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. 



More Random Irreligious Thoughts

* Imagine the following: Destroy every religious text of any persuasion in existence; eliminate every religious institution; sack anyone involved in organised religion (or even disorganised religion); purge the name of any and every deity ever proposed, and then for good measure wipe clean the memories of every person with respect to anything and everything to do with religion in any shape, manner or form. Let’s turn the entirety of humanity into a flock of another kind, just like real sheep who presumably have no concept of all the sorts of things religions go on, and on, and on about.

Firstly, that would make for a much more peaceful planet, but that’s not my real point here. If the human race all of a sudden had no inkling of religion and associated rituals like prayer, deities, and thou shall nots, and miracles, and associated baggage - the slate wiped clean – would we invent it all over again and if so would it all be in the same old form as we know it now?

All of our religions cannot possibly be correct, but all of them could be wrong. Assuming that’s the case, could there be out there a really bona-fide god or gods – supernatural deities – with some sort of associated baggage that we have no comprehension of? Say these hypothetical supernatural entities have never made contact with Planet Earth.

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* Why is religion (and history too for that matter) so popular vis-à-vis say science or economics. Religion (and history) is told in story form and we’re natural born story tellers and recipients of say bedtime stories. Whole bookstores and libraries are filled with variations of “once upon a time” “they lived happy ever after”. There are multi-tens of thousands of movies and TV shows that play upon our need for stories. So that’s one reason. Another reason that religion is so popular is that it comes as a package deal. All the Big Questions (is there a God, your purpose, the meaning of life, free will, your soul, an afterlife, etc.) are wrapped up together in a nice box with a lovely pink ribbon. Reject religion, reject the pretty box of answers to your Big Questions, and you have to actually do some hard intellectual yakka to find out your own answers to those questions, individually, one at a time. So most take the easy road, the package deal, instead of striking out on their own, seeking their own intellectual answers come what may.

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* In May of 2013, the current Pope (as noted on the “Huffington Post”) said that atheists were okay for salvation and a place in heaven providing they had lived the sort of life that God intended. Alas, the very next day a spokesperson for the Vatican refuted that – no way can an atheist get on the good side. Well, so much for papal infallibility! It really is all so phoney – an absolute joke. 

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* Miracles (if they exist) are God’s correction fluid (whiteout) – assuming God exists. If existence is affirmed on both counts that actually makes a mockery of an all-knowing, all-powerful supernatural deity since it would have been logical and preferable to have set in train the necessary conditions that would have negated the need for a later miracle. For example, don’t bother to raise the dead; rather ensure they don’t snuff it in the first place!

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* Despite many references in the Bible of God talking to someone, Adam and Eve, Cain, Jacob, Jonah, Moses, etc. we never get an actual description of what God looks like. He speaks in a cloud or as a burning bush. All images of God, artworks, are of the human imagination. So, what did God really look like and why was He ashamed to actually show His face (something true unto this very day). Perhaps God doesn’t want to be seen because He was starkers – absolutely naked – and perhaps, assuming some mortal actually saw God, well no one dares mention the ‘emperor’ who has no clothes. If humans were made in God’s image, and God was ashamed of His nudity (as Adam and Eve were ashamed of there lack of clothing post their nibbling on a forbidden snack), then perhaps that accounts for our reluctance in most public environments to show off our birthday suits.

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* If you’re really honest about things, what’s THE most important wish list part or objective or goal or aspect of your life? Is it money? Is it power? Is it reputation? Is it winning the Nobel Prize? Is it success? Is it having the most perfect family? Is it pitching a perfect major league ballgame? Is it becoming POTUS, or perhaps Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Is it (fill in the blank)? No! More likely as not, your number one priority it is NOT DIEING! Well good luck with that ‘cause it ain’t gonna happen.

So, what’s the next best objective? An afterlife! Why? What’s really annoying about snuffing it is lose of consciousness. The idea that your consciousness that you spent a lifetime building up from scratch will just dissolve into grey goo to be consumed by bacteria is pretty abhorrent. If you have an afterlife, the minimum you must retain is consciousness or self-awareness. You may still be old and grey and can’t get it up; you may not have access to alcohol and tobacco and other similar addictions; you may only get TV reruns and old magazine issues to read; you favourite pizza may not be on the menu; you may even have to share your afterlife with your ex-boss, or your ex or your in-laws, others you’d rather not share anything with or be within ten miles (or kilometres) of; in short not everything will be just hunky-dory, but at least you’ll retain your consciousness for all eternity (and be bored witless even before the first several thousand years or so passes by). Is that a price you are willing to pay?

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* There are many, probably a majority of the population, who will claim to have had some sort of up close and personal experience with God, or Jesus, or angels, or some sort of supernatural entity. They will of course use that very personal experience as not only evidence, but proof that God, etc. exists. And it is extremely difficult to counter argue their conviction based on their experience. However, I too have had an intense up close and personal experience too, but one which I’m sure shows that these sort of profound spiritual experiences are some combination of wishful thinking (a desire to believe) and mental hallucinations. 

Now like many hundreds of thousands, even millions of people, I like to put out food for wild birds, especially in environmentally stressful times like winter or during a drought. Over the course of many years, I’ve had thousands of visitations – what bird is going to turn down an easy free feed? At the end of the day, there’s usually some cleanup to be done like sweeping up all the leftover birdseed husks, etc. And so it came to pass one early evening, I was waiting for two birds to finish up before I did the daily cleanup. And in due course they flew off, up over my roof. And so I went outside to start the cleanup, but there sitting on the apex of the roof were the two birds. As I looked up at them, they looked back at me, and for some inexplicable reason, I received a telepathic message from the two birds: “thanks for all the food; we’ll be back tomorrow”. And then they flew off. It was so real an experience that I just stood there stunned, in fact so moving was that experience, so bonding was that human-animal encounter that tears immediately started welling up in me.   

This was the first and only time I ever had such a vivid even spiritual feeling that remains as vivid and as spiritual now as it did seconds after the fact. But clearly I was imagining the whole thing. Birds cannot speak the human language. Telepathy doesn’t exist far less exist between birds and humans. Birds probably have no concept of being given a gift and thus no mental concept of giving thanks.

So yes, when someone says they had an up close and personal encounter with God (or equivalent), I’m sure that they are 100% sincere and a believer. But I’m equally convinced it’s a case, as was mine with the two birds, of self-deception.

