2006 October | Way of the Mind

Monthly Archive for October, 2006

The "Good Old Days"

Published

on October 30, 2006

. 39 Comments

It’s common to hear comments about the Good Old Days ™. The specifics vary, but, ultimately, they say this: things were better in the old days.

Why does this happen? In part, due to nostalgia, and, in part ,due to fear (and resentment) of change. Another reason is lousy memory: we tend to remember the good parts, and forget the bad ones.

Well, for those who say that “things were better back then”, I give you two pages of an American magazine from 1955. Click on the picture below to see it in its original size.

Even though it looks like a joke now, it wasn’t comedy, at the time. It was real. The world was like that. People were like that.

Now, tell me that “nothing’s improved”, that “things were better before”. Tell em that the human race, with all its faults, hasn’t evolved. Tell me that “things are the same, or worse”. Tell me that “we’re growing more and more immoral“. That the solution to mankind’s problems would be to “return to the values of old”.

Anti-Religion "bias"?

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on October 20, 2006

in atheism, censorship, christianity, religion and way of the mind (site)

. 62 Comments

This blog has, recently, been described as having an ”anti-religion bias”.

While I disagree that “bias” is the correct term, I feel I must address this.

The dictionary definition of “bias” is: “a particular tendency or inclination, esp. one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.”

Is that the case here? I think not.

Yes, I’m an atheist. And not just because I felt like it, or because I wanted to “rebel”, or anything like that. I’m an atheist because I thought about it. Both atheism and religion are subjects that interest me, so it’s natural that I write a lot about them. Some commenters have, indeed, complained that this site has turned into “all atheism, all the time”. I’ve tried to write some posts about other subjects, but I can’t be condemned for writing, most of the time, about what I currently want to write about.

About the “bias” thing, let’s consider a different situation. Instead of being a Portuguese blogger in 2006, imagine I was an American writer for a newspaper, in 1800. Slavery, then, was still considered accepted and “normal”. I, however, was repulsed by it, and while the newspaper I wrote for wasn’t about slavery, most of my articles were. It was a subject that concerned me, and I wrote about how wrong it was, often. I denounced several particular situations I observed, argued about why slavery was wrong, and refuted pro-slavery arguments.

It’s quite likely, in that situation, that I, as a writer, would be accused of an “anti-slavery bias“. But how is such a “bias” different from having an opinion, a strong, considered one, and sticking to it? Should I be writing some pro-slavery articles as well, to maintain the “balance”? I don’t think so. Slavery was wrong, even if society didn’t see it; slaves are as human as myself or anyone else, and have the same capacity for both suffering and joy. Treating them as cattle, as property, as pieces of equipment is wrong - and I’d say it, even if it annoyed people. After all, anyone who though slavery was a good thing could always just read another newspaper.

I think the situation here, concerning religion, is similar. And, yes, I hope that some day religion will go the way of slavery, though I don’t expect it to happen in my lifetime.

Am I “biased”? No. I simply have a strong opinion about the matter, and my writing reflects it. I won’t do any kind of self-censorship. If my anti-religion posts annoy you, you can always stop reading and move on to the next post as soon as you see the “atheism“, “religion” or “christianity” categories.

Because I won’t stop speaking my mind. Sorry.

"Letter to a Christian Nation", by Sam Harris

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on October 18, 2006

in atheism, books and religion

. 2 Comments

Letter to a Christian Nation

Yesterday, I finished reading Sam Harris (author of “The End of Faith”)’s latest mini-book, “Letter to a Christian Nation”. The book is Harris’ reply to the criticisms he received after writing the first book, in the form of a letter (as the title suggests) to an average American “born again” Christian.

I highly recommend the book, though, again, the ones who need it the most will dismiss is as “the work of Satan”.

