Science vs. the Religious Right: Part Two

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

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

IN ADDITION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stem cell research is equivalent to Nazism.

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

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

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

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

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

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

According to Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association:

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

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

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

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

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

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

PAT ROBERTSON

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Robertson: Asteroid will destroy the Earth.”

CINDY JACOBS

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

“Cindy Jacobs’ prayers can cure insanity.”

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

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

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

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

“How Cindy Jacobs reversed a hysterectomy.”

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

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

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

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

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

“When Cindy Jacobs caused Washington DC to flood.”

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



Science vs. the Religious Right: Part One

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

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

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

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

SCIENCE vs. RELIGION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BIBLICAL ‘SCIENCE’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To be continued…



An Abstract Idealized Deity

There are those philosophers who are religiously inclined who have tried to conjure up their idealized version of a deity – God for all practical purposes and have been doing so ever since Methuselah was in diapers.   However, versions of God as represented by them aren’t really the Biblical God. Rather, their God is the ideal abstraction of God or the philosophical concept of God. So any similarity between their abstractions and the attributes given God of the Old Testament is purely a matter of coincidence. No matter – either way it’s all nonsense. 

God is many different things to many different people. God is everywhere (omnipresent); God is Mother Nature; God is love; God is the creator; God is dead; God doesn’t exist; God was an ancient astronaut; God is all-knowing (omniscient); God is all-powerful (omnipotent); God works in mysterious ways; etc. Whole books have explored the issue going back, well ever since humans could think and express their ideas on paper, or carve them in stone, or whatever. However, many of these abstract and idealised and philosophical versions of God (often contradictory) usually bear no relationship to the God of the Bible, or specifically God of the Old Testament.

I’m not exactly sure what an abstract idealized concept of God is supposed to achieve, apart from being an intellectual exercise like trying to put a numerical value on angels’ chinwagging on a pinhead, but it has nothing to do with putting bums on church pews.

God is an immaterial being who doesn’t exist in space or in time. That is a common Godly attribute, but one which is absolutely nonsense*. If God creates something that’s energetic and physical (possessing energy and matter) then God has to be something that’s energetic and physical in order to do that; that being creating that which is made of matter and is running on or off energy. You can’t create something from nothing that is immaterial or create something by nothing that’s immaterial. If God is therefore a physical and energetic something, then God must exist in space and in time since all material things (matter and energy), including a material creator and a material creation, exist in space and time. If God speaks, for example, God must be physical and possess energy. 

But the Bible provides ample examples of God existing in space and time starting with the creation itself (Genesis 1 and Genesis 2). Wasn’t the creation once dated in fact to 4004 BCE? A date is a location in time! If God talked to Moses via a burning bush, then God existed in space and in time – at a specific point in space and at a specific point in time. The goes ditto for events in the Garden of Eden and ditto anywhere and at anytime the Bible recounts some event where God did something; where God strutted His stuff, like in ancient Egypt and all those events related in Exodus.

Another variation on that theme is that God is everywhere. Well, God was somewhere, not everywhere when He was having a go at Adam and Eve! If you are physical, you cannot be everywhere at the same time.

God also has to be physical since He has a physical home turf (Heaven) and sits on a physical object, a throne – so God exists in space and occupies space.

If God is physical, and possesses energy, and expends energy, and there’s no real wriggle room there, then God is subject to the Second Law of Thermodynamics – entropy. God may be eternal, God may be immortal, but God still has to refuel (i.e. – eat presumably) and by implication, God has to go to the bathroom! God also needs His sleep, or at least rest, as per that seventh day of creation.

God is unchanging is another Godly attribute some religious philosophers associate with Him. Well, if God is composed of matter and energy, if God exists in space and time, and if God is subject to entropy, then God can not be unchanging. If God rested on the seventh day, well, that’s change. In fact God didn’t do or perform the exact same operations each and every day in Genesis 1 and 2. So that too is change. In fact God changed His mind, creating animals before man in Genesis 1; man before the animals in Genesis 2. God was also willing to change His mind when it came to Sodom and Gomorrah – that’s obviously contemplating change even if S&G still got zapped. .