A Few Random Observations

We’ve probably all seen videos of evangelical or fundamentalist prayer, revivalist, etc., etc. meetings. Now I assume that God, assuming a God of course in the first place, has 20/20 hearing. So why is it necessary for all and sundry leading these meetings to scream their bloody fool heads off? Who are they really trying to impress by risking not only laryngitis but their vocal cords? I mean it’s not small and normal “hallelujah, praise the Lord!” but “HALLELUJAH, PRAISE THE LORD!!!” only in even larger type than this.

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Is it my imagination or have I noticed that the extreme religious right wing, those vehemently anti gay, anti same-sex marriage, anti abortion, anti national health care, anti environmentalism (i.e. – climate change), anti gay-adoption, always happy to attack non-religious institution and people for their bucketing or ignoring of Biblical teachings, are absolutely silent when it comes to giving a thumbs down on the child sex abuse issue by various religious institutions and personnel. Any religious institution is good and God-fearing by definition; anything else isn’t good and has turned their back on God.

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Christianity, be it the extreme right wing variety of fundamental evangelism or the more middle-of-the-road varieties, is based on one and only one thing – that God exists. Yet they never, ever, offer up any proof, or even evidence of that alleged ‘fact’ except to endlessly and endlessly quote the Bible – a very suspect document IMHO. From the pope right on down the theological line to your local vicar, no proof, even evidence, is in the offering. 

If I accuse someone of something, say murder, then the burden of proof is on me to show beyond any doubt that that someone is guilty as charged, not on that someone to prove anything to the contrary. In like fashion, if someone claims that God exists and has certain attributes, then the burden of proof is on that person to prove his or her claim.

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Latest loony bit from the religious right – God does not want you (or anyone) to retire, because the word “retirement” or “retire” does not appear in the Bible! God does not want you to retire because people who retire begin to then suffer the consequences of rapidly deteriorating health – God doesn’t want that!

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There have been numerous attempts to find the Biblical Garden of Eden; all have failed. But all you really need to do is find the Cherubim and the Flaming Sword that God left to guard the east access to the Garden and the Tree of Life after He gave Adam and Eve the boot out of Paradise (Genesis 3:24). What could be easier? I mean how many Cherubim and Flaming Swords do you see day to day? There’s nowhere in the Bible that states that they have been relieved of duty, so they must still be standing guard. Surely someone must have seen them in recent times.

See Also: Wilensky-Lanford, Brook; Paradise Lust: Searching for the Garden of Eden; Grove Press, New York; 2011.

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There are many hundreds of alleged relics associated with Jesus, his family, disciples, the evangelists, etc. Unfortunately, none surfaced until hundreds, sometimes many, many hundreds of years after the fact. There are often multiple copies of relics, ach claiming to be THE one true relic. There are enough pieces of the holy [wooden] cross floating around to build Noah’s Ark! Anything subjected to actual scientific analysis and dating has failed to date to the relevant time frame or when it should of. Most churches refuse to allow holy relics in their possession to be subjected to scientific analysis – they probably don’t want their illusions shattered. But no amount of proof that a relic is a fraud will shake the belief of the true believer.

See Also: Nickell, Joe; The Jesus Relics: From the Holy Grail to the Turin Shroud; The History Press, Gloucestershire, U.K; 2008.

Monotheistic Religion: Why Adopt One?

Given that the Bible is the most contradictory and illogical text that’s alleged to be non-fiction, it’s a wonder anyone puts any stock in the Christian religion, the Bible, God and associated entities. But, billions have and do. Why? Well religion puts you in the driver’s seat. You adopt religion because you’re a selfish bastard! “Why believe” is a no-brainer since there’s a lot to be said for the “what’s in this for me” question and religion markets itself by offering you a theological banquet.

When you cast your vote, when you apply for a job, when you choose to live here rather than there, when you shop at this store rather than this other store, you are probably making decisions based around the concept of “what’s in this for me?’. This candidate promises to give me stuff, I’ll vote for her. This job has a lot of lurks and perks so I’ll apply for it. This location has a lower rate of muggings so I’ll move there. This store has cheaper prices so that’s where I’ll shop. Do I marry this very lovely woman of a fairly low socioeconomic status or a slightly plainer gal who has a very, very rich father? What’s in it for me indeed! Why should it be any different when choosing religion vs. no religion? Okay, here are a few of those ‘what’s in it for me’ reasons for religious belief over atheism.  

Religion answers my every question: Why is this so? That’s the way God wanted it and no correspondence will be entered into over the matter. Why is that so? God works in mysterious ways and doesn’t owe you any further explanations and that’s all you really need to know about that. Easy! You don’t have to think. You don’t have to study. You don’t have to experiment. No matter what the question is, the answer is God.

Religion’s my readymade easily handy scapegoat: When it comes to your misfortunes, someone else is always to blame. Why did it rain on my parade? God rained on my parade! It was an Act of God. Why did I sin? The Devil made me do it! No matter what happens to you, the good, the bad and the ugly, your can pin it all on your version of theology.

Religion offers me up my afterlife: You don’t want to die, but you will. Well, the next best offering on offer is to return from the dead as it were. Only religion offers up the option of a resurrection. You get an afterlife, and not just any afterlife, but one that just keeps on keeping on. Wow! But you need runs on the board to get selected. So, you gather up lots of brownie points towards your life everlasting; everlasting life; eternal life; life eternal; or just plain old immortality, whatever you wish to call it, when you go to church and read your Bible and pray and put $$$ in the collection plate, etc. So, when the time comes and you’re called to account, well you can always answer that you did your bit, not so much for queen and country but for God and Heaven - now let me into and past those pearly gates Saint Peter! Eternity, here I come!

Religion gives me carte blanche universal justification: You can justify just about anything with the Bible, and therefore God, as your authority. You want to stone to death a disobedient child? God says that’s okay. You want to keep slaves. That’s okay too. Or, you could commit a terrorist act on a wicked city – ditto. I doubt the Bible says anything about littering or jaywalking or failure to pay child support, but if it did, I’m sure God would OK that too. There’s the unwritten eleventh commandment: “Thou shall do it if the means justify the ends” – the Egyptians learned that the hard way; ditto the Canaanites and a lot more in addition. There’s the unwritten twelfth commandment – “Do as I say not as I do”, so with God’s ringing endorsement, you can take that philosophy and apply it to your own set of circumstances as often as necessary. 

