Pray Tell: Part One

If there is anything the Big Three monotheistic religions agree on it’s the power of positive prayer. What I ‘pray’ for is an end to human stupidity; those who believe in the power of positive prayer in the first place. My prayer will of course go unanswered.

The Purpose of Prayer Before-the-Fact

What do I mean by prayer? Prayer is asking a before-the-fact favour from some sort of supernatural deity. That favour (not yet granted) may not of necessity be a selfish wish or even something for yourself, but perhaps praying for good things for someone else (like a miraculous recovery from their terminal cancer) or for humanity as a whole like a chicken in every pot. You pray for Him to change His mind for results which you want (and presumably you think He does too). Before-the-fact prayer shows up in the win or loss column, there is, or is not a miraculous recovery from someone’s terminal cancer; there is or is not a chicken in every pot. But it is all an exercise in futility, IMHO. For example, I’m sure nearly all passengers and crew prayed for deliverance that night to remember, the night the RMS Titanic sank. Prayer didn’t alter the score. Losers outnumbered winners, so did God play favourites? The all-powerful Almighty could have saved them all, so maybe God just didn’t give a damn, full stop. 

The Purpose of Prayer After-the-Fact

There’s also that prayer of thanks or gratitude that’s after-the-fact for a meal, services, good weather, a safe journey, finding your missing keys, surviving the Titanic disaster, etc. but these prayers don’t show up in the win or loss column.

Prayer and Your Time, Effort & Energy

Quite apart from your own time, effort and energy spent  in the act of praying, think of all those trillions of man-hours (sorry, person-hours) wasted over the millennia by those (the great washed and unwashed) in pursuit of an illusion – that praying brought results. Do you really think either your personal world, or collectively our world today is a better place for all that time, effort and energy? No? Then I say again – what a waste. Further, no scholarly studies ever done on the beneficial results of praying have ever shown that praying works. Any time-and-motion, cost-benefit analysis of prayer would have to give those who practice it, and any management (i.e. – religious institutions) who endorses it, the Big Thumbs Down.

Prayer and Your Dreamtime

If in your dreams, you pray, would that count towards extra brownie points with God, assuming of course that praying actually yields brownie points in the first place?

Prayer and Your Pain or Gain Personal Satisfaction

Prayer is an ultra cheap way of feeling all warm and fuzzy in that you’ve done your bit to make the world a better place. No blood, sweat and tears; no pain and all gain, no hard yards to tackle. On the other hand, you could get your praying palms dirty and do some real charity or other volunteer work if you really want that warm and fuzzy inner glow. 

Prayer and Statistical Results Personal

Does prayer work? If you pray, do you get proof-positive results? I doubt it. In fact I’d go so far as to say there’s not a snowball’s chance in Hell – not that there really is a Hell of course. The proof of the pudding is of course, if prayer really worked, there would be miracles in that we’d all be lotto winners or at least pretty rich and famous! We’d be total successes in our employment, and in our relationships, we’d all have perfect partners and perfect children (that’ll be the day). And our automobiles wouldn’t break down!  Further, the Sun would shine down on us every day of our lives; no clouds, no rain, no snow to shovel, not too hot, not too cold, just day after day in paradise. If prayer does seem to work at times on a personal level, it’s probably more a case of mind-over-matter, the power of positive thinking, and akin to the placebo pill in medicine. Every now and again, the improbable happens. Just because you prayed for an improbable event doesn’t mean the prayer worked, and therefore that there’s a God who answered it. If you pray for X, and X happens, might not X have happened anyway? Damn straight!