One part of the letter incensed me - I didn’t believe such a thing was possible in the modern world. But there’s no end to human depravity, it seems. From the book:

Consider, for instance, the human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is now the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States. The virus infects over half the American population and causes nearly five thousand women to die each year from cervical cancer; the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that more than two hundred thousand die worldwide. We now have a vaccine for HPV that appears to be both safe and effective. The vaccine produced 100 percent immunity in the six thousand women who received it as part of a clinical trial. And yet, Christian conservatives in our government have resisted a vaccination program on the grounds that HPV is a valuable impediment to premarital sex. These pious men and women want to preserve cervical cancer as an incentive toward abstinence, even if it sacrifices the lives of thousands of women each year.

I was absolutely shocked as I read that. My only thoughts were: “YOU… FUCKING… MONSTERS!”

And there’s more:

[...]Reginald Finger, an Evangelical member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, recently announced that he would consider opposing an HIV vaccine - thereby condemning millions of men and women to die unnecessarily from AIDS each year - because such a vaccine would encourage premarital sex by making it less risky.

Now, please…

1- Don’t talk to me again about how religion and faith do “good” in the world.

2- Don’t tell me that such monsters are deranged extremists, not “true Christians”, and not representative of Christianity. The Bible agrees with them, which makes them more Christian than you are. And you agree that they have a right to those beliefs. It’s your “tolerant” idea that beliefs are “sacred” that protects such vermin from criticism and allows them to exist.

Sorry for all the anger, but this had to be said.

The Dangers of Democracy

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on October 16, 2006

in freedom and politics

. 10 Comments

“Dangers?”, you ask. “Surely, democracy is the most free political system… do you want a dictatorship or something? Are you anti-freedom?”

It’s not that simple, though. As Winston Churchill said,

No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

But what’s the problem with democracy? Well, first, a definition is in order. What we have in most western countries isn’t true democracy, it’s a republic. We elect rulers, and they make policies. True democracy would mean that people would actually vote on issues. Of course, that might mean almost daily elections, which would certainly be too cumbersome.

Still, whether we’re talking about a democratic republic or about true democracy, one thing is common: most people associate it with freedom. Vox populi, vox Dei. The majority rules, and what the majority wants is best.

Maybe you’re already spotting the problem. What if the majority wants something evil? What if they want to oppress a minority? Should they be allowed to?

According to Sam Harris in The End of Faith, while most Muslim countries are dictatorships, the people there actually want them to be worse. They want to treat their women even worse than they do, to be even stricter (meaning, stoning and such) with anyone they see as “insulting Allah”, they really want to wipe Israel off the map, and so on. Not all Muslim countries are theocracies, but, if it came to a vote, they would be.

In other words, if those countries aren’t even more hellish (especially, but not only, for women) than they already are, it’s because of brutal, but comparatively secular, dictators. If the people were given the right to vote, they’d vote all their freedoms away.

What about the United States, 100 or 150 years ago? If it came to a vote, the white majority would probably not vote for emancipation. Much the opposite.

Or even now. If there was a referendum in the United States, the teaching of evolution would be out. Replaced with “intelligent design”. Because many more Americans, unfortunately, believe in creationism than in evolution. If there was a vote, Americans would vote science away, put the Ten Commandments everywhere, and possibly even try to outlaw atheism. All of this, in the 21th century.

And what stops it from happening? Something called a constitution.

A constitution - at least, a good one - has several goals, but one of the most important is this: to ensure that individual rights can’t be ignored because the majority wants them to be. What if the majority wants to kill you? Or just take your money, or your house? Are they “right” just because they’re the majority? Or are your individual rights - indeed, anyone’s individual rights - inalienable?

I believe they are.

A thing isn’t good or legitimate just because the majority wants it. Democracy and freedom aren’t synonyms.

Unfortunately, no constitution is perfect, and they are sometimes ignored, anyway. For instance, the banning of gay marriage is an obvious example of a majority opinion trampling over individual rights. Or abortion. Or assisted suicide. Even though an action doesn’t harm anyone, the majority is ignorant and bigoted, and wants to forbid it… and the minority’s rights - indeed, the individual’s rights - aren’t respected. There are many other such examples.

It is clear to me that something must be above the “will of the people”, or there is no true freedom, because “the people” can then take it away on a whim.

