Ultimate Purpose, Meaning and Destiny: Part Two

If there is a common theme within religions and associated philosophies, it’s one of trying to position oneself in the broad context of life, the universe and everything as something special. You have somehow been tapped on the shoulder with a special and unique mission or destiny, or a special purpose or meaning that you have to carry during the time of your existence, something that places you uniquely above the rest of life, the universe and everything. Hogwash!

Author’s note: for the sake of brevity, I intend to use the acronym for self-awareness or consciousness as SAC; for the overlapping concepts of destiny, fate, function, meaning, purpose or reason as DFMPR. That should save a bit of space!

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

If something is created, and that something has a DFMPR for being created in the first place, that implies an act of intelligence, though that level of intelligence doesn’t have to be very high. Ants create an anthill out of dirt or sand for a purpose (shelter); some birds will gather up pretty baubles and lay them out to be admired by a prospective mate, an artistic work that has a purpose (sex and reproduction); some primates fashion sticks out of leafy twigs to probe for termites, again for a purpose (food).

Back to you: were you created for a DFMPR – are you a tool as it were, designed with an ultimate DFMPR in mind, and if so who or what created that DFMPR? There are two possibilities, not mutually exclusive.

* You are your own tool. You create your own DFMPR.

* You are someone else’s tool. Parents, teachers, other authority figures help give your life DFMPR, like do the dishes; mow the lawn; do your homework; voting is compulsory (this being written in the rather undemocratic country of Australia); pay your taxes; don’t drink and drive; don’t be late for work; spend, spend, spend; be fruitful and multiply; thou shall have no other gods before me, etc. Of course it doesn’t have to be an authority figure. Maybe a close friend suggests your DFMPR lies in being a musician. Decades later, you’re a rock & roll superstar!

Your mind is perfectly free to accept or reject the demands or your externally imposed DFMPR, like wash the dishes or practice, practice, practice your music, as long as you are willing to accept the consequences if you exert your free will in the negative. Ultimately, you, or your mind is in control and that’s where the buck stops.

In the case of the anthill, the artistic pattern of the baubles, the termite gathering stick, these are someone else’s tools (ants, birds, primates), obviously, since they didn’t create themselves. They are creations from within the mind of their ant, bird, primate creators, but via a hardwired form of intelligence – instinct.

What humans tend to create is more a soft-wired flexible sort of intelligence; true intelligence as it was – creating outside of the instinct box. You don’t fashion atomic bombs, or financial markets, or shoes, or a theory of evolution by hardwired instinct.

But the line between animal hardwired and human soft-wired ‘intelligence/instinct’ isn’t all that neat and tidy. Apart from housing/shelter, many an animal ‘society’ has by definition a social structure, a political system (leaders), a division of labour, and has ‘invented’ agriculture and harvesting and animal husbandry, even slavery, warfare and genocide. I’m thinking primarily, but not exclusively, of the ant or bee/wasp kingdoms.

However, there is a bottom line here. Things with DFMPR, by instinct or by pure intelligent design, stem ultimately from the brain, mind, or wetware, whatever you wish to call it. There is no nebulous other factor behind an anthill or wasps nest; creating a new dance step or meal recipe.

The human mind does differ I suspect in at least one highly significant way – humans, via their minds, envelop themselves in a wider worldview, both in time and in space, vis-à-vis the animals, and ponder the meaning of ‘why’.

Animals, my cats for example, have a sense of who (friend or foe; prey or predator); what (I know what that is, it’s my chair); where (I know where my food dish or litter box or the door is); even when (their biological clocks are damn accurate, but their sense of when doesn’t extend much past ‘right now’), but lack the intellectual ability to ponder why or how. Animals live day-to-day, even moment-to-moment, without a sense of mystery (they have no concept of whodunits), which isn’t to say they don’t have a concept of the unknown – they do have curiosity and like to explore (is there food just over that hill), but DFMPR are foreign ideas to them. Things just are and don’t need to be explained. There is no need to frame questions, far less seek answers.

Humans however have evolved the concepts of how or why. And the human mind can come to terms with concepts like DFMPR; good and evil; mystery and awe; yin and yang; a sense of yesterday and tomorrow; of death and immortality which are all foreign in the animal kingdoms.