God is eternal is yet another philosophical given. That God is eternal is consistent with the Bible giving promise to life everlasting or life eternal. However, the concept of eternal, forever, or infinity is fraught with paradoxical dangers. Since the Universe is a finite 13.7 billion years old, that would imply that God pre-existed the Universe, which is alleged to have created all of space, time, matter and energy. Okay, that’s consistent too since if God created the Universe, God must have predated the Universe (which negates the claim that the Big Bang was the first cause that created time, space, matter and energy; there must have been a before the Big Bang). But the issue arises, if you are eternal, and thus have already existed for an infinite amount of time, then what changed in God’s circumstances to have brought about the creation of the Universe, or rather why the ‘all of a sudden’ “I think I’ll do this” when for an infinite period prior to your creation you had no plans to do this, yet you are apparently all-knowing, so presumably an eternity before you created the Universe you knew you would do so, yet bided your time and twiddled your thumbs for really no apparent logical reason. Maybe God was of that common human frame of mind: It should be done; it shall be done; it will be done - tomorrow.

Another variation on that theme is that God is timeless. If time is God’s way of preventing everything happening at once, then if you’re God, everything does happen simultaneously since by being timeless, or in a state of timelessness, there’s nothing to stop all things happening simultaneously.

God apparently is pure perfection. God doesn’t screw things up. Ha! His creation of the human species was the biggest screw-up of all time! God Himself acknowledged His screw-up with the 40 day and 40 night rain hence flood event). Even if you put the initial blame on Adam and Eve and not on (an apparently all-knowing the future) God (who knew what Adam and Eve would do before-the-fact) He still enacts miracles in order to correct His mistakes. If God had ensured an adequate supply of loaves-and-fishes in the first damn place, there wouldn’t have been any need for waving the magic miracle loaves-and-fishes wand. 

A common attribute is that God is all-knowing (omniscient) and that He knows the future. But if God knows the future, what was the point of sending Moses and Aaron to Egypt to get the (unnamed) pharaoh to “Let My People Go” when God knew perfectly well He would ultimately have to do the hard yakka Himself and kick ass. It was all wasted breath. By the by, that’s an excellent example (along with the flood of Noah and Sodom and Gomorrah) that God is anything but all-loving. Speaking of the flood, what was the point in creating all of humanity in the first place when the all-knowing God knew He was going to have to drown nearly the whole bloody lot of them a few generations on down the track! Creating humanity was just wasted effort. 

Another common trait given to God is that He is all-powerful (omnipotent). That too is nonsense. He maybe more powerful than a speeding locomotive; faster than a speeding bullet; able to leap tall buildings at a single bound, and He’s certainly up in the sky. However, there’s this paradox: can God create a rock so heavy not even He could lift it? If not, He’s not all powerful; if so He’s not all powerful. It’s a no-win situation. More relevant might be an observation, since God is physical, and presumably subject to the laws of the Universe, could God ever escape from inside a cosmic Black Hole? 

Speaking of those universal laws, one Godly attribute is that God is the creator of all physical laws, principles and relationships, but God is also a miracle worker and can override those laws, principles and relationships (God’s get out of His Black Hole jail card). In other words, God is also a miracle worker. That at least conforms to some Biblical events (like loaves-and-fishes) but it is also nonsense, or at least illogical. Miracles (if they exist) are God’s correction fluid (whiteout) – assuming God exists. If existence is affirmed on both counts that actually makes a mockery of an all-knowing, all-powerful supernatural deity since it would have been logical and preferable to have set in train the necessary conditions that would have negated the need for a later miracle. For example, don’t bother to raise the dead; rather ensure they don’t snuff it in the first place

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

By the by, this is not meant to be an endorsement that a supernatural and Biblical God actually exists (IMHO He doesn’t), only that the logic of some so-called professional religious philosophers is sadly lacking by not taking into consideration texts that billions of people have and had defined as the absolute and definitive description of Godly attributes. Maybe those religious pie-in-the-sky philosophers couldn’t get a real job in the real world and had to rely on tossing around abstract concepts of godliness as well as juggling those angels and pinheads.

