Theamology

A Principle of Principles

2017-02-03T14:37:00.000-05:00

Sarah Haider, co-founder of The Ex-Muslims of North America, has composed a Twitter Article, a series of twenty-one (21)Tweets, urging liberals to hold onto principle throughout this extended period of chaos coinciding with the migration of Islamic violence across the world and the unexpected election of Donald Trump to the office of the President of the United States of America.

Sarah paints a picture of Far Right and Far Left extremists using news reports of violence as further justification of their world views. Extremists view each other as incapable of change. There are moderates in both camps who attempt to meet in the middle. They are under pressure by the wings who are calling them out as traitors for proposing moves that enable the opponents to make progress. If this pressure on the middle continues, the only ones left will be the extremists and lines will be drawn and calls to battle will ensue. She ends her article exhorting us to hold onto principle.

What is a principle? It is a fundamental proposition that serves as a foundation for a chain of reasoning. Is a principle, by this definition, un-provable as to “rightness”? For example, some theists adopt the principle that a book is the word of a supernatural being who has all of the answers. They do not try to prove this proposition. Instead, they adopt it as an article of faith. Is this a valid principle? If not, they should ignore entreaties to hold on to it and seek a more valid principle. This implies that rational principles should be backed up with what would have to be other principles. There should be a chain of logic throughout the building of a principle. At the basis of the chain should be a piece of evidence, something we observe to be unquestionably true. Otherwise we live based on nothing but on the articles of faith of our ancestors.

The view on the Right seems to be supported by visible evidence. They see the tyranny of Islam, pushing across the EU and seeking to increase its footprint inside the United States. The moderates recognize that, trapped in the migrating crowd, are millions of folks who are trapped inside the religion by its violent shepherds, boys educated to the point of insanity in Saudi funded mosques, now grown up as imams, mullahs and sheiks, bearing arms, and, indeed, almost incapable of reason. The hideous gods of Islam are alive in their brains, they fear their burning eternal punishment and thus they kill the young and the old, without remorse, to honor their various interpretations of Gods and Allahs. If we were viewing these events on another planet, our diagnosis would be that they are mentally afflicted by irrational ideas repeating like jingle bell memes inside their heads. We would say they are in need of interdiction, capture, restraint, separation form each other and perhaps a decade of re-education. The Right looks about the world and sees that we do not have enough institutions or professionals to incarcerate and heal the violent and finally free the people trapped in a religion they never asked for, to which they must proclaim adherence. Even the extremists on the far Right sympathize with the women and children trapped in Islam.

The view from the Left is supported by an observation that Donald Trump is unqualified for the Oval Office and must be opposed, with riots or whatever other means are thought to have reasonable chances for effectiveness. Admonitions of assassinations and explosions at the White House are raised with abandon. They are serious, they mean business. They have already sounded the clarions and we see the results in the streets and on the campuses of America. Like the tyranny of Islam, the Left is not allowing objection. Opposing views are not tolerated for more than the few seconds it takes to begin speaking. They are shutting down the voices of the opposition with violence.

A new view from the Middle is becoming apparent. It is a scientific assessment, unencumbered by religion. It appears as if the ideological content of the tyranny of Islam has mutated and evolved, invading the brains of the Left, who has had its logical defenses weakened by a few decades of general degradation of educational content in schools and universities across the land. In other words, this is a real problem in biology, a species driving itself into ant-like battles, driven by ideologies, that can objectively result in an evolutionary benefit of preventing over-population, at the risk, in this human case, of species extinction by nuclear war. Sarah is right, we live in times of great risk, we must proceed with caution.

Mixed in here somewhere is Vladimir Putin. Yes, he can be criticized in so many ways, but if we survive this century our descendants will have a more clarified view. Coming out of the chaos resulting from the disassembly of the Soviet Union there remained strong rational control over thousands of nuclear armaments. None of them have exploded and it is only Vladimir Putin who has made this possible. Now, this is viewed on the left as sacrilegious, to state anything positive about Putin. I am just quoting our unborn descendants in the future, who, if they are there at all, are not so hopelessly as confused as we.

It is easy to have reservations about Donald Trump. The very idea he could be elected seemed so remote as late as October of 2016. But I have been sharply impressed with a few of his gut instincts and he is right about Putin: We should carefully seek to engage Russia as an ally in the goal of creating a world of peace. This is not to suggest bind faith in anything at all, much less to express the childish tantrums of blind faith from the extreme Left in that nothing possibly good can result from this. We proceed with care and circumspection, and we seek to invite the leadership of China as well, and we get to know each other. And, why not Mexico eventually, and that increasingly paranoid young man who runs North Korea? What is Kim Jong-Un really made of after all? Perhaps association with rational leadership is the education he needs. Must we assume it is a hopeless case? Let us learn if it is instead.

And out of this analysis arises the vision of a piece of evidence, a principle of principles: The existence of a world of peace on earth. If such is not our goal, then we have no rational goals, all of our principles are borne of ignorance. It is towards a world of peace that the middle must converge, and the middle must see, acknowledge and declare the simple observable moral truth arising out of the existence of thinking human beings: We are our brother’s keepers. We never needed a bible or a Quran to see this truth. We are to allow our siblings freedom of belief, because we know they will fight for it if we restrict it. Therefore, we all shall have it. To choose otherwise is simply to escale this current battle to its sad and pridictable denouement. And at the end of the day that is what this current conflagration is all about: Liberty and all that it implies. All other planets live in conditions of slavery to dictatorship, or they live in risky times like ours, or they have gained entrance to that wonderful place, a beautiful world of peace.

I conclude this article with a link to Sarah’s twenty-one tweets. The reader should allow a broad interpretation as she struggles to make her points under the constraints of 140 characters per tweet. They start here: https://twitter.com/SarahTheHaider/status/826157401363582982

The Art of #FakeNews

2017-01-29T04:49:00.000-05:00

The Art of #FakeNews

Here is a true Da Vinci. A USA Today article, written by Jared Goyette, a writer for Public Radio International. Click the link below to read it:

It’s now clear that most of the Syrian refugees coming to the United States are women and children

The moustache on this Mona Lisa is the fact that what is purported to being "now clear" is not clear at all. The first hint of something amiss is that the author does not give a link to the data that supports his claims. There is a reason for this as will be seen below.

Later in the article, it is hinted that the whole thing comes out of a phone call with folks running the Obama Administration’s US Citizenship and Immigration Service. (USCIS) Sure enough, a poke around their website yields a transcript of the telephone call that took place on August 5^th, 2016, 3 days before the publication of the article.

During the presidential campaign at this time, Donald Trump and his team were raising questions about the vetting of Syrian refugees. It appears this phone call was hastily arranged to provide a refutation of Trump’s claims. A few writers were invited to this phone call, the purpose being to provide a data source for the refutations.

Because, as it turns out, hard data WAS available. As a matter of fact, it is the job of USCIS to provide an annual report on immigration demographics, coinciding with the Federal Fiscal Year. However, this year, no report was to be published. For some strange reason, it is missing. The fiscal year ended on September 30, 2016, and now, at the end of January 2017, there is still no report to be found.

During this phone call, Anne Richard of USCIS read a few scant statistics from the hard data. Callers were asking questions and she would respond “…we should be able to get that for you, just a minute, wait…” as if the data was coming in on radio waves from some alien planet, scrambled by the background radiation at the rim of the cosmic sphere.

The articles author, Jared Goyette, was one of the invited writers and he asks some questions that Richard could not answer during the recorded conversation, indicating she would follow up after participants had disconnected. Then, a short time later, this curious exchange takes place, quoted verbatim as fair use:

Coordinator:   Our next question comes from (Esa Gomez) with ABC News. Your line is open.

(Esa Gomez):   I was wondering out of the 8,000 of the admitted refugees how many of them were children?

Anne Richard: I should - we should have that number for you. Seventy eight percent were women and children and the number of children we’ll have to get you but let’s see - nearly - let’s see, 4,576 were under 18 - just a little under half female and roughly half male of the children.

(Esa Gomez):    Is that of the children or women and children?

Anne Richard: So the first number I gave you the 78% were women and children. And then the second that’s 78% out of 8,000. And then the number of children is - or under 18 year olds (sic) is 4,576 and they’re roughly half and half men and - girls and boys rather.

(Esa Gomez):   Oh okay, thank you.

Please do make a note of Anne Richard’s Freudian Slip, ("men and girls").

Esa Gomez asked a relatively simple question: How many children were included in the number of Syrian Refugees admitted to the USA so far in the fiscal year? The total admitted was ‘estimated’ at 8000 although clearly Anne Richard was reading from hard data to get the quite specific count of 4,576 children. What was the true number admitted? USCIS folks were repeating ‘we are talking about 8000…’ but why this special grouping? Wasit really exactly 8000? Were there more than that? Why not just release the data? Well, we know why. The purpose of this phone call was to manipulate the numbers in order to refute Trump.

Note that Anne Richard did not directly answer Esa Gomez question. She gave this strange answer: 78% were women and children. And then, she tuned in her space radio for help from above and miraculously it came through, an exact number: 4,576. The puzzled Esa Gomez asked for clarification but then the transmission apparently broke up and the clarification only confused things further. Esa Gomez's brain imploded and she gave up.

Why was the agency eager to give out this 78% number? And to repeat it as 78% of 8000, almost like 78% is almost 8000 all by itself? Is she trying to imply that only 22% were men? We know the answer now; the Obama administration has always been counting on the hope that the American public has been subjected to sufficient brain degradation by the dumbing down of the American educational system over the past decade. In other words, they think everyone is, to put it kindly, mentally adrift, and treats them as if they are.

Let’s take Anne Richard’s number at face value and have a hard look. In the table that follows, the top section is hard data that can support her claims, if indeed we are only talking about 8000 total Syrian Refugees. We have to estimate these numbers because the real data is missing. Nobody closer than 14.5 billion light years away seems to know where it is. I have marked her figures in red:

Gender	Category	Age Group	Count	Percentage
male	adult men	18 or 0ver	1760	22.00%
male	older kids	15 to 17	2271	28.39%
male	young kids	0 to 14	123	1.54%
female	young kids	0 to 14	161	2.01%
female	older kids	15 to 17	2021	25.26%
female	adult women	18 or over	1664	20.80%

		Total	8000	100.00%

all genders	adults	18 or 0ver	3424	42.80%
all genders	older kids	15 to 17	4292	53.65%
all genders	young kids	0 to 14	284	3.55%
all genders	all kids	0 to 17	4576	57.20%

male	all	0 +	4154	51.93%
female	all	0 +	3846	48.08%

male	all kids	0 to 17	2394	29.93%
female	all kids	0 to 17	2182	27.28%
all	all kids	0 to 17	4576	57.20%
all	adults	18 or over	3424	42.80%

ration of female kids	to all kids	0 to 17		47.68%
ration of male kids	to all kids	0 to 17		52.32%

adult women + all kids			6240	78.00%
adult men + all kids			6336	79.20%

male	adult + older kids	military	4031	50.39%

The blue figures are the ones most germane to this discussion, but Anne Richards would not speak to those. I believe this is a fair interpretation. You are welcome to come up with one of your own as long as it supports Anne Richard’s figures. In all events, your extrapolation would not be far removed from mine. I have faithfully kept true to her 78% women and children claim, although it implies that the percentage of men and children come in at 79.2 % (!) In other words, she gave the data in a manner that implied only 22% of the refugees were males when in truth, there were more males than females admitted.

This is the signature of the never-ending stream of #FakeNews coming out of the Obama Administration and its cohorts, the main stream media, that ultimately cost Hillary her virtual lock on the election. She might consider filing a lawsuit against the entire lot of them.

So, as it turns out, 52% of the admitted refugees are male, 48% female. And as Anne says, the number of male and female children breaks roughly in half. Quite roughly.

The table concludes with an extrapolation of data that was concerning the American public leading up to the election: How many military aged males were being admitted by the Obama Administration in their hurried effort during the latter half of 2016?

Indeed, what is the TRUE number? We have given Anne Richards the benefit of the doubt here, but given her blatant attempt to mislead, she has perhaps, for this matter, abandoned appeals to kindness. Let us take another hard look at this data, and extend it out to meet the projected goal of 13,000 Syrian refugees. I have used the same data above, adding in the required number of males that bring the total to 13,000 and remain true to her one fact, 4,576 children:

Gender	Category	Age Group	Count	Percentage
male	adult men	18 or 0ver	6760	52.00%
male	older kids	15 to 17	2271	17.47%
male	young kids	0 to 14	123	0.95%
female	young kids	0 to 14	161	1.24%
female	older kids	15 to 17	2021	15.55%
female	adult women	18 or over	1664	12.80%

		Total	13000	100.00%

all genders	adults	18 or 0ver	8424	64.80%
all genders	older kids	15 to 17	4292	33.02%
all genders	young kids	0 to 14	284	2.18%
all genders	all kids	0 to 17	4576	35.20%

male	all	0 +	9154	70.42%
female	all	0 +	3846	29.58%

male	all kids	0 to 17	2394	18.42%
female	all kids	0 to 17	2182	16.78%
all	all kids	0 to 17	4576	35.20%
all	adults	18 or over	8424	64.80%

ration of female kids	to all kids	0 to 17		47.68%
ration of male kids	to all kids	0 to 17		52.32%

adult women + all kids			6240	48.00%
adult men + all kids			11336	87.20%

male	adult + older kids	military age	9031	69.47%

70 percent military aged males, 30 percent female. An army of 9,000 men. When we take Somalia and other hastily admitted regions into consideration, this size of Islam’s army jumps alarmingly above 50,000 men. This roughly coincides with the 70+% military male experience currently crushing the European Union, where Islam is running amok, raping and killing at will.

Granted, this second table of data is estimated as a worst case scenario, but absent the real data how can we know? Which is the truth? It is here in this second table above, or somewhere in between. In any case, it is one of the reason’s that Donald Trump is President of the United States of America. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)can resolve the question completely by publishing the data.