Prayer and Statistical Results Generic

Even if we all just prayed for good things in general, not selfish or personal things in particular, and if our benevolent prayers really worked, then you would expect that there would be no disease or suffering or criminals or warfare, etc. We’d all live in a utopian Shangri-La. But we don’t! I mean, come every Christmas and Easter, the religious elite, like the pope, publicly pray for peace on earth and goodwill towards men (and women too) among other good things. That’s noble of them. But, come next Christmas and Easter, the religious bigwigs have to do it all over again! God ignores the pope and associated kissing cousins! Now if the pope, and kin, can’t get positive results, what hope for the great unwashed? It all seems to be an exercise in total futility to me. Since a result such as universal peace in the world (as one of many possible examples), hasn’t happened; that’s obviously not the case – just read your daily newspaper headlines, then either God doesn’t exist, or He doesn’t answer prayers. If the latter, then God doesn’t give a right royal stuff about us, so why should we give a tinker’s damn about Him (being traditional and assuming the masculine)? If we don’t give a damn in return, then the Almighty’s existence, or lack of existence, is basically irrelevant.

Prayer and the Godly vs. the Ungodly

Extreme Right Wing Christian Fundamentalists are extremely fond to be in-your-face with an ‘I told you so’ every time there is an Act of God (God’s wrath) that impacts life, limb and property. From oil spills to tornadoes to earthquakes to hurricanes, the bigger and more destructive the better, because they are all signs that point to the ‘fact’ that God’s coming and boy is He pissed! Though giving no supporting evidence, such communities on the receiving end obviously (like Sodom and Gomorrah) are ultra decadent, irreligious, practice witchcraft and other pagan rituals, have a high proportion of sinners in their midst, a high rate of abortions, allow same sex marriages, and all the sorts of things to inspire God’s wrath. Since such people are clearly lost causes, there’s no point in praying for them, or for them praying for themselves.

Atheists especially are a lost cause – they’d never be caught out praying for themselves or anything else for fairly obvious reasons. Now the question is, are atheists, gays, those who have had abortions, devil worshipers, and sinners in general plus other irreligious basket cases more likely than Christian Fundamentalists to go bankrupt, suffer tooth decay, have a shorter lifespan, have more automobile breakdowns, be more prone to lose their house keys, have horrendous golf outings, be hit by lightning, or have bad things happen to them in general? I very much doubt it. There’s not going to be much statistically different between the populations of the super ultra religious right and the super ultra irreligious left, excepting the former tend to have achieved on average significantly lower educational levels.

Prayer and Causality

In any event there is no cause and effect 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 instead. 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, but we’re not talking about God’s shit.

Bad “shit happens” too of course. Take the recent Hurricane Sandy, the perfect storm, the super-storm, the Frankenstorm, the mother of all storms, whatever. I’ve no doubt millions of people that were in harms way and were hard hit by Sandy prayed big time for that not to happen. Sorry, God had His headphones on and didn’t hear you, or He didn’t give a damn. But you really can’t win against the faithful who will always counter that argument that God doesn’t exist to hear your prayers or that God didn’t care by saying that if they hadn’t of prayed Hurricane Sandy would have been much worse. And those who prayed and survived will of course thank God instead of the luck of the draw. 

Prayer and Sports

Speaking of another common usage of prayer, you’ll get fans and players alike on both sides of a sporting contest praying to God for the Big Win (and the megabucks that often is associated with being king of the hill). What absolute nonsense. What sheer stupidity. The phrase “God’s on our side” is rubbish. Not even the Almighty (as a theoretical concept) can give victory to both sides simultaneously. God, assuming a 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 to you insignificant little contest.

Here’s a thought experiment. Take a city with two professional baseball teams, like say Chicago. If all the people in Chicago, even in the entire United States or the entire world for that matter, prayed for say the National League team, The Cubs, to win every game, and none prayed for, or actively prayed against the American League team, The White Sox, would the National League team have a perfect winning record and the American League team a perfect losing record at season’s end? Or, would raw talent, training, practice, expert coaching, a clued up manager, and pure luck (that’s the way the ball bounces) have something to say on the matter of final outcomes? What do you think?