Religion vs. my self-preservation: If you read your Old Testament, you’re well aware that God has a huge temper and a short fuse. You are told to fear the Lord. God is a jealous god. God is a vengeful god. God is a right royal SOB! God would strike you dead without a moment’s hesitation or without the slightest qualm or afterthought. So, to ensure you get the full measure of your threescore-and-ten, you decide it’s in your best interests to follow the straight-and-narrow path of righteous and especially not venture outside into the path of a thunderstorm, just in case. God is also a useful concept used by parents everywhere to keep their darling little brats in check. God will get you for that my son! It boils down to a sort of cost-benefit analysis. If I believe in God and God doesn’t exist, I lose nothing. If I don’t believe in God, and God exists, I lose everything; I’m screwed. Therefore, it’s better to believe than not to believe, if you’re really worried about that ‘what’s in it for me’ option.

Religion vs. my social life: As a generality, man is a social animal and yet doesn’t usually wish to associate with the ‘other’, so there tends to be formed groupings of like-with-like, like those sharing common religious beliefs. Religious affiliations provides an easy avenue into a social setting without the need for special skills or gear or high annual fees or other requirements as long as you go along with the crowd and the status quo and obey the rules and regulations of the sect. I’m sure there’s many a boy-meets-girl tale to be told in a religious setting.

Religion vs. my employment: Religious institutions around the world employ millions of people, from the pope right on down the line. In many sects, employment isn’t a bad deal, and you’re usually right up there as a much respected member of society (current sex abuse scandals aside), unlike politicians, real estate agents and used car salesmen. 

Now the question, in conclusion, arises, what percentage of the faithful is ‘faithful’ for reasons other than the ‘what’s in it for me’ scenarios? I don’t know, but I’d bet the family farm it’s a way less than 100%. Is that a bad thing? I’ll let others be the judge.

My Top Religious Anomalies: A List

All of religion is anomalous, but some bits are more anomalous than others. Here are some of those bits.

GOD: This isn’t really an anomaly due to any conflict between theory and observation. There is very little of either. The anomaly here is why anyone in their right mind would believe in such a supernatural deity. The gap between observational evidence and theoretical faith is so vast that it staggers the mind – at least it boggles my mind, all the more so since the only real description of God’s bona-fides, the human penned Old Testament, exhibits Him not as a just, loving, forgiving, merciful and compassionate deity but an all-round SOB that makes Hitler look downright cuddly.

CREATION, THE CONCEPT OF: One of the biggest mysteries to me is why anyone in their stark raving right mind would assume anything and everything had been created from scratch, as in Genesis for example. You cannot make that assumption from first principles based on personal observations and human history. Knowledge that there were in fact creations therefore must be based on information passed down from those with way more insight or knowledge than you could possess. Who passed that information on down the line?

HEAVEN & HELL: If they exist, heaven and hell have to be physical places with some sort of celestial and terrestrial coordinates respectively. Despite all these millennia that have flowed under the bridge since Methuselah was in diapers, nobody has sighted heaven up there or pinpointed where hell is located down here.

BIBLICAL OLD AGE: Though Methuselah is the best known, there are a whole pot-full of Old Testament males-only who reach ripe old age way, way, way in excess of three score and ten. The anomaly here is that even with the best of diets, exercise regimes, health and medical care, and outstanding personal habits (sound sleep, no drugs, no alcohol, no smoking, etc.) no human alive today can come within a bulls roar of the longevity achieved by Methuselah, Adam, Noah, and a host of others. The anomaly is easily resolved in this case – the Bible is full of it; “it” being rather messy and smelly.

NOAH’S FLOOD: A whole textbook could be written about the impossibilities, not just the anomalies, of the Biblical tale of the flood and Noah’s Ark. The amount of water required can’t be produced. The boat isn’t near large enough to house and feed every species that would need to be given shelter. The crew isn’t sufficient to look after their charges. That doesn’t seem to discourage those from spending vast sums of money not to mention time and energy boldly gong where others have gone before and like those who went before, returning empty-handed!

EXODUS, BOOK OF: There are multi-dozens of anomalies, things that just can’t be, reported in the Bible. Of all of these, the most anomalous is the Book of Exodus, because some of the events recorded there can be checked against another independent historical source. If the history in the Book of Exodus is found wanting, and it is, then if one holy book goes down the gurgler, then all the rest of the books are suspect too.

The anomaly here is that the Book of Exodus features the land and peoples of ancient Egypt fairly prominently. A couple of key Biblical characters play leading roles there – Moses and Joseph – not to mention thousands of alleged Hebrew slaves. Nasty things happen to that land and those peoples like the ten plagues and the drowning of pharaoh’s army. The anomaly here is that you’d expect ancient Egyptian records to verify and collaborate and substantiate the Book of Exodus, but you don’t find anything of the sort. It’s as if the Biblical version took place in a parallel universe – or in the imagination of the all too human author.

BIBLICAL MIRACLES: Then there’s this Biblical bit about Joshua commanding the sun to stand still (at least that’s the way I recall it). That’s a tall tale or myth but whatever, it can’t be a physical reality. But wait, there’s more! There’s Jonah and the whale; Eve’s creation from a rib; walking on the waters; the walls of Jericho tumbling down at the sound of no doubt out of tune trumpets or rams horns. In the Bible we have this tale of the multiplying of loaves and fishes out of virtually nothing.

Miracles are part and parcel of any and all supernaturally based religions. Miracles of the supernatural kind (and that’s the only kind of miracle that counts here) violate one or more laws, principles or relationships established by science. There can be no such thing as a supernatural miracle in theory. However, there have been numerous reports of supernatural miracles.

Reported events cannot violate the natural state of things. If they do violate that natural state of things, then they must be supernatural. There’s no known theory that can accommodate supernatural events. That’s part of the conflict between science and religion. The conflict is an anomaly.  

THE AFTERLIFE: A concept that closest to the hearts and minds of nearly all humans and human cultures past and present is what happens to us after we kick the bucket. The answer is we transcend into another life – an afterlife. Every culture, past and present, has an afterlife concept, a life after death concept, or some sort of an eternity or immortality worldview. However, the concept of eternal life is actually hellish as you would rather quickly be bored out of your afterlife skull, and you still have infinity yet to come.

