People Kill: God Doesn’t Care: Part Two

Following yet another mass shooting in the US of A, with all the predictable and understandable gut reactions that pour forth, my gut feeling is that nothing of substance will be done since American history, culture and the Constitution rule; gun control isn’t the real issue; things will get worse; people kill (it’s in our genes – deal with it); and it provides another reason why God is an increasing irrelevance in society.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

The Religious Element

I personally find it amazing, even astounding that in the aftermath of a mass murder episode, people flock to churches and pray and hold candlelight prayer vigils, and express total faith in the Almighty the He will look after the slain innocents. I’d of thought people, especially religious people, should be taking to the streets with raised fists screaming in pure rage and outrage against the alleged loving, compassionate, merciful, all-knowing, all-powerful God for standing by on the sidelines and not lifting a godly digit to prevent the tragedy in the first place.

Of course the obvious answer is that God gave us free will, and a person who slaughters the innocent is just exercising God’s free will gift and therefore God is not going to interfere. God does not want to get involved in the petty daily affairs of humankind.

Or, some might suggest that God works in mysterious ways and that the slaughter of the innocents is part of God’s plan, part of the Almighty’s Big Picture which us mortals can’t comprehend. Well, if mass murder is part of God’s plan, do we really want any part of God?

Some suggest that God doesn’t work in mysterious ways and this is just pure and simple another example of God’s wrath. While that would be keeping within God’s actions and reactions in the Old Testament, I somehow find it hard to believe that God would need to employ a middleman. Further, by employing a middleman, God would lose the benefit of letting all and sundry know that He was pissed off and this was an example of His wrath. So, sorry ‘bout that Westboro Baptist Church but God did not ‘send the shooter’ as per one of your favourite phrases – this time or ever. We do not need God’s help to kill.

Some, especially the extreme Right Wing Fundamentalists, suggest that humans have turned their back on God and therefore God has turned His back on us. That sort of spitting the dummy doesn’t quite ring true with those godly attributes of compassion, etc. I mean a child might in a hissy fit turn their back on Mum & Dad, but Mum & Dad aren’t as likely to reciprocate.

Of course the final answer as to why God ignores us, and allows extreme evil, is that there is no God in the first damn place, and this (mass murder of the innocents) is just part of that evidence.

In conclusion, in one sense, such mass murder episodes are in a strange way ‘good news’ stories for they should re-re-re-reinforce the concept that, sorry Virginia, there is no God, or if there is He does not give a DAMN about the sorry affairs of mankind. He does not want to get His godly hands dirty. So all the vigils, and all the prayers, and all the church attendances, all of which may be psychological comforting responses, in the long and short term, well these actions are absolutely meaningless and a waste of time, effort, energy and tears. Ultimately, it amounts to another nail in God’s coffin. 

P.S. - In a Darwinian sense, when you have a global population of over seven billion and increasing, well, life is cheap. The mass shooting of millions in one day would be of no lasting consequence to the human species; just the opposite, it might improve things – slightly.

People Kill: God Doesn’t Care: Part One

Following yet another mass shooting in the US of A, with all the predictable and understandable gut reactions that pour forth, my gut feeling is that nothing of substance will be done since American history, culture and the Constitution rule; gun control isn’t the real issue; things will get worse; people kill (it’s in our genes – deal with it); and it provides another reason why God is an increasing irrelevance in society.

One undesirable cultural phenomena, often witnessed in the United States, though hardly the exclusive property of the US of A, is the fairly indiscriminate and outright random killings of innocents that the killer has some apparent, albeit impersonal, grudge against. The most recent in a long line of case histories involved the Sandy Hook Elementary School at Newtown, Connecticut (December 2012). However, I don’t want to get into specific cases, nor dwell on the human element as experienced by those most intimately involved, friends, family, and authority figures like the police who have to deal with the situation. Rather, I’m going to focus on the broader issues, two of which are always present in the aftermath. There’s the human element, and often the related gun control issues, and there’s the religious element, an often focus being why does God allow evil and why do people seemingly ignore this facet?

The Human Element

People kill. We’re very good at it. That we are killing machines seems to be hardwired into our neural networks. Why is probably irrelevant, but no doubt can be traced back to our early hominid ancestors and the days of nature red in tooth and claw and that famous summation of biological evolution – survival of the fittest – kill or be killed - or in more modern phraseology, shoot first and ask questions later. Is there any human on this planet over the age of five who hasn’t secretly wished to bash somebody’s head in to a brain dead pulp? If so, the numbers are probably so low as to be statistically meaningless.

People kill. Again, we’re very good at it. And so now and again someone with a gun(s) goes off the deep end and lots of innocents die (or are seriously wounded but pull through even though the intention was for them to snuff it). Whenever one of these mass killing events ensues, especially in the US of A, there will be the inevitable outcry for tougher gun control measures. There will also be the inevitable outcome of keeping the status quo. It’s not easy to change the American Constitution which gives Americans the right to bear arms! American history and culture reinforce that right. Gun control isn’t the issue though that’s the gut reaction, but gun control just ain’t going to happen. But even if it does, even if not one private citizen in the US of A had a gun, so what? If I wish to kill someone indiscriminately or at random, I’m not going to be stopped just because I don’t have a gun. It’s a trite but accurate phrase that “guns don’t kill, people kill”.

How can I kill thee, let me count the ways. Well there are still knives, bows and arrows, swords, and spears. Eliminate those, well I can throw rocks or bang you over the head with a brick. No rocks, no bricks; well I can choke you to death. Maybe I have access to hand grenades, sticks of dynamite, Molotov cocktails, or have the know-how to make homemade bombs or make nerve gas or otherwise employ poisons effectively. Clubs, like baseball bats, are pretty effective too since they can clobber more than just a baseball. I can always drive my car into a crowd at high speed, and cars are unlikely to be banned just because their drivers can employ them to kill. If you really want to go out with a bang rent a fully fuelled plane and crash it into a crowded sports stadium. Then there’s arson via the humble match. No, eliminating guns is not going to end the slaughter of the innocents. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

People kill. We love it. You’d probably be hard pressed to pick up any general history text of any nation and not find, somewhere between the covers, at least one killing contained therein, and truth be known, probably lots of them. Recall all those human sacrifices made to the Aztec gods – slicing open the chest and ripping the heart out kills just as effectively as a gun. Closer to American hearts and minds, once upon a time it was peachy keen to slaughter the Native Americans including women, children and infants, as in “the only good Indian is a dead Indian”. Afro-Americans fared only slightly better. 

We almost tend to make cultural ‘heroes’ of those who kill, from Billy the Kid to Captain Kidd, Jesse James to Ned Kelly (Australian), Doc Holiday to Bonnie & Clyde, even villains like John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack the Ripper have acquired a certain mythological aura that surrounds them. The passing of time has a way of softening their impact. If you source though the histories of all nations that list could be extended a thousand-fold.