* For an example, here’s an incredible statement by academic philosopher Gerard J. Hughes: “Plainly, God cannot do things which are impossible for an immaterial being, such as walking, speaking, or exerting physical force on things.” [Varghese, Roy Abraham (Editor); Great Thinkers On Great Questions; Oneworld, Oxford; 1998; p.223.]

More Random Irreligious Thoughts

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

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

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

oooooOOOOOooooo

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

oooooOOOOOooooo

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

oooooOOOOOooooo

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

oooooOOOOOooooo

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

oooooOOOOOooooo

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

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

oooooOOOOOooooo

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

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

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

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

Cindy, Oh Cindy: Gimme That Old Time Religion!

We’re aware that God is interested in saving souls, I just wasn’t aware that the souls in question were on a pair of Cindy Jacobs shoes!

On a TV program called “God Knows” (as related on the website Right Wing Watch, 9 January 2013), a woman, Cindy Jacobs, made some totally outlandish claims along the lines of the Biblical God provides – those multiplying loaves and fishes scenario. She claimed that when cooking for her children and the multitudes of young friends they brought along, her spaghetti dinners just kept on keeping on, no matter how many showed up to be fed, the spaghetti pot was always full, the food just multiplied supernaturally; oil in bottles kept being supernaturally topped up a cup at a time; the tires on her car lasted way, way, way longer than anyone could possibly explain naturally; ditto a pair of her shoes refused to wear out. Praise God!

So if I got this right, there are millions starving in the world, but God gives her His preference by keeping her spaghetti pot full; millions around the world can’t afford basic necessities, yet God sees to it she gets life-everlasting shoes. If this is supposed to be proof of God’s reality, what does this say about God’s priorities? All this would be hilarious were it not for the fact that the woman was totally articulate and absolutely sincerely believed all the bullshit she was spouting off about.

In another post (20 December 2012), she also relates how an angel (apparently without wings) rendered assistance to her when things went to hell in a hand-basket at a Venezuelan airport.

Perhaps the women is in some serious need of psychiatric help (you can judge that for yourself if you view her videos), help that God fails to provide her since her shoes and spaghetti have a higher priority for God than her sanity! By the way, I’m not making any of this up. This woman has just got to be seen to be believed! You’ll find lots of her loony religious right videos, videos by apparently Doctor Cindy Jacobs on YouTube or the Right Wing Watch website. You don’t have to watch daytime TV or see blockbuster films to be entertained. She’ll keep you totally enthralled for hours and hours with her Christian looniness.

By the way, the one issue I have, that one bone to pick with these private cable-only TV Right Wing Christian Networks, which I assume “God Knows” is an example, be it Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association or Pat Robertson of the CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network): The 700 Club, or many others, is that it’s a closed shop; it’s all in-house. They spout off their extreme right wing religious messages safe in the knowledge, totally aware in the knowledge, that they cannot be cross-examined in real time, on the spot, by those experts, journalists or interviewers whose job it is, is to be sceptically aggressive. It’s like POTUS having to ‘Meet the Press’ where the only ‘investigative journalist’ or interviewer present is his wife!

Here are just a few selected headlines from Right Wing Watch website regarding Cindy Jacobs, the TV show “God Knows” and her organization Generals International.

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

“Cindy Jacobs remembers the time God sent an angel to help her make travel arrangements.”

“Jacobs claims to have thwarted numerous terrorist attacks.”

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

“How Cindy Jacobs prevented two African coups.”

“Bakker and Jacobs claim to have prophesied September 11^th attacks.”

“Jacobs: Our prayers stop terrorism.”

“Jacobs: Prayer led to the capture of Manuel Noriega.”

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

“Jacobs: Satan seeks to destroy God’s model for the family and install tyranny.”

“Jacobs: People will be required to get a RFID [radio-frequency identification] implant to receive health care.”

