And I’m a bit annoyed about it too. Dikkii beat me to it with an excellent round up, so if you’re interested in Australian politics, part1 is here and part 2 is here and they’re well worth the read. But I’m gonna have my say anyway, despite that he’s done it better already! There’s one thing he didn’t mention for the international visitors though and that is our major parties orientations. In this country, “Liberal” means “Conservative” while “Labor” means “Socialist (almost…)”. So our Liberal party is the equivalent of the Tories or Republicans while Labor is the Labour or Democrat equivalent.
So, we are about to have an election in this country and if there’s one thing that really annoys me, it’s politicians blathering on about how good they are. Seriously guys, your professional lives are on the public record, we know it isn’t true!
But the hustings are a marvellous place. On any given day throughout the election proceedings you will be regaled with tails of woe and tails of joy. Generally though, it’s tails of woe which revolve around one of two things depending on who you are; the damage the current incumbent has done over the past umpteen years or the damage the opposition will do, should they gain a majority. I’m sure that anyone reading this, anywhere in the democratic world, is familiar with the story.
So for the past six weeks or so we’ve had to endure the likes of Howard, Rudd, Brown, Costello, Gillard, Abbot, Swan, etc, telling us all about how good they are and how bad their respective counterparts are. It’s a game of “tit-for-tat”; “We’ve done this (good) and they’ll do that (bad)” or “They’ve done this (bad) but we’ll do that (good)”. More often than not, it’s reminiscent of the school yard. Sometimes I wonder why we don’t just have a farting competition and decide it that way. I reckon the result would probably be the same. Oh yeah I forgot, methane’s a green house gas...
So what are the issues? Well it doesn’t really matter where I live. I’m in the seat of Lalor (pronounced Lawler, for all you philistines out there) which is Labor heartland and Julia Gillard (bless her little cotton socks) will probably be returned with an even bigger margin than last time, if that’s possible, and I’ll be helping to make that happen. I also harbour a secret hope that she’ll become our first woman Prime Minister, but I think I’ll have to wait a little while now that Rudd’s got a strangle hold on the party, we’ll see. That said however, there are a couple of things I’ll touch on and “Workchoices” gets top billing.
Workchoices is an insipid policy that must be relegated to the dustbin in all possible haste. I’ve met many a worker at my local that has lost penalty rates and/or overtime and is now finding it difficult. Some have even stopped attending the local in favour of making the mortgage payment and some have lost their homes. Of course, the statistic those guys fall under is the “interest rate rise” statistic but make no mistake, in at least two cases I know of, interest rates meant nothing compared to the night shift penalties. As an example, my current penalty is 30% (I do 12 hour shifts, 24x365 which means I don’t get public holidays and I work 2 out of 5 weekends) but I could lose that at any moment should my employer decide to risk the fairness test, which they can’t afford to do so I’m pretty safe. But that’s a whole one third of my wage and if I lose that, I lose my house.
Education. Why the hell we don’t have a national standard is beyond me. I had a little email confrontation with Ms. Bishop (who has been very quiet during this campaign) not so long ago and she didn’t want to go there. That seriously disappointed me seeing as how she’d just waded into the debate with about $110million worth of funding. 25% of that funding went to the private sector too, which I happen to think is an absolute disgrace. Organisations run for profit should not be entitled to my tax dollars, especially when so much work is needed in the public sector.
But come Saturday evening, I think there’s going to be a major reallocation of seating arrangements in both houses (see Dikkii’s post for an excellent explanation of our parliamentary system). Hopefully the senate will end up with a Labor majority by preference of the Greens and the odd independent. The Labor party doesn’t allow it’s members to cross the floor and expels those that do but we need that ability, especially in the senate. I’m hoping that Family First and the Christian Democratic Party get what they deserve which is nothing, and I also hope to see the end of Pauline as a politician. She makes a much better celebrity I think and besides, she dances pretty well for an old tart.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Election Time
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Tagged
Damn! And here was I all geared up to play some Call of Duty that's COD4, which is all new and better than good, and Sean goes and tags me. Oh well...
To the rules:
- Describe my earliest memory where the memory is clear, and where "clear" means I can depict at least three details.
- Give an estimate of my age at the time.
- Tag five other bloggers with this meme.