As Larry Flynt put it,

The majority rule only works if you’re also considering individual rights. Because you can’t have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper.

The Historical Jesus

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on October 13, 2006

in christianity, history, religion and truth

. 31 Comments

If you’re a Christian, you almost certainly believe that Jesus existed as a human, was the son of God, performed miracles, died, resurrected, and ascended to heaven.

Buddy Christ

Even among atheists and agnostics, however, it’s common to believe that Jesus did exist, though he was one hundred percent human and mortal; that he was a religious leader at the time, who inspired a new faith, an offshoot from Judaism.

But did he really exist? If so, what was he like?

Of course, we can’t know with absolute certainty without a time machine. But we can, I believe, look at several theories and interpretations, and figure out which one is the most likely, according to whatever facts we have.

I’ll start by refusing the “he really was the son of God” one. There’s absolutely no proof of that, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, as Carl Sagan said. I won’t repeat all my reasons here; readers of WotM should know them by now.

Until recently, however, I believed that Jesus did exist; a fictional being wouldn’t be such a big influence in the world for thousands of years, would he? (ahem…) But how was he like? A meek, religious figure like the Gospels suggest?

Two books, Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Messianic Legacy, by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln (and before you say “they’re crackpots”, yes, their Merovingians / Templars / Saunière / Priory of Sion theory was completely wrong, but their research on Jesus through the Gospels does make a lot of sense - and, after all, the Gospels are available to anyone; it’s not as if they’re claiming to have some secret source of information) suggest something different: that Jesus - the “Christ”, or “Messiah”, or “Anointed One” - was more of a political leader, the rightful king of the Jews (in a temporal sense), and was crucified by the Romans, not the Jews, as a real threat to their authority. According to this theory, the Gospels, having been written decades after Jesus’ death, were written for a Roman audience, and therefore turned Jesus into a meek, “turn the other cheek”, “render unto Ceasar” religious figure, removing any political / revolucionary content from his story.

Also according to them, Jesus was always a devout Jew and never intended to create a new religion; it was Paul who did so, always stressing Jesus’ divinity without ever mentioning Jesus’ actions or teachings. Reading Paul’s letters, this is obvious - Paul writes about Jesus as God, not as someone who really lived on Earth, taught men, and died years ago. Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln’s conclusion, then, is that Paul “stole” Christianity, using Jesus’ name to create his (Paul’s) own religion.

Which certainly makes a lot of sense.

However, more recently I read about a different theory, in Ebon Musings: that Jesus never existed as a man… and that the early Christians actually believed that.

According to Ebon, to early Christians Jesus died and resurrected in heaven, not on Earth. Some of them even said as much, in writing. Besides, there are no historical mentions of Jesus at the time, or even a hundred years later - and there would have been, if he really had hundreds or thousands of followers, as the Gospels say. This also explains why Paul never wrote about anything Jesus said or did: Paul’s letters were all written before the Gospels, and he wasn’t writing about a man who lived and died on Earth, but who supposedly did so in a spiritual realm.

But what about the Gospels themselves? Well, not only were they written many decades after Jesus was supposed to have lived, but they were written as a story - there are many parts where some events are described even though no disciple of Jesus could have been there, such as:

[...] in Matthew 28:11-15, we see a gospel recording, with no difficulty, things that none of Jesus’ followers should have been there to witness. In this case it is a conspiracy between the temple priests and the guards set at Jesus’ tomb, after the resurrection, when the priests bribed the guards to say the disciples had stolen his body. Was Matthew present to hear this? Again, how is it possible that any gospel records things that none of the gospel writers could have seen?

The list goes on and on. Matthew 27:19 writes about a private message Pilate’s wife sent to him. Matthew 27:3-8 describes how Judas returned his blood money to the priests and then hanged himself out of guilt. (Did he make a quick detour in between to confess to the other disciples?) Luke 7:39 tells us what a Pharisee was thinking.

