New Godspam

One of my coworkers received this pack of lies (debunked on Snopes):

God vs. Science

"Let me explain the problem science has with religion." The atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his new students to stand.

'You're a Christian, aren't you, son?'


'Yes sir,' the student says.


'So you believe in God?'


'Absolutely '

'Is God good?'


'Sure! God's good.'


'Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?'

'Yes'


'Are you good or evil?'


'The Bible says I'm evil.'


The professor grins knowingly. 'Aha! The Bible! He considers for a moment. 'Here's one for you. Let's say there's a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help him? Would you try?'

'Yes sir, I would.'


'So you're good!'

'I wouldn't say that.'


'But why not say that? You'd help a sick and maimed person if you could. Most of us would if we could. But God doesn't.'


The student does not answer, so the professor continues. 'He doesn't, does he? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer, even though he prayed to Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Can you answer that one?'


The student remains silent. 'No, you can't, can you?' the professor says. He takes a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax. 'Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?'


'Er...yes,' the student says.


'Is Satan good?'


The student doesn't hesitate on this one... 'No.'


'Yes, but - where does Satan come from?'

The student falters. 'From God'


'That's right. God made Satan, didn't he? Tell me, son. Is there evil in this world?'


'Yes, sir.'


'Evil's everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything, correct?'


'Yes'


'So who created evil?' The professor continued, 'If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then God is evil.'


Again, the student has no answer. 'Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things, do they exist in this world?'


The student squirms on his feet. 'Yes.'


'So who created them ?'


The student does not answer again, so the professor repeats his question. 'Who created them?' There is still no answer. Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace in front of the classroom. The class is mesmerized. 'Tell me,' he continues onto another student. 'Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?'


The student's voice betrays him and cracks. 'Yes, professor, I do.'


The old man stops pacing. 'Science says you have five senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen Jesus?'


'No sir. I've never seen Him.'


'Then tell us if you've ever heard your Jesus?'


'No, sir, I have not.'


'Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelt your Jesus? Have you ever had any sensory perception of Jesus Christ, or God for that matter?'

'No, sir, I'm afraid I haven't.'

'Yet you still believe in him?'


'Yes'


'According to the rules of empirical, testable, demon-strable protocol, science says your God doesn't exist... What do you say to that, son?'


'Nothing,' the student replies.. 'I only have my faith.'


'Yes, faith,' the professor repeats. 'And that is the problem science has with God. There is no evidence, only faith.'

The student stands quietly for a moment, before asking a question of His own. 'Professor, is there such thing as heat? '


' Yes'.


'And is there such a thing as cold?'

'Yes, son, there's cold too.'

'No sir, no, there isn't.'

The professor turns to face the student, obviously interested. The room suddenly becomes very quiet. The student begins to explain. 'You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, unlimited heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat, but we don't have anything called 'cold'. We can get down to 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold; otherwise we would be able to go colder than the lowest -458 degrees. Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-458 F) is the total absence of heat. You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.'


Silence across the room. A pen drops somewhere in the classroom, sounding like a hammer.


'What about darkness, professor. Is there such a thing as darkness?'


'Yes,' the professor replies without hesitation. 'What is night if it isn't darkness?'


'You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something; it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light, but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? That's the meaning we use to define the word. In reality, darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?'


The professor begins to smile at the student in front of him. This will be a good semester. 'So what point are you making, young man?'


'My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with, and so your conclusion must also be flawed.'


The professor's face cannot hide his surprise this time. 'Flawed? Can you explain how?'


'You are working on the premise of duality,' the student explains.. 'You argue that there is life and then there's death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, just the absence of it.' 'Now tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?'


'If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, of course I do.'


'Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?'


The professor begins to shake his head, still smiling, as he realizes where the argument is going. A very good semester, indeed.


'Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a preacher?'


The class is in uproar. The student remains silent until the commotion has subsided. 'To continue the point you were making earlier, let me give you an example of what I mean.' The student looks around the room. 'Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor's brain?' The class breaks out into laughter. 'Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain, felt the professor's brain, touched or smelt the professor's brain? No one appears to have done so.. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, with all due respect, sir. So if science says you have no brain, how can we trust your lectures, sir?'


Now the room is silent. The professor just stares at the student, his face unreadable. Finally, after what seems an eternity, the old man answers. 'I guess you'll have to take them on faith.'