It was a canvas wading pool, set up under the clothesline and the clothesline had an old canvas tarp draped over it to keep the sun off the pool, or more to the point, off the kids that were in it. Mum dragged me out, gave me a right royal bollicking, got me dressed, again, then bundled me into our red and white FC Holden to go wherever it was we went. I was about 2 at the time.
I tag: Dikkii, Psychoatheist, Mister Jebs Blog (Tina), The Honest Doubter & Tomsheepandgoats
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
ATB 2007
As I rode my bike today it occurred to me that I'd been remiss in mentioning this year's Around The Bay In A Day.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, it is a charity event for the Smith Family and you can do the 50km (31 miles), 100km (62 miles), the "Classic" 210km (130 miles) or the "Legends" 250km (155 miles), taking in the scenery around Melbourne, Australia's beautiful bay. The city is the starting point and you ride down one side of the bay or the other, to either Queenscliff or Sorento, catch the ferry across to the other side, then ride back to the city. We do the 210km and it takes about 8 hours.
Anyway, here's the crew (I'm second from the left in the front row). We're "Team INVESCO" because the company my mate works for, pays our entry and provides the gear we're all wearing and we get ourselves sponsored for the Smith family. We have to raise $250, so go here if you want to donate to my cause (my jersey number was 4755). Anyway, that photo was taken at about 5:30am, just before we embarked on our journey. No, I didn't forget my helmet this year, so we got there in time to be included in the team photo.
This journey can be a journey in more ways than one. Just because the Tour de France has a stage this distance almost every day, doesn't mean that this distance isn't totally gruelling for average cyclists like most of us.
We started out fresh and chirpy and made good time down to the Bridge, which is one of the really groovy things about this ride. It's the only time you get to ride a bicycle over the West Gate Bridge, so it's best to make the most of it. It's also an easy climb with a fantastic descent that just begs to be used for a coasting race.
The most amazing thing about the bridge this year was not the fact that I won the coasting race down the other side, that was to be expected because I've been working on my technique (I can lay on the cross bar without losing control now), no, it was the one legged guy we caught up to about half way up. He wasn't wearing a prosthetic either, just peddling away with one leg. How amazing is that? He made it around no worries too apparently, despite the heat. It doesn't surprise me though given the size of the calf muscle he was sporting. Methinks he's done it before.
Anyway, It was a fantastic morning and we had a fun ride down to Geelong. We weren't late so we stuck with the bunch, took our time and chatted with whoever we found ourselves riding with. A quick relief break at Altona and then on to Little River where I had to stop for a smoke. A man can only go for so long on caffeine alone after all. Then it was on to Geelong where I had to wait for my 15 year old niece who was with us this year. We had a nice long break there where we all topped up with some energy food (I use "Goo" with caffeine, or preferably 2x caffeine. I recommend the "Espresso Love" flavour) and then it was on to Queenscliff.
The day had started to warm up by this stage and my niece began having difficulty. She was carrying a knee injury and about halfway between Geelong and Queenscliff took avail of the "sag wagon" to get a ride back to Geelong and get picked up by her mum. Next year perhaps.
We eventually made it to Queenscliff where we stopped for a quick lunch and to wait for the ferry. It wasn't long before we were on it though (as you can see) and an hour or so later we arrived in Sorento .
Now Sorento's a lovely place, I know, I've spent many a holiday down there. But I have to tell you that the water is complete shite! It's very heavy water as it is so it has that stale taste anyway, but do they have to chlorinate the absolute crap out of it? I'm glad I had some Gatoraid to add to it to make it bearable.
After stopping at Dromana to replace the plain water we were carrying (along with every body else), we made it up Balcombe Hill, over the rolling hills to Mt. Eliza and down Oliver's Hill into Frankston. We'd been separated by a set of lights, so my two compardres were waiting for me in Frankston.
There we had a quick smoke then continued on to Mornington where I had to stop and fix a puncture because some fool had scattered drawing pins on the road. Once that was done it was onto Beach Road for the last hour home.
Now bear in mind that I'd been on the bike for 7 hours already and it was 31 degrees Celsius (88F). So it was at this point that the rest of my body really started to protest, along with my legs; they'd been at it since we climbed the hill. But this is what I meant earlier about it being a journey in more ways than one. This last hour is a journey of discovery for yourself. You know there's a sag wagon that'll happily take you home, and you know that it hurts. You also know that it won't kill you if you keep going and that the whole point of doing this thing is to do it all.