The Cause of Existence

2015-02-03T02:51:00.000-05:00

The Cause of Existence

The cause of existence can be determined by analyzing the truth value of the following two propositions:

1: The existence of nothing is impossible.
2: The existence of nothing is possible.

Analysis of Proposition 1:

If the existence of nothing is impossible, then existence is eternal, there being no alternative. While we can say that therefore existence is caused by nothing, it may instead be true that it is the threat of the existence of nothing that causes existence. This can be postulated as a physical law and explored for predictive qualities. For now, we are left with two possibilities:

1.1: Existence is caused by nothing.
1.2: Existence is caused by the threat of the existence of nothing.

Analysis of Proposition 2:

If the existence of nothing is possible, we must analyze two further possibilities:

2.1: The existence of nothing has not occurred in the past.
2.2: The existence of nothing has occurred in the past.

Analysis of propositions 2.1 and 2.2:

If the existence of nothing is possible but has not occurred in the past, then we are saying it is possible for it to occur in the future.
In order for this to happen, existence would have to change to a form that forces the existence of nothing.
We observe that after billions of years this has not occurred.
If it is nevertheless possible, then we must assume that a sufficient amount of time is required for it to occur.
However this scenario specifies that it has not occurred in the past and thus existence would be eternal in the past.
We cannot postulate a span of time in the future that is greater than the span of time in the eternal past.
Therefore if it is true that the existence of nothing is possible, then the span of time in the past is sufficient for it to have occurred at least once.
Therefore, if the existence of nothing is possible then it has occurred at least once in the past.
Proposition 2.1 is thus seen to be a false proposition.
Because we observe existence, we must conclude in this scenario that existence has been caused by a prior existence of nothing, there being no alternative.

Summary:

Thus, we have emerged with three possibilities in regard to the cause of existence:

1. Existence is caused by nothing.
2. Existence is caused by the existence of nothing.
3. Existence is caused by the threat of the existence of nothing.

In all scenarios we have a complete and sufficient explanation for existence.

Rational –isms, in the World of Peace

2014-11-23T19:17:00.000-05:00

In the continuation of a series of enlightening exchanges from Reza Aslan and Sam Harris, two of the most important, clear-thinking intellectuals of the day, Reza has weighed in with a new article on Salon.com entitled: Sam Harris and “New Atheists” aren’t new, aren’t even atheists. In this article, Reza misrepresents the views of Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, et al. Assuming the reader is on his toes, he can look past this common religion/atheism debate tactic and find some value in the articles recitation of a history of anti-theism. I believe the dialogue is enhanced by differentiating concepts of rational theism, rational atheism, and rational anti-theism.

Rational anti-theism is not in opposition to religious belief. It is in opposition to:

The consideration of any concept of any religion in the formulation of the just laws in a world of peace.
The delivery of an uninvited religious message to any man, woman, or child.
The delivery of an invited religious message that is not accompanied by a good faith presentation of evidence supporting the concepts of religion in the message.
The repeated delivery of an invited religious message that is accompanied by evidence that has been previously rejected as insufficient by the one inviting the religious message.

The world of peace welcomes any person to discover, formulate, possess and believe whatever religion one wishes. There is no disturbance of the peace if such person keeps his religion to himself. If a theist wishes to convey a religious message, accompanied by a good faith presentation of evidence, he can announce that he will speak on a religious matter with anybody who invites the delivery of such messages. He can then wait for an invitation to convey these messages. He will find many eager to invite such messages and he will no doubt encounter exhilarating debate on the merits of the evidence. If you have a religions message, with some evidence for its validity, you are invited to post it in the comments below and I will respond. There are an infinite number of possible non-evidenced gods and I just do not have the time to consider a random, non-evidenced guess. This is rational atheism.

With such simple, rational rules we can maintain the world of peace. Absent such rules, religions can be identified as opposed to the world of peace. A group of like minded religious individuals who insist that others adhere to religious beliefs can be identified as a conspiracy against the world of peace. As such they are restrained and reeducated in the world of peace.

In the world of peace, rational theism, rational atheism and rational anti-theism will all recognize the infinite number of possible non-evidenced gods as well as the real or imaginary states of consciousness that lead people into or out of the various -isms during the course of their lives. If one of the infinite possible gods actually does exist, and if the rational world of peace is anathema to such a being, and if such being has physical powers to prevent the rational world of peace from existing, then we can expect an appearance soon from such a being as we build the world of peace. This is irrational theism, requiring the malevolent gods of scripture who, at the end of the day, are only interested in the eternal sounds of worship and wailing.

We can take the opposite view instead. We can say that if one of the infinite number of possible gods actually exists, that such a god, having created the possibility for free-thinking people to build a world of peace, would be welcoming and indeed patiently waiting for us to complete the noble task. After all, this is the god we see, if indeed such god exists: a benevolent god that trusts the affairs of man to man, that demonstrates enough faith in man to warrant the continued entrusting of children to man. Such a god is not required to do this, but makes the decision to do this. From the evidence of simple observations such as these we know that the Bible, Qu'ran and Torah are in contradiction to the truth. This finding applies also to their associated writings and to similar writings of other world religions. The angry malevolent gods of these religions, the killers of children, the stoners of women, the beaters of wives, the burners of hell, they have never existed. This is rational theism.

Our ancestors had no concept of rational theism. To be fair to them, they were only just evolved to consciousness from fight-or-flight driven animals. They heard thunder, it sounded like an angry being, and they witnessed the strike of lightning and concluded it was the act of such a being. And from what appeared to them to be the angry character of nature, they developed their stories of angry gods. They wondered what it is they should do to appease the gods and as their religions developed, they merged with other systems of philosophies in trying to answer the moral question "How should I live my life?"

While we might still disagree on the answer to that question, we do agree we should be living in the world of peace that affords the free-ranging discussions that can lead to the answer. (The small number opposed to a world of peace will be identified as in a temporary state of irrational behavior, similar to that of a toddler testing the bounds of behavior, and they will be restrained and reeducated.)

Let us begin to keep our –isms rational and let us keep them private and be ready to discuss them with respect when invited, and let us build a world of peace, and rejoin the moral discussions in an epoch free from the anguish of the irrational –isms that are not yet disarmed and restrained today.

The Boy in the Manger

2013-12-22T03:28:00.001-05:00

Doctor William Lane Craig has sent a Christmas greeting to atheists, entitled Five Reasons Why God Exists. His friendly message is found here at this link: http://fxn.ws/1hRQKID

In the spirit of the holidays I send this friendly greeting in return.

Happy Jesus Birthday Dr. Craig. I enjoyed your message and thought I should respond. I believe you raise important points to consider in our labor for peace on earth. Your five reasons follow below indented in italics. My comments appear below each one of them.

1. God provides the best explanation of the origin of the universe. Given the scientific evidence we have about our universe and its origins, and bolstered by arguments presented by philosophers for centuries, it is highly probable that the universe had an absolute beginning. Since the universe, like everything else, could not have merely popped into being without a cause, there must exist a transcendent reality beyond time and space that brought the universe into existence. This entity must therefore be enormously powerful. Only a transcendent, unembodied mind suitably fits that description.

Without conceding that the requirement for an ‘absolute’ beginning has been proven, we will take it at face value and continue. It is proposed that God provides an explanation for the origin of the universe, and so we read ahead to learn your definition of God. You conclude with "...a transcendent unembodied mind provides the explanation." So, you are defining God as a transcendent, unembodied mind. To understand this, we have to turn to the dictionary:

transcendent: beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience.

unembodied: not having a material body

mind: the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought

The entity you are proposing to be unembodied is a mind. The first definition of mind would be a contradiction, there being no unembodiment of an entity that is part of (embodied in) another. Therefore you must be referencing the second definition of mind, that of the faculty of consciousness and thought. Consulting the dictionary, we have:

faculty: an inherent mental or physical power

mental: of or relating to the mind.

You cannot be referencing the first definition of faculty (Mental) because the definition of mental circles back to the word you trying to define (Mind). Therefore, you must be referencing the second definition of faculty, that of physical power. Consulting the dictionary, we have:

physical: of or relating to the body as opposed to the mind; of or relating to things perceived through the senses as opposed to the mind; tangible or concrete.

You cannot be referencing the first or third definition of physical, (related to the body, tangible), because you are proposing the existence of an unembodied mind. Therefore you must be referencing the second definition of physical (things perceived through the senses). But here your argument meets the resolute and final brick wall of the dictionary:

sense: a faculty by which the body perceives an external stimulus; one of the faculties of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch.

Your argument has circled into a world of the external stimulus and bodies you are trying to leave behind with ‘transcendent’ and ‘unembodied’ To avoid this circular reasoning, I suggest you adjust the argument to propose a mind that is NOT unembodied, in other words a mind that is embodied in some way, a physical entity.

Your argument should also be held to the following logical restatement: "Since the universe, like everything else, including a physical mind, could not have popped into existence,..." This would require an explanation for the origin of the physical mind.

However, we can for now allow a postulation that a thinking entity, possibly of transcendent (unknown to us) but physical (in some sense) form, was engaged in decisions leading up to the beginning of the universe we see. It does seems to be a gross violation of the principal of Occam’s razor to speculate that a thinking, decision making agent is included in the primordial state. We are however looking for a first cause and, whether proposing thinking or non thinking elements of a first cause, the burden remains on the postulant to outline the evidence for its proposed constitution. Science acknowledges, and any rational theism should as well, that there is a good deal of work ahead of us in this regard.

We are for now postulating a thinking entity. You use the name "God" however that term is already laden with centuries of dogma that has never in fact been supported. We will use the term "prime thinker" instead. We will observe the evidence and determine if this thinker has the characteristics and indeed, the character, described by our ancestors as written in the scriptures.

2. [The prime thinker] provides the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe. Contemporary physics has established that the universe is fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent, interactive life. That is to say, in order for intelligent, interactive life to exist, the fundamental constants and quantities of nature must fall into an incomprehensibly narrow life-permitting range. There are three competing explanations of this remarkable fine-tuning: physical necessity, chance, or design. The first two are highly implausible, given the independence of the fundamental constants and quantities from nature's laws and the desperate maneuvers needed to save the hypothesis of chance. That leaves design as the best explanation.

Above you claim that existence is fine tuned to produce interactive life given that the universe is the term used to label all that exists. You object to what you deem to be an infinitesimal chance of this happening on its own. However, you offer no proof that existence cannot be eternal. If existence can be eternal, there is no such thing as an infinitesimal chance for any possible physical configuration of existence. It is bound to happen.

3. [The prime thinker] provides the best explanation of objective moral values and duties. Even atheists recognize that some things, for example, the Holocaust, are objectively evil. But if atheism is true, what basis is there for the objectivity of the moral values we affirm? Evolution? Social conditioning? These factors may at best produce in us the subjective feeling that there are objective moral values and duties, but they do nothing to provide a basis for them. If human evolution had taken a different path, a very different set of moral feelings might have evolved. By contrast, [the prime thinker] serves as the paradigm of goodness, and [the prime thinker’s] commandments constitute our moral duties. Thus, theism provides a better explanation of objective moral values and duties.

The objective basis for moral values is quite evident in the universe. I invite you to close your book and open your eyes. In any universe, created or evolved, in any rollout of evolutionary processes or any process of creation, where conscious thinking life begins to exist, where thinkers are capable of aiding and abetting each other’s existence or of ending each other’s existence, objective moral principles are clearly evident for all to see, without regard to the existence of a creator. We see we can choose to fight or choose to live in peace. If the former, only one of us is left standing, mortally wounded, thus ending intelligence conscious life on the planet. To choose to fight is therefore a choice of death over life. If instead we choose to live, then life itself is seen to be the moral value and we who choose life will create the rules to aid and abet the capabilities and qualities of life for each other.

This is what we are doing in our world today. We have a long way to go, but we shall never cease our labor until it is complete. We will build a world of peace and create the rules and mechanisms required to restrain and educate those who choose to fight.

4. [The prime thinker] provides the best explanation of the historical facts concerning Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Historians have reached something of consensus that the historical Jesus thought that in himself [the prime thinker’s] Kingdom had broken into human history, and he carried out a ministry of miracle-working and exorcisms as evidence of that fact. Moreover, most historical scholars agree that after his crucifixion Jesus’ tomb was discovered empty by a group of female disciples, that various individuals and groups saw appearances of Jesus alive after his death, and that the original disciples suddenly and sincerely came to believe in Jesus’ resurrection despite their every predisposition to the contrary. I can think of no better explanation of these facts than the one the original disciples gave: [the prime thinker] raised Jesus from the dead.

I have discussed the fallacies in the arguments for Jesus resurrection at length in this posting. I will only add here that if indeed Jesus existed, as one of the religious zealots in that region of the world during that period of time, then he too was prejudiced from birth by the scriptures. If we strip out the nonsense from the stories, if we try honestly to discover the man, we find a man who tried to help his people, indeed, who loved his people, knowing full well the eventual consequences of his actions.

If this is true then Jesus was indeed a wonderful man, beautiful in spirit, although sadly confused by his parent’s religion like so many in our world today. He was later crippled with the title of the sacrificial Christ and then slaughtered in the tradition of blood sacrifice demanded by scriptures seething mythical god in the sky, a mythology of blood and death that enslaves our world even to this day.

It is all a sad mythology Dr. Craig: that is all it has ever been. We are healing ourselves from this sadness, slowly, but steadily. We are embracing the gifts of reason we have been given, by the creation or by the cosmos. In other words, Dr. Craig created or evolved, we see the same universe and the same moral truths. We awaken to find ourselves entrusted with children, so let us raise and educate them in truth.

5. [The prime thinker] can be personally known and experienced. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting. Down through history Christians have found through Jesus a personal acquaintance with [the prime thinker] that has transformed their lives. The good thing is that atheists tend to be very passionate people and want to believe in something. If they would only put aside the slogans for a moment and reexamine their worldview in light of the best philosophical, scientific, and historical evidence we have today, then they, too, would find Christmas worth celebrating!