“Cindy Jacobs claims American schools had no problems before 1962.”

“Jacobs: Prophets warned Jews of the Holocaust.”

“Jacobs: Elect Right-Wing politicians…Or else.”

“Cindy Jacobs prophesies Obama ‘cover-up,’ prays for religious right leaders.”  

“FRC [Family Research Council] teams with Cindy Jacobs to target 2012 elections’.  

“Cindy Jacobs unveils election initiative to ‘remove the lie of separation of church and state’.” 

“How Cindy Jacobs reversed a hysterectomy.”

“Cindy Jacobs warns of Satan’s grip in ‘ungodly’ education system.”

“Jacobs: OWS [Occupy Wall Street] protests driven by “a power of darkness’.”

“Jacobs’ prayer warriors mobilize against Occupy Wall Street.”

“Jacobs: ‘The Response’ broke the curse of Native American cannibals.”

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

“Jacobs: Ban abortion because it curses the land.”

“Jacobs: ‘Sexual immorality’ is like putting the wrong fuel into your car.”

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

“Jacobs, Benefiel to spend 40 days laying spiritual ‘siege’ to Washington DC”

“Jacobs: ‘It’s time for many Jewish people to turn to the Lord’.”

“Jacobs: ‘Everything that I said has happened’.”

“Jacobs in Alaska, announces mobilization of a half million intercessors to swing 2012 election’.”

“Jacobs: America will erect a memorial on National Mall to the ‘holocaust of the unborn’.”

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

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

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

“Cindy Jacobs: The Lord is targeting elections.”

“Cindy Jacobs prophesies a third party led by Marco Rubio.”

“[Jacobs]: ‘God is going to do something supernatural in these elections’.”

“Jacobs: ‘Filling the arsenals of God’s media army’ to stop the Islamification of Fox News.”

“Jacobs calls the ‘blood-covered justice and judgments of God’ down upon her enemies.”

“How Cindy Jacobs shut down Craigslist.”

“Cindy Jacobs repents for lesbianism, ‘girl-on-girl kissing’ and ‘gender mainstreaming’.”

“Cindy Jacobs: God’s mercy depends on how we vote in 2010.”

“Cindy Jacobs issues ‘a serious warning and a call for urgent prayer’.”

“Cindy Jacobs’ prayer warriors target Prop 8 case.”

“Jacobs: May Day 2010 saved Times Square.”

“When Cindy Jacobs caused Washington DC to flood.”

“Jacobs: ‘The Bible is the government of the people, by the people and for the people’.”

“Jacobs: If you care about the environment, you’re Dominionist.”

Pray Tell: Part Two

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.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Prayer and Conflict

When it comes to all out conflict, that is to say war, even civil war, every country, every part of their defence force, every soldier, intones that ‘God’s on our side’. Whether it’s a local sports event between teams or individuals, or a global conflict between nations, there can be only one winner, and therefore, the Almighty can’t be on everyone’s side. To claim otherwise is to act in the logically equivalent way of pissing into the wind.

Prayer and the Laws of Physics

Given the relatively low electromagnetic energy output of your brain that’s required to pray, and the inverse square law of physics (doubling the distance results in just one quarter the strength), your message to God would quickly become indistinguishable from the ever-present background electromagnetic noise, both artificial like radio/TV waves o the natural background ‘hiss’ of the entire universe (known as the cosmic microwave background radiation). God can’t ‘hear’ you.  Further, prayer can only propagate outwards at the speed of light maximum, so if God is having some R&R out around the Centauri system, it will be four years plus before He gets your message, which doesn’t do you much good if you’re sinking in quicksand. As for vocal prayers, well they won’t get beyond Earth’s atmosphere. In space, no one can hear you pray. So by all means wish upon a star, but consign God to the rubbish bin. 

Prayer and God’s Comprehension Abilities

Another absurdity about prayer if you think about it, consider this analogy. Could you listen to and comprehend thousands upon thousands of individuals all yakking to you at once, all on differing subjects, and speaking in many different tongues? No? Then what makes you think even God could manage it, or any deity for that matter? 