Besides, it’s accepted that Mark was the first Gospel to be written, and the others used it as a source, adding to it, or reinterpreting some parts. The idea here, then, is that Mark was written as a fictional story, and the others were revisions of it. Certainly, none of the authors was present there at the time.

This view is also corroborated by the documentary The God Who Wasn’t There. You can see a part of it here, and I highly recommend it. Among other things, that film shows how every single part of the Jesus story (virgin birth, healing the sick, raising the dead, sacrifice for our sins, resurrecting after 3 days, and many more) existed before, in pagan myths - sometimes, centuries earlier.

Hate mail against the FSM

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on October 12, 2006

in christianity, hate, religion and stupidity

. 8 Comments

Flying Spaghetti Monster

It doesn’t happen all the time (for instance, there have been some very articulate and educated Christians commenting right here on WotM), but, quite often, on discussion forums and blogs, Christians tend to be some of the worst writers. Terrible spelling, grammar, coherence, and so on. Their arguments are also always “original”: you’re going to hell, I’ll pray for you, you’re a slave of Satan, you’re stupid if you can’t see God’s signature in everything around you, etc..

Besides their poor communication skills, another typical characteristic of such Christians (again, not all of them) is their hate. For a group that believes “God is love”, a lot of Christians spew forth such hatred, spite, cruelty and wishes for others’ harm, that it’s difficult to take anything else they say seriously.

Still, it can be a laugh to read some of their hate emails and comments. For instance, the Flying Spaghetti Monster site has a hate mail section where the website owner posts emails he receives. It’s amazing what those people believe… and what they’re capable of writing.

Depending on your mood, reading those mails will either be hysterically funny… or a bit scary. Either way, they should be more than enough evidence that Christianity doesn’t make people “better” or “more caring”.

I know, I know, not all Christians are like that. Still, there are a lot of those… and they certainly make the most noise. It’s amazing how so many people have a need, when they see an opposing voice, to email someone and say how they are going to laugh from heaven when the recipient dies and goes to hell for all eternity.

I also loved one of the replies to one of the “I’ll pray for you” mails:

Please do not pray for us, go outside and pick up some garbage or help the elderly. Do something for others rather than praying so you will feel good about yourself.

I’ll have to start using this one.

Religion, atheism and authority

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on October 10, 2006

in atheism, authority and religion

. 4 Comments

From the post-bicameral mind:

Strike up a conversation with a religious person, and claim to be a member of any religion other than the one of your subject. Usually this will result in a nod, or maybe a weird look, or maybe some questions.

Now, strike up another conversation with a religious person, and this time, say you are an atheist. Whole other ball of wax, huh? Popular reactions include:

“You’re Stupid”

“You’re going to hell”

“I’ll pray for you”

“You think you have all the answers, huh?”

“You’re the reason the world is all fucked up!”

Lesson learned:
Generally speaking, religious people do not care where you get your morality from, as long as you don’t get it from yourself. In fact, the idea that a person is capable of not worshipping a god and figuring out for themselves what is “good” and “bad” is so unthinkable to most religious people, that they often endlessly drone on about how we somehow “worship” things like science and material “stuff”, as if that’s even possible.

This is because religion is based on external authority, and that external authority says that in order to survive, you must listen to– you guessed it– external authority. Big surprise there.

Indeed, this may help explain why most theists despise atheists, while they tolerate theists of other faiths.

It’s like a slave who tolerates slaves with different masters, but hates a free man. He’s spent his entire life convincing himself that slavery is inevitable, and is actually a good thing… but the existence of a free man (who is actually happier, too) is a threat to his world view.

So, did YOU believe the Bush administration?

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on October 10, 2006

in honesty, politics and truth

. 42 Comments

When the Iraq war began, I, naturally, talked to friends and co-workers about it. As they were of different ages and backgrounds, opinions varied; most saw it as an oil grab and opposed it, while others, while not believing anything about “WMDs” or connections to 9/11, actually thought that Saddam was a problem, and should be taken care of.

I didn’t find one single person - even among those who usually disagree with me in everything - who believed in the Bush administration’s lies about WMDs, terrorist camps, connections to Al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks, or simply that Saddam was a threat to anyone outside Iraq.