It is not at all inappropriate for the atheist to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the man who loved and tried to help his people, who gave his life in that endeavor. Why not allow the mythology of the story of the manger and the shepherds and astrologers? We do not have to take it as literal truth, we can take it as our form of celebration for the life of youth, the beautiful spirit that tries to shine out before us in our children, the spirit we so maddeningly crush with imagery of the angry gods n the bible and Quran, the mythical beings that have never existed at all, at any time.

So yes, atheists, do lay out the stable and the manger, the shepherds and the sheep and then gently rest the boy in his swaddling clothes. The boy is Jesus, as beautiful as any child can be, before he was crippled by the world’s sad mythologies. He grew up strong and brave in spite of this and labored for the poor and downtrodden. We celebrate him, and we celebrate Moses and Mohammed, when we faithfully correct the mistakes they made, when we acknowledge they were all prejudiced by theories of malevolent non-existing gods. Their descendants, our children shall be born free and receive the full and complete unprejudiced education that was denied to them. To do anything less than this is to dishonor all of those who we thought were prophets, indeed we dishonor all who have labored before us when we carry forward their mistakes uncorrected.

So Happy Jesus Birthday Dr. Craig. We eagerly wait for you to join us, the atheists in building a world of peace, where men no longer see each other as condemned by sad mythological gods.

Debating The Resurrection Story

2013-09-17T21:38:00.002-04:00

The Christian belief system is based upon the idea that the bible is without error in fact or presentation. Most Christians adopt this as the first tenet of their belief and then simply believe the bible stories as factual representations of historical events. For no reason other than the fact that the bible stories were recited and finally written, it is believed to be true. In this regard, Christianity is the same as Islam wherein for no reason other than the fact that the Quran was recited and written, it is believed to be true.

Some theists understand that truth cannot be based upon a single book but a large number of theists are wedded to such a belief. For them, the question is, if truth is to be based upon a single book and no other, how does one choose which book to believe? In his 1992 essay, Christian evangelist Josh McDowell, citing biblical and non-biblical writings, argued in support of the resurrection story. He reasoned that if the resurrection could be supported with objective non-biblical evidence, we would have reason to trust the gospel stories, and perhaps the entire bible. This reprinting of the article in its entirety, citing fair use, provides a mechanism to respond point by point to his arguments. My responses are indented inline.

Evidence for the Resurrection
by Josh McDowell

For centuries many of the world's distinguished philosophers have assaulted Christianity as being irrational, superstitious and absurd. Many have chosen simply to ignore the central issue of the resurrection. Others have tried to explain it away through various theories. But the historical evidence just can't be discounted. A student at the University of Uruguay said to me. "Professor McDowell, why can't you refute Christianity?" "For a very simple reason," I answered. "I am not able to explain away an event in history--the resurrection of Jesus Christ." How can we explain the empty tomb? Can it possibly be accounted for by any natural cause?

Response: McDowell's first argument is the logical fallacy of non sequiter. This is a conclusion drawn from an insufficient argument. McDowell inserts the conclusion of the argument before the argument itself in the paragraph above. The argument is the empty tomb, the conclusion is the resurrection.

If we opened Lincoln’s tomb today and found it empty, would we assume that Lincoln rose from the dead? There are dozens of possible causes for an empty tomb, none of which are supernatural in nature. The very last road of inquiry we would follow is that Lincoln returned from the dead and for such a hypothesis we would look for ample supporting evidence. An empty tomb is woefully insufficient evidence for a resurrection.

A QUESTION OF HISTORY
After more than 700 hours of studying this subject, I have come to the conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is either one of the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted on the minds of human beings--or it is the most remarkable fact of history.

Response: McDowell's second argument is a false dichotomy. This is a logical fallacy where a choice between two extremes is offered in an attempt to imply that there are no other possible explanations. However there are other possible causes for a resurrection story that are neither wicked nor viscous in nature. Here are some examples:

1. Mary Magdalene is described as being mentally or emotionally disturbed (possessed by demons). She is also described as being the first to discover what appeared to her to be the empty tomb. Such a troubled soul could indeed have become confused. She would not be intentionally perpetuating a hoax if in her emotional turmoil she truly believed that Jesus was resurrected, and she would naturally embellish the facts to persuade her circle of friends. As the story spread and more people believed it would be embellished with more claims to increase the persuasive effects. This evolution of a story in this manner is predictable human behavior.

2. Ancient bible verses can be interpreted as hints for a resurrection Jesus is described as having hinted at his own resurrection based on scripture. His followers were conditioned to interpret events in a manner suggesting a supernatural cause. If Mary Magdalene claimed resurrection they would inclined to simply believe her and carry on with the story. Indeed, so sad at the loss of their beloved and charismatic Jesus, they would welcome any opportunity to believe he continued onward and they would do exactly what it has been said they did, they would take up his message and spread it far and wide.

3. Paul is described as a persecutor of Christians. Murder is a sin for which it is difficult to envision a path for atonement. How does one make amends for a murder? This mental crises results in the psychological disturbances we see in all murderers. Paul was ripe for a vision, any vision. He heard the stories of Jesus and this brought some hope. He synthesized the stories and created the doctrines of Christianity to assuage his conscious. What better than to ‘discover’ a religion that provided atonement? And so, in his vision, in his mental state, he thought he saw a figure and he thought that figure was Jesus and he proclaimed this as truth.

In none of these examples has the story of a resurrection been of viscous or wicked derivation. The resurrection stories do indeed appear to be the result of good intentions.

Here are some of the facts relevant to the resurrection: Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish prophet who claimed to be the Christ prophesied in the Jewish Scriptures, was arrested, was judged a political criminal, and was crucified. Three days after His death and burial, some women who went to His tomb found the body gone. In subsequent weeks, His disciples claimed that God had raised Him from the dead and that He appeared to them various times before ascending into heaven.

Response: The only evidence we have for any of this is in stories written 100 years after the death of Jesus. For such a remarkable event, we would expect dozens of contemporaneous records. There are no contemporaneous records at all. What we do have is exactly what could be predicted. A misunderstood and/or wished-for set of events that is codified into stories and believed and enhanced as they change over time, finally set to written form after all the witnesses had died.

Stories evolve and the principles of natural selection apply. Stories that embellished the doctrine in a manner that engendered the most psychological comfort and persuasive effect were accepted, other stories were rejected as they were recited by word of mouth.

Mans original ideas about God were passed down in the same way, embellished over time. In his ignorance of scientific knowledge, he thought there might be agency behind the roaring thunder and strikes of lightning. He formed theories of the nature of the character behind such natural disasters and, quite logically after assuming agency, theories of angry gods were born.

Recited from parent to child, the stories evolved in more detail. As man disbanded into separate locales, the stories also evolved into the great diversity of theologies passed down to us today. Eventually man developed the tools required to set the stories down in writing. New rounds of editing began.

If we traveled to another planet, like earth, with storms and natural disasters, where life evolved like ours, we might expect that they would also have theories of angry gods and they would eventually be evolving like we are today, putting aside our irrational fears and understanding that these angry gods in the heavens, thought to have existed by our ancestors, have never existed at all.

From that foundation, Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire and has continued to exert great influence down through the centuries.

Response: Ardent believers can be quite successful in spreading an ideology. Islam is another standout. This does not lend credence to the content of the belief. We can see that a majority of people are content with a minimally sufficient education and are willing to follow religious leadership for emotional, cultural and social reasons.

The problem arises when the leadership is psychologically unstable or indeed, of nefarious character. Christianity has passed through phases of questionable leadership, leading to the crusades and even today, systems supporting child abuse. This is also true of Islam, where some Islamic scholars support the idea of 'marriage' for girls as young as eight years of age.

It is truly sad that religion is used as an enabler of sexual assault on children. Believers wish to believe in a benevolent God, and if such a God exists at all, then we can see that the main activity of God is the creation of life and that further, we are entrusted with each newborn created by the very hand of God.

There cannot be a greater sin in any theology than to take such cruel and merciless advantage of the beautiful meekness, innocence and joy of learning with which each child is created by God and entrusted to us. If God exists, we are to educate the children with whom we are entrusted and we are to allow them to mature to the age of reason when they themselves can decide their journeys and the partners for their journeys.

If God does not exist, we see the same world. Life comes ultimately from the stars but we awaken every day to find ourselves entrusted with these same beautiful children. What more noble pursuit then to ensure their freedom and to grant them a full slate of human rights, educating them all, every one of them?

LIVING WITNESSES
The New Testament accounts of the resurrection were being circulated within the lifetimes of men and women alive at the time of the resurrection. Those people could certainly have confirmed or denied the accuracy of such accounts.

Response: Those that denied the word-of-mouth stories were simply excluded from the groups, cut off from further communication. Evolution is once again at work here. A story cannot replicate through one who considers it to be not worth repeating. Only the believers were telling the stories. The game of telephone comes to mind. The stories evolved and changed over time as they separated into separate groups of believers, the stories no longer being corroborated against one another, resulting in more than a dozen gospels.

As groups separate they evolve separately. We see this in nature in ring species. Groups of salamanders move away from each other and over time evolve separately. Later, when they meet up again, they can no longer mate with each other. They have become separate species. The dozen gospels are disparate cultures of ancestral species of stories. This alone is sufficient physical evidence to know that the bible is not infallible and indeed, like the Quran, Torah and other ancient writings, is to be read, if read at all, with a great amount of circumspection.

Stories were collected and edited into a final form and bound together into a book. Man discovered that believing that a book was infallible brought him psychological comfort against the terrors of the unknown. The comfort was physical, a release of pheromones (chemicals, hormones) in the brain. Eventually, the idea of The Infallible Book (TIB) evolved.

"Fasten on to the book, all of the answers are there" became the general underlying creed of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. It is not God that is at the center of these belief systems, it is a book, a collection of ancestral writings, feared now to be infallible. Such believers have become mentally afflicted.

TIB has acquired a life of its own. It replicates in the minds of man, from parent to child, teacher to student. Eventually, ruling bodies became addicted with TIB and began to enforce TIB on the populations. This brings us to the present, where TIB addicts are roaming the countrysides of Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, forcing belief with violence, killing children who are reaching out for scientific education. We observe similar behavior in the history of Christianity.

TIB is defending itself with the same viscountess and fear as that of any animal. It has all of the characteristics of a jungle beast. It is like a cuckoo egg, laid in the mind. It hatches and kicks out logic and reason and demands sole attention, hypnotizing with mirrors of circular reasoning, lashing out with pheromones to cause fear and anguish on those who begin to see that the book is not at all infallible. It is a battle for the mind. Reading science evicts the cuckoo, destroys the mirrors and brings back the inner joy and sense of wonder with which we were born.

The writers of the four Gospels either had themselves been witnesses or else were relating the accounts of eyewitnesses of the actual events. In advocating their case for the gospel, a word that means "good news," the apostles appealed (even when confronting their most severe opponents) to common knowledge concerning the facts of the resurrection.

F. F. Bruce, Rylands professor of biblical criticism and exegesis at the University of Manchester, says concerning the value of the New Testament records as primary sources: "Had there been any tendency to depart from the facts in any material respect, the possible presence of hostile witnesses in the audience would have served as a further corrective.

Response: We know that the writers of the gospels were not witnesses; they were not born until decades after Jesus died. The eyewitnesses were all dead by the time the stories were written. We observe how the stories diverged within the separating groups, and that within their diverse communities hostile witnesses were dis-included The four gospels were gathered because together they approached a coherent story, The other gospels were hidden or banished. This is simple, observable and outstanding physical evidence that the older the writing, the less it is to be trusted for fact.

The chief values of ancient writings then are not as sources for fact but for whatever timeless philosophical truths might be contained therein The book of Genesis is a case in point. A reasonable reading leads one to believe that it was never intended to be believed as literal truth.

Separating the wheat form the chaff, it can be seen to perhaps have been constructed as a philosophical treatise on the plight of man. Are we to be our brother's keeper? In that timeless question there is indeed some value. The talking snake and the angry god are allegorical characters, entertaining, probably added afterwards.

IS THE NEW TESTAMENT RELIABLE?
Because the New Testament provides the primary historical source for information on the resurrection, many critics during the 19th century attacked the reliability of these biblical documents. By the end of the 1 9th century, however, archaeological discoveries had confirmed the accuracy of the New Testament manuscripts. Discoveries of early papyri bridged the gap between the time of Christ and existing manuscripts from a later date.

Response: This is the logical fallacy of cum hoc ergo propter hoc, which mistakes correlation with causation. The Latin literally means “with this, therefore that”. For example, two simultaneous events can be suggested as one having caused the other. In this case, it is true that archaeologists often discover manuscript. However, in no way do these discoveries confirm the accuracy of the content of the manuscripts.

Those findings increased scholarly confidence in the reliability of the Bible. William F. Albright, who in his day was the world's foremost biblical archaeologist, said: "We can already say emphatically that there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the New Testament after about A.D. 80, two full generations before the date between 130 and 150 given by the more radical New Testament critics of today."

Response: Even if the dating argument is true, this is still four generations removed from the time of Jesus. By the time documents were created, the original witnesses were all dead and in no position to refute what were being written. This simple observable fact should raise alarms on the part of believers.

Coinciding with the papyri discoveries, an abundance of other manuscripts came to light (over 24,000 copies of early New Testament manuscripts are known to be in existence today). The historian Luke wrote of "authentic evidence" concerning the resurrection. Sir William Ramsay, who spent 15 years attempting to undermine Luke credentials as a historian, and to refute the reliability of the New Testament, finally concluded: "Luke is a historian of the first rank . . . This author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.