Prayer and the Power of Positive Posture

Chances are, when you hear the words “let us pray” you go into prayer posture mode – palms held together, fingers pointing skyward, down on your knees, head bowed, etc. Of what possible relevance could adopting this that or another posture make? If your prayer is worthy of God’s attention, then it doesn’t make any difference if you’re standing on your head or hopping up and down on one leg or doing push-ups or chin-ups for that matter. It’s the thought that counts, not the posture you adopt while think those thoughts.

Taking note of positive posture, banging your head against or humping the Wailing Wall (I’m not quite sure what anatomical action is going on here, perhaps it’s a unique form of Jewish fitness exercises or perhaps the participants have been out in the noonday sun too long), looks plain ridiculous, though that’s not hardly unique – looking ridiculous that is. Take Islam for example…

Prayer and the Power of Proper Geographical Orientation

In certain religious cultures, like Islam, not only must you adopt a just-so posture (and doesn’t it look ridiculous too all that bowing and scraping to nobody in sight), but you’ve got to position that posture with respect to your geography. If you’re 179 degrees east of Mecca, and you have to face Mecca (that too is ridiculous for Allah doesn’t live there anymore), do you face towards the west, or look straight down, since Mecca is for all practical purposes under your feet down through and including the centre of the Earth? And if you’re 180 degrees opposite, does it matter if you look due east or due west (or again straight down)? Even if a devote Muslim were but 100 miles from Mecca and faced in that general direction, that is towards the horizon in that general direction presumably, that line of sight, because of the curvature of the Earth, would pass way over the top of that alleged Holy City.

If geography is important, I can only assume that praying in church (or on some other so-called sacred or holy site) is more effective than outside the boundary of such a zone. But such a concept strikes me as being irrational – but who said religion was rational?

What does a deity care about geography anyway? Presumably He’s somewhere up there. Again, it’s the thought that counts, not your position with respect to some manmade structure. But who says that logic has anything to do with religion – it doesn’t. Logic is not religion’s strongest point, rather it’s weakest.

Prayer and the Big Picture

As noted above, 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 “Jane took her dogs out for a walk in the park”. So praying for anything is quite an outdated concept. Just look at the state of the world around you. Prayer doesn’t work on any sort of statistically meaningful level. Further, as in the case of supposed miracles (see below), prayer validation is also a highly selective bookkeeping exercise by religious institutions in that a hit is documented and displayed for the entire world to see; a miss is never mentioned or discussed.

Prayer and Miracles

If you pray for X, and X happens, it matters of course about the probability of X happening anyway. So praying for the Sun to rise in the morning isn’t in the same league as praying for the Chicago Cubs to win all 162 regular season games. Now the question arises, has there ever been one absolutely ironclad documented case of someone(s) praying for something(s) that are so absolutely unlikely to come to pass that it has to be defined as a supernatural miracle when it in fact did come to pass. Has such an event ever happened such as to convince a panel of say Nobel Prize winning recipients, or a panel of Supreme Court judges that a miracle by prayer has happened and therefore both the supernatural and the power of positive prayer exists and has been established beyond all doubt? If so, I haven’t read about it. And it’s no use saying that this or that religious has voted in the affirmative for such events since they have a vested interest in being bias in the affirmative. Based on any judgment by any neutral panel of umpires, miracles by prayer have not, repeat not, had their bona fides ever verified. 

Prayer and the End Times

God’s coming! God’s coming!! God’s coming and boy is She ever pissed!!! You hear that every day in just about every possible way from those Right Wing televangelists, the Westboro Baptist Church, and those hellfire and brimstone Christian Fundamentalists who have convinced millions of sheep (their flock) to pray for the Second Coming and the End of Days, the End Times of the Book of Revelation and the sooner the better. Alas, the world has been hearing that message for 2000 years now without results. Talk about crying wolf – the sky is falling; the sky is falling! Okay, so where is the Almighty already – She who must be obeyed? With every passing day that goes by without a no-show, the raw egg on the mugs of the evangelists, etc. just keeps on getting smelly and smellier as it gets more and more rotten. Of course the reason for the no-show is that not only doesn’t prayer work, it has nothing to work with. God doesn’t exist and the sooner the sheep see through the bovine fertilizer, the flock can just get on with their real lives.