Unfortunately, though how and why questions come easily to the human mind, answers do not and being an rather impatient sort of life form, well, what do we want, answers; when do we want them, now!

Any gaps in our minds ability to figure things out, the natural order of things (like life, the universe and everything), could be instantaneously filled in by one very simple invention – storytelling. If you have trouble explaining the natural via the natural, then invent explanatory stories of the supernatural, or mythology, or its synonym religion, since every mythology has both supernatural elements and deities. Easy! Every culture has done it. As author Karen Armstrong says “We created religions because we are meaning-seeking creatures”. A local pastor of a friend of mine wrote that “religion is for making a disparate and confusing world coherent”. Substitute the word ‘science’ for ‘religion’ and I’d agree. That’s what science tries to do – make sense of life, the universe and everything. Later on down the track, people decided the best way to explain the natural was to investigate, experiment and get their hands dirty, and slowly but surely,  supernatural or religious philosophies morphed into natural philosophy, or what we call today science, and science has indeed filled in many gaps where previously only deities feared to tread.

Not all mythology need be 100% tall tales invented from scratch out of whole cloth to explain life, the universe and everything. There could be, and probably are, natural events influencing the authors of these tall tales. One can easily substitute a natural, albeit extraterrestrial Captain Yahweh of the Starship Heaven for the supernatural Almighty for example. 

Religion may have once covered that role but since the Age of Enlightenment religion has become irrelevant in that role. We created science to ultimately explain that who, what, where, when, why and how. Science answers the question ‘what is my DFMPR in life’ by pointing out there isn’t any DFMPR (given to us by a nebulous other or religious deity), any more than what is the DFMPR of a rock’s existence. It just is. There is nothing ultimately different between you and a rock, just the arrangement of the fundamental bits and pieces that make up both you and the rock.

But science hasn’t yet come to terms with everything life, the universe and everything has thrown up. An obvious example is explaining that eternal question of what is my DFMPR in existing and being present and accounted for in the first place, apart from my asking “how high” when someone says “jump”! “How high” might be your DFMPR for being present and accounted for in the here and now. 

But then you too could jump all on your own accord because you have decided that your DFMPR in life is to jump, or at least one of your DFMPR (there’s probably no such thing as just a singular DFMPR to your life). Now that’s not all that frivolous since there are athletes whose profession is the high jump or the broad jump or race track hurdles, or who ride and jump horses over obstacles – the steeplechase I think that’s called.

So again we see that your DFMPR can be both influenced by others (say your drill sergeant) and by yourself – you volunteered to enlist in the army and serve your country thus giving you DFMPR to your otherwise miserable existence.

The Concept of the Nebulous Other:

Now a question arises, does any DFMPR stem also from a third party, from a sort of nebulous supernatural sort of other drill sergeant type? Only if you believe in the existence of such a deity or the various mythological texts that supposedly endorse such a being. However, I’ve already pointed out that these religious mythologies were the products of the human mind to give instant satisfaction to un-answered and unanswerable (at the time) questions. Therefore there is no competing nebulous supernatural other directing your life, even if you believe otherwise. Any nebulous supernatural other stems from your own mind.

There is one other last option. People who feel that they are being directed or otherwise have a sense of higher calling or DFMPR in their life might be virtual beings in a simulated universe. Software is the string; you (in fact all simulated life, the simulated universe and the simulated everything) is the puppet of some unknown nebulous, but not a supernatural nebulous other, is the puppeteer. In such a simulated universe you’d have a DFMPR, but no free will. In this case the puppeteer wouldn’t be just a mental creation.

Conclusion: All DFMPR; good and evil; mystery and awe; yin and yang; a sense of yesterday and tomorrow; of death and immortality stems 100% from within your own mind, albeit influenced at times by others – like your drill sergeant – natural others, not nebulous supernatural others. If you feel you have an ultimate DFMPR to your existence then that ultimately stems from or is consolidated from within your own mind (brain chemistry rules the roost) even if influenced by the input of others. I have various self-assigned DFMPR, but they all stem from within my own mind – an example of free will? When my mind eventually goes, so too will go the DFMPR. Once you’re brain dead any DFMPR you had can’t be continued or added too, though that doesn’t mean you can’t still serve a DFMPR, like being an inspiration after-the-fact. Still, the bottom line is that all DFMPR ultimately comes from within, probably after much internal mulling things over, and ever evolving as you get older (and wiser). Apart from the simulated universe scenario, your mind is your own. You have, apparently, free will to pick and choose your own DFMPR.