But I eventually rolled into town at about 5:00pm. We completed our 210km in about 8.5 hours, time on the bike. For pictures of me in action, go here...
Monday, November 12, 2007
New Affiliations
There are two new affiliations you may notice on this page. Firstly, I've been accepted by Mojoey and have been added to the Atheist Blogroll. If you have an atheist/agnostic oriented blog and should want to get your name on there, click the image or the link and away you go...:)
You may also notice a big red "A". That's for The Out Campaign. Basically it's a call for atheists to "come out of the closet", as it were. It's a Dawkins initiative and he maintains a blogroll. Once again, if you're blog is of that ilk, please join by clicking the link or image. Have a poke around while you're at it, it's all good...:)
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
I don't know!
Is it really such a difficult thing to say? I say it all the time. I have an issue with believing that something is true if I have no verifiable evidence on which to base that belief. Somehow it just doesn’t sit well with me. I guess I have a fear of being called gullible or something, but it seems to me that believing or saying that something is true just because someone else said so, is how innocent people get themselves into trouble.
But this need for evidence I have burns especially bright for any theory or hypotheses that seeks to explain my existence or to provide a reason for it, and there are two things that try to do this. One is an hypotheses, one is a theory. As you can see, they are very different things.
The hypotheses is God. In this hypotheses, it is postulated that a thinking, caring God of some kind is the ultimate creator, who created the universe and everything in it, as it is, in all it’s complexity. This hypotheses has enjoyed a very long and sordid history and at times has included such claims and ideas as the sun revolving around the earth, the planets being ordered in crystal spheres, that a vacuum cannot exist because God fills every space, and many others besides. Many of these ideas are ridiculed today by even the most ardent followers of the God hypotheses, and that is as it should be. Discoveries have been made after all, that leave no doubt that some of those claims have absolutely no grounding in any evidentiary fact, so continuing to believe them to be true, now that we can freely observe that they are not, is no longer an option.
The God hypotheses however, still enjoys it’s extremes; from those who believe that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, to those who believe that the geological time scale of billions of years only helps to show God’s majesty and wonder. It also enjoys a vociferous movement formed from both extremes that believe that the complexity we find in the cosmos, on earth and in particular in biology, proves the existence of a creator or designer beyond doubt. And of course, there are some followers of the God hypotheses, few though they be, that disagree with this idea. In this respect it is just like any other form of academia.
But no matter which position is taken on God, this hypotheses tries to explain the reason for my existence in terms of me having a spirit or soul that has an eternal existence after the death of my physical body, spent in one of two places, rejoicing or suffering, depending on the choices I make during this life. It even goes so far as to call me unworthy, which is a question I find interesting. How do I attain something I’m unworthy of? Oh I see, through Jesus...
Anyway, I call this one an hypotheses because there is very little, if any evidence to support it. The bigger part of the body of evidence that exists for this hypotheses consists of a collection of very old books called “The Bible”. The individual books themselves were written at various times throughout history, with the earliest dating to around 650 - 635bce, the latest to about 96 - 120ce and they contain very little evidence that’s actually testable or verifiable. As a consequence of that lack (and my being unworthy), I find it very difficult to believe that this hypotheses has any merit at all.
The theory I spoke of is this thing called The Theory of Evolution. It doesn’t seek to explain exactly what might happen (or not) after our physical bodies cease to function as living, breathing, cognisant entities. It doesn’t even seek to explain about how life actually got kick started in the very first instance, but it does seek to explain, using a process called “Natural Selection”, how life came to be how it is today and why we are the way we are.
Basically, the theory of evolution says that anything can happen; that is that genetic mutation occurs in a random manner. Some mutations are good and aid an organism in survival, others are bad and do not. Natural selection ensures that only the good or workable mutations survive by ensuring that the bad ones die. It’s a very simple and elegant process, if seeming to be a little cruel.
That doesn’t mean to say that things don’t go wrong. In fact if things didn’t go wrong, evolution probably wouldn’t occur very often. It’s things like the introduction of a new competitor for a preferred food source, the introduction of a new predator, population pressure, etc, that cause evolution. When an organism senses pressure to adapt or die, it generally adapts. Syphilis is a good example. What, to a native American was a childhood disease consisting of a mild and fairly short lived skin irritation, became a deadly STD in Europe within a decade or two of Columbus bringing it back. That happened simply because syphilis could not survive on the surface of the skin in the European climate. So what did it do? It adapted and evolved so that it could survive in warmer, darker and damper areas of the body. Natural selection then ensured that in Europe at least, the skin infection version of the disease died out. It’s still the same organism though. So close to the original in fact, that if you’ve had the skin infection, you will be immune to the STD.