The total number of biographies of the bad guys (and gals), killers and serial killers, the gangsters, the outlaws, the pirates, the assassins, even famous celebrities who were murdered, would fill up the entire shelf space of many a good sized public library. There’s just something about the cold blooded killer that appeals to our genetic makeup.

Our works of fiction are full of human slaughter and not just war novels and westerns. There’s that whole genre of slasher films aimed usually at the teenagers.  We love a whodunit murder mystery and those with a ‘license to kill’ like the ever popular 007. Cop and P.I. TV shows do well; even courtroom dramas which usually feature a murder trial. The Bible (another work of fiction) contains more blood and guts and gore and slaughter of the innocents per page than the most graphic of novels, and you’ll find murder ranging from Shakespeare, Homer and even unto operas – there’s a least one murder in each of Richard Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” quartet of ‘musical dramas’. 

                                                                                                            

And if we get tired of humans killing humans, there are always aliens and monsters on the rampage to satisfy the bloodlust.

I forget exactly the number now, but a study was made of the number of fictional murders shown on make-believe TV shows but the end result was alarming. We are graphically exposed day-in-and-day-out to humans killing humans, and not just on the evening TV news, though that too of course.

I fail to see why people get all worked up over the mass slaughter of, say, 30 innocents. What they are worked up about is the fact that one person killed 30 people, not that 30 people were killed. I’m sure that everyday, in everyway, in the US of A, even a lot more than 30 people are murdered, but hardly a headline, apart from the local murder mentioned in the local rag, gives note to the daily 30 killed by 30 others. But if one individual does murder 30 people at one go, then its global headlines and hundreds of human interest stories follow. In either case it’s the same number of innocent people dead, so why does one rate a massive outpouring of soul searching and the other rates barely a whimper of concern? Is there really anything different in principle between killing 30 or the one? Murder is murder; mass murder is still murder.

And what of that other mass slaughter? It’s what humans do best, not only killing other humans but innocent animals, especially animals, for no reason. A ‘sportsman’ hunter kills 30 deer; a ‘sportsman’ fisherman kills 30 fish. If anything, the ‘sportsman’ gets a pat on the back for his skill.

Speaking of skill, doesn’t the military award marksmanship medals for such gunmanship skills? What about sportsmen (and women) in competition up through and including the Olympic Games for their shooting skills in not only marksmanship with a gun, but say in archery. We reward those who can shoot, and in a manner of speaking, shoot to kill (by hitting the bullseye).

The bottom line is that while most of us are restrained most of the time from acting out our primeval instincts by the laws of the land, each and every one of us can snap; some more readily than others, but snap nonetheless. Perhaps the really amazing thing is that the slaughter of the innocents is as at a low a level as it is. And though this sounds cruel, in the time it takes one person to snuff out 30 lives, another 30 are born. In a nation of 300 million, if 30 are murdered, well that’s a drop in the ocean, but in the real world, the world of nature red in tooth and claw, that sort of ratio wouldn’t cause Mother Nature to bat a proverbial eyebrow, and aren’t humans part of that real world (although we’d probably deny it, since we think we’re something special, like something special in the eyes of God). In the cosmic scheme of things, an elephant stepping on an ant hill, while a tragedy for the ants concerned, is of no consequence for the overall survival of the ant species.

So what’s going to happen? Nothing is going to happen except things will get worse! With every passing day there are more and more people – more and more chances for a massacre of the innocent to come to pass. With every passing day, more and more instruments that have lethal powers are manufactured. Even if there come to pass legal ways of preventing the two trends from interacting, there are always the illegal ways and means, and if history is any guide, what Lola wants, Lola gets, even if Lola has to beg, borrow or steal.

To be continued…

So Help Me God

One positive attributed to our trilogy of monotheistic religions is that they form some sort of moral, ethical, legal bedrock for our various civilizations, and without these religious texts we’d all be barbarians if not Neanderthals. Still, when it comes to our legal system, God and the Bible, for example, are not just in the background, but usually offstage, even out on the street.

The Bible contains hundreds of God’s required rituals, laws or commandments as related mainly in the trilogy of the Books of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, which are mainly all about better homes and gardens, especially foods, sacrifices, money matters, duties, religious observances – not exactly the stuff of courtroom dramas. Perry Mason wouldn’t have a bar of this Biblical trivia; it would be a total waste of his time and talents. If fact, if you suffer from insomnia, and you need a quick fix, just have a read through of all those highly repetitive do’s and don’ts. You’ll be sawing logs in no time!

Despite that excruciatingly boring multitude of God’s laws, even including the top Ten Commandments as related twice over in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, the fact is there is relatively little of God, God’s commandments or influence, or of the Bible itself when it comes to the legal system of most western civilized countries. For all practical purposes, the legal system doesn’t recognise God despite the common image we’ve all seen in courtroom scenes of the witness, with hand on the Bible, being asked words to the effect of  “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”. Well, if you’re caught out in an act of perjury, it’s not God that’s going to kick your butt!

“In God we trust” doesn’t apply in a court of law either. Evidence speaks way louder than trust, or faith or belief. In fact, trust, faith or belief would be inadmissible as evidence.

In a court of law, you can’t call God as a witness either for the defence or the prosecution. Well maybe you can, but at the expense of making yourself look pretty foolish. God’s going to be a no-show.

I very much doubt you could justify speeding or leaving the scene of an accident, say a hit-and-run, because you were running late for a religious ceremony and God would be pissed if you were late.

Insurance companies couldn’t claim an Act of God for a natural disaster like a flood to avoid paying out claims for damages.

The accused can’t cite God as the reason or inspiration for doing something illegal, no matter how often the Bible says your action was okay, like stoning someone to death. There is no such thing as the Biblical Defence, though that’s not true in all cultures which have national legal systems based entirely on their adopted religious texts. Did I hear someone whisper Islam for example? 

Now taking those famous Ten Commandments, often found on monuments in or outside of numerous courthouses, how many have been seriously adopted in our western civilized legal systems?

Now first I’d better point out that there is no such thing as THE Ten Commandments. There is not just one version (they appear twice in the King James Version of the Bible at Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5: 6-21) or interpretation or ordering, it’s all depending on what your choice of source is, but the general basics tend to involve the following.

#1: There shall be no others gods before God – I bet they don’t teach this one in law school, unless the Almighty was the Dean.

#2: There shall be no idols or idolatry – There’s no Idolatry 101 in law school either.

#3: There shall be no cussing out God – If anything, swearing in general is a minor civil matter, even against the Almighty.

#4: Honour the [Biblical] Sabbath (which is really Saturday, the seventh day of the week, not Sunday, which is really the first day of the week, just look at your wall calendar) – There still are some restrictions on Sunday trading in some areas, but the purse strings have been loosened considerably over the decades. If Sunday trading is against the law, it’s only barely. It probably originated in the first place back in the days when most of the population was rural and there had to be time in this horse-and-buggy era to allow traders, sellers and buyers a chance to travel to attend church services, back in the days when attendance was the norm.

