Are You Significant Enough for God to Care About You?

To everyone who thinks that God watches your every move, please review the following video and ask yourself "Did God created the Universe just so that we could have some colours in the night sky?". With the Universe that size, the last thing that would be on God's mind, if he existed, of course, is who you have sex with and how many times a day you utter your prayers. Because, let's face it, on a scale like this, a single sun's protuberance has greater significance than the entire human history.

A Book Worth Reading

Sunny Sunday afternoon goes well with two things – good quality pilsner and a riveting book on religion.  Having just finished reading “A Friendly Letter to Sceptics and Atheists” by David G. Myers and couldn’t help but draft a post about it (the book can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Friendly-Letter-Skeptics-Atheists-Musings/dp/0470290277 and here for our Canadian readers: http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Friendly-Letter-Skeptics-Atheists-Musings-David-G-Myers/9780470290279-item.html?ikwid=a+friendly+letter+to&ikwsec=Home). Before I move on to a few points that I intended to cover in my letter, I wanted to compliment David on the truly delightful and noteworthy theist response that brings us a remarkably coherent perspective of a person who cannot reject science in the name of his religion and who cannot turn away from his belief, and thus creates a personal gospel from the attractive bits and pieces of other faiths. The other apparent benefit of the book is it consolidates the most significant arguments that intelligent contemporary Christians bring up in defence of their beliefs, which makes this book is a truly remarkable literature piece that is worth responding to in details.

Before I proceed with my letter, I wanted to highlight the difficulty that I will face in responding to some issues I noticed in the book. David’s stance on religion makes nailing down specific points an arduous task. What I meant by that is the fact that he does not clearly define his philosophical view on religion. Implicitly, it is clear that he is a Christian and in most cases “religion” was really meant to read “Christianity”. However, at times, David transgresses the limits drawn by Christian faith to come across more as a monotheistic deist, rather than a Christian. On some occasions when he says “Jesus” it is apparent that he refers to the character depicted as a son of God in Christian traditions, although there are a few instances in his book in which he deviate from traditional views on Jesus and attribute some special properties to him that Christianity will not necessarily agree with. Here rises an issue: the flexible position on the literal correctness of Christian scriptures allows for shifting philosophical position from Christian beliefs to those of deists and back, which would aid circumventing any argument that is specific in nature.  

The issue is not limited to views on Jesus. At times, in the book’s “religion” means exactly what it is – a religion. Other times, “religion” is a substitute word for “Christianity”. In many instances, in response to some ideas of the book I can contrast differences of diverse religious teachings that go for and against David’s argument. However, it will not necessarily work to counter David’s position, because implicitly he means “Christianity”. In other instances, David’s argument is contingent upon rolling all religions into one and pinning an argument on Christian beliefs will fail.  

Lastly, I need to define axioms before embarking on the writing journey, as it will help to avoid unnecessary and lengthy explanations for each point. Axiom #1 is the Old Testament is inseparable from the New Testament. The simple proof of it is Jesus never rejected or corrected Yahweh, Abraham or Moses, predicating his teaching on the infallible foundation provided by the Old Testament.  

Page 1 – The first page caught my attention with the phase of “God-professing but war-making American president”. I take that the “but” in this sentence is meant to suggest that war-making does not really belong to the God-professing camp. However, the history of religion shows that God-professing crowds didn’t really shun away from wars. An argument that can be made here, of course, is quite common: the deeds of individuals do not necessarily define the religion and may, actually, go against religions teaching. This is true. However, the history of religion shows that Gods made frequent calls on God-professing mortals to wage wars. Taking a sample of a handful of cultures, Huitzilopochtli, Mars, Camulus, Anhur, Ares, Chamunda and Odin, they all wanted us to fight and kill each other. Sure enough, these are the “foreign pagan” Gods. Closer to home we have Muhammad, who was a self-appointed prophet from the age of 40 and a bandit from the age of 42. He claimed his continuation of Abrahamic traditions and didn’t refrain from attacking others to seize their property, kill their men, and capture their women and children as slaves. Again, we can argue that Muhammad is a false prophet and thus does not deserve to be evaluated in the context of Biblical characters. However, God of the Old Testament sent its subjects to war on several occasions. From the Axiom 1, Jesus may not have continued down the same belligerent path, but he didn’t denounce his father’s violent ways. Long story short, believing in God does not imply belongingness to the peace camp. 