We know all this because scientists have applied some imagination and a lot of thought to the matter and verifiable evidence has been provided that proves the claim. The entire process of evolution, from the very beginning until now can also be easily explained in these terms.
So here we have a theory. It is a theory because it seeks to explain itself by providing tangible evidence. I don’t need to make any gargantuan leaps of faith and simply believe it because Charles Darwin or Richard Dawkins said so. No, I can take their claims and test them. I can go out in the field and dig up the remains of a primitive life form then look at it’s modern counterpart and see with my own eyes what changes have occurred over time. I can see, if I’m inclined to look, that the complexity of life I see around me came about quite naturally and by necessity. In short, I can satisfy myself that what we have here is a workable solution and a theory that has merit. Some may ask; “Don’t you think it’s a little unrealistic that all this has come about by chance?” to which I will answer “Yes, indeed I do.” There is no chance at all involved with evolution. You either make the right decision or you die, there is no middle ground and it is no accident that you live or die by your decision.
Another thing about this theory is that it makes no allusions to anything other than the physical world in which we live. What happens after our bodies cease to function is that we cease to be as individuals, and our bodies become fertiliser that helps nourish the next generation. So it seems that our sole purpose for being here and being as we are, is to procreate. Personally, I happen to think that the continuance of the species is a rather noble cause. Good enough to die for even… Eventually.
The very best thing about this theory however, is that it's a theory. It’s a theory that belongs to the scientific world, which of course is why it tries to explain the world in scientific terms. But being a theory means that it might also be completely wrong. That is as it should be, simply because it’s a theory. But in order to prove a theory as untenable, you need to have another, more tenable theory to replace it. As yet, no such theory exists.
Those that say that the God hypotheses is the real alternative, I think, are mistaken. God to me is a philosophical position, and to try and use a philosophical position to explain the world in scientific terms is pure folly.
Theology, which some might call the science of the God hypotheses, pretty much boils down to a human analysis of various stories, which in turn were written by humans, using no particular formula for that analysis. In these stories things often happen that seem highly improbable (and largely impossible) when the laws of physics are applied, yet we are extolled to “believe” that they are true. The words themselves are all that’s offered as proof, so how can I believe them when the very words themselves beggar belief?
There’s one other thing that really bugs me about the God hypotheses. There’s a book to tell you all about it, yet it seems that almost every single sentence in it needs interpretation. Theologians, preachers and laymen alike will quite often read you a passage of perfectly good English, only to tell you “Now what that really means is this...” and go on to say something completely different. It’s baffling. It seems to me sometimes that what christian theology really seeks to ask is this: “What if all the words that are written in the bible actually mean something else entirely?”
Saturday, November 3, 2007
The Irony Of It All...
Alright, I'm back! And I was having such a lovely break from it all. It's all the fault of those so called Witnesses! This time they did more than just insult my intelligence, as religions in general are want to do. I'm used to that and it holds no surprise for me. No, this time they've also offended my sensibilities and outraged what scant intellect I have, which being as scant as it is, is not an easy thing to do. There will be no prisoners this time, and definitely no cake or bikkies when they come back for the promised cuppa, of that you can be assured!
What did they do to me, these dastardly practitioners and purveyors of woo? Well, some may remember the rant I posted as a birthday present to myself earlier this year. I complained at the time that the buggers never seem to come back after one of our little chats but I must stand corrected, apologise and take back everything I said on that score because earlier today, I answered the door to none other than the very same lady who was here my birthday last.
Today however, the conversation took a slightly different turn. She had another woman with her, her husband was nowhere to be seen, and this lady took a particularly haughty tone. But the tone of our conversation is not the reason for my chagrin. As I said, I'm used to that from your more religious folk (having been a particularly obnoxious one myself, I'm sure), nor is it the subject of today's missive. No, today's missive concerns a particular tract that was handed to me, which I reached for with trepidation, lest it be exactly what I thought it to be.
The picture on the little book she held up is awe inspiring. It's that wonderful Hubble image of the gas pillars in the Eagle Nebula (referred to sometimes as "The Pillars Of Creation") giving birth to stars. Spectacular stuff indeed. But then I saw the title and the way it was laid out:
CREATOR
Who cares about you?"