#5: Honour Mum and Dad (in the Bible that means look out for and after the old folk) – This is a social thing. Parents have a legal obligation raising their kiddies, but there’s no reciprocation requirement when those kiddies reach adulthood.

#6: Do not kill – Okay, that’s one run on the criminal law board, though God should be embarrassed beyond all measure at stating this given His track record. This is probably the most blatant example of a deity’s ‘do as I say, not as I do’ that you’ll find in any religious text anywhere.

#7: Do not be adulterous – Well adultery may rate highly in the tabloids and the woman’s magazines, even making headlines in major newspapers and news bulletins, depending on the who, what, where, when and why, but it’s ultimately a civil or domestic matter and pretty low on the totem pole as well in overall importance.

#8: Do not steal – Okay, that’s two runs on the serious side of all things criminal.

#9: Do not bear false witness – That’s three runs scored.

#10: Do not covet – You can’t go to jail for what you’re thinking.

Only three out of the ten are really serious legal matters. In baseball, .300 is slightly above average. When it comes to adopting God’s laws, a .300 average is pretty poor pickings.

Anyway, the Big Three commandments are hardly unique to Biblical times. They predate the Bible and are concepts found in all pre-Biblical cultures or societies. It doesn’t take a deity to come up with these. Any ten year old could come up with these legal concepts. It’s hardly the stuff of deep philosophical thought. In any event, if convicted of any of these in a court of law, you’re not accused of having broken this or that Commandment attributed to God of the Old Testament, rather you violated Section X, Subsection Y of Criminal Code Z.

International Law

Any future despots, tyrants, dictators, and those with delusions of world domination will be well advised to read the Old Testament from cover-to-cover and back again to see how it’s done by the Expert-of-Experts, the Almighty. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery! Past and present despots, tyrants, dictators, and those with delusions of world domination haven’t held a candle to God, so there’s scope for massive improvement when it comes to Dictatorship: The Next Generation. The slight fly in the ointment is that the Almighty is not available to be the subject of prosecution by international law, whereas future tyrants might just end up with their butts kicked and necks stretched.

So what are some of God’s achievements on the international stage that are suggestive of being crimes against humanity?

Terrorism (Sodom and Gomorrah) – tick!

Genocide (the Biblical Flood) – tick!

Mass Murder (the Tenth Plague) – tick!

Torture (Job, Jonah) – tick!

Invasion (of the Land of Canaan) – tick!

That’s an outstanding list to aspire to for all those future wannabe rulers of the universe!

In summary, you might swear on the Bible and before God, but you can not use God and the Bible to defend your actions in criminal, civil or international law. As a source of legal wisdom, God and the Bible are near worthless and hardly a unique source of ethics, morality or legalities in any event.

God Has Passed His ‘Use By’ Date: Part Two

What does the phrase “past its use by date” mean? It means the product is no longer relevant or serves the purpose for which it was once intended; it’s superseded; irrelevant; it’s outdated; if organic it stinks, leaves a bad taste in your mouth, can be harmful to your health and wellbeing, and all-round is a product better discarded into the rubbish bin, buried, incinerated and forgotten about. That seems to sum up the product we call God of the Old Testament.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

The official motto of the United States, passed by Congress as of 1956, is “In God We Trust” and the phrase features prominently on legal paper currency and coinage. Oh boy! If God is the most trustworthy figurehead they can look up to, the U.S. is in deep shit! How many people in the Old Testament put their trust in God only to get the Almighty shaft! In any event, the phrase “In God We Trust” should actually be declared illegal since it violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (item one of the Bill of Rights) and starts right off the bat stating that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”. Official use of the word “God” by Congress implies that Congress respects the establishment of monotheism as their preferred religion, and there the preferred religion therefore of the United States. Of course other cultures, including some American citizens, have adopted other non-monotheistic religions. So, despite all the hype about separation of church and state, in America, it remains just that – hype, not reality. However, even in America, in spite of God’s stamp of approval, humankind as a broad generality (exceptions are pretty obvious), have risen slightly above God’s standards. That alone means it’s time to give God the flick.

Of what possible relevance is God in your personal life other than to serve as a bad example of what not to aspire to? If God has no relevance, expunge the entire concept from your mind and free up some mental space for more relevant stuff.

What have you done for God lately? Read the Bible – tick. Send your kids to Sunday School – tick. Attend church – tick. Put money into the collection plate – tick. Pray to God – tick. Keep His Commandments – tick. Get all hot and bothered and outraged over the issue of same-sex marriage – tick. Now what has God done for you lately? I thought so, so perhaps it’s time to kiss God goodbye. He’s not doing you any favours at all.

Speaking of prayer, you’ll get fans and players alike on both sides of a sporting contest praying to God for the Big Win. What absolute nonsense. What sheer stupidity. The phrase “God’s on our side” is rubbish. Not even God (as a theoretical concept) can give victory to both sides simultaneously. God doesn’t give a damn about your insignificant event – He’s neutral, so why bother praying? Leave God out of it. God is irrelevant. And in any event, if prayer actually worked we’d have no poverty, world peace would be the norm, and all would be perfectly fit and well and live happy ever after. The Big News headline of the day would be something like “Mary took her dogs out for walkies”. So praying for anything is quite an outdated concept.

In any event there is no causality link between prayer and results. If I pray tonight that the Sun will rise in the morning and it does so, shall I therefore conclude my prayer was answered and therefore if I hadn’t of prayed the Sun would not have risen? Well maybe someone else prayed for sunrise and God answered them. But if you pray to win lotto and you do so, can you therefore conclude that God wanted you to be rich and famous since it’s unlikely that anyone else prayed for your good fortune? Any link between prayer and results can be summed up with the phrase “shit happens”, even good shit happens, and we’re not talking about God’s shit.

Further, given the relatively low electromagnetic energy output of the brain required to pray, and the inverse square law (double the distance; quarter the strength), your message to God would quickly become indistinguishable from the ever-present background noise. God can’t ‘hear’ you.  So by all means wish upon a star, but consign God to the rubbish bin. 

Another absurdity about prayer – could you listen to and comprehend thousands upon thousands of people all talking to you at once, on different subjects, and differing languages? No? Then what makes you think even a god could manage it, any god? 

Now I know you want to hedge your bets, just in case God is your ticket to an afterlife, life everlasting, whatever. I mean if God doesn’t really exist but you believe the contrary, you’ve lost nothing, but if God does exist and you give God the Big Thumbs Down, you’ve screwed yourself, so it’s better to err on the side of self-interest. It’s pretty hard to counter any argument that promotes self-interest, so you have to ask yourself, regardless of God’s reality, do I really want everlasting life? Think very carefully, or in other words, be careful about what you wish for, least you get it. Eternal life might look good on paper, but, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true.