Page 2 – “joining Dawkins in savaging religion by associating it with its worst extremes”. Having read all Richard’s books, I must jump to his defence here. While he does reference the worst of religions, such examples merely illustrate the point that religion does not correlate to righteousness. I find that Richard’s point is much more thoughtful, rational and deep than the primitive “look at him and he is an example of what religion is” as David presents it to be.

Page 2 – “Jesus, a radical critic of the religion of his days”. This is not exactly correct; at least not as it is articulated. Jesus did rebel against the ways of practicing religion, but not the religion itself. He did not abolish, reject or denounce even the most abominable facets of the Old Testament, establishing his teaching on the readily-available basis provided by Torah. 

Page 4 – The book provides two assumptions that are called “axioms” in the next sentence. An assumption cannot be an axiom. I am positive that this is simply a case of unfortunate choice of words, but it also underscores the issue typical to all religions. It often happens that with time, assumptions erroneously become unquestionable axioms. Once becoming part of faith theoretical basis, assumptions are no longer questioned because the mountain of theories and the whole teaching would collapse if assumptions are removed.  

Page 5 – I am delighted to hear that David does not consider sexual orientation as a choice. This is not, however, the underlying assumption of Christianity. The story of Lot unambiguously illustrates God’s view on homosexuality. God wrath suggests nothing, but that the practice is not from God and therefore it is unnatural, abominable personal choice. While I am happy to find David in the rational camp, his views go directly against the presumptions of the religion he calls your own. The question I want to ask is how to reconcile belongingness to two opposing camps: a camp that understands the nature of homosexuality and the camp whose ideology calls it an abomination?  

Page 6 – “If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and what he says does not come true, then it is not the Lord’s message.” If what he says does come true, it doesn’t mean that it was Lord’s message either.  

Page 9 – “you accuse use of hypocrisy…” This is rather a hasty generalization. Most thinking atheists accuse religious groups of believing in something that has no evidence of existing, but not of the things David listed.  

Page 9 – “Authentic biblical religion calls its followers to “do justice”. What they also suffer from is a total lack of definition of what that justice is. Usually, all three Abrahamic faiths imply “do what pleases your unjust, unfair, capricious and wrathful God” as “do justice”. Measured by the rules of common decency, these “do justice” rules sway far in the area of complete injustice. Was it just for Jews to kill native inhabitant of the land of Israel so that Jews had a place to live? Was it just for God to punish a Pharaoh who was, in fact, a victim of a con? Was it just for Muhammad to invade Banu Nadir simply because Muslims ran out of good targets to rob? Authentic biblical justice is not what we would define as one. There is as much of a problem with religious wisdom as there is with those who implement it.

To be continued …

Headdress: A God-Given Law?

Recently, I’ve attended a Bar Mitzvah ceremony for a grandson of my very close friend (and before you ask, yes, I do occasionally attend religious ceremonies out of respect to individuals regardless of their personal religious views and beliefs). At the synagogue, as you would expect, I ran into the numerous married couples and was surprised by the sheet number of ladies wearing sheitels, or wigs, which are meant to cover their natural hair to preserve their modesty known as Tzniut. Later, I had a chat with a rabbi about the purpose of sheitels and other forms of headwear used by Jews. According to him, hair coverings are a biblical requirement unambiguously prescribed by Talmud and dating back to the times of Moses. 