" I claim to be an historian. My approach to Classics is historical. And I tell you that the evidence for the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ is better authenticated than most of the facts of ancient history "
. . . E. M. Blaiklock Professor of Classics Auckland University

Response: Writing that "there is authentic evidence" is not the same as producing the evidence. None has been produced. The writers of the Book of Acts had historical knowledge, yet still they were writing many years after the death of the witnesses, both hostile and friendly. They may have been capable of being good historians, but we observe that they decided to become evangelists for an ideology instead. A motive of persuasion enters their writings. This logically should lessen our trust for them as historians.

BACKGROUND
The New Testament witnesses were fully aware of the background against which the resurrection took place. The body of Jesus, in accordance with Jewish burial custom, was wrapped in a linen cloth. About 100 pounds of aromatic spices, mixed together to form a gummy substance, were applied to the wrappings of cloth about the body. After the body was placed in a solid rock tomb, an extremely large stone was rolled against the entrance of the tomb. Large stones weighing approximately two tons were normally rolled (by means of levers) against a tomb entrance. A Roman guard of strictly disciplined fighting men was stationed to guard the tomb. This guard affixed on the tomb the Roman seal, which was meant to "prevent any attempt at vandalizing the sepulcher. Anyone trying to move the stone from the tomb's entrance would have broken the seal and thus incurred the wrath of Roman law.

Response: This argument is self refuting. If such seal was broken, there would be dozens of records of the wrath of the execution of the Roman law. There are no documents.

But three days later the tomb was empty. The followers of Jesus said He had risen from the dead. They reported that He appeared to them during a period of 40 days, showing Himself to them by many "infallible proofs." Paul the apostle recounted that Jesus appeared to more than 500 of His followers at one time, the majority of whom were still alive and who could confirm what Paul wrote.

Response: As described above, Paul was mentally disturbed by his own admitted guilt as a murderer. With good intention he embellished the story in the desire to persuade the listeners. After all, if the story is true, the embellishment cannot make a difference. This is neither the first or last religion created by men desperate for a way to assuage their guilty consciousness. Religion creates a post-justification, in the minds of the sinner, for sins committed.

So many security precautions were taken with the trial, crucifixion, burial, entombment, sealing, and guarding of Christ's tomb that it becomes very difficult for critics to defend their position that Christ did not rise from the dead. Consider these facts:

FACT #1: BROKEN ROMAN SEAL
As we have said, the first obvious fact was the breaking of the seal that stood for the power and authority of the Roman Empire. The consequences of breaking the seal were extremely severe. The FBI and CIA of the Roman Empire were called into action to find the man or men who were responsible. If they were apprehended, it meant automatic execution by crucifixion upside down. People feared the breaking of the seal. Jesus' disciples displayed signs of cowardice when they hid themselves. Peter, one of these disciples, went out and denied Christ three times.

Response: McDowell's argument here is the logical fallacy of ad nauseum, argument of repetition. in this case repeating the argument of the Roman guards. It is self-refuting. If this is to be believed, the fact that there are no documents of a broken seal is indicative of the fact it never occurred.

FACT #2: EMPTY TOMB
As we have already discussed, another obvious fact after the resurrection was the empty tomb. The disciples of Christ did not go off to Athens or Rome to preach that Christ was raised from the dead. Rather, they went right back to the city of Jerusalem, where, if what they were teaching was false, the falsity would be evident. The empty tomb was "too notorious to be denied." Paul Althaus states that the resurrection "could have not been maintained in Jerusalem for a single day, for a single hour, if the emptiness of the tomb had not been established as a fact for all concerned." Both Jewish and Roman sources and traditions admit an empty tomb. Those resources range from Josephus to a compilation of fifth-century Jewish writings called the "Toledoth Jeshu." Dr. Paul Maier calls this "positive evidence from a hostile source, which is the strongest kind of historical evidence. In essence, this means that if a source admits a fact decidedly not in its favor, then that fact is genuine."

Response: Josephus writes of Jesus in evangelical terms. This is indicative of one who was prejudiced by Christian belief, or that these passages were changed later to appear as historical writings of Josephus. There are no Josephus documents predating the 11th century. The Toledoth Jeshu documents were parodies of the Jesus stories, written 1000 years after the death of Jesus. McDowell is grasping at straws here.

Gamaliel, who was a member of the Jewish high court, the Sanhedrin, put forth the suggestion that the rise of the Christian movement was God's doing; he could not have done that if the tomb were still occupied, or if the Sanhedrin knew the whereabouts of Christ's body.

Response: This argument is self refuting. In addition to his suggestion, Gamaliel would have also documented the empty tomb. He had no knowledge of an empty tomb.

Paul Maier observes that " . . . if all the evidence is weighed carefully and fairly, it is indeed justifiable, according to the canons of historical research, to conclude that the sepulcher of Joseph of Arimathea, in which Jesus was buried, was actually empty on the morning of the first Easter. And no shred of evidence has yet been discovered in literary sources, epigraphy, or archaeology that would disprove this statement."

Response: McDowell employs the logical fallacy of Argumentum ad ignorantiam, or begging the question. A resurrection must be proven, not disproved A remarkable event requires remarkable evidence. Such has not been provided in any part of this article.

FACT #3: LARGE STONE MOVED
On that Sunday morning the first thing that impressed the people who approached the tomb was the unusual position of the one and a half to two ton stone that had been lodged in front of the doorway. All the Gospel writers mention it. There exists no document from the ancient world, witnessed by so excellent a set of textual and historical testimonies . . . Skepticism regarding the historical credentials of Christianity is based upon an irrational bias. Clark Pinnock Mcmaster University Those who observed the stone after the resurrection describe its position as having been rolled up a slope away not just from the entrance of the tomb, but from the entire massive sepulcher. It was in such a position that it looked as if it had been picked up and carried away. Now, I ask you, if the disciples had wanted to come in, tiptoe around the sleeping guards, and then roll the stone over and steal Jesus' body, how could they have done that without the guards' awareness?

Response: There is another resurrection story in the bible, where Jesus is said to have raised Lazarus from the the dead. Upon arrival at the tomb, Jesus issued the simple command, roll away the stone. The objection was not the arduousness of the task, but the possible condition of the corpse. Nevertheless, they rolled away the stone, and nobody marveled at the rolling away of the stone. There was nothing miraculous about the rolling away of the stone.

FACT #4: ROMAN GUARD GOES AWOL
The Roman guards fled. They left their place of responsibility. How can their attrition he explained, when Roman military discipline was so exceptional? Justin, in Digest #49, mentions all the offenses that required the death penalty. The fear of their superiors' wrath and the possibility of death meant that they paid close attention to the minutest details of their jobs. One way a guard was put to death was by being stripped of his clothes and then burned alive in a fire started with his garments. If it was not apparent which soldier had failed in his duty, then lots were drawn to see which one would be punished with death for the guard unit's failure. Certainly the entire unit would not have fallen asleep with that kind of threat over their heads. Dr. George Currie, a student of Roman military discipline, wrote that fear of punishment "produced flawless attention to duty, especially in the night watches." n the night watches."

Response: This again is argumentum ad nauseum, repetitive and still quite self refuting: There would be dozens of contemporaneous documents for such an event, and there are none.

FACT #5: GRAVE CLOTHES TELL A TALE
In a literal sense, against all statements to the contrary, the tomb was not totally empty--because of an amazing phenomenon. John, a disciple of Jesus, looked over to the place where the body of Jesus had lain, and there were the grave clothes, in the form of the body, slightly caved in and empty--like the empty chrysalis of a caterpillar's cocoon. That's enough to make a believer out of anybody. John never did get over it. The first thing that stuck in the minds of the disciples was not the empty tomb, but rather the empty grave clothes--undisturbed in form and position.

Response: This is another non sequiter. If we opened the tomb of Lincoln and discovered empty clothing, would we assume he had risen from the dead? If we were emotionally bound up with Lincoln, if we were conditioned to expect a miracle, if we thought he might survive death, if we thought he was sent by God, we might indeed believe on nothing more than empty clothes.

FACT #6: JESUS' APPEARANCES CONFIRMED
Christ appeared alive on several occasions after the cataclysmic events of that first Easter . When studying an event in history, it is important to know whether enough people who were participants or eyewitnesses to the event were alive when the facts about the event were published. To know this is obviously helpful in ascertaining the accuracy of the published report. If the number of eyewitnesses is substantial, the event can he regarded as fairly well established. For instance, if we all witness a murder, and a later police report turns out to he a fabrication of lies, we as eyewitnesses can refute it. eyewitnesses can refute it.

OVER 500 WITNESSES
Several very important factors arc often overlooked when considering Christ's post-resurrection appearances to individuals. The first is the large number of witnesses of Christ after that resurrection morning. One of the earliest records of Christ's appearing after the resurrection is by Paul. The apostle appealed to his audience's knowledge of the fact that Christ had been seen by more than 500 people at one time. Paul reminded them that the majority of those people were still alive and could be questioned. Dr. Edwin M. Yamauchi, associate professor of history at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, emphasizes: "What gives a special authority to the list (of witnesses) as historical evidence is the reference to most of the five hundred brethren being still alive. St. Paul says in effect, 'If you do not believe me, you can ask them.' Such a statement in an admittedly genuine letter written within thirty years of the event is almost as strong evidence as one could hope to get for something that happened nearly two thousand years ago." Let's take the more than 500 witnesses who saw Jesus alive after His death and burial, and place them in a courtroom. Do you realize that if each of those 500 people were to testify for only six minutes, including cross-examination, you would have an amazing 50 hours of firsthand testimony? Add to this the testimony of many other eyewitnesses and you would well have the largest and most lopsided trial in history.

Response: There is no documentation of the event other than from the mouth of Paul. It is not in any of the gospels. this highly indicative of an evolving story. Paul embellished the story because he was in the business of persuading others to believe his story. Was Paul evil? Paul was ill. He truly believed his religion that offered himself a path for atonement. If Jesus rose from the dead, as Paul believed, what difference does it make if he appeared to one, two, twenty, or five hundred? So claiming an appearance before 500 seems like a harmless embellishment if the underlying story is actually true.

HOSTILE WITNESSES
Another factor crucial to interpreting Christ's appearances is that He also appeared to those who were hostile or unconvinced. Over and over again, I have read or heard people comment that Jesus was seen alive after His death and burial only by His friends and followers. Using that argument, they attempt to water down the overwhelming impact of the multiple eyewitness accounts. But that line of reasoning is so pathetic it hardly deserves comment. No author or informed individual would regard Saul of Tarsus as being a follower of Christ. The facts show the exact opposite. Saul despised Christ and persecuted Christ's followers. It was a life-shattering experience when Christ appeared to him. Although he was at the time not a disciple, he later became the apostle Paul, one of the greatest witnesses for the truth of the resurrection. If the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt. F. F. Bruce Manchester University The argument that Christ's appearances were only to followers is an argument for the most part from silence, and arguments from silence can be dangerous. It is equally possible that all to whom Jesus appeared became followers. No one acquainted with the facts can accurately say that Jesus appeared to just "an insignificant few." Christians believe that Jesus was bodily resurrected in time and space by the supernatural power of God. The difficulties of belief may be great, but the problems inherent in unbelief present even greater difficulties. The theories advanced to explain the resurrection by "natural causes" are weak; they actually help to build confidence in the truth of the resurrection.

Response: Paul is not known to have met Jesus. So, if he had any vision at all, he had no way to verify the identity of the speaker. Paul was desperate, mentally unstable, quite ripe for an hallucination. He did not despise Christians, he spent the rest of his life in desperate atonement to the Christians, aiding and abetting their cause, the occasional embellishment thrown in where necessary. This is how he tried to atone, like the fable of Cain, walking and wailing in the earth a marked man. We need not think he was evil. Instead we can complete his atonement for him, we can make the world a better place, we can teach our children that the angry gods in the skies have never existed.

There is no favored people, we are all equal, created or evolved. We no longer have to mistrust each other due to our fear to doubt ancient books. We can build a world of peace.

THE WRONG TOMB?
A theory propounded by Kirsopp Lake assumes that the women who reported that the body was missing had mistakenly gone to the wrong tomb. If so, then the disciples who went to check up on the women's statement must have also gone to the wrong tomb. We may be certain, however, that Jewish authorities, who asked for a Roman guard to be stationed at the tomb to prevent Jesus' body from being stolen, would not have been mistaken about the location. Nor would the Roman guards, for they were there! If the resurrection-claim was merely because of a geographical mistake, the Jewish authorities would have lost no time in producing the body from the proper tomb, thus effectively quenching for all time any rumor resurrection.

Response: The whole Roman Guard argument is repetitive and self refuting as detailed in other sections above. Also the emotionally wrought Mary Magdalene could well have gone to the wrong tomb.

HALLUCINATIONS?
Another attempted explanation claims that the appearances of Jesus after the resurrection were either illusions or hallucinations. Unsupported by the psychological principles governing the appearances of hallucinations, this theory also does not coincide with the historical situation. Again, where was the actual body, and why wasn't it produced?

Response: The mentally unstable are prone to hallucination. Paul and Mary Magdalene are described as having been mentally unstable.

DID JESUS SWOON?
Another theory, popularized by Venturini several centuries ago, is often quoted today. This is the swoon theory, which says that Jesus didn't die; he merely fainted from exhaustion and loss of blood. Everyone thought Him dead, but later He resuscitated and the disciples thought it to be a resurrection. Skeptic David Friedrich Strauss--certainly no believer in the resurrection--gave the deathblow to any thought that Jesus revived from a swoon: "It is impossible that a being who had stolen half-dead out of the sepulchre, who crept about weak and ill, wanting medical treatment, who required bandaging, strengthening and indulgence, and who still at last yielded to His sufferings, could have given to the disciples the impression that He was a Conqueror over death and the grave, the Prince of Life, For the New Testament of Acts, the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming. Any attempt to reject its basic historicity, even in matters of detail, must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted. A. N. Sherwin-White Classical Roman Historian an impression which lay at the bottom of their future ministry. Such a resuscitation could only have weakened the impression which He had made upon them in life and in death, at the most could only have given it an elegiac voice, but could by no possibility have changed their sorrow into enthusiasm, have elevated their reverence into worship." ated their reverence into worship."