I’ll assume that if you’re a God-fearing type of individual you are least have eliminated Hell from the afterlife equation. That leaves an eternity for you to spend in Heaven, though I rather suspect minus the common but non-Biblical image garb of harp and halo (the latter never even getting a Biblical mention). Now I can’t recall reading in the Bible anywhere where it’s stated what you actually do in Heaven to keep mind and body fully occupied, but whatever it is, it has to be for an eternity, an everlasting occupation, or in other words, for you are going to have to be gainfully occupied for infinity, and that’s a long, long, long time, time enough to read and re-read and re-re-read every issue of every Reader’s Digest and National Geographic and in fact the sum total of the Library of Congress many times over. And how many re-runs of a TV show, any TV show, can you stomach – you’ll have time enough on your hands to find out. Now you probably have a hard time filling in the 24/7/52 for your allotted threescore and ten. I predict that within the first several million years of so into your life everlasting you are going to become very, very bored. And you still have an eternity to go! In a manner of speaking, life eternal is hell!

So what’s in it for you, that self-interest bit, if you show God the exit sign? Well what’s in it for you anytime you divorce something be it your despised spouse, your hated job, your harmful smoking habit, your alcoholism? Freedom, that’s what. You’re no longer a religious slave or a slave to religious ritual – you’ve kicked the God Almighty habit and you’re free to be yourself without having to look back over your shoulder to see if hell, fire and brimstone are bearing down on you. And judging from the rhetoric of many a religious fanatic, they are indeed as addicted to God as some are to tobacco or booze or cocaine or heroin.

In summary, you should give God the boot, the flick, the Big Finger, whatever, because…

There’s not the slightest shred of evidence that any such supernatural deity exists, making it a pretty big ask to put your faith, not to mention your time and money in support of something that could easily be logically equated to the holy trinity of the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Therefore, move your own personal ‘no confidence’ motion in the alleged Almighty.

The God of the Old Testament is a pretty unsavoury character (as noted above), in fact a downright nasty piece of work with a personality and a philosophy more akin to the Taliban, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot. Idi Amin, Attila the Hun, Al Capone, (and hundreds more besides) all rolled into one. There’s no logical reason to support such a deity, unless of course you’re a closet tyrant wannabe. God’s positive attribution or contribution is to serve as a bad example. So give God the boot.

What’s God ever done for you that can only be attributed to a supernatural deity? Well you might answer that you get Christmas and Easter holidays, but then again they tend to be Jesus-related. Some people ‘celebrate’ Passover, but that’s really a celebration of God-the-mass-murderer and perhaps therefore not something to be credited in the plus column. So if the answer is zip, zilch, a big zero, goose-eggs, bugger-all, not a damn thing, or variations thereof, why vote for Him? Why not just kiss God a not so fond farewell and free yourself from an unwanted and unneeded addiction?

God Has Passed His ‘Use By’ Date: Part One

What does the phrase “past its use by date” mean? It means the product is no longer relevant or serves the purpose for which it was once intended; it’s superseded; irrelevant; it’s outdated; if organic it stinks, leaves a bad taste in your mouth, can be harmful to your health and wellbeing, and all-round is a product better discarded into the rubbish bin, buried, incinerated and forgotten about. That seems to sum up the product we call God of the Old Testament.

Most western civilized people would probably agree that promotion of concepts like one person being the be-all-and-end-all trinity of judge, jury and executioner; genocide; mass murder; slavery; animal abuse; discrimination; physical and/or mental torture; dictatorship; massive displays of ego and demands to be worshiped, are all well and truly past their use by date. Most western civilized people apparently believe in the existence of God. God on the other hand is one who promotes, condones, and even actively participates in the above concepts. If logic has any meaning, that suggests that God is well past His use by date.

God’s Old Testament philosophy (worship me and me alone or else), public policy (favouritism to the Hebrews) and personal actions (mass murder of the Egyptian firstborn for example) were already out of touch even before BCE turned into the CE, far less having any relevance in the modern 21^st Century. It’s time to kiss God’s insanity a not-quite-so-fond farewell – and good riddance to bad rubbish. God is not a role model anyone should wish to follow, unless of course you’re a fan of Hitler, or as one with the Taliban.

If you want a modern parallel to God of the Old Testament – well the Taliban come damn close. God could be their role model, though not even the Taliban are quite up to God’s standard of atrocities. I’m sure most Americans would suggest the Taliban are well past their use by date, in fact should never have been harvested at all. Ditto that sentiment for the Almighty. 

For example, one cannot be both pro-God and pro-life (or anti-abortion) since God of the Old Testament can hardly be described as adopting a pro-life philosophy, despite His do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do “Thou shall not kill”. God is the world’s most accomplished practitioner of genocide (as in the Biblical flood). God does not hold life sacred. Sodom and Gomorrah and the invasion of the Land of Canaan are proof of that.

That was then; now is now. There have been two especially topical issues near and dear to the hearts of fundamentalists who bow down to the Almighty – abortion and close encounters between members of the same sex.

That other very topical no-no issue other than a woman’s rights over her own body including abortion are lesbian and homosexual rights, especially same sex marriage. Now the Bible (KJV) doesn’t even mention the word ‘homosexual’ or ‘lesbian’ or the phrase ‘same sex’ or for that matter even the word ‘sex’ or ‘sexual’ or ‘unnatural’. Any references to same sex sexual relationships are obscured in very vague phrases like ‘that we may know them’. That phrase ‘know them’ apparently is Biblical doublespeak for things unnatural and naughty. Now the overriding point here is that what any two (or more) consenting adults do behind closed doors is none of anybody else’s business, especially as any such activity has absolutely no impact on your lifestyle, freedoms, etc. And that doesn’t change just because they have a piece of paper that says ‘married’. Just as you value your privacy and don’t want others prying into your affairs, well, ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. We note that there is no commandment (amongst the Big Ten) against same sex marriage or same sex anything for that matter. God provides no justification for you to cast the first stone.

Between way back then, and the here and now, both God and Biblical texts support and endorse the concept of slavery, which nearly all of the rest of modern civilized nations now reject. If there is no justification for slavery, yet God justifies it, then God has certainly reached his ‘use by’ date on that issue.

Hitler and associates have been condemned by the civilized world for their policy of genocide against the Jewish population, and no doubt Hitler would have stood trial and been ultimately executed for that policy had he not committed suicide in his Berlin bunker in May of 1945. So how come God hasn’t been equally condemned for his near extermination of the entire human race vis-à-vis that forty day and night rain event? Hitler and company reached their use by date well and truly, and that applies equally to God the exterminator.

It’s one thing to ‘invade’ another’s territory with ‘honourable’ intentions like the Coalition of the Willing did in Iraq and NATO has done in Afghanistan, or the Allies did when they had to invade Nazi Germany and would have done to Japan had it not been for a A-Bomb. In hindsight, the invasions of Central and South America by the Spanish (for gold, glory and God) or of North America by various European nations (citizens often escaping religious persecution) and of Australia by the British (as a dumping ground for undesirable elements) are today considered not quite as justifiable than it was at that time with all the gung-ho nationalism that was exulted and the norm during the golden age of exploration and colonization.  In hindsight, the native inhabitants of those lands have some just grievances.