No one.

I talked to young people and old people. To men and women. To more educated and less educated people. To Christians and atheists / agnostics. To right-wingers and left-wingers. To people who opposed the war and people who supported it.

And no one believed Bush’s lies.

Bush’s “reasons”, at the time, were so obviously fabrications that I don’t think almost anyone in Europe - except maybe in the UK - believed in them. Even those who actually thought that invading Iraq and removing Saddam from power was a good idea.

Now, the fact that we all lived in Portugal may have had something to do with it. We tend to distrust our politicians; even when they actually improve things, we always realize that they’re doing it to be re-elected, not out of the “goodness of their hearts”. Not because they’re honest or have any principles. Hell, they’re politicians, after all!

Americans, from what I see, are a different bunch. They idealize and idolize their politicians, almost worshipping them. They believe they’re honest, ethical, and are sincerely trying to do a good job, even when they mess things up.

Yet, from everything I see, they aren’t. Bush has said so much crap, has lied so much, and has insulted the intelligence of the public so thoroughly, that I can’t see how anyone could ever believe in him. Yet, Americans did. They believed his lies.

So, a question to the American readers - and please, don’t feel insulted or take this the wrong way -: did you believe Bush’s lies back in 2003? That Saddam had WMDs, that he had anything to do with 9/11, that he was a threat to the US, that invading Iraq would make the world “safer”?

And, if so, why?

I’m not calling you guys “gullible” or anything. I simply want to understand what is, to me, a strange phenomenon.

Christianity without the Bible, part 2

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on October 6, 2006

in christianity and religion

. 23 Comments

This is, in a way, a different approach to the previous post, Christianity without the Bible.

As far as I can see (without considering alternative religions / holy books - but, then, each one of those would have the same problem), one of the following possibilities must necessarily be true:

1- There is a God, and the entire Bible is divinely inspired.

Problem: This must, then, include the women-are-property-of-men parts, the animal-sacrifice parts, the kill-unbelievers parts, the kill-sabbath-breakers parts, the kill-homosexuals parts, the genocide parts, the dietary parts, and, of course, the parts that contradict other parts.

2- There is a God, but only some parts of the Bible are divinely inspired.

Problem: There is simply no way to tell which parts. Ask ten believers, and you will probably get ten different answers. Most people will choose the parts they already agree with as being divinely inspired, and the parts they don’t agree with as the work of mortal men. But what makes your favorite parts right and the other fellow’s wrong? You have no way to know. And anyone can - and will - find something in the Bible to justify his or her actions.

3- There is a God, but the Bible has nothing to do with him.

Problem: Fine. But, then, how do you know God? How do you know that a guy called Jesus was the son of God and died for your sins? “Feelings in your heart” are completely subjective; someone else can feel the exact opposite, and you have no way to tell that your feelings came from God, while the other guy is simply imagining things. After all, he is probably equally sure that his feelings are divinely inspired. If God really did communicate by putting feelings in our hearts, then all of us - or at least a large number of us - would receive the exact same feelings. This simply does not happen. In essence, without a holy book, the God you believe in is your own creation.

4- There is no God, and therefore the Bible is the work of men.

Problem: None that I can see. This is the simplest and most likely of these possibilities, in my opinion.

Christianity without the Bible

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on October 6, 2006

in christianity and religion

. 17 Comments

Replying to this comment by TXStorm to Joshua:

Out of curiosity, since you put yourself up as one who knows what god *really* said, upon what do you base your belief that the xn bible is in error and your claims are correct?

Indeed.

If you believe that the Bible is the word of God, then you must believe in all of it. If you accept that some parts of it are merely the prejudices of primitive men, instead of being inspired by God, then how can you tell which are which? If you choose the more “tasteful” parts as God-inspired, then in effect you are creating your own religion, according to what you already believe (for instance, if you’re a sexist male, you’ll accept the sexist parts; if you’re not, you won’t.)

