Throwing Away Ideas, Not Observations

Why do people believe in a god or gods? Two simple reasons.

1. They cannot explain the world around them (death, disease, natural disaster, etc.) with reason, so they guess that someone is playing a trick on them, or making things happen behind the scenes.
2. They were taught to - sometimes gently, sometimes harshly - at a relatively young age. If they doubt their beliefs, they fear reprisal from family as well as the "man upstairs".

No person is born with an innate knowledge of the existence of any god. I admit this is a bold statement and I probably can't prove it. But I can show why it is extremely likely to be so.

If I said that no one is born with an innate knowledge of the English language, or of juggling balls, or of making a fire, not one person would challenge me, because obviously we needed to learn these things ourselves before we knew them. There are many people alive today who cannot speak English, juggle balls, or make a fire without some sort of special technology. Clearly these are not innate.

However, we can argue that we have the innate ability to communicate, to manipulate objects, to experiment with phenomena we observe. I don't think anyone will argue these. It's those innate skills that led our predecessors to invent formal language, juggling and ignition.

And we also teach these skills with care to not abuse them. We tell our children what sort of language is permissible in certain places and situations, and which words would result in a less than favorable result for them if used. Jugglers are aware that they need a safe distance from others to perform the feat, and that the whimsical nature of it does not blend well with certain more sober situations. And we keep matches and lighters away from children while we let them plan our fire escape plan, and we collectively support the very socialist notion of a local fire department so even those who cannot afford to pay for such property and life rescue can benefit.

I think it is innate that we reason. I think it is innate that we look at things fall and notice that they never fall up. We see that fast things hitting objects perform more spectacularly than slow things. We notice that it is light out for about half a day, then it is dark out. All of these observations make us curious and drive us to understand more about the reality we find ourselves in.

The trouble is what happens when we can't reason it out. A few thousand years ago we did not understand why tides rose and fell. We needed some explanation because reason wasn't cutting it. We didn't understand why life can just stop, and someone becomes dead. We needed some sort of explanation.

Generally, the answers to the above problems was that a god or gods did it. God made the tides go in and out. God cursed a person for their evil, or called him home for his good deeds. And without any evidence to contradict all that, that served us as good as any other explanation.

Now we understand the Moon's gravity with the Earth and how it affects the oceans. We understand infection, disease and the genetics of old age. Yet there still are those who attribute tides and death to divine action, despite all we have learned.

There are many who reject science as against religion, as a sort of sorcery or evil craft that lies to us. They claim evolution is no better a theory than, say, intelligent design, and when shown mountains of strong evidence supporting evolution they simply say it is faulty, it doesn't prove a thing.

Now, having provisional explanations for things we don't understand is fine and normal. Gestalt psychology is criticized,  but most agree that when we see something that is incomplete we fill in the blanks naturally. It's in our nature.

The problem is when we use these provisional explanations even when our reason shows us that there are other, more reasonable explanations. When we dispense with the science of radiometric dating and insist that this book says the Earth is only so many thousands of years old, we are letting provisionality overrule reason. When we insist that a pregnancy initiated through a violent sexual attack is "God's will" we are letting provisionality overrule reason.

Tim Minchin wrote, "Science adjusts its views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved." In other words, reason means dispensing with an idea when it does not match observation, not dispensing with an observation when it does not match an idea.

If the god idea was innate, why would there be so many contradictory versions of it? If there was one true god or set of gods that we can just know, why aren't we all in agreement? Does this deity want us to kill each other over it?

It's like the old saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.When repeated observations and man's best ideas do not match up, we must throw away the idea, not the observations.

I have no problem if you want to personally fill in the cracks with God Spackle. I do have a problem when there already is an explanation for what you are spackling over, and you refuse to accept it because it doesn't fit your premise. My problem is that you then teach your children not to think critically. You encourage ignorance of reality over believing tradition. You celebrate the emotional security of a Father in Heaven over the need for stewardship of our Actual Reality.

If you must be religious, please never allow religion to become harmful to others. Take care to juggle a safe distance from me. Use words that are peaceful, not inflammatory.

And please, above all, don't let your children learn to love the flame of religion like a modern-day arsonist, but to respect it, just like our earliest prehistoric chemists did when they invented fire. Religion, like fire, can destroy if left unchecked, or if used without rational thought.

All marriage is gay

I've been sitting on this draft for a long time, and I have decided to publish it now, especially as "defense of marriage" is so hot right now. It's an imperfect essay, but it sure means well and it won't hurt anyone. SO feel free to comment all you want.

What is marriage, really?

It is, in its original sense, a bonding under a deity where the two people become one. But by now you probably know I don't believe in deities, so we will toss that angle into the rubbish.

In another sense, it is a government contract. Legally, married couples share a financial interest, they are privy to each others medical secrets, legal wranglings, etc. I suppose a notary public could do the same, but apparently not, since there is such a demand for marriage, marriage, marriage. (Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!)