However, it’s not normally the socially acceptable thing for one advanced country (or peoples) to invade another country (or peoples) equally as civilized with the intention of forever occupying that country, though history is full of examples. But there is a massive difference when such a policy is instigated by humans relative to when that policy is instigated by God. If Fascist Italy & Nazi Germany (especially) can be bucketed for invading Europe and Russia, or Japan for invading Asia and the Pacific, why then is it okay for God to have had His Chosen People invade the Land of Canaan or in alternative terminology, the Promised Land, with God’s view or intention towards permanent occupancy? Whether it was the Axis of WWII or the Chosen Peoples of Old Testament times, there was violence, blood was spilled, and death and destruction resulted. So, today Japan, Italy and Germany get the thumbs down for precipitating WWII; God still gets thumbs up. If invasion is unacceptable for colonization purposes, then sorry, all (including God) are past their ‘use by’ date.  

God’s perverse nature doesn’t even have to be a major happening or Biblical event for it to be evident. God’s everyday-in-everyway inhumane treatment of individuals is rife in the Old Testament, from exiling Adam and Eve, to giving old Abraham a near heart attack, to Job’s torments, to imprisoning Jonah for three days in the stomach acid of a large marine animal, to having His Chosen People wander about the wilderness for 40 years. And poor old Moses, forced at 80 years of age to carry two heavy slabs of rock down a mountain. You’d of thought the Almighty could have penned His Commandments on papyrus. God’s idea of fun-and-games would, in the modern United States (and other civilized countries), be considered within the category of cruel and unusual punishments – banned by the American Constitution.

Now consider the first three of God’s Ten Commandments. Substitute the President of the United States (POTUS) for God. Can you imagine a POTUS thundering out phrases along the lines of “thou shall have no other presidents before me”; “you shall not have images or statues or busts of other presidents”; “thou shall not bow down and honour them with public holidays (no Washington’s and Lincoln’s Birthday holidays) or read their biographies or encyclopaedia entries for I am a jealous POTUS”, and “thou shall not curse me or write negative editorials about me or fail to vote for me, because I AM THE GREATEST!” Any such POTUS would be railroaded out of office so fast their head would spin – if they even kept their head attached to their tarred-and-feathered body that is. Any such POTUS would have reached his (or her) used by for absolute certain. If it’s not okay for the most powerful of all world leaders, or at least of all western heads of state, to put himself on a pedestal, why is it okay for God?

Speaking of ego, I’m appalled by the number of recording artists who give thanks to God in the liner notes (of their CDs or LPs), or actresses/actors ditto, for their alleged God-given talent which gave rise to their superstar status. Please, do you really think that God gives a right royal stuff about little old you to the point of singling you out as an emerging super-talent? Give credit where credit is really due. It’s the luck of the draw. It’s your ability, your talent, your hard work, your parents who contributed the right genetic stuff, and/or just being in the right place at the right time. Some people can sing, some people can act, some people can preform brain surgery, some people can sell real estate and used cars and some people get elected to public office. God had nothing to do with your, or their, wheel of fortune, so give God no credit, just the boot.

To be continued…

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…

Those Tall Tales of Biblical Disasters: Part Two

Despite what you might hear in church, or view on Christian websites, the Bible isn’t all about those ten Godly commandments, loving your neighbour, doing onto others, mercy, forgiveness, compassion, truth,  justice and everlasting life. Star Wars aside, there’s a dark side to the Force. Even apart from hell, fire and brimstone and lots of sins and sinning, there’s much death and destruction all around. The Bible is full of tales of disasters that rival anything Mother Nature has conjured up. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

*Ten Disasters Rolled Into One: The Ten Plagues of Egypt (Exodus)

Despite there being no confirmation in ancient Egyptian historical records for these Biblical plagues, any of the first nine could have a natural explanation. I mean pestilences happen; ditto droughts/famine; locust swarms are hardly a novelty; even the Nile turning to blood can be seen to be just an ordinary toxic algae bloom – the ‘red tide’ common in other warm waters around the world, like the Gulf of Mexico.

The Tenth Plague however can not be attributed to a natural cause – death to all the Egyptian firstborn was literally a Deliberate Act of God; a deliberately calculated act of cold-blooded murder. Now, and most likely the case, it never happened and that’s supported by the fact that no such event is recorded in ancient Egyptian texts and it’s an event that can hardly have been unnoticed and been glossed over. If that’s so, then the related Passover celebration is a total fraud/fabrication. If on the other hand it happened as the Bible said it did, then God should be tried for crimes against humanity (specifically in this case crimes against the ancient Egyptian peoples), imprisoned for life with no hope of parole, since I assume He cannot be executed, though it would be justified, methinks.

*More Death by Drowning (Exodus)

To add insult to injury, I suppose one could also include the drowning of pharaoh’s army (Exodus) as a ‘natural’ disaster. There’s never an Ark around when you really need one! But gee whiz, gosh golly, guess what? Historians, and bookkeepers and accountants back in ancient Egypt somehow forgot to include the loss of all those chariots, horses and soldiers in their official inventories and recordkeeping. When you have that sort of appalling loss, scapegoats are found; heads roll. Alas, there’s also no record of any scapegoat or rolling heads over this unrecorded calamity. At least ancient Rome acknowledged that it lost their entire Ninth Legion, so something is screwy about Egyptian bookkeeping – or about the accounting in the Book of Exodus! 

*Your Numbers Are Up (Numbers)

If earthquakes and plagues (as in disease) are disasters, then the Book of Numbers is the place to find them (after Genesis and Exodus of course). There is dissention in the ranks of the Chosen People out there in the Sinai Wilderness and so there’s mutiny afoot and the Biblical equivalent of Captain Bligh (i.e. – God) will not be denied His wrath. The major mutiny ends with a bang and not a whimper. It ends when God kills thousands (14,700 – Numbers 16:49) of His Chosen People with a plague (love those germs) and a fiery earthquake (God’s hot to trot His shake, rattle and roll which kills another 250 - Numbers 16:32; 16:35 and 26:10) as punishment for rumblings in the ranks. Further on down the Wilderness track we have the episode of the ‘golden calf’ mark II (i.e. more idols; more idle worship). So God, knowing that His Chosen People didn’t build up sufficient immunity from His last bout of germ warfare, sends another – the local undertaker gets to bury another 24,000 Israelites (Numbers 25:9).

Turning now to the New Testament...

*The Ultimate Mother of All Disasters: Armageddon or the Apocalypse of Revelation

Here we are presented with destruction on a massive scale; the end of days; the end of the world; more hell, fire and brimstone (cubed) all around. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Conquest (or Pestilence depending on interpretation), War, Famine and Death. This of course hasn’t happened yet (though it should have by roughly 100 CE according to Jesus), so it’s still in the ‘what if’ category, though actually I think that should read ‘iffy’ category. 