Even without prayer, God’s missed a golden opportunity here. God could easily, assuming a God of course, do this scenario. He could ‘make it so’. There would be no serious moral or ethical consequences to life and limb and the national economy and social structure. It’s only a game. So if The Cubs have a seasonal outcome of 162 – 0; and The White Sox a seasonal outcome of 0 – 162, that would be so statistically improbable that it would just about prove the existence of the supernatural and therefore a supernatural figurehead – the Almighty.

To be continued…

Created in Man’s Image: God’s Virtual Reality: Part Two

Reality isn’t all that complicated. It resides 100% within that brain-thingy of yours. The Big Question is, is that (your brain) the sum total of reality or are their other realities outside of your own that reside as both an outside reality and in other brain-thingies? And where does the reality of a god (or any supernatural deity) fit into that Big Mental Picture? Perhaps God was created in man’s image.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

GOD AND THE INSIDE LOOKING OUTSIDE: IS THERE AN OUTSIDE AT ALL?

In theory there are two forms of existence – reality and virtual reality. You, or at least your brain, have reality. If someone, even yourself, dreams about you or writes a story about you, that particular version of you is a virtual reality you.

For all you know there is no external outside reality. All that is ‘outside’ is a figment of your imagination, of your mind, of your brain chemistry in the exact same way as your dreams (inside looking inside) are imaginary and not literally a part of external reality. Your dreams (while asleep) might be a dream within a daydream (your so-called external reality – life is but a dream), which is a variation on the standard simulated universe (virtual reality) scenario only substituting wetware for software. The only thing that is really real is your wetware, but that is subject to various outside forces, as noted above, assuming of course there are outside forces.

Even the body to which the brain is attached might be illusionary. There’s the famous tale of the two philosophers, one of whom said that a large rock was but an illusion and had no reality (Philosopher-I) and the other (Philosopher-R) who refuted that theory by giving the rock a really swift and violent kick, and in intense pain noted that he had indeed refuted the claim of Philosopher-I. But did he? Philosopher-I could argue that Philosopher-R was as imaginary as the rock; his kick was an illusion, and the pain therefore nonexistent. Philosopher-I could further argue that since he hadn’t kicked the rock not a thing about the reality of the rock was proved to his satisfaction. Even if Philosopher-I had kicked the rock and ended up with a black-and-blue big toe for his trouble, he could still argue that the pain was just his imagination, it resided only within his brain, and existed independently of his unreal illusory bruised big toe. All that was apparently outside of Philosopher-I’s brain, Philosopher-I’s body, Philosopher-R, the rock, the kick, etc., was just all make believe done via Philosopher-I’s brain chemistry.

So there may not be an ‘outside’ at all – your brain is the universe. But if there is an outside it could be drastically different than what you perceive it to be, as in the case of someone seeing sounds. Your brain chemistry has taken an outside reality and turned it into an alternative and inner reality, a personal reality, a reality unique to you and only you because your brain and brain chemistry is uniquely yours.

Contrast that when I’m asleep and dreaming ‘reality’ with your wide awake ‘reality’. Both can seem equally real, as anyone who has had nightmares can testify to.

Contrast your wide awake ‘reality’ to that when you are ill or exhausted or under the influence or after taking LSD or marijuana. Your ‘reality’ changes as circumstances change. Further, someone who is ill or tired or under the influence, etc. or is otherwise hallucinating, isn’t witnessing the same reality that you are.

Reality is a rather nebulous concept!

But either there is an external reality, or there is not. If there is not and you accept the validity of a god or a deity then that god or deity is a creation of your imagination and part of your fantasy world. If there is an external reality, then either a god (or gods) exists within that external life, the universe and everything or does not exist. In other words, either there is, or is not, a real supernatural deity who creates, controls and destroys, a deity that has an existence independent from your own. Regardless, let’s call this ‘is’ or ‘is not’ supernatural entity “God”. There can be no wriggle room between the two possibilities*.