Ultimate Purpose, Meaning and Destiny: Part One

If there is a common theme within religions and associated philosophies, it’s one of trying to position oneself in the broad context of life, the universe and everything as something special. You have somehow been tapped on the shoulder with a special and unique mission or destiny, or a special purpose or meaning that you have to carry during the time of your existence, something that places you uniquely above the rest of life, the universe and everything. Hogwash!

Author’s note: for the sake of brevity, I intend to use the acronym for self-awareness or consciousness as SAC; for the overlapping concepts of destiny, fate, function, meaning, purpose or reason as DFMPR. That should save a bit of space!

A Few Ultimate Questions:

Is there a DFMPR to life, the universe and everything?

What is the DFMPR to life, the universe and everything?

What is my DFMPR within life, the universe and everything?

Does the universe have a SAC?

A SAC universe, well that’s the only way it could assign you a, or influence your, DFMPR. But, looking up at the night sky, do you really think the universe gives a damn about your alleged DFMPR in life? That would indeed imply that the universe has some sort of SAC. But, IMHO, the universe did not assign you a DFMP at birth and does not acknowledge any DFMPR to your existence. You can contemplate the universe; the universe can not contemplate you. Alas, that’s because the universe is not alive, it doesn’t have a mind; it does not have any SAC. To argue otherwise is to invite trouble.

Some readers might recall the controversy of James Lovelock’s Gaia theory which seemed to imply that Earth (Gaia) had a SAC and the planet could somehow intellectually manipulate the various geo-chemical cycles (feedback mechanisms) to optimise the environmental balance between extremes that could otherwise result without those mechanisms. Gaia’s DFMPR was to produce and ensure an optimum Earth; a Goldilocks Earth, an Earth that’s just right for life. Of course those feedback mechanisms were just the result of natural unconscious physical laws, and too many New Agers read too much into Lovelock’s ideas. Planet Earth exhibits no SAC and neither does the universe.

By extension, there is no nebulous supernatural other within the universe that serves as a substitute for a SAC universe. As a jumping off premise, there is no such thing as either a SAC universe, or a supernatural realm that contains any deity or family of deities within that universe.

Speaking of the universe, I should mention here the Anthropic Cosmological Principle which comes in two basic formats, weak and strong. The weak version basically states the bleeding obvious, and that is the universe is bio-friendly. If the universe wasn’t bio-friendly, we wouldn’t be here to make note of that fact. The strong version however implies a DFMPR to the universe. The universe has a DFMPR to be bio-friendly and to produce life forms, like us, that can appreciate the DFMPR of the universe. Of course for the universe to have a DFMPR, it either has to be SAC of have a supernatural creator that is, unless of course the universe and its DFMPR is a simulated universe. See below.  

I guess I should also mention astrology here if for no other reason than readers would expect to find it mentioned. OK, I’ve mentioned it, now it’s time to move forward. Astrology is a 100% human invention and has no cosmic or personal significance in any shape, manner or form. Of course you are perfectly free to adopt astrology as your answer to your DFMPR, but that suggests you are happy to negate any free will others might think you have.

Let’s start at the most elementary basics and work the way upwards, starting with the four forces and associated particles plus the elementary particles (electron and quarks).

There are four fundamental forces in the universe, with associated particles that form the entire bedrock for all of life, the universe and everything. They are gravity, the weak nuclear and strong nuclear forces, and electromagnetism. You know all about gravity; electromagnetism is also a pretty familiar concept from the light that you read by, to the compass that guides you from Point A to Point B. Now do you associate any intelligence or SAC with these four forces? - Probably not.

There are also a few fundamental particles that you have probably heard about, namely electrons and quarks. Quark combinations make up protons and neutrons, and they in turn, in association with electrons make up atoms. Are electrons and quarks SAC? Do they have intellect? Do they have free will? – Probably not.