There are certainly potential natural scenarios that could easily mimic the Book of Revelation’s scenario, at least in terms of total firepower (or should that be Four Horsepower). Since this is near global destruction, we need something slightly bigger than a hurricane or an earthquake. All out nuclear or biological warfare might be a parallel, but then I’ve ruled out wars (and rumours of war) from the legit disaster category, though that might be little consolation if your city is nuked or if you’re infected deliberately with the bubonic plague. I’m thinking more along the lines here of an asteroid impact, as in the films “Armageddon” or “Deep Impact” (and a good dozen clones of these), though a good old nearby supernovae blast or gamma-ray burst would do the job nicely. Maybe there’s a Black Hole nearby which our solar system might be drifting towards. Gulp! In any event there’s a happy ending since out of the ashes the Phoenix (a new heaven and a new earth) will rise again.  

In conclusion, then as now, natural disasters inspire the creation of newer, better, bigger disasters: ten-fold the death count; twenty-fold the destruction. Of course this additional creation resides either in the land of pure fiction (browse your local DVD store and bookshop for examples), or at least as vastly embellished natural ones that actually happened, tales told well away from where they happened so no one’s the wiser. That F2 twister that passed several miles away from you now turns into an F5 that passed right overhead after several retellings!  

Since there is no supporting evidence for any of the Biblical disasters, I think it’s prudent to assign them to the category of, if not 100% fiction, then to the realm of greatly exaggerated campfire tall tales. As for Revelation, let’s just say that if it hasn’t happened by now, it’s not going to.

The All-God: All This, All That, All the Next Thing

God is certainly considered by the faithful to be omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and of course omni-warm and omni-fuzzy.

Can a Supreme Being Be All-Present?Since the Almighty is a physical being, after all He utters sounds and causes things to happen, and as such, cannot be in all places at all times. That’s just total nonsense. Scratch omnipresent.

Can a Supreme Being Be All-Knowing? Hardly! If such a being is omniscient, what's the point in the whole creation business? There's no fun or satisfaction to a creation if you know to the tiniest detail, exactly what will happen at each and every moment to everything, everyone, and everywhere. Would your life be worth living if at say age 10, you had absolute knowledge of the future and knew exactly what each and every future second would be like for you in advance? So a Supreme Being created Adam and Eve, but since that Supreme Being is alleged to be an all-knowing deity, then He knew even then what would happen in the Garden of Eden, so why bother instructing Adam and Eve not to eat forbidden fruit? What would be the point? That's why people don't usually want to be told the resolution to a film they haven't yet seen. If you're told before-the-fact whodunit, why see the film or read the novel?

That applies equally to that final Biblical New Testament Book of Revelation. The Bible is the Almighty's Holy Word. Revelation is therefore the Almighty's Holy Word. Everything that is to come is spelt out in detail. The ending is not in doubt. How the ending is achieved is not in doubt. The Almighty knows all of this in advance. Satan, being a literate sort of entity, knows all of this as well. Therefore, what's the point in enacting out the scenario? If everyone has to go through the fixed Revelation scenario, then that confirms everything is predestined and that there is no such thing as Free Will despite the Almighty's utterances to the contrary. Just like in a novel or a film, the plot plays out the exact same each and every time. The characters have no choice but to follow the plot line - they have no Free Will. Scratch omniscient.

Can a Supreme Deity Be All-Powerful? Hardly! If such a Deity can not prevent evil, then that Deity is not omnipotent. If that Deity can prevent evil, but chooses not to, then that Deity is hardly benevolent. If that Deity allows evil to exist in humans, and that Deity created humans, then that Deity must share some responsibility for that evil. It's akin to parents having to shoulder responsibility if their child or children runs amuck.

The Almighty is not omnipotent since not even He can get around the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics, which states that it is impossible to know simultaneously any particle's precise position and trajectory.

Presumably, the Almighty, like gravity waves, and anything comprised of mass and/or energy can't operate at faster than light speed. If our Supreme Being wants to smite you down, and He is ten light-years away, then you're safe for a decade before His bolt of lightning hits you.

If the Almighty exists in a physical location within the Universe, then He can't know about an event until the light (or other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum; or gravity) from that event reaches Him. Since light has a finite speed, the Almighty is in the 'dark' as it were until the light and information it contains reaches Him. For example, if the Almighty is residing on Planet Earth, and for some reason our Sun goes supernova, the Almighty (as well as the rest of humanity) won't know about it for other eight-plus minutes - the time it takes light to reach Earth from the Sun.

Not even a Supreme Being can change the past. I mean, there are any number of instances where to correct some mistake; it would have been easier to backtrack in time and undo something, like going back in time and posting a "No Trespassing: Keep Out: Serpents Will Be Shot On Sight: This Means You" sign at the entrance to the Garden of Eden.

Nor can a Supreme Being accomplish something that is self-contradictory, like creating a spherical cube or a cubical sphere! Can a deity, any deity draw more than one straight line between two points on a flat piece of paper. I think not.

If the Almighty is so omnipotent, why did He need to rest on the Seventh Day? Scratch omnipotent.

Is the Almighty an All-Loving, Merciful, Compassionate, and Forgiving Deity? Yes you say? You have got to be joking! Have those spouting off such nonsense actually read the Old Testament? From the universal flood, to Sodom and Gomorrah, to the tenth plague, to the invasion of the Land of Canaan, to countless other large-scale right down to individual (i.e. - Abraham and Job) atrocities committed, the Almighty is the driving force. Hitler in his wildest dreams couldn't conceive of such death and destruction as Mr. Supreme Deity inflicted on not only His enemies, but also on His own Chosen People. If 'military intelligence' is a contradiction in terms, even more so is the phrase 'the loving Almighty'. I'd sooner take my chances with 'a loving person-eating shark'! Scratch God being all omni-warm and omni-fuzzy.

The Almighty does in fact have one 'All' quality. He's an all-nothing. The Almighty, the supernatural deity, doesn't exist.

Six Impossible Godly Concepts: Part One

We all like lists: The ten best this, the top dozen that; the five worst ranking next thing. That’s why the popularity of the Guinness Book of Records. In “Alice through the Looking Glass”, the White Queen believed in six impossible things before breakfast. Exactly what those impossible things were is not stated; perhaps they fell in the lap, not of the gods, but of God.

I spotted a book* a while back and looked over the dust jacket. It was regarding the afterlife, and the jacket said something akin to God was One; and you were part of His oneness; and your afterlife with God was outside the realm of time and space. And I thought to myself what a load of utter claptrap! God is One – One what? Who knows; the book jacket didn’t say; it’s not explained for those thinking of buying the book. If there is an oneness, then that implies there must be a two-ness and a three-ness and a four-ness and so on down the line. If you exist in an afterlife outside of space and time then whatever you are in that afterlife, you have no volume, no area, no length – you are a zero dimensional dot point. Further, nothing can ever change in that afterlife since there is no time which is what gives substance or reality to change. So, what other impossible things of a godly nature can we pour the waters of scepticism on?

Impossibility One: The Concept or Nature of God is Impossible: There’s something odd about God’s origin and behaviour. It’s downright impossible!