"EEK!" I thought. "Intelligent Design! And on my very doorstep! AAAaaarrrrggggghhhhh!!!" It was a near thing, I freely admit, but I managed to hold my composure and didn't run screaming from the scene, though I was sorely tempted to do so. No, despite the fact that they came in hard this time, firing questions and offering some of the best religious indignation I think I've ever seen in response to answers, I managed with polite indifference to refuse to entertain any more conversation concerning "ultimate truths", or that "fulfilled prophesy proves the bible correct" (that's the Charles Taze Russell version of the bible, not the original), and then invited them back for a cuppa and a chat in a week or so, once I've had a chance to review their little book.
So off to my office I went where I opened the book to an explanation of what an artist meant by the title of his painting, which of course by all accounts is nothing like the meaning the artist himself actually attached to it - Paul Gauguin "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?". After this though, we get to the inevitable quotes. We'll see if you can guess who this one belongs to. The clue is that as usual, it's out of context because they've conveniently reworded it and neglected to print the rest of it: "The man who regards his life as meaningless is not only unhappy but unfit for life." That's just way to easy. But then there's some stuff from psychologist Prof. Viktor Frankl, who during his stay in various concentration camps, Auschwitz included, extensively studied human suffering and how people manage to deal with it and survive it. He developed Existential Analysis and Logotherapy as a result of those studies and concluded that "meaninglessness can only be overcome by creating one's own values and meanings" which on the face of it, does not appear to have much at all to do with any god or creator. He was also fond of that previous quote BTW, the full and correct version, not the Charles Taze Russell version.
Anyway, once I felt that my affronted sensibilities had had sufficient time to cool and I had prepared myself for more of the same, I turned the page and found that tired old canard, the argument from irreducible complexity. There was no time for my sensibilities to be affronted this time, my scant yet feisty intellect quickly took over. "The universe is sooooo big and sooooo complex, there's no way that a chance explosion could have created all this out of nothing." I grieve for the current state of our education system when I meet people who can believe this drivel. It saddens me deeply.
Despite my grief however, the irony of my situation precludes my being to upset. Happily I've only just finished reading the chapter and researching the links in Richard Dawkins excellent book "The God Delusion", that deals with this particular argument and I am now quite familiar with it and it's stupidity.
So, for those creationists and other proponents of ID out there that still don't get it, here are just a few things for you to consider:
1. The premise of your argument is this: "Complexity REQUIRES design": Organisms that are complex enough that we cannot conceive how their individual parts evolved separately to form the whole - Where we cannot find intermediary steps that show a clear path of evolution - implies that the whole was created together and therefore, this MUST imply the intervention of an intelligent designer.
I'd contend that I could just as easily say "See? It must be magic" and be just as correct. But this is what I like to call a re-entrant conundrum. It means that the designer has to be complex enough to design the complexity which REQUIRES that he/she/it must also have been designed, which in turn requires the intervention of a designer, ad infinitum. As you can see, it isn't long before we observe the effect such as in a hall of mirrors, with creators stretching off in all directions, each into infinity. The presumption of an ultimate designer is an impossible and indefensible position and simply put, this is not a workable solution. Please see natural selection for something that actually works.
2. That the universe was created out of nothing by "the big bang" must be wrong. How can you create a universe out of nothing?
Well I know that I can't... But as we know, attempting to disprove a theory is not an issue. It is in fact a basic principle and a requirement of the scientific method, if the method is applied correctly. But in doing so, please try and understand at least some of the basic tenets of the theory you are trying to disprove or in this case, ridicule. Check the link above for a simple explanation of the theory that we call, erroneously I might add, "The Big Bang". Almost as soon as you begin reading you will discover that no one ever said anything about the universe being created out of nothing.
3. Science has no idea what went before "the big bang" or what exists outside the universe.
Correct! And as yet, we have no way of knowing, so what's the big deal? It seems to me that it's just to difficult for some people to say "I don't know". Besides, considering that we can only exist inside this universe, such as it is, it's largely irrelevant. But that's where pseudo-sciences like creationism and intelligent design really come into their own. Anything that seems sufficiently complex and which as yet has no provable or demonstrable explanation - or anything that is largely irrelevant - is where the god of creation, or more properly put, "the God of the gaps" does His best and only work.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
The Various Chariots of God
Busy, busy, busy. What with working 9 – 5 (I don’t know how you non-shift worker types handle the daily grind, it’s ridiculous) and trying to get through a bit of Sam Harris and the tangents that’s led me on, time for writing has been at a premium. Nonetheless, I think it’s time I penned a missive concerning one of my favourite hypocrisies concerning modern religion, especially where your more fundamental believer is concerned.