So why do gay people want to be married? If it's for the legal benefits, why not get a lawyer, draw up a legal contract, and sign it? What really is to stop me from signing a contract affording another person certain rights? It's a free country. If I declare my personal information is to be shared with another person, regardless of gender, I can legally do that. So that can't be the issue.

If for religious reasons, well, if your god is not just, find a new one. Or none at all. I am not telling you what to do here. I am just saying that if religion is your barrier, break something down. Figure it out. Plenty of sects of religions recognize same-sex pairings, so that's not the issue either.

The real reason people care about gay marriage so much? Well, all folks want to have the same regard as others get. The acceptance of gay marriage is less a legal or a religious issue than it is a moral one. It simply is a need for acceptance. (And as I have always absolutely gotten gay people, I honestly will not ever understand the fuss.)

I've seen men empathetically console a friend, and I have seen women pee standing up. Unless I choose to mate with you, your gender is a bullshit excuse for anything. And being that mating is a private matter usually, despite what the porn industry depicts, there is no public matter which requires genital display.

That should include the union of two people.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in love. Love is awesome, and it demands a great deal of an individual. Love keeps us happy and healthy and whole. As The Captain And Tennille said, love will keep us together.

So what is marriage but a social convenience, a means for acceptance, a ploy for appeal? It is a tool for the empowered to flaunt their greatness. It is an arbitrary goal for our youth to blindly strive for.

In short, it is one of our society's greatest scams.

Back in the day, marriage was necessary to increase population. We really could stand a few less people in our world, so to me marriage serves not even that totally utilitarian purpose.

Half the married people I know are breaking up, and most of the rest tolerate misery in their marriage. Sounds like a sucker deal to me.

Think for yourself, decide for yourself, and for crying out loud examine your world before making the leap into marriage, gay or not.

It might be good for you. I kinda doubt it, but hey, I've been wrong.

The Man Who Isn't There

Imagine you walk into a room and you see two people in the room with you. One person says to you, "There are three people in this room now." The other person says, "No, there are four. You cannot see or hear the fourth person, but he is here." Let's also assume both these people are being completely serious.

Who are you more likely to believe? Do you feel more likely to believe the first person or the second? Which person requires you to put some faith in them to believe their statement?

Most people would say they believe the first person. One person I asked this question answered that he would consider the second person to possibly be insane. Clearly the first person's statement agrees with your observations, not only in the room but in general. There simply are not invisible, inaudible people (unless they are hiding from you, or ninjas, of course). It requires no faith at all to accept the first person's claim. The second person, however, would seem to be incorrect, but you might take them at their word if you felt faith was warranted.

Some people say atheism requires as much faith as believing in a god. They claim that atheism is a faith no different than belief, that atheists believing in no god is as unknowable as a theist claiming there is one.

However, there is a bit of a mistake here. In the room with the two (or three) men, I really do not know which man is right. It may well be that there is a fourth man hiding behind the sofa. Seems unlikely, but it is possible. Once I make a thorough search of the room and find no hiding person, I would have more reason to say with assuredness that there is definitely no fourth man. But if there was always a place he could be hiding that I could not search, then not only do I not know if he is there, I cannot know he is there.

As such, I am agnostic about the fourth man.

Agnostic is often misused to define a middle ground between atheism and theism. In fact, both atheists and theists can claim to be either agnostic or gnostic. Theism means "belief in the existence of a god or gods" and gnosticism is "knowing something is true". Atheism is the absence of belief, and agnosticism is the absence of knowledge.

A gnostic atheist would assert there is no god or gods, while an agnostic atheist would believe there is not a god, but admit there is no way to disprove the existence. An agnostic theist would believe there is a god or gods but admit they cannot be certain they are right, and a gnostic theist knows without a doubt there is a god or gods.

Having or lacking knowledge does not necessarily change one's beliefs. I do not know for certain that my neighbor is sleeping in his bed at night, but it seems sensible to believe it is true. I do not know for certain whether I am being followed by clever spies, but it seems reasonable to dispense that thought as irrational.

I do not know if there is a fourth man in the room or not, but it makes sense in cases where I know all I can to go with what I see and observe and discount propositions that cannot be supported or proven.

In fact, atheism is the abandonment of faith that the stories we have heard of the invisible man have validity. It is no different than ignoring the lies people tell about us on the playground or dispensing with the childhood fantasies of the Tooth Fairy or the Monster in the Closet. Intelligent people eventually see that reality does not match the stories they are told, or they tell themselves, and as such they brush the nonsense away.

If a god exists, he is either hiding from us, or he is a ninja. But it seems far more plausible that in absence of any possible arguments for the existence of a god or a tooth fairy or a monster in the closet, they must instead be imaginary. And no matter how much a child begs you to check the closet one more time before he goes to sleep, no matter how hard he believes, you know you will find no monster, not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever.

When someone claims a man is invisible, it is as close to certain as we can get that the man simply isn't there.