If God created the Universe, then what, or who, created God? Who is God’s mother in other words? Cause and effect apply to God as well as anything else. And if something or someone created God, what then created that something or someone (and so on and so on)? It’s an infinite regression. It’s far easier to believe the cosmos has always existed though that doesn’t mean our Universe didn’t have a point-in-time origin or beginning since a previous universe can give rise to another universe (like ours) in sequence.

Actually, I strongly suspect the answer to ‘who created God?’ is fairly easy, probably downright obvious in an intuitive sort of way.  Humans created God in man’s image (and probably all other deities as well, including Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy), rather than the reverse – God didn’t create humans in God’s image. [Actually, perhaps man was created in God’s image. Based on the writings in the Old Testament, God has to be described as a dictator (‘thou shall not…’) and a tyrant, a hypocrite (do as I say, not as I do), someone who’s vain and petty, someone who sanctions any number of atrocities in His name (which if committed today would results in charges of war crimes), someone who’s cruel, jealous, nasty, raciest, and sexist, someone who’s totally up Himself, highly demanding and basically an all around SOB. Remind you of anyone you know, or know of?] 

If cats have a deity, I’m sure their god would have whiskers and claws and purr (or more likely go ‘meow-meow’). I suspect that humans have a quasi hard-wired need to believe in a something(s) that one can always fall back on to explain and answer those unanswerable questions, as well as provide comfort for that ultimate question – the nature of death and what follows on from that.

Anyway, if God has always existed, then God’s infinitely old, beating Methuselah’s longevity by a mile. In that case, an infinite amount of time had to pass before His (I’ll keep with tradition and assume the masculine) creation of our Universe – which is an absurdity. How is it that you exist for an infinite amount of time and the get then all of a sudden get this bright idea or urge to create a Universe? What was God doing the ‘day’ before He created our Universe? Perhaps one answer is that God has always created universes, one after another after another – creating universes, that’s God’s thing! And if God is infinitely old, then there must have been, or are, an infinite number of universes created and in existence. Well, some cosmologists do postulate that our Universe is one of many – the concept of the Multiverse.

Speaking of creation, but assuming just one Universe, that’s an awful lot of Universe created just for little old us! Seriously, and for example, if God created everything, then God created the planetoid Pluto (and associated moons). My question is what was the point of expending the resources to do that? We can’t see Pluto with the naked eye. If Pluto didn’t exist would anything on Earth be different? Pluto adds nothing to our quality of life (or lack of it) and presumably ditto applies to any extraterrestrials in our solar system (assuming that Pluto and moon are uninhabited that is, and that’s a fairly safe bet).  Of course you may argue that perhaps Pluto was impacted by a killer asteroid that otherwise would have hit us and therefore has affected our quality of life. Then wouldn’t it have been easier on God not to have created Pluto and not created that asteroid as well? This creation of things with no relevance to the apparent pinnacle of creation (the be-all-and-end-all of God’s efforts), that is to say, us, makes no sense. It’s sort of like buying a china teapot or a baseball bat, for your pet canary. What would be the point? Further a field, we couldn’t see 99.999% of the observable universe, and 99.999% of the observable universe has no bearing on our day-to-day existence. What’s the point then of creating all that extra 99.999%?

If God exists, why doesn’t He show His face today? I mean, He wasn’t all that shy about getting in the human race’s face way back in Old Testament days, so what is God so afraid of today? Maybe He’s afraid of our nukes! That aside, it wouldn’t be all the difficult for a Supreme Being to make a show today akin to some of the stunts He pulled way back when!

If God so wants humans to believe in Him, then it would have been so ultra easy to have just one sentence somewhere in the Bible that would be understandable to later generations, even if that Biblical sentence were baffling to contemporaries. The sentence would have been a sentence attributed to God that something only God (or an extraterrestrial) could have known at the time. For example, if kiwi birds had been mentioned, or icebergs, or that bright light in the sky that moves slowly through the heavens had rings around it, or that sugar was a mixture of several things, or what about another commandment akin to “Thou shall not travel faster than the speed of light”.  Just one simple little sentence – that’s all it would have taken – something, anything one-off that illustrated a knowledge of biology, geography, astronomy, chemistry or physics that the natives of the time wouldn’t have known about. Alas, it was not to be. Methinks God missed a golden opportunity to reveal His actual existence beyond reasonable question. Or, updating to the present, God could fuse the Ten Commandments onto the surface of the Moon, easily visible through modest telescopes, or do a repeat of one of those Biblical happenings like making the Red Sea split asunder for a spell! 

If God exists, yet we can explain life, the Universe, and simply everything without requiring a God hypothesis, the God has gone to extraordinary lengths to make Himself a total irrelevance!

Impossibility Two: Is God All-Loving, Merciful, Compassionate, and Forgiving? Yes you say?  You have got to be joking! Have those spouting off such nonsense actually read the Old Testament? From the universal flood, to Sodom and Gomorrah, to the tenth plague, to the invasion of the Land of Canaan, to countless other large-scale right down to individual (Abraham and Job) atrocities committed, God is the driving force. Hitler in his wildest dreams couldn’t conceive of such death and destruction as God inflicted on not only His enemies, but also on His own Chosen People. If ‘military intelligence’ is a contradiction in terms, even more so is the phrase ‘a loving God’. I’d sooner take my chances with ‘a loving person-eating shark’! 

*Spong, John Shelby; Eternal Life: A New Vision: Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell; HarperOne, New York; 2009.

To be continued…

Satan Is One of the Good Guys!

Satan (Lucifer, the Devil, Beelzebub, whatever) has gotten a lot of very bad PR. But if you stop and think about it, it’s hardly justified. One could argue that Satan, though hardly a poster boy for the Salvation Army, is angelic relative to his former boss, commonly called God or Jehovah. However, in the final analysis, it doesn’t matter as both Satan and God/Jehovah are as fictional as Winston Smith (“1984”), Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter.  

If Satan popped into the United Nations today – a tourist obviously – and was recognised (those security cameras are everywhere) what would or could that international body actually accuse him of and charge him with? Could Satan be hauled off to the International Criminal Court or International Court of Justice and tried for something – say crimes against humanity? Since he is the most evil being that ever was or ever will be, you’d think they’d not only throw the book at him but the whole contents of the New York City Public Library – and that’s a lot of thrown books!

Could Satan be accused of assault, being drunk and disorderly, book burning, bribery or blackmail, child abuse, counterfeiting, corruption, drug use and abuse, drug trafficking, eating meat on a Friday, illegal gambling, graffiti, infidelity, hijacking, being a homosexual, incest, jaywalking, littering, murder, being a paedophile, being a pervert, polygamy, practicing medicine without a licence, prostitution, rape, robbery, sex with a minor, spitting in public, tax evasion or avoidance, terrorism, witchcraft, even cheating at cards? No; none of the above.

Can Satan be accused of genocide? No, but God surely can be. The proof of that pudding is in the Old Testament itself - something to do with forty days and nights of rather inclement and stormy weather. Then there are these Godly bloodthirsty passages from Deuteronomy: 10-17:

¹⁰When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.

 ¹¹And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.

