

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* If Islam is the religion of peace, how come so many Muslims kill other Muslims (Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.)? Not that that is a bad thing, mind you. That in fact should be applauded even encouraged. The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim, IMHO.

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* Of all the follies that humanity has ever embraced, belief in a supernatural deity ranks head-and-shoulders above anything else. Never have so many have spent so much time on absolutely nothing. It boggles the mind. It would be absolutely hilarious were it not for the massive degree of death and suffering religious belief has inflicted on the relatively helpless. It’s a pity that all those true believers will never have any coming to terms with their delusions since once they snuff it, there’s no resurrection or afterlife to bask in.

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* Name the most evil thing Satan or Lucifer did (past tense) in the Bible. Now name the most evil thing God did (past tense) as related in the Bible. Now ask yourself, who is the more evil of the two? Who most approximates Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, Saddam Hussein, and those of a similar ilk? If you should spell that entity’s name backwards, you should get a K9. 

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* It’s been claimed by those Right Wing religious fundamentalist types that whenever God is pissed off, He sends His wrath via a ‘natural’ disaster. So, any tornado or hurricane or blizzard or earthquake or wildfire, etc. isn’t really ‘natural’, rather its an Act of God’s punishment. However, it’s rather amazing that tornados tend to happen in roughly the same areas at roughly the same time of year; ditto hurricanes; ditto blizzards; ditto wildfires; ditto floods. You don’t tend to get massive earthquakes other than in well known fault zones and thus earthquake prone areas. You don’t get volcanoes erupting in areas not known to be tectonically active. Now if ‘natural’ disasters were really Acts of God, you might expect God to produce the occasional blizzard in Southern California in July; or how about 40 straight days and nights of rain in Death Valley; New York City becoming ground zero for a massive earthquake or volcanic eruption; a tornado outbreak in Alaska in January; or wildfires in areas of high rainfall and high humidity. If ‘natural’ disasters are Acts of God, why doesn’t God have an asteroid striking Chicago or a comet spanking Las Vegas or for that matter institute a massive solar flare or coronal mass ejection to blanket the entire US of A?  Even more central, why does God have to hide behind Mother Nature’s skirts in the first damn place? Why doesn’t God take a leaf out of His earlier wrath-filled up-yours and smite the first born?

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* If Hell is here on Earth, then you’d think the fire and brimstone must have been extinguished when Noah had to sail the really, really, really high seas!

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* I find it quite amazing that so-called Christian, God-loving, God-fearing, God-believing nations will at the drop of a bible wade into the internal affairs of other nations for their perceived wrongdoings and crimes against humanity. Most recently, Syria comes to mind, along with Afghanistan and Iraq, but right back through WWII and WWI and so on and so forth also springs to mind. The oddity is that while professing to believe in an all-powerful, all-wise, all-seeing, Almighty God of justice, they have absolutely no faith or belief that that very deity will actually strut His stuff and deal with the situation at hand. What makes that even odder is that’s exactly what God did historically – Exodus anyone? So, these goody-two-shoes Christian nations while believing in a just and a righteous God don’t believe that just and righteous God will do bo-diddily squat to give modern truth to that belief, and so take matters into their own hands.

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* The attraction of virtual reality (the simulated universe) or of ancient astronauts, is that you have a ‘creator god’ without having to resort to a supernatural universe, force and/or deity as an explanation for life, the universe and everything (virtual reality) or the ‘creation’ via artificial selection of the human species (ancient astronauts).

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* Contrary to everyone’s opinion, the human species is not God’s favourite creation. By the numbers, it would appear that God loves beetles most of all; thousands of times over that of the lone human species, maybe because beetles toe the line!