Prayer and Psychology

Despite all of the above, maybe prayer gives you that warm inner glow and thus is maybe psychological beneficial to you; peace of mind and all. If so, that’s where the benefits begins and ends

Prayer and Concluding Statements

Belief in the power of prayer won’t go away because on average more good (or at least neutral) things happen than bad things. One can say that’s because of the billions who pay for good (or at least neutral) things and if those billions didn’t then there would be more bad things than good things happen in the world.

However, IMHO, if no one had uttered a single prayer over the past several millennia, would the world as you know it be ultimately any different? I’d bet the family farm the answer would be in the negative. Prayer or no prayer; it’s the same old world.

I contend that the proportion of good (or neutral) vs. bad is 100% independent of prayer. There’s no statistical evidence to the contrary. Therefore, the power of positive prayer, pray tell, is 100% absolutely and totally irrelevant.

The Ancient Alien’s Bible: Part Two

Since the idea of supernatural deities is nonsense IMHO, perhaps there’s another explanation behind the more likely as not reality molehill hidden inside the traditional religious mythological mountain. That explanation could revolve around an extraterrestrial flesh-and-blood alternative.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

WHERE’S WHERE

Heaven: The name of God’s spaceship, or starship if you prefer.

Hell: The brig, located off-ship, probably on Earth, where one could be exiled to if need be.

Eastern Mediterranean (Israel; Land of Canaan; the Levant; Near East; Palestine): That part of terrestrial geography assigned to the officers and crew of the Spaceship Heaven as their area of responsibility. Contrast that with Zeus and company assigned the Middle Mediterranean; Odin and company responsible for the Norse lands; and the Great Spirit who looks after the North Amerindians; and so on.

Garden of Eden: Paradise was actually a terrestrial R&R spot for officers and crew of the Spaceship Heaven. God first had to expel human trespassers after they learned or overheard too much extraterrestrial knowledge forbidden to terrestrial ears. Later on however God gave Adam an interstellar ride in his Spaceship Heaven.

Towel of Babel: To disperse in quick-smart fashion the local population to the four corners of the globe, or even within the region, would have required considerable transport infrastructure.

Sodom & Gomorrah: The twin cities were destroyed via fire and brimstone from above, leaving no trace whatever after-the-fact. The obviously high tech weaponry might have been incendiary bombs or even nuclear weapons, but it certainly wasn’t any sort of destructive weapons technology common to that era.

WHAT’S WHAT

Miracles: High technology in action. As the late Arthur C. Clarke tended to put it, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, at least to those not technologically savvy. Among the high tech examples are the medical ones – healing the seriously sick and handicapped; resurrecting the very recently deceased; enabling very elderly women – over the hill and off the pill – to become fertile and bear offspring.

Food: Speaking of high tech miracles, what does one make of manna from heaven; loaves and fishes that multiply; wine from water? This almost makes you think of the food replication device used in Star Trek.

Noah’s Flood: A whole textbook could be written about the impossibilities of the Biblical tale of the flood and Noah’s Ark. The amount of water required can’t be produced. The boat isn’t near large enough to house and feed every species that would need to be given shelter. The crew isn’t sufficient to look after their charges. But, with just a bit of high tech tweaking, what if the Ark wasn’t for an actual universal disaster but a potential one, a real possibility given those high tech star wars, or wars between the various factions of deities (think of the ten year battle between the Titans and the Olympians; or what must have raged between God and Satan or will rage as per the forecast of Revelation; or the battle between the Frost Giants and the Norse deities; or all those aerial wars depicted in those ancient Hindu texts). Now instead of having entire forest worth of plants and all those animals requiring food and waste disposal, on board, substitute a botanical seed bank and a zoological equivalent, a repository of frozen eggs and sperm or embryos or genetic materials, etc. No need for food; no waste products; not much maintenance (crew time) required, and easily room for everything in the space allowed for the Ark in the Book of Genesis. The issue of course is that all of this is high tech way beyond the capabilities of the great unwashed of that era, the locals or natives. 