¹²And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it:

 ¹³And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword:

 ¹⁴But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.

 ¹⁵Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.

 ¹⁶But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:

 ¹⁷But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:

Satan isn’t as bloodthirsty as God, that’s for goddamn sure!

Now Satan did some rather nasty things to Job, but that was with God’s full authority and approval, so Satan escapes that rap.

I can’t recall anywhere where Satan has actually advocated anyone breaking terrestrial laws. Satan hasn’t issued his version of his Ten Commandments.

Can Satan be accused of mutiny or rebellion? You bet he can and a damn good thing too as he (and his followers – those fallen angels) mutinied against the worst tyrant civilization has ever recorded. The tyrant is God; the written record the Old Testament. Satan and his followers get thumbs up for his and their mutinous action. Now mutiny in the heavens is probably something outside terrestrial jurisdiction and is ultimately none of our damn business. Mutiny itself is not evil; it depends on the circumstances, and ousting a tyrant is a good a circumstance as you can think of. I’m sure we all cheered when Fletcher Christian gave the finger to Captain Bligh on the HMS Bounty.

Can Satan be accused of being a smooth-talking, snake-oil salesman? Yes, but that’s hardly a crime as even back then its Caveat Emptor. He smooth-talked Eve into biting that apple; he tried to smooth-talk (tempt) Jesus too. In fact, this smooth-talking is the basis for all of  Satan’s bad PR. He smooth-talks those willing to listen and lead people away from the love of God, but nobody in their right mind who has read the Old Testament can believe for a moment in a loving God, so IMHO Satan is to be commended for trying to steer the great unwashed away from the tyrant we so loving refer to as God. Now of course history is written by the winners, and the Bible is God’s version of things, so its little wonder Satan gets a bad rap since Satan’s mutiny ultimately failed. I mean if the South had won the American Civil War, I very much doubt that Abe Lincoln would have quite the positive image he has today.

What about Satanism or Satanic rituals? We’ve all heard of that, but you won’t find any connection between those and the Satan of the Bible which after all is THE source. Just because some people worship Satan and engage in religious rituals in support of that worship doesn’t of necessity mean that Satan wrote that ‘how to worship me with satanic rituals’ textbook for them – unlike God’s Bible. God is very clear about how He is to be worshiped and adored.

Can Satan be accused of hellish torture? God, who allegedly created all things, has to take full responsibility for not only creating Satan but hell as well. You can’t blame Satan for hell and associated tortures – that’s your ever loving God’s doing. And Satan has nothing to do with satanic ritual abuses – that’s a human ‘invention’. “The Devil made me do it” is just an all too typical human trait that shifts the blame away from where it actually belongs – on the human’s head.

Satan certainly can not be accused of any and all traffic offences and violations. Those are all null and void – no road rage here. Ditto no computer hacking or any other nasties that require modern technology. 

Can Satan be accused of trespassing? Well no doubt God would argue that Satan was trespassing at the Garden of Eden when he shape-shifted into a serpent and chatted up Eve. So, okay, Satan can be charged with trespass. That’s not usually a hanging offence except at Area 51 and similar top secret military bases and locations, but the Garden of Eden hardly qualifies as an example. Besides, if God is so all-powerful, why didn’t He just smite Satan then and there and be done with His one time subordinate? I mean God is hardly squeamish when it comes to cold blooded murder. Of course that would make for a very boring story; the Bible would hardly be a best seller if Satan had been bumped off in Genesis! I mean we can’t have James Bond kill off the villain in chapter one and then have the rest of the chapters alternate between casino locations, bedroom scenes, and being chewed out by M. But on the grounds that God probably didn’t care about the Bible reading something akin to a 007 novel, God could have eliminated His opponent in the beginning but didn’t. Something’s fishy.

And that fishiness leads to wonder, what is the origin of God and of Satan and of monotheism itself?  Clearly in the historical record, there has to be a first accounting; a first mention. And there is! What’s ultimately filtered down to us as God and Satan is nothing more than the invention by Zoroaster (Persia), known also as Zarathustra, from roughly 600 BC. His invention was the start of the transition from mythological polytheism to real reality monotheism. He invented the first monotheistic religion (called Zoroastrianism obviously).

The rational was that it was way more convenient to take all of the thousands of good and bad polytheistic gods and roll them into just one dualism; one example from each of the two extremes, which were called Ahura Mazda (good deity) and Angra Mainyu, sometimes known as Ahriman (bad deity).  Polytheistic Jews held in Babylonian captivity around 600 BC, absorbed this new idea and when eventually repatriated to their homeland (present day Israel) adopted the new monotheistic dualism, and the rest, as they say, is history. Everything spiralled out of control like fast food chains from that original invention, Zoroastrianism branching off into variations on the new theme (maybe to avoid plagiarism). Then, as now, new bright ideas provide ample scope for spin-offs. New and improved imitations branched off; all the monotheistic variations starting with Judaism, hence the Islam, and Christian varieties we know today.

It was Zoroaster who first conceived of the ultimate final battle between good and evil – what we call today the (oft forecast, never arriving) apocalypse. He of course set himself up as chief prophet vowing his second coming (sound familiar?). His religion also promised a final judgement, a resurrection and an afterlife (also sound familiar?). However, Zoroaster never totally wiped out polytheism. Consider the following Biblical verse: Psalm 95:3 (King James Version) “For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.” That “gods” plural just won’t fade away, and that polytheistic reference is just one of many in the Bible. And since the Bible is the word of God, we note just from that one verse that He has a bit of an ego; He’s really more than just a little bit up Himself!

However, the credibility of Zoroaster and his invention of monotheism is a bit suss. The priests of Zoroastrianism were known as Magi, from which we get the word “magic”. They formally institutionalised the concept of what we call today astrology, charting the movements of the stars in the heavens to predict that ultimate apocalypse. Magic and astrology don’t normally sit well with rational people.

In conclusion, the great fallacy here, quite apart from the likelihood that both God and Satan are as fictional as “Star Trek’s” Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, is the great unwashed swallowing hook, line and sinker what their religious superiors (priests, rabbis, clergy in any shape manner or form), via selective picking and choosing from Biblical texts, preach to them. The message universally is God is good; Satan is evil. Yet the unwashed sheep, those religious flocks, have never apparently bother to actually read the Old Testament evidence for the accuracy of that good/bad labelling themselves. 

Far closer to the facts of the matter is that God is the ultimate in incredible evilness; Satan has a few flaws, but at least his heart’s in the right place – he never tried to drown the whole lot of us! As far as God is concerned, He has His chosen people; the rest of humanity can take a long walk off a very short pier for all He cares! The various current monotheistic religions that evolved from the original monotheistic Zoroastrianism have preached everything half-ass backwards. IMHO, God wears the black hat; Satan the white hat. God is General Santa Anna (one who shows no quarter, shows no mercy, takes no prisoners – everyone is put to the sword); Satan is Davy Crockett (fighting the good fight against all the odds). God wins in the short term but eventually Texas exists!