'Now, you accept that there is faith, and, in fact, faith exists with life,' the student continues. 'Now, sir, is there such a thing as evil?' Now uncertain, the professor responds, 'Of course, there is. We see it everyday. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world.. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.'


To this the student replied, 'Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light.'

The professor sat down.


If you read this all the way through and had a smile on your face when you finished, mail to your friends and family with the title 'God vs. Science'.


PS: The student was Albert Einstein.


Albert Einstein wrote a book titled 'God vs. Science' in 1921...

I love the graphic it came with.  What was she saved from?  Certainly not ignorance, stupidity, or gullibility. 

I saw the above graphic on Facebook yesterday and I grabbed it in case I might want to use it someday.  I thought I'd have time to photoshop the spelling but no, already today I have found something so stupid it deserves this graphic:

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/higher-things/2012/apr/21/science-and-common-sense-point-gods-existence/

After raising the Kalam cosmological argument and the argument from complexity as supposed proof of a scientific explanation of god, the author ends his claim that science makes god's existence probable with this zinger:

But if you wish to be more than just a rational theist whose belief is based on science and common sense, there is a way to know God more intimately. It is by personal revelation. If we sincerely turn to God, he will reveal himself in our hearts. He told us so himself: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

Okay, so personal revelation in your heart is scientific just how exactly?

Just yesterday I posted about the part of the brain that is most probably the location of "revelation in the heart."

So science says "god" is a product of quieting one part of the brain.  Justifying your faith by referring to "science" apparently requires the quieting of several more parts of the brain.

Oh, and what a "win" for Christians that Dawkins is willing to use the word "agnostic."  Apparently they are too lazy to read his book, or the dictionary definitions of "atheist" and "agnostic."

What Really Happened to Paul on the Road to Damascus

Recent research may have given us an answer to the question of what really happened to Paul:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/20/god-spot-in-brain-is-not-_n_1440518.html?ref=topbar

“We have found a neuropsychological basis for spirituality, but it’s not isolated to one specific area of the brain,” said Brick Johnstone, professor of health psychology in the School of Health Professions. “Spirituality is a much more dynamic concept that uses many parts of the brain. Certain parts of the brain play more predominant roles, but they all work together to facilitate individuals’ spiritual experiences.”

In the most recent study, Johnstone studied 20 people with traumatic brain injuries affecting the right parietal lobe, the area of the brain situated a few inches above the right ear. He surveyed participants on characteristics of spirituality, such as how close they felt to a higher power and if they felt their lives were part of a divine plan. He found that the participants with more significant injury to their right parietal lobe showed an increased feeling of closeness to a higher power.

Since Paul didn't have these experiences at random moments throughout his life, it's possible he had something like an ischemic stroke, or a febrile seizure located just there.  Or perhaps it was just the D.T.s.

The Huffpo article indicates that "spiritual" experiences need not be spiritual.  They can be aesthetic.  I have had aesthetic experiences that were downright spooky, but I understood what they were.  They happened at concerts and it's only happened a few times.  The first was a cello performance when I was in high school.  The second was a jazz performance when I was in college.  The third was the Tokyo String Quartet.  The author of the study has these experiences while listening to Led Zeppelin. 


Is it any wonder that most cultures use music and sometimes dance to induce "spiritual" experiences?  The Huffpo piece mentions "meditation" which is actually less common around the world than music and dance as a tool.  Could the black church in America and other African-influenced religious practices survive without music?  Is it any accident that Rick Warren has a "praise band" and evangelicals use Christian rock to keep the young'uns in line?

Now I have only one more question:  would Jesus play a Fender or a Gibson?

What I've Learned from Watching Eagle Families

I have often taken offense to claims that Americans, or Christians, or Midwesterners, or our team are "the greatest" when we come to the aid of neighbors or are altruistic in any way.  If you watch (rare in the U.S.) television coverage of floods or earthquakes in other parts of the world, people act pretty much the same as they do in saintly U.S. of A.

Then there's the Christian claim that we would all be horrible people if not for their purported influence on our behavior.  They have been so brainwashed to believe that they're sociopathic rapists, killers, and thieves that without their Ten Commandments they'd be running rampant.  They blame the lack of prayer in the schools for whatever evils they see around them even if the actual amount has declined.  (such as the teen birth rate, except in fundy states, where it has increased).

So when I indulge my current addiction of watching eagle nestcam, I can't help but notice how many of their "instinctive" behaviors are as altruistic as some of ours.  Then I've been reading up on the species and found out some other facts.  I've especially learned about what good parents they are.