Not all of the versions of the theoretical afterlife can be correct however. Idealistic theoretical expectations that when you die you won’t stay dead, versus practical reality that observations show that dead things stay dead, are indeed conflicting, therefore anomalous. However, nobody has ever come back from the dead to prove the reality of an afterlife to the satisfaction of any unbiased referee.

When Religious Aliens Come Knocking: Part Two

Aliens, as in extraterrestrials, come in all manner of shapes and sizes at least according to science fiction authors, TV produces, filmmakers and even scientists. We have to rely on them since we don’t yet have an alien on the slab in the lab for verification. Our potential aliens also have all manner of philosophies and intentions – invasion and sex usually dominate. But what about religion: their existence and impact on our religion and of greater importance, their religion’s impact on us. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

When it comes to ET, the traditional Hollywood image, often reinforced by some scientists, is that when the aliens come calling, it will be with ray-guns blasting away (like in “The War of the Worlds”), unless they are sneaky like in “Village of the Damned” plus sequel “Children of the Damned”, or “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (several versions). Justification for depicting ET as nasty is often given based on terrestrial histories of invasions and conquests. A warfare scenario pessimist is hardly ever disappointed; a peace scenario optimist frequently is.

But let’s look on the bright side. ET arrives and there’s not a ray-gun in sight. It’s the dawn of a new and enlightened era! But let’s substitute their ray-gun replacing it for their extraterrestrial religious text, a text in which ET worships the Almighty Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes (or in Hollywood fare, “The Blob”).

Okay, so based on religious tolerances (or lack of same) as expressed within and by terrestrial societies, what can we expect from ET? When it comes to a religiously inclined and pushy ET, well that’s hardly ever mentioned as a possible scenario, but ultimately it’s really terrifying, in a potential sort of way. A fanatical religious ET vis-à-vis an invading ET, is perhaps a more likely ET and what we may really need to worry about is that they’ll come in peace alright, but as fervent missionaries to spread the word that their version of a supreme being [the Almighty Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes] is the only true version of a supreme being and that all of us terrestrial heathen, pagan infidels had better see the error of our untrue faiths and convert to their extraterrestrial theology quick-smart.

More likely as not ET won’t be Jesus-like and certainly won’t allow themselves to be nailed to a cross (or a higher-tech version); they will probably be more along the lines of the Conquistadors or perhaps akin the Inquisition, or even worse Koran-thumping Islamic extremist-types. After all, they have to be very, very strongly motivated to come out to our neck of the boonies, and they are going to want favorable results, or else. All hail the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes!

Now here’s a very rough translation and commentary on the first few bars (it’s also an opera) of ET’s “Holy eBook of Slime and Ooze”. It goes something like this:

“Once upon a time the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes, ejaculated and gave rise to the Holy Ooze and the Holy Ooze was without form and the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes felt that this was how it should be and everything was Almighty fine. And that ended the First Great Cycle of Cycles.

On the Second Great Cycle of Cycles, Ms. Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes took her less than better half partner, the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes to task for creating a Holy Oozy Mess and told her less than better half, the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes to clean it up, or else! And so it came to pass that the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes swept the Holy Ooze all under the Heavenly Cosmic Carpet. 

But the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes wasn’t through with His creation, and under cover of the Cosmic Night, He played with His toy biochemistry set and infused animation into the Holy Ooze that had been swept under the Heavenly Cosmic Carpet. And that was the Third of the Great Cycles.

The animated Holy Ooze multiplied in an Oozy sort of way and expanded outwards, ever outwards from under the Heavenly Cosmic Carpet and the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes was Almighty pleased and totally up Himself with His skills. And thus was concluded the Fourth Great Cycle of Cycles. 

On the Fifth Great Cycle of Cycles, Ms. Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes, totally fed up with her less than better half, packed her Heavenly Duffle Bags and left the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes for even greener pastures. She moved in with the step-brother of the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes. His name was the Greater Greener Slime Being, who, unfortunately had fallen from Grace [mutiny I believe] and had been stripped of his Almighty Supreme title and status – such are the fates in family disputes and Wars in Heaven between rivals for power.” 

And it goes on and on and on from there, over ten eBook volumes worth that kind of make the Bible read like a short story. But in a bit of a twist, a role reversal, the underdog, the Greater Greener Slime Being ultimately triumphs and comes out on top to become the new Almighty Greater Greener Slime Supreme Being. Well after all the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes really was a bit of a twit.

 The former Greater Greener Slime Being and the former Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes’ Ex – His more than better half – together, it is prophesized, will have a child who ultimately will become the role model for, obviously, “The Son of the Blob”, who is to grow so blobby that His massive gravity will prove enough to cause the Heavenly Cosmic Carpet and all that it contains (life, the universe and everything) to roll up in on itself and turn into a singularity. It will be the End of Days, the Cycles of Cycles – the Big Crunch will have arrived! If I recall correctly, that Last Great Cycle is numbered somewhere over the million mark of all things Cyclic. Amen.

Although you’d hope that advanced alien beings would have long since out-evolved such religious nonsense, that’s not a given. That missionary scenario is even more frightening than them coming here with their ray-guns blasting away IMHO. So if those extraterrestrial evangelists come knocking at your door, with tales about the Holy Ooze, or the Almighty Greater Greener Slime Supreme Being, be afraid, be very afraid!

When Religious Aliens Come Knocking: Part One

Aliens, as in extraterrestrials, come in all manner of shapes and sizes at least according to science fiction authors, TV produces, filmmakers and even scientists. We have to rely on them since we don’t yet have an alien on the slab in the lab for verification. Our potential aliens also have all manner of philosophies and intentions – invasion and sex usually dominate. But what about religion: their existence and impact on our religion and of greater importance, their religion’s impact on us. 

There has been an awful lot of ink spilled over many, many a decade on the question of what the discovery of an advanced extraterrestrial civilization would mean for terrestrial religions, especially the Big Three – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. That’s mainly because the Bible (and associated texts) make no mention of ET, and thus human beings are the one and only apex of God’s creations. Discovery of ET would throw that alleged apex into more than just a bit of theological confusion.

However, theologians tend to make light of this and suggest along the lines that there’s an awful lot of real estate out there, and since God can do whatever He damn well pleases, well maybe He populated some of that real estate with one or more extraterrestrial societies. I mean the Bible doesn’t mention Antarctica or penguins. The discovery of both didn’t upset the religious applecart, so why are aliens relevant to vie for Biblical space and commentary and why should they, if they exist, upset the religious applecart?