Atoms combine to form molecules, and molecules can combine to form really complex molecules, and combinations of really complex molecules can form life within all those other non-life bits that comprise the rest of the universe and everything. But if the fundamental building blocks have no SAC, how can combinations of them have SAC? It’s like building a house of red bricks only to have the finished house appear blue!

Still, somewhere along the line, un-SAC bricks can form a SAC house – you, for example. Therefore, the eternal question – the bits and pieces what makes me up has no SAC, yet I have, a SAC that is. Therefore, I’m more than the sum of my parts and I am somehow special (relative to the universe) and no doubt endowed therefore with some special DFMPR, if I can only figure out what.

Conversely, one could take the point of view and argue that gravity has a DFMPR to its existence, ditto a quark and therefore they have a SAC in order to carry out their DFMPR (like keeping Earth in its orbit, or making those neutrons) and therefore a rock has SAC (being made up of bits and pieces of SAC bits and pieces) and therefore you aren’t unique in your SAC vis-à-vis the inanimate world. But you still have to figure it out – either way you have to figure it out what your special DFMPR is. However, I have a hard time thinking that most living things would accept that all non-living things have a SAC, so let’s scratch that option.

Okay, the universe isn’t SAC and has no DFMPR, it just is; you on the other hand are SAC and therefore assume you have a unique DFMPR, whatever. But is that by your choice and alterable (free will) or by the design of the universe and unalterable?

From the moment of the Big Bang, all the laws, principles and relationships of physics became hardwired into the fabric of the universe, fixed and forever unalterable. That implies total causality and that outcomes are fixed. Plug in the numbers into the equation, crunch the numbers, and out will come the answer, fixed and immovable. Everything that happens in the universe is predetermined even unto billions of years into the future, including you and your DFMPR. Your life may have DFMPR except you have no choice, no free will, in what that DFMPR is. Absolute cause-and-effect rules out free will. Let’s move on from there.

Let’s forge ahead instead with the standard model and see where that leads us. The standard model, scientific model, being that the universe has no SAC or DFMPR, causality is iffy (due to quantum physics); you have SAC so there’s a transition between no SAC and SAC as complexity increases. There is no nebulous other (something supernatural) pulling your strings; you have free will.

You exist. You have not always existed and you will not always exist.

You did not create yourself.  Is there a reason you exist apart from the sex act that created you and perhaps the wishes of your parents to have a child (you) – though that may be a good enough reason in itself.

A more interesting question though is, is there really a DFMPR to your existence, and by extension to all that came before you, leading up to you, since if you have a DFMPR your parents had at least one DFMPR – creating you – and so on back on down the line.

Working backwards, if there was a reason for you, therefore there was a reason for your parent’s existence, your parent’s parents, back to the rise of Homo sapiens, the primates, the mammals, life itself, stuff (planets, stars, and galaxies), the creation of matter/energy and the time and space to ultimately produce you. If you exist for a reason, then everything that went before had a reason to exist as well.

To be continued…

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…

The Creation of Adam and Eve: The Dust-and-Rib Hypothesis

Where did we, the modern human species, come from? Science has a very convincing case that we evolved via Darwinian natural selection from primate ancestors over the past eight or so million years. New Agers suggest we are the product from those same primate ancestors, only by artificial selection via genetic engineering on the part of ancient aliens. Then there’s God’s religious claptrap, one of various mythological creation tales to account for mankind, starting with Adam and Eve.

Adam and Eve are the names that we can use as an overall generality for the first humans, the first Homo sapiens, a species which had to come from somewhere. Biologists of course will argue the case for natural selection; evolution from older ancestral primates, especially the chimpanzee. New Agers might opt for an artificial selection or genetic engineering explanation on the part of flesh-and-blood ‘ancient astronauts’ under the clever disguise as deities, or perhaps incorrectly interpreted as deities by primitive man, but still an evolution from older primate ancestral stock. Then there’s a variation on that New Age theme that someone or something created a simulated universe via a computer program that ultimately created us as virtual beings. Finally, there are the creationists – God did it on the sixth day according to the Book of Genesis and no correspondence will be entertained on the matter. The Bible is literally God’s final word on life, the Universe and everything, including how we came to be.