Assuming that the ruling is indeed from the Creator, it agonizingly difficult to understand why God would demand from its subjects to cover their feeble heads. If a burning necessity of having a layer of fabric between thyself and thy Creator was to be enforced, it is quite obvious that God, as mighty and wise as he is portrayed by all religions, would design humans with such covering features embedded in their DNA. "Cover your head in order that the fear of heaven may be upon you" will be an indispensible part of our natural body design. However, history shows that the demand of all puny humans to place a piece of cloth on their parietal and frontal bones is actually nothing more than an age-long tradition steaming from the demeaning marking of slaves forced upon Jews by Egyptians. It takes quite a bit of imagination to turn a degrading piece of closing invented by men into a sign of obedience to God. 

Surely, it is not “for all mankind” that we are talking about here, but rather something unique that was thought of specifically with women in mind. Covering lady’s hair with an ugly rug takes away much of her beauty, rendering her not as appealing to other men. The rug comes off only to reveal her true beauty before her lawful husband in order for them to procreate. There is a problem with that. Firstly, if the Creator considered sex as a sin, then he would not have created sexual reproduction. There are ubiquitous examples of asexual reproduction in the animal kingdom and if God had managed to think of it, he would have most certainly made us in a way that the abominable practice of intercourse wouldn’t be needed. Then, goes the peculiar process of revealing the true beauty only before thy mate. There are umpteen examples of animals that stay modest until the mating game. Peacock would be, perhaps, the most salient of them. If God wanted us to appear modest, he would have applied the same principal to our creation – we would turn beautiful only when required. Lastly, there are monogamous animals. If God’s intention was to pair us up in everlasting wedding bond, we would have been designed after swans and fairy wren and not after apes.

Sheitel, deserves special mentioning in the context of "modesty", as it is a very peculiar way to demostrate it. Most ladies I've met actually benefitted from covering their natural locks with splendidly designed wigs, shedding a few years from their true age. It is quite apparent that the notion of covering natural hair with fake locks for the sake of humility is plainly absurd. 

God, if existed, would have created us the way he would want us to be. Men, on the other hand, have little control over the natural appearance of other human beings and must come up with creative solutions to alter each other looks. Hence sheitels, kippahs, burkas and other forms of religions headdresses. It raises a rather important quesion - does it make sense for any thinking contemporary individual to maintain and propagate fantasies of dark-age simpletons?

Should Every Creation Have a Creator?

Today, I received a question regarding the famous/infamous “ABC Nightline Face-off: Ray Comfort Proves that God Exists” episode that was recorded a few years back (the full video can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0woXuAk9pDY). My inquisitive interlocutor, who is a creationist, was evidently much impressed by the simplicity and perceived elegance of the explanation about the God’s existence offered by Ray. His question for me was extracted directly from the debate (at 3:15 minutes) and went limpidly “Can there be a painting without a painter?”

Remarkably, I must concede my utter defeat at the hands of eloquent Mr. Comfort and agree with all creationists that there cannot be a painting without a painter. I will even add to their argument that there cannot be an ant hill without ants or sunshine without the Sun or tide-waves without tides.

However, there can be plenty of other creations without a creator. Mountains, rivers, clouds, winds, sunshine, mud patterns on car fenders  – all these, and many other, things are the naturally and often randomly occurring phenomenon. They are formed by geological and other natural processes that have very specific causes that lead to their formation or occurrence. If there is a creator for everything, including each summery breeze and wintery snowflake, then God must be involved in all aspects of the existence of the Universe, which will imply a constant and conscious control (I suppose using God’s Lidless Eye) of every boson and fermion. 

I would advise anyone against rushing to respond with “yes” to the question of “is such granular control possible?” The “yes” answer will open up a whole new can of worms and effectively invalidate many traditions and beliefs that most cults and religions forster. 