Response: If your friend rises from the dead are you less impressed if he is not feeling very well? Now, imagine Jesus being buried thirty days in the bare earth then digging his way out. That would be a resurrection, quite impressive, without regard to his physical state. So, if one believes ones friend has been resurrected, his physical state hardly matters Indeed then, Jesus could have swooned, rejoined with some followers before he passed away for good, and they, in their ignorance and emotional state could well have assumed a resurrection.

THE BODY STOLEN?
Then consider the theory that the body was stolen by the disciples while the guards slept. The depression and cowardice of the disciples provide a hard-hitting argument against their suddenly becoming so brave and daring as to face a detachment of soldiers at the tomb and steal the body. They were in no mood to attempt anything like that.

Response: If they believed that Jesus might rise from the dead, their mood would have been remarkably different than that suggested. A few men were more than enough to move a stone. If we are to believe the roman guards fled, then there was nothing to stop his followers from carrying away the body, still perhaps hoping Jesus would come back to life.

If you truly believed this about your friend, you might do the same yourself to avoid him becoming trapped in burial. He did say he would raise from the dead after all, and you believed him, so, you kind of have to get him out of the tomb sooner or later. So of course they moved the stone, discovering if he was dead or swooned or indeed, never placed there at all. We know the story of the roman guard is false, added later as an embellishment, because there would have been heavy documentation of such an event.

The theory that the Jewish or Roman authorities moved Christ's body is no more reasonable an explanation for the empty tomb than theft by the disciples. If the authorities had the body in their possession or knew where it was, why, when the disciples were preaching the resurrection in Jerusalem, didn't they explain: "Wait! We moved the body, see, He didn't rise from the grave"? And if such a rebuttal failed, why didn't they explain exactly where Jesus' body lay? If this failed, why didn't they recover the corpse, put it on a cart, and wheel it through the center of Jerusalem? Such an action would have destroyed Christianity--not in the cradle, but in the womb!

Response: In Pilates time, zealots raised clamors for all kinds of supposed supernatural events. A resurrection story would be just another one of them. Josephus writes of Pilate’s vexation with the Jews and their system of blind belief in their god and scripture. If such a story would annoy them he would not be one to discredit it.

One can imagine Pilate gazing over the tumult, amused at the vexation of the Jews by a gang of what he would have to describe as fools, believers in the resurrection of the body of Jesus, the location of which was quite well known to Pilate if he had ordered the removal of the body. Pilate would consider that the fools would calm down eventually. It would not be the last time somebody underestimated the height of zealotry to which blind belief can ascend.

The more one studies the character of Pilate, if we are to trust Josephus at all, the more one considers that he was motivated towards the “heartless joke” explanation for an empty tomb. Pilate told his soldiers: “Make it look like he was resurrected…” His motivation was to vex the Jews. He had no idea as to the ultimate fate of Christianity, and no motive to suppress it.

THE RESURRECTION IS A FACT
Professor Thomas Arnold, for 14 years a headmaster of Rugby, author of the famous, History of Rome, and appointed to the chair of modern history at Oxford, was well acquainted with the value of evidence in determining historical facts. This great scholar said: "I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead." Brooke Foss Westcott, an English scholar, said: "taking all the evidence together, it is not too much to say that there is no historic incident better or more variously supported than the resurrection of Christ. Nothing but the antecedent assumption that it must be false could have suggested the idea of deficiency in the proof of it."

Response: This is the logical fallacy of argumentum ad verecundiam, or appeal to authority. The opinion of authority is insufficient absent the physical evidence to which authority is attesting. There is no physical evidence. So, the fact that an authority on “modern history” believed the Jesus stories adds nothing to the proof for the events in the stories.

REAL PROOF: THE DISCIPLES' LIVES
But the most telling testimony of all must be the lives of those early Christians. We must ask ourselves: What caused them to go everywhere telling the message of the risen Christ? Had there been any visible benefits accrued to them from their efforts--prestige, wealth, increased social status or material benefits--we might logically attempt to account for their actions, for their whole-hearted and total allegiance to this "risen Christ ." As a reward for their efforts, however, those early Christians were beaten, stoned to death, thrown to the lions, tortured and crucified. Every conceivable method was used to stop them from talking. The same is true for ardent followers of many of the world religions. The ascendancy of idiocy to zealotry is quick and deadly. Yet, they laid down their lives as the ultimate proof of their complete confidence in the truth of their message.

WHERE DO YOU STAND?
How do you evaluate this overwhelming historical evidence? What is your decision about the fact of Christ's empty tomb? What do you think of Christ? When I was confronted with the overwhelming evidence for Christ's resurrection, I had to ask the logical question: "What difference does all this evidence make to me? What difference does it make whether or not I believe Christ rose again and died on the cross for my sins!' The answer is put best by something Jesus said to a man who doubted--Thomas. Jesus told him: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me" (John 14:6). On the basis of all the evidence for Christ's resurrection, and considering the fact that Jesus offers forgiveness of sin and an eternal relationship with God, who would be so foolhardy as to reject Him? Christ is alive! He is living today. You can trust God right now by faith through prayer. Prayer is talking with God. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart. If you have never trusted Christ, you can do so right now. The prayer I prayed is: "Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and trust You as my Savior. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be. Thank You that I can trust You."

Josh McDowell, according to a recent survey, is one of the most popular speakers among university students today. He has spoken on more than 650 university and college campuses to more than seven million people in 74 countries during the last 21 years.

©1992 Josh McDowell Ministry

Response: Josh McDowell started out with his psychological comfort of the bible, and 700 hours later, ended up with the same psychological comforts. The reasoning is mostly arguments of fallacy. There is no substantive evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. There never has been.

Are you sad to read this? Do you love Jesus and find it so hard to let it all go? Think of this then: You are his follower and in that regard, you can imagine yourself living at the time he did, one of his followers, perhaps his very close friend. And you watched your beloved friend come to his sad death on a cross. You were the one to carry him down off the cross, to clean and anoint his body with spices and dress it for burial. You still believe in his message, “Do unto others…” and how he tried to help the most downtrodden of your society and so of course you love the man, who would not love such a man? Why not claim he was resurrected, adding force to his words? Why not continue to honor your friend by carrying on his ministry, armed with a spectacular story?

Bury now Jesus, your beloved friend, to rest in peace, roll back the stone. Turn around and see the children of man, lost in the mistrust of the separate religions. You have a world to fix and a day to start. If you are looking to atone, this is the path, fix the world. Prepare the way for the children of man. Was Jesus not as one of them?

Perhaps he will live again, not resurrected, but reborn as we all are born, as a newborn child, with clean memory and a life of discovery ahead of us. What kind of a world will he face? Will he be subjected to TIB addicts forcing the ideas of fear based gods, ruining his culture, condemning women to lifetimes of tears, denying them education and freedom? Or will we have healed ourselves from this great millennium-spanning sadness? We have a lot of work to do.

Let us stop forcing our children into the circular reasoning of belief that a book is infallible. Let us educate them and when they have arrived at the age of reason, they will assess the books and decide their fallibility.

Objective Moral Truth

2013-07-13T21:02:00.000-04:00

We might wonder at the ultimate origin of all of existence but we can know our own for a certainty: we are born as infants, the children of humanity. At some point we become conscious individuals aware of our own and each others existence.

We find ourselves born together, entrusted to each other. We can pick up our arms and fight, or we can learn to get along. The question that we face is this:

Given the choice between life and death, which do we value the most?

Without regard to the origin of the universe, this question remains. The answer to this question becomes the objective basis for all moral rules that might follow.

If we choose to fight there will be one left standing, mortally wounded, soon to die. If death is our highest value, then we should fight. Otherwise, we should choose life. We then create rules by which we will live in peace with one another. We take our oaths and then we make the decision to trust each other.

Observing that we are born with no choice but to trust our caretakers to see to our welfare, and that without trusting each other we are doomed to fight and die, trust is exposed as the primary objective moral concept.

The ancient philosopher who wrote the book of Genesis observed this same truth. In the story of Cain and able, the fundamental question arose in its infant form: "Am I my brothers keeper?"

Therefore, we value life and further, we recognize that we must have equality among each other. We must all be free to pursue our own happiness while maintaining our oath of trust to protect the lives of each other. Therefore we create rules of freedom and such rules rightfully include restraint of individuals who have failed to uphold their oaths. We can get out of the punishment business and into the healing business. We can provide the opportunity for the restrained to work while restrained to make restitution and to earn our trust once again. For one who has killed, restitution seems to be impossible but the work to earn our trust should remain the goal, without regard to the number of years it might take even if ones entire life.

We protect each other. We are each others keepers. This is true in any universe where life evolves, and it is true in any universe where life is created. We have the power to live or die and to cause each other to live or die and we have the choice to make.

We have never needed a sacred book to see this simple moral truth. We have never needed a single word of any God that might exist. If such God exists, perhaps that is why God is silent. Any single word or phrase would be subject to fighting over its interpretation. This is born out in the atrocities committed by man over the centuries because of violent interpretation of words purported to be those of God.

In a created universe, the creation itself gives us the knowledge we need to create a world of peace. This is no different than a universe that is not created.

If one wishes to believe in God then it does seem pointless to believe in a God that is not wise. And as we can clearly see, a wise God would remain carefully silent, and if God exists, this is the God we see.

We can now begin to evolve together and create a world of peace. Created or evolved, atheist or theist, we all see the same objective moral truth.

The Evolution of a World of Peace

2013-06-22T17:04:00.001-04:00

In the past, natural selection favored the evolution of neural structures conducive to unquestioning belief. With the advent of free societies and flourishing education, such structures were no longer needed and began to vanish. However, in some pockets in the world, artificial selection of these same structures is resulting in a steady degeneration of thinking capacities and regression towards violence and restriction of the human rights of women and children.

As we evolved into conscious beings, we gained a predilection to simply believe what we were told. The shouted imperative, “…the storm is approaching!” served as well as “…the God of thunder is approaching!” in herding the children towards shelters. Those that did not believe became the victims of the calamities. The truth of the content of the warning did not matter as much as simply heeding the warning.

As the opposing armies of ancient tribes steeled themselves for impending battles, they were each abetted by a belief in a powerful god who was on their side, who would protect them during the conflict. The greater the force of this mindless belief, the more courageous the man in battle. Natural selection stepped in to weed out the skeptics.

Every battle has a victor and the winners were naturally inclined to give thanks to their mythical gods. Theories of the personalities of the gods were formed. These were passed down in stories and finally in written form. These early writings were precious indeed, not because of their content, but because they were so difficult to reproduce. They were the only writings around. The psychology of man was severely impacted by this dichotomy of value assessment over scriptures. The documents were scarce and thus sacred and this resulted in an equivalent valuation of the content. The scriptures began to be proclaimed as very words of the gods of wars. The contents of the warnings began to matter more than the reason for the warnings.

Today these same scriptures are handed to children all over the world accompanied by corporal threats that they must be never questioned. In some cultures, those children that grow to question the writings are cut off with violence. Artificial selection is at work here, culling the superior skeptical brain structures from the gene pool in favor of those structures conducive to mindless belief. The degenerative effect is plain to see in the violence of the persisting tribal wars and gross corporal punishments against the women and children. The belief that there exists a god that must be honored with violence against those who disbelieve is ensconced in the brains of the men, sewed up in a palpable fear response against any doubt.

Being hard-wired for mindless belief does not doom a man. The cure is patently simple: Read books of science. Study the accumulated knowledge of man. In short, become educated. It does not matter how long it takes, just keep reading. Mindless belief no longer serves to enhance our survival. As our children become educated they will test our beliefs and improve them. It is our job to make sure their minds are free from the prejudice with which we were inflicted by our religious parents. Natural selection will take over and their brains will improve.

The natural evolution of a human life is to learn. We are happiest when our minds are active, when we are learning new ideas and combining old ideas into novelties. In the free world, we have libraries, bookstores and the internet by which we can continue our lifelong educations. As we build a world of peace we will be making all of this knowledge available for everyone. We will document and enact human rights for all men, women, and children to access to the accumulated knowledge of man. To what greater or nobler effort can a free man attend than to bring these instruments of knowledge to the people of the world who today are denied?

The Bible and Qur’an: The Trap, the Illness and the Cure

2013-04-07T20:30:00.002-04:00

The written word can trap the mind of man. It is in our nature to grant some respect to what has been written. Some of us go so far as to grant ultimate and unequivocal respect to a writing that is held to be infallible. Once that happens a trap is set. If the writings themselves contain a circle of reasoning that threaten punishment for doubt as to truth of the writing, the trap snaps shut. A physical connection in the brain is forged, obscuring paths of logic with releases of fear inducing chemicals.

Many years ago, after we had evolved to our awareness of our own existence, we had begun to see each other as individual agents, operating according to our own internal plans. We saw this same pattern of agency in the great beasts of the field. We heard their distant roars in the evenings and we found them hidden in the grass, stalking and planning a time to strike. We saw the sudden springing, the vicious blows with claws and teeth and the execution of the kill.

We heard the distant thunder in the skies and learned that it could portend the same sudden strike and execution. As the thunder grew in power we huddled together and waited, assigning agency to the whims of the storms. This was a logical conclusion for our primitive logical minds. The storm was angry, like the great cats. Quivering against the torrents and lightning we breathed silent wishes as supplications, to beg the storm to move on and spare our children. When calm had returned we surveyed the windblown damage and counted who remained. We logically concluded that the angry storm had acceded to our requests and a concept of prayer had entered the mind of man.