If there were no other viable explanation for our existence apart from God creating mankind, that’s one thing, and there probably wasn’t any alternatives back in Bible times, so the Book of Genesis is understandable from that perspective or point of view, even if wrong. Alternative theories do abound now, with Darwinian evolution by natural selection the clear and preferred leader. One could almost say that evolutionists are really using the brains that God gave them to actually think with – one could almost say that except that implies a total contradiction in logic.

According to the Book of Genesis, Chapter One and Chapter Two, God created mankind, or at least one male (Adam) and one female (Eve) – Adam and Eve actually created the rest of humanity, well at least three sons worth of humanity. Humanity should have then gone extinct since no other women were apparently created to serve as possible mates, yet they (well one anyway for Abel) appear as if by magic. But back to Adam and Eve: were they really created by a supernatural deity, or perhaps genetically engineered by flesh-and-blood ancient astronauts or did they evolve naturally from more primitive ancestors? What do you think? I think we can eliminate God from Creation’s Big Picture.

Here are the relevant quotes:

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Later on down the track we get more details.

Genesis 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Genesis 2:21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

Genesis 2:22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

Genesis 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

That’s God’s story and no doubt He’s sticking to it!

We can debate the Darwinian and the New Age concepts as viable alternative scenarios some other time, but first creationism as related above has to be dumped into the rubbish bin and incinerated and thus eliminated from all logical consideration as a viable rival scenario.

Reason numero one states the obvious that there is no supernatural God or Allah or Jehovah or any other supernatural deity. If there was overwhelming evidence for such a supernatural deity then there would be no atheists. You don’t find people who deny the existence of gravity since there is so much evidence for it, yet you can’t see it or hear it or taste it or smell it or touch it. There are no gravity atheists. Evidence is everything – faith counts for nothing in any court of law, science or logic. 

Reason numero two is that the dust-and-rib (and variations thereof) scenario is absolutely ridiculous to even the most biologically ignorant, which is probably why it’s not taught in Biology 101. And how could a male rib shape-shift into a fully developed adult female (blonde, brunette, redhead?), minus navel no doubt, but ready equipped with intelligence, vocalization and language? A male rib in any event would contain male genetic information for maleness, but you couldn’t have expected the author(s) of this imaginary (bordering on sci-fi) Genesis tale to have known that. As to Adam’s creation from dust, perhaps all those bored housewives who are dissatisfied with their hubbies might want to save up all that household dust that they deal with daily with the intention of creating some sort of youthful stud rival for hubby’s affections and bedroom favours. I mean if a mere male deity can create a man from dust, imagine what a human female can accomplish with that same ingredient!

Reason numero three is that if God created Eve directly from Adam’s rib, then Adam and Eve are more closely related than any brother-sister pair ever were, and therefore when they did God’s ‘be fruitful and multiply’ thing, well that was incest! And God, by design, promoted that. Wow! Now what God should have done was take a pile of dust from the planet Mars and create Adam; take another pile of dust from the planet Venus and create Eve, and that way you’d really have men are from Mars and women are from Venus and no incest need be entered into (as it were). Further, humans would have had an extraterrestrial heritage and therefore been separate and apart from the rest of the terrestrial animal kingdom (see the following paragraph for that nitty-gritty).

Reason numero four is that if God et al. really wanted to make 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 with a silicon-based biochemistry and we certainly wouldn’t share any DNA with anything else like chimpanzees, since that just confuses the creation picture. God was not thinking logically, just begging for a Darwin and genetics to come along and give Him a black eye.

Reason numero five is that a perfect God wouldn’t have created so many design flaws or imperfections in the alleged pinnacle of His creationist endeavours, the human species, what with their easily breakable bones, a way too narrow birth canal, bad backs, poor eyesight, and impacted wisdom teeth, as well as those non-functional body parts like an appendix, earlobes and toenails. One does not tend to manufacture something with faulty and non-essential parts. God might have created us a tad more resistant to arthritis, the common cold, as well as a seeming zillion other common afflictions from infections to cavities to the measles to numerous cancers. Then too there are all those nasty God-created personality flaws part and parcel of the human being we’d be better off without. If God created us, God created the automotive equivalent of the Edsel.