In short, one answer boils down to, is everything out there in parallel with everything down here, at least as far as the big three monotheistic faiths go? Do all planets with intelligent aliens have extraterrestrial Adams and Eves that muck up their alien Gardens of Eden and get the boot? Do all alien civilizations have sin, a flood, a Chosen People, a Promised Land, etc? 

Now apparently the biggest of the big theological question is, assuming the existence of ET civilizations, is whether or not Jesus (assuming the reality of a Jesus of course – not a given) visited these worlds and got subjected to the ET equivalent of The Cross. Did Jesus have to hitch a ride on interstellar spaceships in order to get to all those other sinful other-worlds, assuming those other-worlds are sinful other-worlds?  Methinks the questions are as similar to how many angels dance on the head of a pin!

IMHO, the odds that our religious histories in broad-brush form would happen on each and every other-world housing an extraterrestrial civilization is so remote as to not be worthy of even two seconds of pondering. 

Okay, so if UFOs land on the White House lawn tomorrow, or radio astronomers detect obviously artificial radio signals from an extra-solar other-world planet that’s home to ET, big deal. Church attendance will probably not alter greatly, at least after the initial shock. If those of the monotheistic faiths embrace all of humanity as equals, then it’s not a huge step upwards to embracing extra-solar ‘humanity’ – ET – as equals as well. 

But, and this is a very real but, what if our advanced aliens are not just technologically advanced aliens, but theologically  advanced aliens, who in fact have a theology that bears no similarity with any terrestrial theology! Then what? Might ET take a leaf out of our religious histories and violently preach their version of hell, fire and brimstone to us? What leaf you ask? 

The basic reality is that members of the trilogy of major monotheistic religions (and lots of minor ones as well) have in the past wished, and continue to wish, to impose their beliefs by any means fair or foul (usually foul) on anyone and everyone else. If fact, all too often those wishes were turned into reality.

If one had to list all of the atrocities inflicted on various cultures by Christian missionaries, including the abduction and indoctrination of young children, well let’s just say comparisons with the Nazi Third Reich regime wouldn’t be all that inappropriate. From across Africa to the Pacific Islands and points beyond, it was the Christian duty of the faithful to force-feed if necessary their religious doctrines to all those thus far spared monotheism fanaticism. And it wasn’t just a matter of polytheistic to monotheistic conversion, it was the absolute and total destruction of anything and everything part and parcel of their ‘pagan’ traditional beliefs that had to be eliminated, so much so that most of the culture, say of the Aztecs and the Incas, have now been lost forever – thanks due to God, or rather His ever faithful representatives.

Then throw in the Inquisition, the Crusades, and all manner of Holy Wars and God’s Old Testament reign of terror has been taken to heart by the faithful whose duty is to see that it is ‘to be continued’ and on, and on, and on it goes. Your option: be a living Christian; or a dead pagan. Well there’s an exception to that – the last of the Inca emperors was given this option: a relatively quick and easy death as a born-again Christian, or a very slow and very painful death as a pagan. Needless to say Christianity won out yet again. Belief in God can be very persuasive when you’re faced with being burned at the stake as an alternative.  

Albeit more civilized today, the indoctrination goes on. It might be religious fanatics picketing in front of abortion clinics or forcing public schools to delete Darwinism (Darwinian evolution) from their curricula and replace it with Creationism or Intelligent Design (you’d think that had been settled once and for all with the 1925 Scopes Trial). It often takes the form of all those televangelists knocking your socks off and all those religious billboard signs warning you of this, that and the next sinful thing. Then of course there are those ever pestering Bible-pushing Christians knocking at your door, eager beavers telling you how much God loves you, but in return for a donation He’ll love you even more!

But take note, its God the singular, not gods the plural. I mean is it a God / Jesus Bible-thumper who bangs on your door or is it an Osiris / Odin / Quetzalcoatl / Zeus, etc. person who disturbs your peace and quiet, trying to convert you to the wisdom of polytheism? Did I hear you say God / Jesus? I thought so. Despite the fact that the Bible isn’t a legal document like a search warrant or a summons, it nevertheless seems to give Bible-pushers carte blanch to do whatever they please, as long as the Bible tells them it’s okay to do it, like chewing your ear off (not literally of course) with tales of hell, fire and brimstone and trying to scare the shit out of you into making a donation to the cause. 

If there were any polytheistic cultures who tried to ram their gods down the throat of other cultures I’m not aware of them, which is not the same as other cultures assimilating the gods of another culture. As an example, there ultimately proved to be an amalgamation of ancient Greek and Egyptian deities. Ramming has been the ‘divine right’ and privilege of monotheistic cults and examples, including all of the very graphic details, would fill an encyclopaedia. Would aliens perceive their having a ‘divine right’ to ram their theology down our throats? Yes, if our own history is an example. If God is on your side, you can do no wrong!

In the history of our terrestrial civilization, there have been lots and lots of refugees. Many are economic, escaping poverty by chasing that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow away from their homeland where it never rains (thus no rainbow). Some are political. Some are for racial / racism reasons. A fair share of all refugees, past and present, are religious refugees, an obvious example being the Pilgrims that migrated to the United States of America before there was such a name as the United States. So the issue of religious freedom, or freedom from having someone else’s religion rammed down your throat, is not trivial.

To be continued…

Origins and Ultimate Questions: Part Two

Who are we; where did we come from; what is my purpose in life; why is there something rather than nothing, etc. has probably been pondered by most of us at one time or another. One universal blanket answer is God (or in earlier times, the gods). A rival answer is that the abstract concept of Mother Nature can equally explain all, even if sometimes in the negative – the Universe and you have no ultimate purpose. It, you and I just are.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

The Origin of Humans: Did God Create Man (and Woman)?

To religious fundamentalists, it’s a no-brainer that God created man – in His image. Now if there were no fossils of manlike hominoid beings; if there were not any current living beings that shared our basic body plan (such as many of the primates do – apes, monkeys, chimpanzees, etc.); if humans were so unique that they stood out like a lone red sports car in a field of black & white model-T’s, or like a lone pineapple in a basketful of tomatoes, then ascribing a very unique origin to humankind would be a plausible hypothesis, of which God or gods might have appealing logic (albeit not proven). 

Alas, that’s not the case whether in terms of the fossil evidence or of body plans and fundamental biochemistry similarities between us and the other primates. We’re just another model-T or tomato (and some would argue rotten tomato at that).