From these simple beginnings, when we were just evolved and unaware of the science of nature, we elaborated stories of the great and powerful agent behind the volcanoes, storms, and earthquakes. We had little choice but to do so. We thought our only chance was to behave according to the wishes of the agents. And so we created stories of one or many Gods who demonstrated anger and discontent with the behavior of man. We learned that these stories can serve as a basis for moral rules and that if the community obeyed then relative peace could be observed.

As we evolved the written word these stories were set down and shared. The writings became sacred. The trap firmly closed around the inquisitive mind of man. The trap has always been with us, we are well and truly trapped, ruled by fear, ruled by the physical construction of a false idea in our brains. We are physically ill. The words of the writing command that everyone believe and worship. It is almost as if the false idea has taken on a life of its own, fighting as viscously as the lion for its survival. Men feel forced to honor the angry agent by killing others who dishonor its name. The false idea replicates, just like any living thing. It replicates throughout the generations of man. We have inherited the same false idea.

There is a cure. The false idea was sprung from our ignorance, the medicine is learning, the patient study and accumulation of knowledge.

There is no angry God, commanding belief and worship, intently watching with perfect eyes the eternal burning of anguished people in hell. Such a beast has never existed. It was borne of our ignorance and fear.

There is no God at all. We have this universe, we have each other. There might be life elsewhere and someday we can find it if we all survive.

Some of us wish for God to exist because we awaken in a world with children who need love. We are born and grow older and find each other looking for relationships of trust and love. And upon embarking on a journey of love we can hardly help but to whisper an occasionally prayer, that if there be any power that can lend some help that such help be given to the one who is beloved.

Indeed, if God exists at all, then all of us can see the decisions of God. And the decisions of God indicate clearly that if God exists at all, she must very beautiful and benevolent. She creates life, as newborn infants, and entrusts them to us. She is exquisitely beautiful in her nature and it is difficult to not believe in her, to not love her dearly in return. If you must believe then believe in the beautiful God you can see with your own eyes.

Let us take each other’s hand and climb together out of the trap. We escaped the fear of Zeus and Wotan, we can escape the fear of the angry God of Abraham, the Yahweh of the bible and the Allah of the Qur’an and all such angry punishing gods who we now can see never existed at all. We believed them in our youth and ignorance, we are grown now and putting away our childish things. We can understand now that those that spoke of them, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed and all of the rest, were themselves entrapped when young by the false idea of a god that has never existed. They reached out, to believe in God, meaning well for their people and we can honor them for that. We should not dishonor them by remaining ignorant in the trap we can now all clearly see.

Let us put down all our sad scriptures, and leave them for the historians to summarize. Let us take up instead books of science and knowledge and educate all of the children of man with whom we find ourselves entrusted.

Let us educate every child, leaving no child behind. They will educate their children and this will continue through the generations until someday, just maybe, you will be reborn as one of them, a brand new baby, with brand new memory, born into this beautiful universe, all of the accumulated knowledge of man freely available to you, waiting for you to once again take the lead, to lead the children of man, and if you wish the children of your beloved creator, to lead them to galaxies of watered planets.

The Methodology of Truth

2013-03-17T21:32:00.000-04:00

You will receive many messages in life. Some of them will be entirely true, some of them will be partially true, and some of them will contain no truth at all. You will receive some messages accompanied by an assessment of the truth of the message. Some messages will be of uncertain authorship. We see then that both the source of a message and any existing assessment of the truth of a message have no bearing at all on whatever truth is contained in the message. At the end of the day, you will have to examine the content of the message and if truth is found, it will be authenticated and proclaimed as truth by you.

Sometimes, you proclaim what you think is truth, only to discover a mistake. You make your corrections, proclaim your new understandings of the truth, and go on in life. The longer you live, the more time you have to discover and correct any mistakes you might have made. We all die however and so any corrections to the truth of the messages you left will be made by those that follow. They cannot do their job if they think they must honor you without question. They must examine the things you said and if indeed they wish to honor you, they must make the corrections that you will no longer be alive to make. The same holds true for the things that have been written in the past. If truth was their intent, and if honor is ours, we must examine what was written and make the corrections where necessary. And you must afford my writings the same respect, correct the things I might have misunderstood and proclaim as truth the things that remain.

You have a job to do. You have been given messages. Some of them have been proclaimed as truth. Some of them have been given to you in a sociopolitical climate that would act to restrain your right to examine and correct the messages. Some of these messages are considered to be sacred writings of your forebears, be they religious or political documents. You might have to be judicious in the timing and methodology you use to ensure that the truth is published.

For centuries, nations and cultures have enforced noncritical belief by eliminating, ostracizing or imprisoning those that objected. Such practice can have a physical evolutionary effect. By the removal of minds prone to rational objection from the gene pool, slight gene mutations resulting in physical brain structures conducive to noncritical belief can be selected and become more numerous in the population. The relative quantity of those with structures conducive to critical reasoning will decrease. Today more and more people spend their time mindlessly repeating what has been written, refusing to accept any assessment other than that the writings are infallible truth, without examination. They are not evil people: they are ill, they are lost, and some of them are trapped. They are unable to engage in rational methodologies conducive to discernment of truth.

There is a cure for this condition. It is education. If you believe you are prone to this form of thinking you have only to find and read as many books of science that you can find. There are many like you in this world. Some of them are very young however, and such books are denied to them. Some of them are very old and as such well comforted against the fears of doubt. They might be unable to change. Some of them are between,some of them leaders on the sociopolitical scene, mindlessly determined to increase the population of noncritical believers with whatever violence may be required. Some of them, and the generations younger than them, are capable of recognizing their mistake, and they do so, internally, only to then understand that they are trapped. Having previously committed with their group of leaders towards violent repression, they find themselves surrounded by these very same people who have proven their readiness to cut down quickly any source of objection.

Sadly, all of them might be ready to change, but none of them dare to raise their voice for fear that the others are not ready and so without regard to the number of them that are ready to change, they are all well and truly trapped into reproducing brains suited towards mindless belief and conscienceless violence. The mindless beliefs, possibly supported by physical brain structures, operate like beaver dams, sealing off the flow of reason in the brain, creating a stagnant pool of fear. The end result, the most prominently visible phenotype of mindless belief, is a world where millions of children are denied rational, uncensored education in the accumulated knowledge of man.

There is a clear path to follow to escape the trap. It will take courage and time. It begins with the education of children and that begins with the recognition of the human rights of children.

Those of you who are leaders, whether or not you find yourself trapped, you can make gradual inroads in ensuring the secular education of the children of your culture. You must teach your children to love knowledge, to become brilliant. You can declare that your cultural and religious beliefs, and the documents on which they rest, are strong enough to withstand secular examination and that to prove this you encourage the fullness of secular education for every member of your culture, male and female. You must be willing to send them abroad for education when young. You must free your children.

The rest of the world can assist. We can recognize and declare the human rights of all children born into our world and that among these rights is the right to a complete education in the collected knowledge of man. And then we have but to create the schools and staff them with dedicated professionals who wish to change the world to one of global peace and prosperity.

If the whole earth had fallen under ancient Egyptian rule and stagnated, perhaps the great lot of us would be bonded together in the relatively useless enterprises of building pyramids, there being no greater work envisioned by our leaders. But we ourselves are the leaders today, it is not pyramids we build, we build cities and schools, we clean the earth, we educate the children of man and we populate the cosmos with our art and beauty. We have a planet of plenty, we can control our population, we can share resources, and we can return trees to the emptied forests.

Buried in mans ancient writings is the idea of a hideous god that burns people forever in hell, an entity that orders the slaughter of men, women and children, an angry hateful being that commands solitary abject worship for eternity. This idea, this ancient fable hardly worthy of a comic book, has become entrenched, replicating from generation to generation, crouched beneath the surface of the stagnant pool in our minds, rising like leviathan to roar out fear should any doubt be entertained. Its nemesis is truth; it is helplessly vulnerable to our courage and our reason. It shall be remembered as yet another mythical god in the ancient myths of man.

That raging god of the bible and the Quran has never existed. The scriptures are wrong. They have always been wrong. Our ancestors meant well but they were mistaken and they are no longer alive to lead us to the truth. We will have to crawl out of the abyss ourselves, in courage with one another, into the light of reason. We shall dissolve the damming structures in our minds, knowledge and truth shall flow freely. We will know each other as the great family of man we have always been, bringing art and science to one another. We shall be welcoming each child into the world, acting as repositories of trust for truth. We shall educate them with love and care and they will usher us to our peace in their responsive beauty.

Some of you will be troubled by these writings. You will have spent a good deal of time believing in God, wishfully ignoring the unpleasant passages in the bible and the Quran that suggest such hideous qualities of the God you would rather learn to love. For those of you I can say that you do not have to give up your concept of a benevolent God, you have only to consider that the scriptures were sadly mistaken as to the character of God and then observe the universe, the creation if you will, to use your own mind to try to learn the nature of the one who you believe created you.

For after all, she might very well exist, and if she does then you can learn to love her by loving the things she loves. And you have never needed a book of scripture. You can see with your eyes the decisions of God. She has today created thousands of newborn babies and entrusted them to us, she has never stopped her creative ways. She is expressing faith and hope in us, waiting patiently for us to accept the beauty of the creation, to accept the beauty of each other, the same beauty she saw with cornered diamonds in her eyes when she last kissed us and placed us sleeping in the womb. We can love each other as we have been so dearly loved by our beloved God.

And if she does not exist at all, it is natural human expression to sometimes wish she did, if only to have somebody to thank for the beauty of the beckoning cosmos, the ecstasy of the evolving life we see, surrounded as we are by each other, mischievous, twinkling, singing, sharing Venus above the moon.

That will be you someday, there in the future. You shall be reborn as one who travels, you shall be alive on an orbiting moon, and there in your lover’s eyes you shall see the rings of Saturn.

The Evolution of Knowledge and Belief

2013-03-01T22:02:00.000-05:00

Thousands of years ago, man observed the great forces of nature and wondered if their was agency behind them. Thunder sounded like roaring expressions of anger from somewhere on high. He formed his theories God and began to think that God had an angry character. These original oral traditions were passed down through the generations until they became written. Eventually, these ideas of a raging God formed the underlying theory for the God described in the religions based on the Old Testament writings. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are all based on this ancient concept of the God who seethes with anger towards man, to the point of creating hell as a place of eternal torment for those who do not believe in one scripture or another.

As time passed and man began to seek ways to build a world of peace, his religions evolved towards ideas of a generally more benevolent God. The idea that God would burn people eternally began to be seen as just another of the plenitude of mans fables that have been passed down over time. Nobody takes Zeus seriously anymore, and as man becomes better educated, fewer and fewer are taking that old fire-and-brimstone angry God of the bible, Torah, and Quran very seriously anymore.

While it is true, many people today maintain a fear-based belief in the perfection of the scriptures and its fables of the angry God, those numbers have also been declining. The scriptures are now seen as a mixture of fable and history, punctuated by opinions as to the nature of God. At times man seemed to coerce his idea of God to support his endeavors in war, going as far as declaring that God had told them to attack and slaughter the men, women, and children of neighboring villages and states, the very men, women, and children that the God they professed belief in created.

Believers today are evolving their understandings of God. God is seen to be overwhelming benevolent towards man. While natural disasters and accidents of fate continue to trouble believers with respect to understanding the nature of a creator who would allow such things to happen, people are beginning to look at it from God’s point of view. For example, if you were God, alone, and it was your desire to create thinking beings that were free to express themselves and to think as they pleased, but who were free to choose death if they could not bear to live, and taking everything else into consideration, you might start to come up with a design not wholly unlike our world today. While there remains much to be discussed, the discussion is fully engaged and lively across the world. Religions and systems of belief are evolving before our eyes. We understand now that if God exists, God is very beautiful and loving towards man.

At the same time, the rationality of atheism is becoming evident for a growing number of people. Believers themselves are admitting that even if God exists, such God places no constraints on belief and has no objection to atheism.

God is no longer seen to be afflicted with the traditional human character defects of jealousy, rage and narcissism described in the fables and scriptures. People understand now that if God exists, and has existed for the great expanse of the eons of the universe, his wisdom must be overwhelmingly beautiful to behold, if one could but behold it. If God exists then everyone can see the decisions of God, the decisions that God makes every day, the decisions to create life in the form of newborn children and entrust them to humanity for raising. God is seen to be expressing great faith and hope in us in these daily decisions.

There are still countries in the world where belief in the fabled raging God is enforced with corporal punishment by state and local governments. This is very sad for those so enslaved, especially for the women and girls who are often denied education. The boys are also restricted as to the content of the classroom material, the government or culture requiring that any scientific material that is in disagreement with the scripture be forbidden or corrupted in some manner to come into agreement with the fables. This is true even in the free states of the world, where fundamentalist believers try to deny rational scientific education to their own children.

But today, these children who are fortunate to live in the free states have the internet. As social networks expand they are finding that they have each other. They are in discussions and learning to understand that their parents mean well, trying to hide scientific knowledge, but that their parents themselves grew up a bit confused by the fables of the angry God.

The youth of today understands that it is not an easy for parents to leave their lifelong beliefs, no matter how irrational they are finally seen to be. Once one has been forced to believe in the raging God, a fear based psychological state can set in that is very difficult to escape. The escape for fear remains the same path that it has always been: become educated, read, and learn. There is nothing at all to fear. If God exists, God is quite beautiful and benevolent; we know this by observing the decisions of God.

We are humanity. Created by God or evolved from the cosmos, we are standing beautifully in courage. We speak the truth today. We examine the scriptures of our ancestors and we teach our children how these fables began and how the world is changing towards a more rational state, where human knowledge is expanding around the world. Some day all men, women and children will be free, with rights and accessibility to full educations in the arts and sciences of man. Some will remain believers and some will be atheist but all of us will have reached a common ground of understanding. We can live in peace, and together explore the cosmos, if we can learn to be repositories of trust for one another, to be our brother’s keeper.