Even in an external reality, Superman has no reality, only virtual reality. Superman was conceived in the human mind. In contrast, does God have reality, or just a virtual reality? If it’s the latter, then God was conceived and born in the human mind, where God resides to this very day. God is a figment of our imagination. In short, God didn’t make us in His image; we made God in our image since God was our creation. Of course if God was created in our image then it’s not surprising that what we like God likes and what we don’t like, well there’s God’s wrath we conjured up to deal with that. God’s virtual reality actions and reactions, as related in the Bible at least, are totally comprehensible to us. God is depicted as often violent, prone to temper tantrums, authoritarian, cruel, demanding, jealous, vindictive, vain, in sort, God’s human. But God’s not unique in that capacity. Zeus ain’t any better – he’s a downright sex maniac, even rapist. In fact if you examine any deity from any mythology you’ll find very, very human qualities exhibited. Hera (Mrs. Zeus) is a jealous scheming bitch; Zeus’s brother Poseidon is vindictive and bad tempered; his other brother Hades was a kidnapper. I’d better stop there; otherwise an essay turns into a full-length book!

How do we know for absolute certain that God didn’t create mankind in His image and not the other way around, as I believe? We don’t! But if God really wanted to make His humans a unique creation, really separate and apart from all else, He would not have moulded us with the same basic body plan and biochemistry as the rest of the animal kingdom. We might have been created instead with a silicon-based biochemistry and we certainly wouldn’t share any DNA with anything else, since that just confuses the creation picture. Further, the dust-and-rib scenario of Genesis is pretty ludicrous even to the relatively uneducated. Even Frankenstein’s monster is a more plausible account or act of creation than Genesis.

To be continued…

*There might be a third possibility. Something or someone masquerading as a deity, say ‘ancient astronauts’, who by artificial selection, starting with primitive primates through to the hominids and eventually to us, genetically engineered our wetware such that the concept of ‘god’ was hardwired into our brains, such that we would accept the external reality of a god(s) (with themselves in the starring role), all the better with which to control the great unwashed masses. ‘God’ carries a bigger more awe-inspiring stick than mere flesh-and-blood aliens.

Free Will: Your Reality or Your Illusion? Part Two

Introduction: “You have to believe in free will. You have no choice”. Seriously, if our Universe is a clockwork Universe, where causality rules absolutely (as both Newton and Einstein believed), then you do not have free will, only the illusion of having free will.

I will argue that if causality means anything, then everything is predetermined and therefore there is no free will. Causality rules – a cause causes an effect which in turn becomes the cause for a later effect which is hence the cause for an even later effect, and so on down the line. It’s an unbroken causality chain starting from an initial set of fixed conditions. The past determines the present which determines the future. If you knew the past to an absolute infinite amount of detail, then you know the future to that same degree of infinite detail, and free will doesn’t enter into things.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Now let’s take the case of human conception, through to blastula, embryo and foetus. I think one can agree that a human doesn’t need to make any decisions for the first nine months, while still in the womb. Ditto the nine months following birth, and probably another nine months after that. But sooner or later, that baby or infant will make its first decision that’s not based on fundamental body needs like ‘deciding’ to go to sleep or wet it’s diapers.

The question is what is fundamentally different about the nature of the infant before it can make its first free will choice or decision and just after? The brain, the brain chemistry, the neural nets and pathways, would be seemingly identical. The only thing I can think of is that the infant and infant’s brain/mind is receiving an ever steady input of sensory data, ultimately enough to allow the infant to make decisions – the baby wants scrambled eggs, not soft-boiled eggs. 

The ever increasing absorption of external stimuli may provide the ultimate need or desire to make choices, but it doesn’t provide the mechanism. Ultimately I don’t think there is a free will mechanism as everything is predetermined, like the computer simulation of “Life”. But does it really matter whether or not you have actual free will or the illusion of free will? It doesn’t alter how you live your life and the expectations of those unknown choices you’ll make between now and when Mother Nature makes that final choice on your behalf!