Reason numero six suggests a further anomaly that proves just about beyond any doubt that Genesis is the literary work of man and not of God; we note the endless repetition of “And God said.” My question: prior to Adam, just who was around back then to copy down anything that God said? And if the answer to that is “nobody”, then presumably God is just talking to Himself! Or, more likely as not, the entirety of the Book of Genesis, creation and all, is just an early example of what would later become first known as mythology and even later on down the track as science fiction or science fantasy.

Reason numero seven is that remains of Homo sapiens have been dated via various accepted and verified scientific methods to way before any possible Biblical date that’s accepted by creationists. Human remains can be dated to way in excess of an order of magnitude (a factor of ten times) in fact, in fact closer numerically to two orders of magnitude (a factor of one hundred times) vis-à-vis what a literal Bible demands.

Reason numero eight is that if God wanted His Chosen People (starting with Adam and Eve) to occupy what’s today the Land of Israel and surrounds, why create them in mankind’s Cradle of Africa? Africa is apparently mankind’s point-of-origin home turf on the grounds that hominid fossils have been uncovered there while nobody has yet conclusively pinpointed and proved the geographical location of the Garden of Eden, far less found human remains close by.

Reason numero nine asks why a Chosen People at all? If God created Adam and Eve, then they were His Chosen People and then all of their descendents would be God’s Chosen People, not just a select few further on down the line. It’s akin to parents singling out one child of many for special love and attention – it’s not the done thing.

Now another question arises, why would God want to create humans in the first place? The Almighty already had a nice garden for His R&R and a petting zoo created for His pleasure and what with His staff of angels, etc. He surely didn’t need any additional intellectual company – did God create Adam to play a game of chess with? Well the obvious reason is that God wanted someone, actually many some ones, was to lick His boots and kiss His posterior which presumably the fish and birds and beasts refused to do (and who said animals were dumb). Well, if that’s why God created us, beings to worship Him, then it’s high time to cease kissing His posterior but to kick it instead, hard, and often! 

In summary, if you want to come to terms with where you came from, as a subset question of where humans originated from, you should look elsewhere for answers rather than to the Bible, to the Book of Genesis, to God, or to any religion or deity for that matter. A supernatural explanation for creation is no answer at all, well at least until that bored housewife creates her male stud ‘boy toy’ from the innards of her vacuum cleaner! Till that happens then, I’ll file the Bible under fiction.

The Creationist’s Bible, Literally: Part Two

It’s one thing to hold extremely religious right-wing fundamentalist views, but quite another to bring them to the fore in a personal manner when holding not only an elected position as a Congressman but also holding a position on a Committee that by its very nature must be the antithesis of that worldview. Such has been the sad case that recently surfaced in the United States. Unfortunately, it’s not a one-off, and the implications are considerable.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

I do agree with Congressman Broun in that we, humanity, if it needs anything at all it needs a saviour because collectively the human race has within, if you believe the Bible, just a few thousand years, screwed up Planet Earth, from top to bottom, so badly as to endanger God’s supreme creation, mankind’s very existence. Of course I pin the blame for that on God as related in Genesis 1: 28. You should look it up and check it out.

Another basic philosophy here is that if whatever the Bible says is true, and is OK or sanction or performed by God, then you can vote for the following as public policy and for the good of society as a whole with a totally clear conscience.

* Slavery is OK.

* Beating children, even killing them is OK.

* Genocide is OK.

* Mass murder is OK.

* Invading other countries and making warfare is OK. 

* Rape is OK.

* Women’s rights are not OK.

* Animal welfare is not OK.

* Equal rights for same-sex couples are not OK.

* Any ethnic group not of the Chosen People variety are second class citizens.

Belief in a literal Bible, the literal absolute word of God, requires not just faith in a deity, but presumably you have to put your faith in the humans who penned the Bible to have gotten it right, and that’s a whole lot of absolute faith to trust in the human species right there.

Belief in a literal Bible suggests that all those bits and pieces that were arbitrarily excluded from the Bible, then included, and then excluded again, the missing books, the Apocrypha, are irrelevant, which then invites the question, why do they exist at all.