The next generations of man, who have yet to be born, will be born into a beautiful world of peace, because today, we, their ancestors, worked hard to make it happen. We began to bravely speak the truth to one another, to put away our childish fears, to stand courageous to ensure liberty for all people for all of time.

We Are Beautiful

2013-02-07T19:54:00.003-05:00

We are all very beautiful. Created as infant human beings, whether by the universe or by God herself, we awaken to find ourselves gifted with each other. To build a world of peace, indeed to build worlds of peace throughout the cosmos, we have only to agree with each other that we will live as repositories of trust for one another, to be our brother's keeper. We have never needed a book of scripture to see this simple truth.

We awaken to a world where though many speak of God, we cannot find her anywhere. We wonder if we should set aside all thoughts of her and forge ahead in courage and in faith in ourselves, a faith that is emboldened with the knowledge that we have discovered new truths wherever we have sought them. For centuries we have been examining the evidence put forth by nature, imagining the reasons why things are so and testing these theories until they are proven to be ideas on which we can have reliance as we forge outward to the distant stars.

Imagine living in that future generation; imagine that you are one of them, a thousand years from now. You and scores of others are embarking on a journey to a planet discovered to be much like the earth when it was young, a planet teeming with plant and animal life, fed by another star, adorned with one or several moons. It would be lonely without a moon, would it not? But we still would have the stars to keep us company, and when we get there and settle in, we could point to one of them and tell our children that it is the very star that warms the planet earth where it all began.

You will be one of them, someday; you will be one of those children lying in the grass on that distant planet contemplating the star of earth. You will not have then the memories you have today. You will be recreated, by the universe or by God herself, as a newborn infant, all of your sadness and sorrow wiped away, a new clean slate of memory, a new life to build, a new opportunity to love your brothers and your sisters, new days and new nights to contemplate the stars and wonder where it truly all began.

You will be a brand new person, a thinker, and this is what you are today. There is no good reason then, today, why you do not put aside your sorrows and your sadness and think of yourself as reborn today, this very day. You are reborn today as one who has the memories that you have. There is nothing you can do about them, they are there, contemplated within your court of reason. The question is, what will you do today? How will you recreate this world to be the world of peace where we all work together to get to those distant stars?

If God exists, she is very beautiful. We know this because we are her works of art. She has created us as thinking beings and entrusted us to each other in a world of resources so readily shared. We awaken reaching out for one another and we are blessed each day, entrusted with created newborn children. We see this as evidence for her love for us. She has faith and hope for us, that we will raise our children in truth and in love, that we will teach them how to love each other.

Is she alive and thinking? Does she exist at all? If she does then why must we exist in this uncertain realm? If she is there then I wish to find her, to thank her, to love her in return. And thinking of this I can suddenly see it all. Until the time when I can love you, my brothers and my sisters, when I can truly see you as she sees you, as the created children she so dearly loves, then I am not returning love to her at all. I cannot love her if I cannot teach myself how to love the things she loves. So I have to get busy, I have to find a way to love all of you.

And so I understand her distance. She is very wise. She knows that it is not joy for me to find her before I am ready. I don't want her look of mercy for my failures; I don't want her look of pity for my sorrows. I don't want to enter heaven and leave the children of God to their fate in this earth where so many of them are enslaved to enforced beliefs, taught to mistrust each other and denied the education that would heal them. I want to fight for them instead. I want to be judged and sent straight back to live on earth, as a newborn infant once again, for as many lives as it takes for me, and for all of us, to see that this world is a beautiful place to live for her children, and indeed for her, if she would wish to have a go at human life, to be born as an infant, to entrust herself to us. Shall we not prepare her way?

We should prepare the way for the human children yet to be born. Let us recreate this earth as a safe place for them, where they all can receive the sum of human knowledge and together share the earth and cosmos. If we believe in her we can do no less than that and if we do not, then we do it for ourselves because created or evolved, we have always been one of them, and forever we shall always be, we are the son of man, we are humanity, we are created children, we are beautiful.

Fastened to a Mast: The Cross of Belief

2013-01-12T13:07:00.000-05:00

In many parts of the world today, when a child is born, he or she becomes metaphorically bound to a cross of belief. The child is instructed that he is a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or of some other belief system. We all can see that these are not statements of truth when they are made to a child. A Christian is an adherent of Christianity. A Jew is an adherent of Judaism. A Muslim is an adherent of Islam. All such statements imply a decision of belief. All of us can see that the uneducated child has not yet achieved the knowledge necessary to make an informed decision as to what he or she will believe.

Sometimes these statements are not made directly, implied instead in phrases such as "We are Christians..." To be fair to the child, a more truthful statement would be more instructive. Parents would say something like: "We are Christian, and we would like for you to join us in our celebrations as you grow up and become educated." The parents would then ensure that the child receives a complete education.

However many children are commanded along the lines of "You are Christian," or "You are Muslim, " or "You are Jewish." The child usually receives such instructions from those he most admires: his well-meaning parents, siblings, caretakers and teachers. Recognizing their good intentions, the child will take these instructions to heart and then survey the world. Within his own internal language, within his developing court of reason, the child thinks along these lines:

“I am one of this religion, and so are my loved ones, but none of us is one of those other religiions. All of those others believe that they have the truth and that we do not. My parents would never give to me to believe something that is not true so therefore only we have the truth and with good reason then these others cannot be trusted.”

Thus the child's court of reason has become corrupted by the false instruction. The child has accepted what he has been told as truth and become cornered within the prejudice of mistrust. In some parts of the world, the child risks corporal punishment if he or she wishes to debate the truth of statements such as these. Some of them are truly trapped by nothing more than a false idea that is however protected by fear and violence. They find themselves fastened tightly to the mast of the cultures ancient ship, sailing in sorrow past the islands of the children of man with whom they would have otherwise in joy shared this, their only epoch.

The world today has not yet created the document that will specify their human rights. Some parents believe that they own their children and as such owners they are free to instill and enforce whatever beliefs and fears they wish. Their children are defenseless against such onslaughts, not being allowed the freedom nor the education to challenge the fears and beliefs of their parents.

If we are created then we can all see the rights granted to us by our creator. Our children are created and entrusted to us and we can respond to this love of God by raising them in love, truth and fairness, ensuring that they will have the right to believe as they wish and the education with which to make a decision. To do less than that is a betrayal of the trust that has been placed in us. And if we are not created, we can all with reason see the rights that we ourselves should declare and grant to one another. In both cases, we can all see that the human rights of children are the same and that among these rights are the rights to a full education and the rights to freedom of belief.

Therefore atheists and theists have a common ground of understanding and belief with regard to the human rights of children. And we who have inherited freedom, and parents who are beginning to understand what they must do to free their children, together with those who are still in silence bound, have a common goal to declare the rights of children and to enact them for all of time.

Your Honor

2013-01-05T23:14:00.000-05:00

Presenting here within your court of reason, sworn as I am to tell the truth, I will labor to present the truth as I know the truth to be. I will be reliant upon you to evaluate each claim and then to judge my testimony as a whole, to determine what truth, if any, should be carried forth and proclaimed as truth by you.

I present for your consideration the following two numbered claims:

This next sentence is infallible truth.
Two apples and two bananas represent five pieces of fruit.

If you pre-judge the first claim to be true, then you must believe the second claim is true. In order to maintain belief that the second claim is true, you must suspend consideration of any evidence outside of the two claims above. If you do so, then the second claim becomes truth for you because you have been prejudiced by the fallacy of the first claim.

This particular fallacy, argumentum caecium, is the argument from blindness. The argument from blindness is a claim about the content of claims that have yet to be made. At the time the claim is made, there can be no certain knowledge that the claims that will follow will be aligned with the first claim. On its face, on its own merits, the first claim is an empty argument and therefore it can only serve to induce prejudice if believed. As a fallacy it is perfectly named because it requires blind faith to believe it.

Seated as you are in your own court of reason, you have the right to consider the first claim to have been made in bad faith and to dismiss it with prejudice, which means that you will consider any further testimony by the claimant with a lesser degree of trust. However, you need not make a finding of bad faith if you determine that the claimant was simply mistaken in his belief or inadequate in his expression of argument. However in any case it must be dismissed as prejudicial as a rule of honor prior to the hearing of any further claims.

There is honor in your court of reason. You yourself know the truth of everything you have said and done. You know your courage and your fear, and you know your plight in life. You have recorded the truths you know in your memory and you correct them when you must in the face of new knowledge. You may not speak the truth, for many different reasons, but you know the truth, the truth about yourself.

Consider now the very first paragraph of this article. There is a claim of intention to present the truth accompanied by a request for evaluation as to whether the truth was indeed presented.   There is the implied argument that I might fail. All truthful claims are appeals to reason. I am counting on the honor in your own high court of reason. For this I should well address you as “Your Honor.”

A holy book is a binding together of separate pages of printed language. The language is assembled by one or more speakers or writers over time and the words are printed on the pages of the book.   The pages are bound together to make the book. The book is then presented to you for your evaluation and judgment.

On one of the pages of the book it might be stated that the entire book to which the page is bound represents infallible truth.   How will you interpret that claim? You can see that it is a fallacy. Though it was written or spoken as a claim of truth, you can find that it was not intentioned as a claim of truth as such a warning that the testimony to follow may not worthy of trust. If you believe the writer to be well intentioned, you might make a finding of good faith and allow the testimony to continue. You might then proceed to read the book to judge it on its own merits, dismissing prejudice wherever else you might find it.

The person who hands the book to you might make a similar claim, that the book is the infallible truth. Once again, you have to decide how to interpret the fallacious claim. After making a judgement of good or bad faith, you can now decide whether or not to evaluate the book to determine if any parts of it can be proclaimed as truth by you.

You might find yourself living within a family or a culture where your proclamations of truth are constrained to be in agreement with your family, teacher, government, religion, or brotherhood. If so, then, in order to live a reasonably comfortable life within such constraints, you might find that you must proclaim something other than the truth. My claim is that there is no shame in this. In effect, you are a prisoner and all of us who live in free societies recognize this and even further, we give you the benefit of the doubt. We can see that you are so constrained. We are considering steps that might be taken to remove the constraints on your liberty and on your right to proclaim the truth as you see it.

It will not be easy. It will not be soon. You might not live to see yourself in liberty and for this I must apologize for I was born to a free society. I have inherited liberty. As such I am to be the faithful steward of liberty across the generations of man or I will be something less than that, and there is no form of acceptable life that is less than that. I can let it languish or I can labor to extend it further to the other people of the world. My testimony is but a part of that generational spanning labor. My labor might be small or late but it shall not fail because I am not the only steward of liberty left in this world. There are many others who will carry on seeing it through, that liberty is extended finally to you and to your people. Some of you are women. Some of you are children. Some of you are men who are trapped. You would free your family but then you would all be punished by those who will not allow a doubt to a system of belief.

You might be one of those who believe you must withhold liberty of belief from those within your family or culture. You might have made a prejudiced decision to believe a claim that a book is infallible and having placed your faith in that single fallacy you have believed all of the following claims without question, not allowing any other evidence into your court of reason.   And following logically on those claims you feel you must punish all those within your reach who will not worship the mythical being predicated on the fallacy.    You have a mistaken belief that the children born into your culture are born of your belief and can be of no other belief, that you own their liberty of belief. You are trapped by this belief because you have punished others in its name and that therefore there is nothing left to do but to hope the mythical being exists and to continue to worship him. Otherwise, you yourself must judge yourself in the harshest terms, having denied liberty to those who were entrusted to you. You share a brotherhood with others such as yourself and you know your brothers will strike you down if you proclaim the new truth you are beginning to see. You suspect that many of them, as well as you, wish they could escape from the fallacy of this belief. But you know that they also fear to speak the truth. The fear is not because you fear that the mythical being will strike you down, but that your own brother will strike you down if you question the system of belief. This is the silent understanding that your entire brotherhood shares and not one of you can dare to speak it out loud.

It is to you, and to this brotherhood of you, it is to the honor to all of you that I must appeal. Observing the trap into which you have fallen, how will you free your people when you yourselves can hardly make a move? It will take great courage, some of the greatest courage the world will ever know. And some of your acts of courage will never be known to any other because they cannot be published. They will be known only by you, guessed at by those like me, and in the future, in later days, by the people you freed who will look back on time and understand, long after you and I have left the earth. You will be an agent for truth, an agent for liberty, there shall be honor in your court of reason, you shall heal the world. You might not speak the truth until it is safe to do so, but you will act upon the truth to free your people from oppression. You will begin to make your plans and to act this very day.

The God who exists, if any God exists at all, will cherish your acts of honor. She is not the God you have been told about. The God we can all see, by observing the decisions of God, does not require us to believe or even to continue to live. She understands the trap into which we sometimes fall, traps of enforced beliefs, beliefs that induce us to cause sorrow to the children she has created. She creates them and entrusts them to us to see to their education and liberty. She has entrusted them to you. What will be your honorable response to her act of trust? Will your final acts be known to her as honor when she lifts you from where you have fallen?

Whether or not we are created, liberty is created and carried forth across the generations by the free will decisions and acts of honorable women and men. It is true, God might not exist, but we are humanity, we are amazing miracles in an amazing universe. We are thinkers, we have free will, we can maintain honor within our own high courts of reason. We can extend liberty to each other, we can live as repositories of trust for one another, we can be our brother's keeper.

In the Arms of Twenty Angels

2012-12-20T01:08:00.001-05:00

With these sad events of Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut we can all see that if God exists, she does not interfere in the affairs of our world, at least, not in a manner that we can directly see. But, what is it that she does, after all? It is true that if she exists, then it is she who does create these children and then entrust them to us, and that even today, this morning, she pondered existence and although she was not required to do so, she did make her decision, and thousands of newly created infants were created and delivered into our world, into our trust.