And how can anyone tell, objectively, which parts are inspired by God? Nobody can. Rationally, either you accept all of it, or none of it; if you accept that only some parts of the Bible are God-inspired, then what prevents you - or anyone - from basing their beliefs on the wrong parts, and letting those guide your actions? Nothing. Suppose, then, that God exists, but you are offending him because you’re obeying the wrong parts of the Bible? Nope. Bad idea. Too dangerous. Logically, then, it’s all or nothing.

On the other hand, without the Bible, what remains, then? For instance, take Jesus. Unless you’ve had some visions, dreams, or something like that (which I wouldn’t exactly call trustworthy - people dream of the most incredible things all the time), the only source of information about Jesus’s life, his teachings, his supposed resurrection and divinity is the Bible. There’s nothing else. No historical documents, from his time, mention him at all. Whatever he did (if he did exist), was too small, too localized, to be mentioned by historians at the time - it happened in a remote, non-important part of the Roman Empire.

So, without the Bible, what do you - or anyone - know about Jesus? Nothing. Either you trust in the Bible, or you have no reason to believe a guy called Jesus ever existed - never mind whether he was the son of God. If you do trust that part of the Bible, again, you have to take the rest of it with it. It makes no sense at all to say “this part is true, that part is false”.

In short, being a “Christian” without accepting the Bible - the whole of it - is absurd. Basically, you’re just making up stuff by yourself, deciding what you will believe in.

If you don’t accept any “holy books”, then something like Deism might make some sense (though atheism is still more rational, because you’re not adding more entities to the universe.) Normal theism, however, including Christianity, makes no sense whatsoever.

Not that I think theism with the Bible is more correct, of course, but at least it’s a little more coherent to believe in Jesus because the Bible says so, than to believe in him just because you felt like it.

Now reading: "The End of Faith", by Sam Harris

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on October 4, 2006

in books and religion

. 13 Comments

The End of Faith

I’m halfway through the book, right now. It’s a relatively quick read, though it’s annoying to always have to go to the appendix to check notes, when they could be at the bottom of the relevant page instead.

This well-known book is, of course, a criticism of religion - not just organized religion, but of faith itself. The book is very un-PC; I’m sure that even some atheists and agnostics will dislike Harris’ tone and some of his opinions.

One of the author’s main points is something I’ve written about, here, several times. It goes like this: in any religion (let’s say Christiany and Islam, they’re the most troublesome ones), there are both moderates and fundamentalists (or “extremists”). Whenever there’s some act of violence by the fundamentalists, everyone - even those not belonging to that faith - says that the extremists aren’t really representative of their religion, that they deviate from the religion and from its basic tenets, and so on. They say that the extremists are “distorting” their faith, that either they’re simply insane, or they’re using religion as an excuse for their violence.

Harris says - and I fully agree, as you know - that such a view has no support from the holy books. It’s not that the extremists are “distorting” their religion; much the opposite. They’re the only ones who really believe in it, in all of it. They’re the only ones who are “true believers”, who go all the way. The “moderates”, for convenience - or simply because they don’t want to die, or be arrested -, ignore most of their religion, and most of their holy books. And they, probably, feel a little ashamed of doing so.

Any Christian who is not stoning unbelievers to death is disobeying the Bible. Any Muslim who doesn’t become a martyr, sacrificing himself to take some “enemies of the faith” with him, is disobeying the Koran. Are fundamentalists - including terrorists - “fringe lunatics”? Or devout believers?

Another of Harris’ points is this: not all tolerance is good or desirable. Quoting from Wikipedia, here’s a great summary of this point:

Harris freely admits that he is advocating a form of intolerance, but not, as he puts it, the kind of intolerance that led to the Gulag. Rather he is arguing for a conversational intolerance, one in which we require in our everyday discourse that people’s convictions really scale with the available evidence. He feels that the time has come to demand intellectual honesty right across the board, and ignore the prevailing taboos and political correctness which, in his view, appear to prevent us from openly criticising religion.