You see, the books that make up the collection that include the Torah, Talmud, Bible and Koran seem to contain many references that could easily be construed to be close encounters of one kind or another. Well, especially if you’re into that sort of thing, but more about that later. First I need to say that personally, I put UFOs and ET firmly in the same basket as God, which is to say that I’ll believe it when I see some firm and testable evidence. Unlike my attitude toward God however, I am at least prepared to admit that there’s enough evidence at this point to suggest that it is at least possible, if not as yet probable, that we are not alone in space.
That said - as it needed to be - I found some “stuff” by way of history that I thought you might find interesting. I was poking around at SETI and got sidetracked by this article by Seth Shostak, the senior astronomer there, that speaks about the theoretical number of planets we might find in our galaxy. Here’s another one that talks about a possible “earth like” planet that’s recently been discovered. It got me to wondering just how far back the whole UFO/alien thing goes and why the bible itself might seem to contain a few tales about such things.
Well, it seems that it goes back quite a ways indeed. Here are some images that have no words to accompany them so really, we can’t be sure. I think you’ll agree however, that some of them do bear an uncanny resemblance to what we would call “aliens” and/or “UFOs” today:
Here’s an image that dates back to about 10,000BCE. It hails from Val Camonica in Italy and is a rather amazing image. They could be wearing some sort of costume and carrying some kind of ceremonial or practical implements, as yet unidentified. Some might say however, that they look a bit like ET, which explains nicely why the implements reman unidentified, but little else.
Then there’s this one from Tassiliin in the Sahara, North Africa which dates to about 6,000BCE. This one’s just freaky! It may be ET or it may be a costume of some kind, who’s to say, but the classic disc in the upper right might just make you wonder.
From my neck of the woods (Aus.) we have the Wandjina petroglyphs from the Kimberly. These lads date to about 5,000BCE.
This interesting looking chap was found in Kiev and dates back to about 4,000BCE.
There are many more than just these, of course. It’s unfortunate that the sites that have the most images seem to be concerned more with conspiracies and what have you, but that seems to be difficult to escape when you go looking for “ufo history” or “ancient ufo”. Nonetheless, drawings and statues like these are found all over the world and date to all eras and as we know, rumours and stories continue to persist today.
Is it any wonder then that there may also be stories of such things, as there are images, that have come to us through the folk law of ancient cultures? Given that the phenomena of the humble UFO could possibly be as old as man himself, I don’t think so. It was after all, the ancient stories, artwork and monuments that led Erich von Däniken to draw the conclusions that he did, erroneously or not.
But then there’s some of the distinctly christian art:
We’ll start with this one by Flemish artist Aert De Gelder in 1710. A classic disc beaming light down on John the Baptist and Jesus. “Beam me up Scotty!” Hehe…:)
Here’s a fifteenth century painting by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494). Note the detail in the UFO, port holes and everything. One might wonder why so much time was spent on such a small feature, but there it is, plain to see.
This one’s my favourite though. "Glorification of the Eucharist" was painted by Bonaventura Salimbeni to commemorate the Christian Jubilee in 1600 but it does not appear to contain a UFO. It contains, of all things, the humble Sputnik, albeit with only two antennae. Now correct me if I’m wrong here, but I’m sure that Sputnik wasn’t launched until Oct. 4 1957. Why then are Jesus and God respectively, each holding one of it’s antennae back in 1600? It’s a conundrum and no mistake.
But, and there’s always one of them, I think it’s an established fact that your more fundamental Christian is not particularly enamoured with the idea that we may not be the only intelligent and sentient beings in the universe. We are after all, supposed to be the pinnacle of God’s creation and the only one like it. “Unique in all creation”, as they say. I find this notion to be quite odd, especially when we begin to read the bible.
We’ll take a little look at Ezekiel here, just as an example:
1:4 I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north - an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The centre of the fire looked like glowing metal
1:16 This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like chrysolite, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. 17 As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not turn about as the creatures went.