Creation myths trying to explain human origins are, across the board, pretty wild and absurd in light of modern understandings that deal with life, our Universe, and everything. The fictional origin of Frankenstein’s monster (Frankenstein was the name of the scientist, not the name of the creation) makes more sense than breathing some sort of vital essence into dust (and does your basic pile of dust contain all the necessary chemical ingredients to make up and sustain a living human? If so, put some dust on your menu). And that bit about Adam’s rib – well, let me say that the Loch Ness Monster has way more credibility.

Darwin and those following him, those evolutionary biologists and physical anthropologists, have easily accounted for the broad-brush origin and rise of our modern human species.

The Origins of Faith & Belief vs. Blind Faith & Belief:

Do we have faith and belief in a God or gods because there really are gods or God, or maybe we’re hard-wired to believe in some sort of larger-than-life supreme being(s) regardless of evidence and the reality of such beings?

Many children have invisible, make-believe friends and have no trouble accepting Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. Of course, kids have usually Mom and Dad, or an adult family of some sort to look after them, so they already have a sort of larger-than-life supreme being(s) in their life.

But when they grow up to adulthood, well, as adults, wouldn’t it be nice if someone or something more adult than ourselves, larger-than-life, were looking after us the way Mom and Dad did when we had our childhood? Someone who would pat us on the back with eternal life (we don’t really want to die) if we’re good men and women (as opposed to when we were boys and girls).  And so it’s easy and desirable to believe that and have faith.

I have no issue with those who have a belief or a faith in a God or gods or this or that religion – god knows there’s enough of them on the market to pick and choose from.  However, what I do have issues with are those who have an absolute blind faith or blind belief in, whatever, like kids have a blind faith in the existence of Santa, and for a similar reason. Kids are trusting of adults, their parents and family and will swallow the story – at least until old enough to think through the logic for themselves. Adults too, starting as children, are trusting of authority figures or people they trust – priests, their parents (again), teachers, friends, books, etc. authored by those apparently in the know – who told you it (a God or gods or brand of religion) was so, and so you swallow their version without any critical thought, hook, line and sinker, because unlike Santa, the logic doesn’t reveal itself quite so easily to be as absurd. It’s easier to be told what to think, than to actually think for yourself.

So, for those who still have faith and belief after they have thought for themselves through the issues, well again, I have no difficulty with that. For those of you who believe and have faith because it was rammed down your throat, and because it satisfies that hard-wired area of your brain that wants a larger-than-life figure to be their invisible, make-believe guardian, well, maybe that’s why religious figures refer to their subjects as their flock – sheep one and all.  

The Ultimate Questions (and Answers):

Is there one? I know that it (‘life, the universe and everything’) was asked in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and that the answer was ‘42’, but I don’t think we’ll count that as philosophically meaningful. I also think we need to exclude personal reflections or personal ultimate questions like ‘who am I’ or ‘where am I going’ or ‘what is my purpose in life’, etc. Ultimately, when it comes to personal reflections, only you can ask and answer such questions yourself using whatever tools you have at your disposal.

Is there any preordained point or preconceived purpose to the Universe? That is do we have any implication that the ever evolving and expanding Universe has a goal or seeks to achieve something? Does the Universe possess some sort of special (undefined but natural) force or quality such that its origin and evolution has an ultimate unique meaning? Or does it just exist with no more purpose than say a cosmic ray has? This question is probably somewhat outside the realm of physics and cosmology, but that sure hasn’t stopped physicists and cosmologists from putting in their two cents worth! Anyway, here’s my two cents.

Well I think we can all agree that the fundamental particles (electrons, quarks, etc.) that make up all the matter and transmit all the forces, and the atoms they in turn make up, and the molecules that atoms form by linking up and bonding with other atoms, even the most complex of them, merely obey various natural physical and chemical ‘laws’ (they are very law abiding), having no choice in the matter given that they have no independent free will or decision making abilities or the ways and means of emitting emotions. They have no intellect, cannot comprehend themselves, far less anything else.

We’d all probably agree that all the macro non-organic things that particles and forces, atoms and molecules make up, like stars (and groups of stars like galaxies) and planets and associated debris likewise obey natural ‘laws’ and also have no intellect or ability to emote. In other words, the Sun and the Moon don’t know you, have no means of knowing you, they can’t deduce you exist and therefore can hardly care that you exist (or don’t exist or cease to exist for that matter). Since there was an era in the history of the Universe when only that sort of stuff existed, the sort of stuff we agree was never intellectual and emotive, one can hardly imagine the Universe then, all this collection of stuff, in a pre-life era, having any purpose or objective or goal, or agenda (or whatever other synonymous word you have in mind).

At this point, one question raises its head and requires an answer, and that is where did all the natural ‘laws’ that rule the Universe (and all that it contains) come from? Well, the way I see it, there are X number of fundamental particles – the ultimate building blocks from which all else flows – like quarks and electrons. Each type of fundamental particle has an intrinsic value to a number of properties, values unique to it and it alone. These properties are mass, and spin and charge, and the like. All of these fundamental particles, the bits and pieces of the Universe, interact with other bits and pieces. Anytime bit A interacts with piece B, you’ll get a result, AB. You’ll always get AB. If bit A interacts with particle C, you’ll get result AC and not, say, AB. And so on and so on. We interpret AB and AC, etc. as ‘laws’ because specific results occur in a consistent manner whenever specific bits and pieces interact. And so on up the scale it goes. Two atoms of hydrogen interact with one atom of oxygen, giving water – not, say table salt now and then. If the reverse were true, if two atoms of hydrogen plus one atom of oxygen sometimes yielded table salt, or if A + B sometimes gave AC, or BC or XYZ, then the stuff of the Universe would be unstable at best and hence we’d have a Universe not exactly conducive to life, and so we wouldn’t be around to ask the question in the first place.

At some stage however, by the laws of probability, sheer chance, by accident (no preconceived purpose or goal involved) a small part of our stuff, under the general natural ‘laws’ inherent in physics and chemistry, became organized enough, complex enough, to qualify as something we’d all agree on as ‘life’. Say a proto-cell, even a microbe. The question now is, does a microbe emote or have an intellect. No. It has however achieved purpose – survival and reproduction and things of that ilk. So, now a tiny part of the Universe has a purpose, but the microbe certainly didn’t absorb or learn this concept of purpose from the wider outside Universe since the wider outside Universe doesn’t have this concept as part of it’s makeup in the first place. 