Let’s ignore the sweeping generalization of proclaiming that “every creation has a creator” for the sake of argument. As absurd as it most certainly is, let’s presume that there is a creator for every creation. Then what is the difference between Ray’s and scientific approach to the analysis of what the creator is?

Science looks at the facts. In the example of Ray’s “every painting has a painter”, science will examine the paint and conclude that such type of paint was commonly used in the first half of the 16^th century. This might be confirmed by other independent tests of the paint’s age. The paint was commonly used in Italy for such and such purpose. The direction of brush strokes suggests that the painter was left-handed. The dress of the woman indicates that she is from a wealthy merchant’s family.  Piece by piece the science will analyse available facts, striving to put them in the right context. Along the way mistakes will be made, which later will be identified and corrected by further reviews. Every discovery will enhance our understanding of the painting, the painter, his subject and their surroundings.

Give the same painting to the pious and all details that science would uncover will stay fatuously disregarded. Instead, religious crowds will offer you gratuitous statements about what the painter and his relatives wanted from YOU. By looking at the picture of Mona Lisa, they would conclude that “the painter’s name was Bob and painter’s mother-law’s name was Patricia; she wanted you to mutter secret words before every meal; she doesn’t want you to have sex on Sundays and she tells you to drain blood of every animal you kill before you can eat its flesh;” This list will go on and on and on and there will be no evidence in support of any of these claims. They will be provided as is, as long as you have faith.

Ray is undeniably articulate and convincing. However, the genesis of his theories is redeemably hollow and flawed. There are creations without creators and even if there weren’t, it wouldn’t bring us any closer to understanding the will of the creator.

Muslim Prayer Times for Windows Phone 7 is Finally Here

For those of you who celebrate the ancient pagan festive of Ramadan, you can now download an app for your Windows Phone device to help you stay on top of praying times. The details about the app can be found here: http://wmpoweruser.com/muslim-prayer-times-for-windows-phone-7/

Now, as some of your time has been freed up from seeking out the right moment to offer prayers to Allah, you can spend it sagaciously by thanking Sābi'ūn, Al-Lat, Al-Uzza and Manat (along with Yahweh and Jesus) for providing countless inspirations to Muhammad for forming his new religion from bits and pieces of other cults.

Cheers to Sābi'ūn!

Quran: Why there is No Other Book Like It

Oftentimes, I come across the same pertinacious argument used to support the divine origin of Quran. This reasoning streams from Quran itself, Sura 2 (The Cow), verses 23 and 24:

002.023 And if ye are in doubt as to what We have revealed from time to time to Our servant, then produce a Sura like thereunto; and call your witnesses or helpers (If there are any) besides Allah, if your (doubts) are true.

002.024 But if ye cannot- and of a surety ye cannot- then fear the Fire whose fuel is men and stones,- which is prepared for those who reject Faith.

Let’s recap: Quran is from Allah, and if you doubt it, try writing a single chapter like that of Quran. If you can’t - no one can - it is an irrefutable evidence of Quran’s divinity.

Unfortunately, neither Quran nor defenders of its heavenly origin provide any measurable criteria for determining “like thereunto”, or quality, of one’s work against Quran. Should there be any quantifiable criteria, including linguistic purity and beauty, conformity to science laws, deep philosophy, forewarning that came true or knowledge available only to an omnipotent all-knowing deity, then the history would show that better texts have been written in volumes not just in almost 1,400 years elapsed since Muhammad’s death, but also during his times. In fact, Muhammad’s fellow tribesmen and even a 14-year-old Jewish boy mentioned in Hadith wrote better verses. They, as poets and intellectuals, dismissed Quran for its philosophical primitivism, linguistic inelegance and unequivocally substandard storytelling.

With no criteria in place, unquestionably, no better work can be written. Any piece of literature will be dismissed as merely “not nearly good enough” without providing any meaningful explanation for how the verdict was established. Quran, thus, continues to maintain its position of the “The Perfect Book”, although not because of its qualities.