First, eagles mate for life. They are probably more loyal to each other than human couples are, and they don't have any Commandment about adultery to worry about.  They build a nest and raise clutch after clutch there, making the nest bigger each year.   If a nest blows down in a storm the next year they will rebuild, sometimes choosing a different tree.  This week a nest burned in a forest fire.  There was no hope for the babies, but the parents will probably return and start over next year.

They feed each eaglet equally.  They may feed one first, or a bit more during one feeding or another, but they don't play favorites.  None of this "Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated" shit.  Score one for eagles over humans.  (My brother was my mother's favorite, and don't let him tell you otherwise!)

They will take in eaglets that have been placed in their nests.  If a strange child showed up in a human home, it would be taken in.  Tie there.

The Decorah pair of certain roles but they share duties.  Dad does a lot of hunting and fishing.  Mom keeps the babies warm at night.  Dad watches over the nest from above while Mom sleeps.  Both of them will fight off raccoons or other animals that get too close.  One year the mom died and conservationists worried whether the babies would survive.  Dad took over the duties and the eaglets grew up just fine. 

The pair do some behaviors I would not have expected in birds.  Dad will bring home a fresh fish and start chomping away at it and then feed Mom the way he would feed an eaglet.   It looks real sweet, or perhaps he's learned to always give her the eyes of the fish or she'll peck him.  Yes, they bicker.  But they get over it.  They're adults.

They arrange their nest, usually just making sure the kids are warm unde mom.  But sometimes seem to bring in a twig or corn husk with no particular reason, then put it right in front of a baby.  "Here baby, play with this."  Of course, the baby will need to learn to manipulate twigs to make his/her nest one day.  The parents seem to "know" this.

When rain is on the way, dad will bring in extra fish.  When the rain arrives, mom makes sure all their little heads are under her (they're all too big to fit in the nest bowl they hung out in as newborns).  Does Dad know they need extra energy to fight the cold?  Does mom know that heat is lost through the head?  Do they know that the babies have down, which is not waterproof, before they have feathers?  Seems like it. 

Eagles are very large birds.  Are they "thinking" with larger brains than say, a chicken?  Well, I rather doubt that brain size is why they do all the "right" things.  Several years ago my zebra finches had a clutch of babies and they were also excellent parents.  In their case, Dad made sure that each baby got a little of each of the goodies I put in their cage:  bird food, hard boiled egg bits, chopped kale, and water.  He would do the rounds of all these goodies and then go into the nest and feed the babies.  Why did he do this?

Because being good to others (or at least our babies) is instinctive for many species.

...and then the babies are old enough to fly and eat on their own, and they have to leave and start the whole cycle over.  The parents don't send them to Hell forever for saying "I hate you."  They don't require the babies to follow artificial rules that don't make sense.  They're good  parents.

God "the Father" is a bad parent.  He lets his "children" starve.  He lets his children get cold.  He plays favorites.  He rejects the "children" of other gods.  He lets predators get hold of his kids.

Comparing the parenting qualities of eagles to the parenting of "God the Father," it's easy to see why tribes might worship an eagle god or goddess.  Wouldn't an eagle feather on your headdress be a better symbol of trust in a good parent than a cross pendant, the symbol of a parent who abandoned his favorite child and made him a sacrifice in exchange for the lives of his brats?  'Look how my good father chose to let his best kid suffer?  Whattaguy!

Who would you rather have as a parent?  God?  or an eagle?

 

Vote against "Faith!"

A nesting pair of eagles at the Davenport, Iowa Alcoa plant has hatched three healthy eaglets.  The pair are predictably named "Liberty" and "Justice."  They held a poll to name last year's singleton, and the winning name was "Freedom."  So far so good.

This year there are three eaglets, and Alcoa has narrowed the online poll to a selection of names, and one of the names is "Faith."

*facepalm*

So tell your friends, even if they're not American, that the symbol of American strength should *not* be named "Faith!" and get them to vote here or here.  Keep in mind the sex of the eaglets has yet to be determined, so the choices such as "Orville, Wilbur, and Amelia" could result in a girl named Wilbur.  But it would still be better than spoiling the tradition of naming the eagles for valued American principles by naming one of them "Faith."

We chose the bald eagle as an American symbol for its ability to swoop down on a squirrel or duck or carp and rip it to shreds.  They do not pray they prey.