That the Bible alone is the “manufacturer’s handbook” is bound to spark some opposition from Muslims, Hindus, supporters of Buddha, and all others who have their own versions of, and beliefs in, a ‘manufacturer’s handbook’.

Belief in a literal Bible, the literal absolute word of God means that you believe that every other religion and religious text must be false, including presumably all but one version of the Bible (since there are many differing versions) and that one true version would not be in English as the Bible wasn’t originally conceived and written in English.

In any event, there’s not the slightest shred of hardcore evidence that God, or Allah or any deity for that matter exists outside of whatever religious text supports that existence, but then again anyone can write words and make a book. There’s a book that supports the existence of Moby Dick, and numerous texts that verify the existence of Tarzan and Harry Potter. Shall we have faith therefore in the existence of and worship Moby Dick, Tarzan and Harry Potter too?

There’s a more fundamental question here. What if every elected member of any congress or any parliament or any assembly or whatever elected body you might call it voted according to their religious beliefs? That’s not why they were elected. They were elected to represent their constituents, to carry forth their political party’s platform (which presumably they agree in general or in overall terms with) but not themselves. Repeat, they are not elected to represent their personal worldview, religious or otherwise.

Further, it is incomprehensible that anyone who proposes an anti-science, pro creationism, worldview, like Congressman Broun (but there are numerous others as well), could or should hold a position of responsibility on a Congressional committee that should advocate or promote a pro-science point-of-view for the advancement or betterment of the nation. 

It would appear that the Dark Ages are encroaching back upon us. Congressman Broun joins the ranks of all things whacko when it comes to having unquestioned and blind belief in God and Company. It’s bad enough that 1.5 billion whacko Islamic fanatics in the world are seeking the ultimate goal of a single global Fundamentalist Islamic state where the Koran is absolute law, without people like radical Christian creationists also muddying the waters, fanatics who no doubt would like to see a unified and fundamentalist Christian global state where the Bible is absolute law. Is history doomed to repeat itself – The Crusades Mark II but this time with 21^st Century weaponry?

The Creationist’s Bible, Literally: Part One

It’s one thing to hold extremely religious right-wing fundamentalist views, but quite another to bring them to the fore in a personal manner when holding not only an elected position as a Congressman but also holding a position on a Committee that by its very nature must be the antithesis of that worldview. Such has been the sad case that recently surfaced in the United States. Unfortunately, it’s not a one-off, and the implications are considerable.

On 27 September 2012, and widely reported in the media around 6-7 October 2012, an American congressman, Paul Broun (R-Georgia), caused a bit of a stir when advocating that the Holy Bible was not only to be taken literally, but that it was the pinnacle authority on how he has and would vote in Congress. He said that he believed that God’s creation took place in just six literal days and that the Earth was only literally 9000 years old. The controversy stemmed from the fact that he holds qualifications in chemistry and is a MD and that he holds a senior position on the Congressional H of R Science, Space and Technology Committee. He’s also courted controversy previously by introducing a bill that would have made 2010 the “Year of the Bible” (in which case I suggest 2011 should then have been the year of “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins just to even the score and balance the ‘books’ as it were). Fortunately, not all of Broun’s colleagues are as wacky-doodle religious nutters or as ignorant a twit (both an appropriate synonym for Chris Rodda’s phrase “Bible-believing-batshitterist”) as he is, and the “Year of the Bible” bid failed to pass muster. 

Here are his September 2012 remarks:

“God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. It’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior. There’s a lot of scientific data that I found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I believe that the Earth is about 9,000 years old. I believe that it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says. And what I’ve come to learn is that it’s the manufacturer’s handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually. How to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all our public policy and everything in society. And that’s the reason, as your congressman, I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.”

But once you stick your neck in the literal Biblical noose, you have got to accept that a literal Bible, a literal word of God (as related in whatever particular Biblical version Congressman Broun has tucked away)…

* Means all of creation (life the universe and everything) took place in literally six (24 hour) days.

* Means that Heaven and Hell both must exist, though nobody has ever pinpointed the celestial coordinates where Heaven resides up there, neither has anyone stumbled across the geographical location of Hell somewhere down here.