Ultimately microbes evolve and life got even more complex, complex enough that traits such as intellect and emotion took on some form of reality. But again, it was inherited from what came before. So, does the Universe have a purpose? No. Do some parts of the Universe express a purpose, or intellect or ability to emote? Yes. But it’s not a universal one as different bits have (to a greater or lesser degree) somewhat different purposes, intellects and emotions. An electron is an electron is an electron, but an octopus (having a purpose, intellect and ability to emote) isn’t a cockatoo which isn’t a human both of which also have purposes, intellects and emotions. Even one human obviously differs from another human with respect to these traits. Question: does the fact that terrestrial life in general or humans in particular, exist, impart some sort of higher meaning or purpose to the Universe at large? Not on your Nellie!

Let’s take a simple case and assume that life is confined to Planet Earth (although the argument holds even if extraterrestrial life exists). Let’s further assume that an uncaring, un-intellectual,  asteroid, with no goal or purpose to its existence apart from the fact that it just is, slams into our planet and all life goes kaput! Or perhaps our uncaring Sun goes nova, achieving the same result. Then the Universe is totally back to square one – an assorted collection of primitive stuff with no laudable purpose, no intellect, no ability to emote – no agenda, hidden or otherwise. My conclusion is that life (high or low) is an unplanned for occurrence in a Universe that has no purpose – the Universe just is, in all its uncaring glory.

Thusly I will say again however that there is no purpose to the Universe – it just is, a given, totally inanimate like it or lump it. You are an irrelevancy as far as the Universe is concerned – not that it has a consciousness where the concept of concerned could even arise. So, the Universe, as far as we all are concerned, is impartial, uncaring, has no mercy for those foolish enough to put themselves in harms way, and ultimately doesn’t give a stuff about you, your existence, your suffering. In fact, if Planet Earth and all it contained were to disappear down a Black Hole this instant, the Universe would go on its merry way, no more noticing the loss than you notice the flaking off of a dead skin cell.  

Apart from that, I’d wager if you asked 1000 ordinary people, even 1000 philosophers, religious leaders, scientists, etc. about an ultimate question, you’d probably get 500 different answers! Therefore, I doubt that there is any such thing as an ultimate question (and therefore no ultimate answer), certainly nothing that’s going to enlighten us about ‘just who is this God person anyway?’ – And no, I don’t consider that to be an ultimate question. But we need a place to start with some sort of ultimate question, like, where did our Universe (including us) come from?  And so I refer back to the beginning of this little exercise!

Polytheism, Monotheism, Extraterrestrial Theism or No Theism?

Is there one God, many gods, extraterrestrial ‘gods’, or no gods? Nothing is set in concrete and everything is grist for the speculative mill.

For the majority of mankind, for the majority of time, polytheism has been the be-all-and-and-all of explaining life, the universe and everything. Lots of phenomena; lots of things to explain; lots of divisions of labour resulting in lots of gods required to explain all.

Then some bright spark comes along and suggests that all these different roles can be in fact rolled into one. So because one God, is easier to come to terms with than dozens of gods, well, make it so, or so be it.

But, does than shift ultimately mean that one God is better than many gods? Are there in fact other gods and God, or other gods but not God?

Well, according to all things Biblical, God’s Commandments verify the existence of other gods

My quick summation goes as follows:

“I am the Lord your God” [Translated, ‘I’m top dog’.]

“Do not have any other gods before me” [Translated: ‘that’s because I am top dog’.]

“You shall not make for yourself an idol [presumably of other gods], whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. [The latter might be the Greek Poseidon, or Roman Neptune, for example.]

“You shall not bow down to them or worship them [presumably those other gods]; for I the Lord your God [He repeats Himself here] am a jealous God [top dogs tend to be wary and even envious of lesser dogs least they gang up on Him] … punishing … those who reject me”.

An analogy strikes me as if there were a group of school kids (gods) all playing relatively nicely among themselves, when the school bully (God) enters, chases them away and spoils everything for everybody!

Or, it’s as if the General (God) is rather miffed – not all that pleased – if the adoring public idolise the Private, the Sergeant, or the Lieutenant – rank has it’s privileges, or at least some rather serious expectations.

Okay, the Bible, being God’s word and all, verifies God has rivals!

Ancient Romans, Greeks, Norse, Egyptians, Celts, Maya, Aztecs, Incas, Polynesians, etc., etc. all had many gods – these ancient peoples weren’t dummies in their belief, so why should they be rubbished for polytheism when you’re not rubbished for monotheism?

One problem with God or gods is with respect to creation. God (or the gods) created the Universe which contains therefore God’s (or god’s) creation, Planet Earth. God (or the gods) created on Planet Earth human beings in His image. Humans are the pinnacle of His (their) creation. We are the jewel in His (their) crown. Humanity is the be-all-and-end-all of all Godly (godly) things. We’re extra special in the eyes of God or the gods. 1) That being the case what fraction of the volume of the observable universe is devoted to providing His (their) supreme creation with a home? A grain of sand is far larger when compared to the size of the Earth it rests upon, than the size of the Earth compared to the observable universe. Translated, God (or the gods) created a heck of a lot of space for no apparent reason since it has no relevance to His (their) special creation – Planet Earth and its human inhabitants. 2) That being the case, what fraction of the age of the Universe has been occupied by – give us a Supreme Creation pat on the back to – humanity? Well, what fraction of 13.7 billion years is the reign of Homo sapiens? Homo sapiens have been making their mark on Terra Firma for some 100,000 years. Do you begin to see something odd here? The Apex of God’s (gods) creation, the creation that gives ultimate meaning to God Himself (gods themselves), humanity, has existed for as close to no time at all as makes no odds. If we’re not special at all in space and time, then we’re not special in the mind of God (or the gods). Or, perhaps what this suggests is that there is no creator God or gods at all.

If you accept the general verdict of history, there has been a transition from polytheism to monotheism; if both God and gods have, or had, reality, how is this explained?  Assimilation or conquest by a monotheistic culture over a more primitive or weaker polytheistic culture is one way – missionaries rule! Still, it’s difficult to overturn the establishment, especially an establishment that’s held sway for thousands of years. Most people, cultures, societies don’t like to have new ideas rammed down their collective throats.