So vote for Orville, Wilbur & Amelia - famous flyers all, even if one wind up as a girl with a boy's name.  She'd rip you to shreds if you made fun of her.

"The Woman Who Wasn't There"

I watch the "Investigation Discovery" channel quite a bit and they've been advertising a documentary called "The Woman Who Wasn't There." (link to Variety review)  It's the story of Tania Head, who claimed to survive the Twin Towers' collapse on 9/11.  She kept up the lie for several years and became a leader amongst 9/11 survivors until she was busted by the New York Times.  Online we call these people trolls.  In the psychology literature they're victims of Munchausen Syndrome by proxy, or "factitious" disorder, i.e. big fat liars.The commercial is awesome.  A deep, booming voice says: "She made it. all. up."

I recently also saw a rerun of 20/20 about a hoax in which a woman pretends to be her abused adopted son.  The "son" wrote a book that was very inspirational, and the debunking inspired an HBO movie and an episode of Law & Order.  Apparently there have been other instances like this.

Snopes has linked this case to that of "Kaycee Nicole."  (they need to update this article!)  There have probably been many more of these.  The motive seems to be attention for whoever made it up.  Sometimes there may be money involved.  In the internet cases no actual children have been harmed.  In the 9/11 fake survivor story, the situation is a bit different in that the whole thing is about Tania Head, and her fiancé who perished in one of the towers (a real victim, but who had never actually met her).

Why am I blogging about this?

Well, in the canon of Reasons Why the Bible is Bullshit, we fail to acknowledge the potential for one or more of the founders of Christianity to have been a big fat liar along the lines of these people.  The other reason is that Christians frequently point to the benefits of religion, which presumably would override the falsity of their basis.  Supposedly this 9/11 faker helped other people, so we're supposed to have mixed feelings about her.  Sure, she's a liar, but look at all the good she did!  I can almost hear Christians saying "Okay so you think Jesus wasn't a magical half-god miracle worker, but look at all the good that came from the fairy tale!

Imagine if this woman had managed to convince people that she died at the Twin Towers and was resurrected by a supreme being that was visible in the smoke... or pieces of toast, or whatever.  Imagine if Paul had this disorder.  Or Moses.  Or Mary.  What if Mary had made up these stories?  Nobody would question the motives of a grieving mother, would they?  What if instead of being a schizophrenic suffering from hallucinations and delusions of grandeur, Joseph Smith had simply been a big. fat. liar?  Or L. Ron Hubbard?  (heh, well...)

Somehow we imagine the people of ancient times to be wiser than us, more honest than us, yet more violent than us, and also stupider than us.  We don't consider that they might be pretty much just like us.  Some were liars.  Some were gullible dupes.  Some were vicious.  Some were kind.  Some were skeptical.  (probably)  And some could have invented entire religions out of whole cloth.  If the Christian can resort to "well, it's possible therefore believable" (or even probable), then we should counter with "It's also possible that the people who wrote the Bible made the whole thing up for their own purposes."

Wait.... there were historical events and actual kings mentioned in the Bible!  Yes, and there really was a 9/11 and there really were a few people who survived the collapse of the Twin Towers.  But everything Tanya Head said about her involvement there was totally made up.  Putting a big lie into a truthful framework is a classic technique.  In Gone With The Wind,  we call it "historical fiction."  In Acts of the Apostles we are expected to call it "history."

Scientific American Mind: Can Atheists be Happy?

I can't believe even a magazine with the word "Scientific" in the title would honor that old lie about religion making people happier by referencing it in an article:

Can Atheists be Happy?

Well, duh.  Can't anyone be happy?  And can't anyone have depression?  We have the recent example of Andrea Yates to prove that being a devout Christian is no guarantee of happiness.

Being religious also seems to be most beneficial if you live among mostly religious people, indicating it is way of fitting in socially. In countries where few people believe, the psychological benefits of faith disappear.

So... living in a society where everyone agrees with you and supports you is beneficial, not religiosity per se.  Her advice?

So if you are nonbeliever, surround yourself with like-minded people, and work on achieving your goals in other parts of your life...Your social and professional successes will then help you weather life’s ups and downs just as religion does.

So... this means we should read atheist blogs, go to atheist meetups, choose professions where whether something's true or not matters, and come out to people you think might share your non-belief.

...and put up billboards to let the ones in the closet know they're not alone!

I think we're on the right track.  That makes me happy.