Atheists want to sin

One argument we hear from time to time against the very notion of atheism is that it is all just a scam. People claim that atheism is a means to allow a person to do sinful things and not feel guilty. In this way, an atheist can do things that directly defy, say, the Biblical God, but they will not feel shame because they deny the authority of God.

Well, I guess I have to agree.

We'll look at Matthew 15: 1-9 and see. I chose this specifically because there are Christians who argue up and down against the laws of Leviticus, that they aren't meant for our times, well, except for the ones against homosexuality apparently. The ones that say a woman who is raped but does not scream should be killed, that one doesn't apply to us. But that's a blog for another day.

But back to Matthew 15. We are kind of jumped in to the story. Apparently, the Jewish elders wash their hands prior to eating as a ritual act. The disciples did not. Also, it seems they made up a rule that things earmarked for the purpose of giving to God cannot be then re-purposed for helping your parents out.

Anyway, on with the story....

Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!"

Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, 'honor your father and mother' and 'anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.'

"But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is 'devoted to God,' they are not to 'honor their father or mother' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

"You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 'These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.'"

Well, he sure told them.

Why is any of this relevant? He clearly believes the laws of God which we find in Exodus 21:17 and Leviticus 20:9 that "anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death." So no matter what you say about the Old Testament being an old, retired covenant and the Good News of the Gospel being the New Covenant, Jesus here clearly says that his father said that disrespectful children should be put to death.

At any rate, I think we can safely say that a good Christian is supposed to kill children who curse their parent. It's in the Old Testament twice. It's in the New Testament, said by Jesus himself.

How many of you have children who have cursed you? Did you kill them? Aren't you violating God's command by not killing them?

If letting a bratty kid live to see another sunrise is a sin, I'm happy to do it.

The only way I see to reconcile the above passage to make it so Jesus did not advocate killing children  is to assume he was mocking all law, but that destroys his credibility as the son and embodiment of the one deity. So that can't be so. He meant it.

If we accept that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God " (2 Timothy 3:16) then we as men cannot cherry-pick it. (Galatians 1:9 "If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!" and Deuteronomy 12:32 "See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it.") If we cannot ignore parts and hold other parts as true, then we must either accept it all or reject it all.

I submit that moral people still ignore portions of the Bible despite the aforementioned admonitions simply because, for example, they see that killing children is wrong. And if the moral compass of Jesus includes killing children who curse their parents, even if they have Tourette Syndrome, even if they have been poisoned and cannot control their actions, I submit that compass is broken, and a useless tool by which a moral, thinking man can navigate.

Thus, I reject the Bible as a determinant of what is moral and what is not. It is an unreliable text for guiding peaceful, compassionate coexistence. Morality cannot be ascertained through study of a millennia-old text but must be understood through practical and scientific interaction with the world in which we exist. If it is sinful to use more compassionate means of determining moral and right behavior than the Bible, I am proud to sin freely.

Even more

C

The Master replied.

"You have learned much. But also learn this. You think your uncle a fool and I a master. There are those who would say that your uncle was a great man. There are those who would say that I was a fool. How do you decide who you believe is the master, and who is the fool?

"The preacher who speaks of virtuous life, so lofty even he cannot attain it, is no different from your uncle, who taught you to live as a fool even when his words were wise. These men may try to teach a lesson, but they do so without knowing what the true lesson learned will be.

"But a master's mind and body agree on what to teach. And so there truly need not be a lesson, because no words from a master's mouth make a bit of difference in the real lesson the student learns. They may happen to support the lesson, but they are never required."

And with that, the student became enlightened.

A poem

i guess i kinda like Sarah Palin

an absurd, moronic, raving mad woman
held the world at her feet

she may have been wrong, but she climbed and soared nonetheless

respect is due to those who damn the odds and do what they think is right

no matter how idiotically dumb it is

More story

B

The student returns in a few months.

"Master, I have meditated on your words. Yet I still am unsure what I have learned. Until I approached you, my only teacher was my uncle."

"Tell me of your uncle."

"My uncle was a fool. He told me to respect the ladies, but he was a selfish womanizer. He told me to eat healthy food, but he was a glutton himself. He told me to kill animals only for food, but he regaled in killing for sport and throwing the meat in the rubbish. And all I have learned from him, I learned not from his words and only from his lifestyle and behavior."

"So, then, if a fool can teach you so well, then a wise man, who when merely drawing in the sand is mindful of how he expresses his own essential truth, shall truly teach you well. And so you must understand that mind follows body, and body follows mind. What you commit in action is what is real in your heart. If you wish to change your heart, develop your body; if you wish to become stronger, develop your mind."

"Master, then I have learned that there need be no lesson. The teaching done by a teacher is unrelated to the words of the teacher, when the words are not supported by the lifestyle and actions of the teacher. All one must do is observe the actions of a fool to understand how to be a fool, and to observe the actions of a master to understand how to be a master."