Okay, time to abandon that suggestion and have a bit of fun, speculate, and jump into the deep end of the pool. The basic idea is that the old gods just pack up and leave. If that’s the case, God replaces the religious vacuum left behind. Where did the ancient gods go, assuming they existed in the first place? Back home presumably, wherever home is – probably somewhere out there.

So one other viable alternative to the existence of bona-fide supernatural gods or God is to suggest their bona-fides, while real, isn’t within the realm of the supernatural. That is, presumably, the gods, and God, were flesh-and-blood aliens from space, or in ancient times and human perceptions, a being(s) from a Heaven or from the sky – as in sky beings. One could object that the gods (or God) are visualised or depicted as very human or humanoid (some of those ancient Egyptian gods are a bit suss) and thus the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) is O U T – out. However, human-like alien beings are not unknown from within the modern day UFO era’s literature. So, appearances might be deceiving. 

One could further postulate that all of the mythological beasties part and parcel of the realms of the gods actually are extraterrestrial creatures – ET’s pets, like say Pegasus! And some of the more humanoid beasties, Medusa, the Cyclops, the Minotaur, well let’s just say they wouldn’t be out of place as aliens you might have to deal with on another planetary abode!

Back to the deep end of the pool and boldly going where angels fear to tread: I’ll start by speculating that it’s relatively easy to envision two separate and rival extraterrestrial civilizations – the gods on the one hand vs. God plus associated crew and underlings (angels, etc.) on the other. Perhaps there was a ‘Star Wars’ of sorts with God sending the gods packing! That’s the most likely scenario since there’s no love lost between God and company, and the gods. Or, perhaps, if you like the Zoo Hypothesis (we’re property – the zoo ‘animals’; ET is the zoo keeper), there was a changing of the guard – the old shift (the gods) clocked off; the new shift (God, etc.) clocks on (except of course God nearly destroys our terrestrial zoo in a fit of temper! Then again, Zeus nearly did the same!) Or, maybe God is a cosmic sheriff with local jurisdiction within our stellar neighbourhood. Sheriff God had to chase the bad guys (the gods) out of Dodge (Planet Earth) for violations of their version of the Prime Directive. But, once a lawman, always a lawman, and so our cosmic sheriff rides into Dodge and imposes His version of the law (‘Thou shall not…’) on us. 

But, maybe the ancient gods haven’t left the building at all since if they had, God wouldn’t be so worried about them and about you cuddling up to, and worshiping them. If the gods had gone walkabout and left, wouldn’t it be a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’?

Back now into the shallow end of the pool: In the final analysis however, one has to ask whether it is really believable that Planet Earth should have hosted thousands of supernatural gods over the last several thousand years. I mean, if you were to add up all the various major and minor deities that have formed the ‘religious’ bedrocks for society after society after society, it starts to get a bit like a novel that has a few more characters to keep track of as is really necessary to the overall plot.

So, one can easily imagine that there really are no supernatural gods at all, and by implication no God (I mean why should the one exist when the many don’t?). Or, one can pick and choose from the supernatural multitudes and come up with a reasonable handful – except that 1000 people will come up with 1000 different lists. Or, maybe all (or at least most or some) of the gods and perhaps including a God (as one of the many) exist, or did exist, but weren’t really supernatural, only seen through primitive human eyes as supernatural – back to the ETH again.

“What if” there is no God or gods, supernatural or otherwise? Not now, not ever. If one were to sample the world’s population, the majority will confess to a believing in some sort of Supreme Being. [Since the era of polytheism is pretty much gone, I’ll stick to the singular, usually translated as ‘God’.] However, in factual matters, majority doesn’t always rule. If a billion people believe in a foolish idea, it’s still a foolish idea. Anyway, if there is no God of any kind, then you’re on your own. There’s no one to blame for the bad; no one to thank for the good. Trillions of dollars and man-hours; millions of needless sufferings, have been all for naught.

So what if there is no God? While there’s lots of examples one could cite that suggest that the concept of God is illogical and often self-contradictory, that there isn’t one, or at least a logical one, could be a conclusion reached summed up by examining the logic behind the example of what’s commonly called the ‘end of days’ or Armageddon. The point, regarding the whole Biblical end of days, Armageddon, etc. bit, is that the resolution of the whole Biblical end of day’s event or scenario has already been laid out and the exact ending foretold. So, what’s the point in going through the whole exercise? I mean if you know, absolutely know, in advance that you’re doomed to failure – it’s a futile exercise – if you are to flap your arms and try to fly, why bother going through the process?

So if we conclude that there is no God…

Then billions of people, over thousands of years, have spent trillions of ultimately wasted hours in prayer, attending church, observing/attending various religious rituals, spent in religious/Biblical study, door-knocking, preaching, discussing, arguing, going on pilgrimages, etc.

Then all those religious rituals, the do and do not rules that govern things regarding food, dress codes, ceremonies, relationships, sex, and etc. ultimately have been meaningless. 

Then millions of people have been tortured, murdered or executed, imprisoned, ridiculed, humiliated, exiled, and hated for no reason.

Then billions of dollars have been spent on cathedrals instead of say hospitals; Bibles instead of textbooks; educating priests instead of medical doctors, nurses and scientists.

Then for those formally educated and qualified in religious studies, spending entire careers preaching, etc. they have wasted their lives in devotion to an invisible friend that has all the reality of Casper, the Friendly Ghost.

Then multi-millions of animals have been sacrificed and offered up to a supernatural being that doesn’t exist.

Then you can’t blame all your aches and pains, your bad back and creaky joints, on some all knowing great intelligent designer, who apparently bioengineered you (from dust or a rib) while simultaneously failing Bioengineering 101. I mean placing the food tube right next to the breathing tube was a disaster waiting to happen, as evidenced by all those people who choke to death every year. And how many women have died giving birth because the compatibility between the birth canal and the size of the baby, well just wasn’t! A divinely created human wouldn’t be flawed and have need of eyeglasses or a hearing aid. God wouldn’t create a human with jaws to small to allow for wisdom teeth. As to the appendix organ, that’s just another oops.

But “what if” there is a God (or gods). Well, I guess that depends on which one or which version. It all seems to boil down to any one of a multitude to pick and choose from, from monotheism to polytheism to extraterrestrial theism. Go shopping! Polytheism perhaps survives after all. Personally, I find something about the Norse gods quite appealing! They get my vote!