* Means the Planet Earth is literally less than 10,000 years old, perhaps even a lot less like roughly 6000 years old if you accept that the Genesis Creation was fixed during the year 4004 BCE.

* Means that all fossils must be fakes, the work of the devil, scientific hoaxes and that palaeontology is a fraud. Sorry kids, no dinosaurs and therefore no possibility of there ever being a “Jurassic Park” reality.

* Means that Adam was literally created from dust.

* Means that Eve was created literally from a rib.

* Means that the two originally created humans, Adam and Eve, bore but three male children, Cain, Abel, and Seth, which would, if logic has any significance, suggest that the human race should not exist, and that means Congressman Broun and all fellow Creationists should not exist.. What do we want – women; when do we want them – now. But where did they come from? The Bible is mute on the issue, so something’s screwy somewhere.

* Means that Satan (or the Devil) exists and is really evil, though you never get the chance to hear (or read) his side of the story.

* Means that God is in charge of a group of sex maniacs, the Sons of God, who lusted after and bred with the Daughters of Men.

* Means that a pair of flightless kiwi birds of New Zealand and a pair of kangaroos from Australia (among thousands of possible examples) somehow swam the oceans and made it all the way to Noah’s Ark in time to avoid being drowned.

* Means that Methuselah really lived for well over 900 years, and had some stiff competition to boot in the longevity stakes from numerous others.

* Means that Sodom and Gomorrah were really destroyed, yet no trace whatever can be found of the ruins.

* Means that Lot’s wife really turned into a pillar of salt. Neat trick that one! I bet Congressman Broun (the chemist) has this bit of alchemy all figured out and should be able to explain this with ease.

* Means that a bush really burned without being consumed. That’s another really neat trick!

* Means that the Hebrew’s (i.e. – the Chosen People) were really slaves in Ancient Egypt, though there seems to be no historical record of this ‘fact’ recorded in Egypt.

* Means that God murdered thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands and more of Egyptian firstborns, (another historical event unrecorded in Ancient Egyptian texts), but then again what else would you expect from an all-loving, compassionate, merciful, forgiving, deity.

* Means that pharaoh’s army really got done in via the parting and un-parting of the Red Sea even though there are no records to that effect in Ancient Egypt either.

* Means that the Chosen People headed towards the Promised Land to their northeast by heading south, but then maybe that was before the compass had been invented.

* Means that it took the Chosen People really took forty years of wandering around in the wilderness before stumbling onto the Promised Land – oops, I forgot, that’s an era that’s not only pre-compass, but pre-Boy Scouts. They weren’t prepared.

* Means the walls of Jericho tumbled down long after Jericho was, according to archaeologists, already in ruins.

* Means that Planet Earth instantaneously stopped its axis rotation to allow the Moon and the Sun to stand still in the sky, and then just as instantaneously started rotating again, in total violation of known physics, the same physics that Creationists like Congressman Broun take as gospel whenever they board an aircraft, drive a car or play a round of golf. 

* Means that a human being (Jonah) was able to survive inside a fish (or whale) for three days, none the worse for wear. Of course there are fishy tales and then there are fishy tall tales.

* Means those loaves and fishes multiplied, a housewife’s dream and a supermarket’s nightmare.

* Means that water turned into wine, though wowsers and Prohibitionists would have wanted that the other way around.

* Means Jesus really had the ability to walk on water, though that might be understandable if the water was really icy cold and he didn’t want to get his privates wet.

* Means that all those medical anomalies like a virgin birth and resurrections from the dead and elderly women over-the-hill-and-off-the-pill were able to conceive and give birth, among a host of others, really came to pass. Again, no doubt Congressman Broun (the MD) can lay his hands on medical texts that explain all. I hope he does.

* Means that Armageddon, the Apocalypse, the Second Coming, the End of Days, whatever you wish to call it, as forecast in the Book of Revelation, should have happened by about 100 CE. Oops, someone forgot to set the alarm clock!

In other words, literal belief in the Bible means you have got to literally believe in way more than just six impossible things before breakfast, and I kid you not, the above list could be extended by dozens more impossible things all contained in the Congressman’s Creationist Bible.

To be continued…