So far I’ve been muttering on as if you came to a metaphorical fork in the road and had some sort of free will to pick one path, or the other path; maybe neither path - or maybe not, if causality rules the universal roost.

There’s no free will solace in the Many Worlds Interpretation of reality; in coming to that fork in the road, because all paths, all possible choices, are enacted as the universe splits to cater for each and every one. You may think you picked one path – the high road, the low road, or the path least travelled, it makes no difference – and thus could pat yourself on the back for having free will and acted upon it, but in actual fact it was, ditto, an illusion. All paths were taken, in one world you took the high road, in another the low road, in a third world the road in-between, so no cigar, you do not pass ‘go’, you do not collect $200 free will dollars as there was no free will exhibited. 

I do have some unanswered questions. Say you have to decide between wearing that green dress or that red dress to – whatever. You set those thought chemical/physical wheels in motion. I’m not quite sure how the chemical/physical processes stay focused on the issue at hand. I mean, what if you hence decide to make scrambled eggs – nothing to do with the original green dress/red dress decision! Perhaps that’s a part of the ‘disease’ we collectively call mental illness.  

Then there’s the old hairy chestnut of if there is no free will, can people, should people, be held accountable for their behaviour? The fact that people are, obviously suggests that society as a whole has voted for the concept of free will. Whether that has ultimately a religious base (God gave us free will) I know not, but I’d bet - probably. 

Quite apart from that deterministic clockwork Universe scenario – what was set in motion at the Big Bang event 13.7 billion years ago, those initial fixed conditions, the set of particles and the laws and relationships that governed their interactions and evolution past to present to future – there are other slightly less plausible scenarios that also limit your free will if they reflect true reality.

For example, if you appear in your dreams as a character, or as a character in someone else’s dreams, your (or someone else’s) dream world representation of you, if questioned (not that that’s possible of course) about your free will, well you would reply that within the dream you were a part of (not that you would know you were a participant in a dream) that you were exhibiting free will. But of course it’s actually the dreamer’s mind that’s pulling the strings, and thus the characters (such as you) in a dream just dance to whatever tune is played out for them. No free will.

Dreams (wetware) aren’t the only form of virtual reality. There’s software, and computer generated simulations, like, say video games. The characters within, as per the dreams scenario, would tell you if they could that their actions exhibit their own free will. But of course that’s not true; the programmer and ultimately the player dictate the action and tell the character what to do. Again, there’s no free will actually exhibited by the characters.

Now, ask yourself what if our reality is actually the product of a higher reality wetware or software? That is, we’re dreamed or simulated but ultimately generated beings akin to the beings we dream about or we create via our software. We’re actually characters in someone else’s dream (let’s hope they don’t have an alarm clock set) or the product of someone (something) else’s software (let’s hope they don’t hit the delete key). If that’s so, then, we got no free will. We waltz to their wetware or software tune.

Lastly, although according to legend God gave us free will, let’s say for argument’s sake that there’s an afterlife and that we go to Heaven. Do you have free will in Heaven? That is, could you, of your own free will, commit a sin in Heaven?  

Conclusion – Regardless of what society believes, I believe free will is an illusion. Everything is preordained, much like that next scene in the movie you’ve already seen a half-dozen times before. You know what’s coming next and the characters you’re observing have no choice in the matter – no free will. Well, maybe that’s what life, the Universe, and everything is – something already recorded and set in stone. Or, like that example I gave above, “Life”, perhaps we’re a computer program or simulation with relationships and rules all set in motion, perhaps for the edification or amusement of that extraterrestrial computer programmer in the sky!

*Because of etiquette or protocol, Tycho Brahe, while in the company of royals so the story goes, apparently couldn’t, or wouldn’t excuse himself to go to the bathroom. As a result he suffered a ruptured bladder and snuffed it, getting a Darwin Award in the process. That was a hell of a way to die for king and country!