Harris observes that these are the rules which seem to apply to every other field of knowledge. He notes that we are rarely admonished simply to respect someone’s views on, say, physics or history; instead, we both demand reasons and expect evidence.

The book goes on in more detail about what are the main problems with the 2 most common faiths, Christianity and Islam. The chapter on Islam is especially strong in its criticism: according to Harris, Islam is at the same level of cultural and ethical development as 14th century Christianity, when the Inquisition ran rampant, people burned “witches” and “heretics” everywhere, and women were seen as inferior, sinful beings. In other words, most Christians have learned to ignore most of the Bible these days (which is a good thing), but Muslims still don’t do it; they haven’t grown as a culture since the middle ages, and believe absolutely and completely in an ancient book whose author couldn’t conceive of a greater reward in the entire universe than “seventy-two virgins”.

I don’t agree with all of the book; Harris seems to have a view on “spirituality” that is a bit too “new age” for my tastes, and he seems not to believe in reason as an absolute. I’ve read that there is a final chapter about “spirituality”, which many readers, who agreed with the rest of the book, disliked, but I haven’t gotten there yet. Still, I think that it’s a great read, and it would be great if, someday, criticizing religion or beliefs stopped being “taboo”.

Small gods

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on October 2, 2006

in christianity and religion

. 3 Comments

I’ve looked around the “World’s Last Chance” site, mentioned in the previous post, a bit more. Although the “next Pope is John Paul II, back from the dead” angle is certainly peculiar :), the rest of the site is mostly of the “apocalyptic Christian” kind; in other words, Jesus is almost here (any day now). A huge part of that site - indeed, it appears to be its most important message - is this: the Catholic Church has changed God’s day (the Sabbath) from Saturday to Sunday. According to that site, anyone who “gives” Sunday (instead of Saturday) to God, who rests on that day, and so on, is in fact, worshipping Satan instead of God, and is surely on the path to damnation.

Nebula

Now, think about the universe. It’s something much bigger than you probably imagine. The stars you see aren’t just there to make the night look nice; they’re light years away, huge, and (literal interpretations of Genesis notwithstanding) very, very old. Most of them are older than the Earth. A lot of them don’t even exist anymore, due to the fact that the speed of light isn’t infinite; the light you see was “sent” millennia ago, but the source is long gone.

There’s much more out there. Nebulae, pulsars, quasars, black holes. Millions and millions of galaxies, each of them with millions of stars. Many are so far away that even our most powerful telescopes can’t see them.

In short, the universe is incredibly vast. Compared to it, the Earth is absolutely nothing - an infinitesimal speck of dust.

And yet, we believe that a divine creator, responsible for such an universe, capable of ever conceiving such vastness and variety… would worry about days of the week?

That’s as absurd as believing that, in all that infinite universe, the only place that matters is this insignificant little planet. Or that a cosmic creator would, somehow, choose a primitive tribe as his “chosen people”, a couple of millennia ago. That an infinitely supreme being would have human traits, like he does in the Bible. That he would choose to incarnate as a human being, in a primitive era, seen by just a few hundred people, and thus “save” us - as long as we believed that he did. That he would bother creating a “heaven” and a “hell” for our afterlives. That we would be his reason for creating the universe.

The Judeo/Christian/Muslim god is too human, and too small. He’s no different from, say, the Greek gods, who were obviously created with human personalities and character faults.

The fact that even in super-hero comics we see beings like Galactus or Eternity who are, and behave, much more “god-like” than the god worshipped by millions of us should tell us something. Namely, that our primitive ancestors created small gods because they couldn’t imagine anything bigger.

The God in the Christian Bible, or the Koran, isn’t really bigger than any of us. He isn’t wiser, more vast, more cosmic, like a god capable of creating the universe - or even of creating this world - would certainly be. He isn’t even better, as in “a better person” - in fact, he’s jealous, insecure, attention-craving, violent, sadistic, can be deceived, and often acts like a spoiled child. Even if he existed (which I doubt - such a being wouldn’t be capable of creating even a doll house, much less a universe), I don’t think he would deserve our worship.