This chapter has an example of just about everything we’ve invented names for today; lenticular clouds, spinning lights, ring lights, classic “flying saucers” zooming around, etc. It seems a bit weird to me now, but there was I time I’d read this and see it all as evidence of God’s power and all round mightiness. Now I find I’m turning the page in anticipation of a description of the resulting crop circle, which viewed from the vantage of that hill over there, bears an uncanny resemblance to King Jehoiachin, alas…
But as I said earlier, fundamental Christians do not tend to believe that ET is a possibility. There’s no room for it, you see. Once every spare nook and cranny is filled with Jesus, there’s just not enough space left for anything else, not even “common” sense, or so it seems. Even so, it does seem a tad hypocritical to me to ridicule someone else’s belief in ET while at the same time subscribing to a book that has no less than 362 descriptions of what in today’s language would be nothing more than first, second or third hand reports of UFO sightings and rather dubious ones at that.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Fact Becomes Myth?
Every culture not only has a creation story of some kind, but they also share a myth or legend that concerns a great flood. Everywhere from the ancient stories of Scandinavia, through Egypt and Mesopotamia, China, Australia, North America, South America etc has one. Basically, name a place and you’ll find a similar legend. All these legends have another commonality in that at least one human being was somehow spared and managed to repopulate the race somehow. They all speak of purification of one kind or another and in every case it was caused by some god or gods, and it was these gods that saw the righteousness of certain individuals and saved them. Usually by getting someone to build a boat of some kind. Or, in the case of one story from China a couple just happened to find a canoe and managed to paddle around until they bumped into a mountain. Now how lucky’s that? The only real point around which some differ is that a few provide that a great deluge (an extended period of rainfall) was the cause, while most tend to lean towards the oceans rising or vast volumes of water coming out of nowhere. I think there is a good reason for that and that an historical case can be made.
Despite what some may think, the old testament as we know it is a reasonably good historical reference where ancient history is concerned, so using the old testament as an historical record rather than a spiritual one, science can prove that there’s absolutely no geological record to support that there was a great flood as written in the story of Noah. This is where we run into a bit of a problem, I think.
The general consensus is that there’s about 4000 years of human history tied up in the old testament one way or another. That means that Noah existed only about 2000BC. The problem I have with this is that we can only trace Yahweh back about 5700 years, which actually places Noah at about 1700BC. Of course, there’s evidence to suggest that monotheism of sorts (the God of Gods, Lord of Lords thing, the singular rules over the plural, etc) goes back much further than that. Every pantheon has it’s top god after all, but that doesn’t change the fact that around the time of Noah as it’s interpreted from the bible, things were pretty stable and there probably wasn’t any flood at all.
Given what we know of earth history though, this could also indicate that we may have made a mistake in estimating how old some of the old testament stories actually are. If that’s the case, and I think it is, then the reference in time we attribute to the historical data contained in the old testament is hazy at best, even though the data itself can be reasonably accurate. It could very well be that the stories were actually written down for the very first time about 2 – 3 thousand years ago, that seems to be about when written languages started becoming popular, but man has been around a hell of a lot longer than that. The problem with what we call pre-history is that it wasn’t written down, or if it was it’s been lost, hence the term.
We know that the earth came into existence about 4.5 billion years or so ago, via the interplay of astronomical forces, and that man is a relative youngster at about 400,000 years in one form or another due to evolutionary change and upheaval. Modern man however, we can say has been around for about 30 - 40 thousand years. We can also prove, via geological records and records locked in ice cores, that the earth suffers from an extended cycle of ice ages, with periods of major glacial activity where glaciers grow and retreat quite rapidly every 11,00 years or so.
The popular theory is that we are currently still in the grips of an ice age that began around 40 million years ago, or so the above records would seem to suggest. The problem with ice and particularly glaciers is that they scour the landscape and make interpretation of the data collected from the these sources difficult. We can’t be sure for instance, that the ice caps have ever truly disappeared once they formed for the first time, but that’s the benchmark we use to denote an ice age. One thing we can be sure of however, is that the last major glacial period ended about 11,000 years ago.
When the earth experiences a major glacial period, a lot of water is locked into ice, some land becomes uninhabitable but ocean levels drop markedly which causes other land, closer to the tropics, to be exposed. Naturally, when the glaciers melt, the opposite occurs but with some changes evident afterwards. Generally, what used to be high ground has been ground down a bit by the relentless action of the ice and the tailings of the grinding get deposited elsewhere, sometimes hundreds of miles from their point of origin.