Burning Bush: This is an example of extraterrestrial hologram technology in action, employed to awe the local primitives, in this case Moses.

The Ark of the Covenant: Apparently a high and rather dangerous technological device, purpose not really well explained, but obviously more than just a storage box for a couple of stone tablets.

Clouds; Pillars of Fire; Flying Rolls; Star of Bethlehem; Aerial Chariots; Whirlwinds; Ezekiel’s Wheel, etc.: A UFO by any other name is still a UFO, and in most of these depictions, the object, say a ‘cloud’, is an actual vehicle that carries a passenger, more likely as not a Spaceship Heaven shuttlecraft. 

Germ Warfare & Biological Weapons: There are numerous examples in Biblical texts where high tech biological weapons were used against populations (i.e. – the Egyptians, even God’s Chosen People) and individuals like Job.

Transfiguration: Jesus led three of his followers up a mountain, and behold his face had a rather disquieting and unnatural glow about it (much like Moses after his CE3K). In fact Jesus, and/or his clothing, shone with some sort of bioluminescence. To add to this anomaly, Jesus had with him both Moses (long since considered the late Moses who had once been abducted) and Elias (otherwise known as Elijah, the abducted). Further a ‘cloud’ that hovered over this gathering ‘spoke’ to them, one and all, with words that implied that this was God himself doing the speaking. Then the ‘cloud’ vanished like a bat out of hell. Wow! There is surely something strange afoot going on here. By the way, in common with a lot of other Biblical tales, this is repeated several times, in the Books of Matthew, Mark and Luke. In fact, I’d suggest that if you eliminated all of the duplications, the Bible would be 10% thinner!

The Ascension: Jesus departs Planet Earth to take up his new job as First Officer on the Spaceship Heaven, sitting at the right hand of her captain.

Hologram Technology: A very useful ways and means of inspiring awe in the great unwashed. Examples that spring to mind include the ‘burning bush’ and Jesus ‘walking on the water’ and appearing in the ‘flesh’ post execution.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

There have been no verified and documented sightings of the main Biblical players (God, Satan, Jesus, angels, etc.) in way over 2000 years. Where are they? I suspect they have gone away. I further suspect God and crew were recalled to home base to stand trial for crimes against humanity, though many, like Jesus, were exonerated, having played no part or role at Sodom & Gomorrah or in the use of biological weapons and waging germ warfare. Satan and his fallen angels were recalled too, probably picked up from exile, to give account for their original mutiny. Perhaps as we read this Captain Jesus of the Spaceship Heaven (or some other interstellar vessel) is boldly going and finding new Garden of Eden locales to R&R in throughout the cosmos.  

CONCLUSION

It is clear that not everything in the Bible can be easily interpreted in an extraterrestrial context, probably because much of the text’s content tends to be rather mundane soap opera of a humans-only nature. That aside, after you take into consideration all the versions, all the translations and associated issues with that, translation and copying errors (deliberate and accidental), embellishments, artistic license, human imagination needed to fill in the gaps, plus the multiple authorship of all the Biblical texts itself, not to forget that the texts weren’t written down till decades, even many generations after-the-fact (it’s like nobody recorded and wrote down today’s news until the year 2112 – many an error would be made), I conclude that the Bible can largely be interpreted not in a supernatural way but rather an extraterrestrial one.

Unfortunately, if I am right, then all your theological baggage of an eternal life everlasting goes right down the drain – maybe not a bad thing if you thought you were Hell-bound, or even if Heaven-bound as the concept of eternal life is actually hellish as you would rather quickly be bored out of your afterlife skull, and you still have infinity yet to come.

My Top Religious Anomalies: A List

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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