The evidence that exists in cores and the geological record from both the start and the end of the last glacial period, would suggest that both events happened fairly rapidly by geological standards. 25 to 50 years for both events. This means two things: That the ice forms in about half a single lifetime when the freeze begins, and about 11,000 years later, water inundates the lower lying regions in less than half a single lifetime (once again, 25 – 50 years) when the melt occurs.
Evidence also suggests that sea levels rose 150 metres at the end of the last glacial period. So considering the size of the planet and the amount of ice and water involved, that much melt in that short a time will make for some very large and fast moving volumes of water that will spend very little time filling and devastating any low lying areas. Consider also that man has always felt the need to settle near water (for very good reason) and I believe we find the source of this particular and very common tale. Massive volumes of fast moving water are going to make for devastating floods in coastal areas all around the globe. The other result of course, what with all that moisture having been released in such a short time, would be that in some parts of the world, there’d be a hell of a lot of rain where there probably wasn’t much before.
What this probably means as far as the legends go is that Noah, Gilgamesh, Deucalion and his wife, the survivors from Samothrace and a myriad others are all one in the same. They are simply the survivors of the great melt that occurred in a very short period about 11,000 years ago and caused massive upheaval in many human settlements around the globe and the story itself I think, was just meant to serve as a reminder.
So in conclusion, I think it’s fairly obvious that the story of the flood is entirely plausible. I also think that science has proven the plausibility of it, just not in the biblical context and time frame that certain factions might have us believe.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Take the test
I just had a bit of fun over at Dikkii's Diatribe where I found this test. I was pretty chuffed with the result, so I thought I'd better post it here.
| You scored as Scientific Atheist, These guys rule. I'm not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future.
What kind of atheist are you? created with QuizFarm.com |
Just don't ask me to do what it says I can.
I do like the 33% "angry atheist" though. It sounds like a good name for a band...:)
Sunday, June 3, 2007
The Hitler Youth
Here’s a short video titled “Aim lower, think smaller”. Some call it a “short video showing how we can better fulfil the great commission”. Personally, I’m not so sure…
Now, unless you are a Christian of both dubious and devious nature, I’m sure you will agree that that was a nasty and insipid little video that probably belongs in the archives of the Hitler Youth, despite its being dressed in nice, friendly language that even a child can understand. I mentioned as much when I saw it posted on a blog a while ago and was immediately jumped on by a Christian crying foul and quoting Godwin’s Law. It’s a sad fact also that those that didn’t argue later admitted that they’d simply ignored the comment. I must admit though, that the guy was probably right but then, so was I.
First, a little history: The first group of young members of the National Socialist German Workers Party was organised in 1926 by Kurt Gruber. Rudolf Hess suggested the name be changed to “Hitler Youth” (Hitlerjugend) and later that year, leadership transferred to Franz von Pfeffer of the Sturm Abteilung (“Storm Section” or “Storm Troopers”). In 1936, membership was made compulsory for all boys aged 15 and 18 and Baldur von Schirach formed the Jungvolk which had a compulsory membership for all boys aged 10 to 14.
The children in these groups were subjected to exactly the same kind of indoctrination that the video above advocates. They were taught Nazi dogma, how to be intolerant of those that don’t meet the Nazi ideal, to spread the doctrine and to teach Nazism wherever they went. They were also encouraged to report those that spoke out against Nazism. There were even cases of kids being so brainwashed that they were happy to pull the trigger themselves when it was their own parents who were the victims.
So how is the ideal preached in this video any better? In short, it isn’t. What the video asks us to do is to teach our children that an unfounded belief is the truth and that they will suffer for eternity if they don’t believe it. We’re also to teach them that they have no privacy, that God is looking over their shoulder and can see everything they do. They don’t even have the luxury of private thought, because God knows what they are thinking, every minute of every day. Then, if that’s not enough, we’re to send them off, armed with the three mainstays of religion - ignorance, fear and guilt - in to the world to “spread the word” and continue with “the great commission”. It really is quite disgusting.
I brought up Hitler in that comment in the hope that I might goad someone there into thinking about it, but alas. The fact that most of them managed to simply ignore the remark and dismiss it out of hand really only shows just how narrow minded, out dated and blinkered the Christian view of the world really is, and indeed needs to be in order to be able to believe in any of it it at all.