If there ever was a boy who grew to be so troubled he could not engage in trust, it was this boy Adam Lanza. And all of it comes down to trust. We have no better strategy than to trust each other. We knew he was troubled, we were unsure how to help him, but we trusted him to carry on, as best he could, in trust with us as co-administrators of the world of peace that we labor to build. We trusted all of them, these boys who armed themselves to slay the innocent. We trusted Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, we trusted James Holmes and Seun-Hui Cho.

The rational theist, and the rational atheist comes face to face with the single question that underlies all moral thought: "Am I my brother's keeper?" We never needed a bible to come to that question, it is the fundamental moral choice that we all face in life. We can live as repositories of trust for one another, or we can be something less than that.

So, who are these boys? Are they our brothers? Do we take the time to know them? Do we even look at them? Do they look themselves in the mirror and see boys who just cannot fit in? Do they believe we see the same when we look at them? Do they see themselves as not quite so beautiful in form and, thinking this must follow, not quite so beautiful in spirit? They see the beautiful ones, a world of beautiful children, some of them their classmates. But for themselves they must believe they are defective in their internal souls to reflect a countenance that even they cannot accept. They fail in social skills; they make mistakes in speech and movement in desperate clumsiness to just be one of the children of the world. And we do not know of the betrayals of trust that they endured. Some of such events are unspeakable, they have been endured in silence, some of them have been betrayed by the very ones to whom they had been entrusted as newborn children.

And they are here amongst us, hidden, they are all around, and some of them are sisters too, and all of them are lonely. Can we see them as ones to love? If we cannot how will they ever know it? So for atheists, how can we teach ourselves to care from them, to keep them?

And if we wish to believe in God, if we cannot see them with the same loving eyes as she who gave them life, they never will know love, until once again they find themselves in her arms after they have died and like all of us, reach out to her in the sudden relief and joy of remembrance of her being.

But Adam, poor blessed Adam, who if she exists is then the created child of God, he will avert his eyes from hers in a chemistry of burning tears, “I cannot be here,” he will say, “I cannot be with them. I do not belong here, I must be punished, I must be sent to hell, I must suffer forever, I am worthy of nothing more.”

“Who is it that with whom you cannot be?” she will ask.

“I cannot be with such as these,” he will say, for they will be surrounded by the twenty children. “I do not belong with them.”

“And with me," she will ask, "will you not belong with me?”

And he will miss her, of course he will, for it is her face, her eyes on ours, that is the last thing that we know of her, after she has created us and before she sets us to sleeping in our mother’s wombs. And it is the first thing we remember, our souls quickening in excitement at the pending reunion, after we have died. But Adam will have cut himself off form that, in the cruelest of self-punishments, in the knowledge of what he has done.

“No!” he will think to himself, “I will punish myself very well, I will not reach for her..." and his thoughts will trail off to the kinds of pain that only self condemning souls can know, those who in her very presence shut themselves off from her, refusing to be baptized once again in her beauty and her wisdom, these things we most cherish of her, these things we miss so much.

“Will you not open your eyes to me?” she will ask, holding him in her arms.

“I am terrible in my spirit,” he will say, “I am not worthy of even death, I must be sent to hell and forced to live in everlasting pain.” His cries will be those of halting anguish, some that can be heard and some that are heard only within in his spirit, the anguish only she can also hear.

“But it has been so long, Adam," she will say at last, "so very long, since I have last seen your eyes on mine.”

And he will open his eyes at that, at the thought of her alone in time, and like a newborn he will cry for her, like babies we all shall cry.

And she will raise him up to comfort him and in his ear she will whisper what we have always known, “There shall be no hell for my beloved children, you will find another way. I will send you back to the world, to find another way.”

“I am no good for them, you must send me to hell,” he will cry, “I cannot undo the things I have done. I cannot bear my memory.”

“Don’t cry Adam,” a small voice will rise, then another, then all twenty, because they are young children and these are the things young children say while they are still young children, “Don’t cry, Adam.”

His anguish will reach the place where she herself will move to kiss him, to send his soul to sleep, and she will examine him and contemplate all of the memories he wished he could abandon. She will know with us all of our memories, every one of them.

“He is sleeping now,” she will say to them, to the twenty children.

“Can you fix him? Can you make him better?” they will ask.

“I can make him beautiful,” she will say, and then she will. She will re-create him as an infant, waiting to be reborn.

And they will see in their astonishment, when once again his eyes are opened, his memories are clean and new, his baby face is smiling at the sight of his beloved’s eyes, she kisses him once more to sleep and sends him to the world to be reborn, as she sends each one of us to the world entrusting us to each other.

“He was so sad and lonely, who will take care of him?” the children will ask of her, "Can we take care of him? Can you send us back to the world with him, to take care of him?”

And these blessed children and their teachers and Adam's mother will remember the diamonds in her eyes when she kisses them each back to paradise, to the world she has created, the garden we never lost, the world where we awaken to find ourselves entrusted with created life.

We know because we see her beauty and her love that she takes care of us after we have died. She brings us close to her and holds us in her arms for as long as we wish to stay with her, She answers all of our questions, she gives to us the things we need, and we grow to love her beautifully, so beautifully we hasten to be reborn again, to hasten to the world to love her children, to hasten to the world to love each other, to hasten to the world to love the things she loves.

And they will all be teachers, and they will teach the children with whom they shall be entrusted, they will teach them to love each other, to leave not a single one behind.

They will teach them in kindergarten, to pair off and draw paintings of each other with crayons. The children will look into each other’s eyes, and count the freckles on each other’s cheeks and they will draw pictures of each other, with crayons and paper and in their minds.

And they will switch the parings, so that each one spends some hours in the eyes of every other. And at the end of the year they will each carry home 20 painted pictures of their friends.

And the teacher’s shall free the children from all fate that might have otherwise been forced upon them. The children will learn to choose their own names and their own beliefs and their own religions. They will understand that they are all in this together, that all they have is trust, that if God exists she is very beautiful and that even if she does not they do awaken in a world to find themselves entrusted with each other.

And they will keep drawing pictures of each other, in every grade thereafter. They will learn each other’s names and learn of each other’s lives, not a single one left behind. And they will keep drawing pictures of each other, when they meet in colleges and places of work, they will get to know each other. They will learn to know each other’s eyes and when they get older they might cry when they show these pictures to their grandchildren telling them it has been so long since I have seen her eyes on mine.

Medicine for Man

2012-09-16T23:00:00.000-04:00

In some parts of the world today, battles are being fought for the establishment of religious dictatorships where religious laws are to be imposed upon an oppressed group of people. The oppressors are well-armed believers in the concept that a religion must be imposed as a form of law. The oppressed are the men, women and children of an expanding region who suffer under the violence of the oppressors.

The oppressors move amongst the oppressed, promulgating an undercurrent of whispered threats of violent retribution for any variance from the current local interpretations of the religious law. Those that would try to move the society out of the oppression and towards more rational belief systems and governments are brutally cut off from life.

At the root of a religious dictatorship is a concept of a malevolent supreme being who creates eternal hell for those who do not worship and who do not believe precisely the current version of the imposed dogma. But who is the leader of the oppression? Where is the dictator? To whom is the militant allegiance of the oppressors given?

If God exists at all, we know it is not she who is the dictator, because we can all see the decisions of God and they show that she is not malevolent towards man. Who is it then? We are looking for a blind entity, one that cannot see the things we all can see.

The dictator is a mindless molecular representation of an idea that resides in the mind of man. It mimics life in that it replicates and spreads from one thinker to the next, across the generations. It is not invulnerable, but it is well entrenched. The medicine that heals is knowledge, but the dictator executes hideous self defense against such incursions. It causes the production and release of chemicals in the brain that serve to protect and strengthen it. It forces a fear reaction that causes its hosts to physically ward off the light of reason.

The dictator then, is nothing but a false idea, an idea that somehow has become physically entrenched in the minds of man, taking up new posts in new minds in each new generation. How can the dictator be removed from power? To answer this one must peer backwards in time to the point of its origin. We will understand that its existence was inevitable. Like any of the great questions of philosophy, it arises on its own, without revelation, with nothing but observation of the universe followed by the wondering as to why things are as they are.

Man observed the universe and saw that great murderous beasts lived in the earth, threatening, attacking and killing the children of man. Why is this so? He wondered. Why are there thunderstorms and lightning strikes? Is the roar of thunder the same as the roar of the beast? Is there some great being living above the sky? Why is it so angry and malevolent towards man? What could be done to appease it?

Today, we understand the cause of thunder and lightning. But in those days we only understood that living entities would move against each other. So it was inevitable, it was predictable, that as man evolved to become a conscious being in this realm where life and death are uncertain, he would consider a concept of a thinking being who was more powerful than all other beings and this was the being who thundered in anger and cast fire down from the heavens towards man.

In times of great and terrifying natural disasters, man found himself murmuring desperate supplications to the powerful being, pleadings to end the torment. When man survived to see the end of the storm, he rationally concluded that the powerful being had listened to his prayer. Man then began to form more detail theories as to the desires of the powerful being. Man observed that the being cast lighning capriciously, killing man and child alike, and man drew the logical conclusions that the powerful being demanded sacrifices and burnt offerings.

From these original theories of the angry malevolent being behind the natural disasters, man evolved his spoken and written traditions and used the name of God to convey his understanding. Once the idea of the malevolent God took hold in the mind of man, it spread quickly, from parent to child, from chief to sentry, from brother to sister. It became entrenched throughout the land and it replicated through time, through the generations to today, the year, 2012. it is well entrenched, blinding the members of entire societies, inciting the blind to violence.

Today. the blind cannot see how beautiful is the universe and how beautiful is his creator. If he takes a moment to think of it, if he averts his eyes from his blind belief in his scriptures and spoken traditions, the dictator releases its poison in a flowing of false ideas: “But it just might be true! If you proceed to doubt you are destined for eternal burning torment at the hand of the all-powerful creator of Hell! You must bow down and worship him, for this life and for eternity you must worship the creator of Hell, you are worth nothing more than that!”

The flowing of the false ideas evokes the release of chemicals that cause a fear response, and the afflicted man begs silently in anguish for forgiveness for each tiny moment of a doubt. And the logical mind becomes compelled to carry this forward to murderous extremes, for is his failure not to kill the unbelievers not itself a sign of doubt? How can unbelievers be allowed to live in blasphemy against the most powerful creator of Hell? One must do all one can or he has failed to fully worship, appease and obey. And so we begin to understand the mind of the radical fundamentalist, the nature of his illness. He is truly lost, a sheep whose eyes are overgrown with wool, wandering in blindness through a wilderness, ruled by panic and by fear, acting out in a reflected anger, hatred and violence towards his fellow man, toward his own children.

The false idea tries to live in all of us, we have all inherited the idea of the malevolent creator of Hell who commands worship and specific belief. Our parents and our ancestors meant well, but they themselves were afflicted with the same parasite. From these original ideas we have evolved our books of scriptures, our Torahs, Bibles, and Qurans. Each book demands homage to the same malevolent creator of Hell.

As free societies began to evolve upon the earth, religious dogma found safe havens in which they could evolve. Benevolent forms of Christianity, Judaism and Islam began to exist. The ancient stories of a God who demanded the killing of women and children were seen as allegorical and not really true depictions of the character of God. But freedom has not spread throughout the earth. Religious dictatorships have become entrenched in societies, if not in constitution then in the murderous intent of clerics, scholars and blinded soldiers.

There are oppressed people who are crying out in silence for they cannot dare to cry out aloud. The blinded warrior himself, observing the spark of reason, dares not speak of it for fear of his afflicted comrade. But they all are seeking a way to escape and today there is nowhere that they can go. Freedom has been cut off. The dictator has a firm grip and is waiting to replicate itself, enforced into the minds of their children.

These children, with whom we are entrusted by the universe or by God herself if she exists, are born into a world where we ourselves are the conduit for the replication of the false ideas. We think it is our right and duty to force these false ideas of God into their minds well before they have reached the age of reason, well before they have achieved their education, well before they have achieved the political and cultural freedom and strength of mind to challenge us and prove to us that our ancient ideas of God are false ideas. Our children would heal the world if we would but ensure that they have educations and freedom of belief.

But we are beginning to evolve, we are opening up our eyes to study the universe, to study the creation. We never needed the opinions of our ancestors to understand the true nature of God. They themselves were mistaken. They themselves were also afflicted. They themselves inherited the false ideas of the malevolent God. If they do live on in an after life then we can see they do live on in anguish for they are no longer amongst us, they cannot stand to say that they were mistaken, that they should never have allowed the replication of this false idea borne out of misunderstandings of the forces of nature.

It is only we who can move to restore their peace. We can do this by protecting the next generations. We can establish human rights for children and that among these rights is the right to not be indoctrinated into any particular systems of belief. We will teach them about all beliefs but we will not insist to tell them they are born as believers in a particular belief simply because their parents are believers. We will carefully shepherd them through a rational educational process so that they can stand with us as adults and debate the benefits of the different systems of belief.

This is how we are healing ourselves. This is how we relegate the false ideas to their rightful place, to join with the myths of the ancient epochs of man. The dictator turns out to be nothing more than a false idea borne out of fear and ignorance of the forces of nature. This dictator is dissolved to nothing with the opening of ones eyes to view the beauty and wonder of the universe.

And if one wants to believe in God and he is struggling with this eviction, he has but to take a moment, an hour, a day, a week, or a season to remember that none of us can see God and so he is free to think of his creator as female and, instantly, all of the malevolence begins to fade. the believer finds himself standing to face the universe, eyes opened wide, discovering the great beauty and promise of the universe and the great beauty and promise of she who has created it if it is indeed her creation.

We are now evolving and extending freedom to the world. We are creating places of safety where the oppressed can come to live. We are making plans to turn our attention to the most severely afflicted. We are disarming and restraining the militant oppressors, we are teaching them how to open their eyes to learn, to finally see the things we all can see.

We are becoming atheists and rational theists, we are studying the cosmos to learn how to make the journey to spread our beautiful species throughout the innumerable watered planets warmed by their distant stars. In either form of universe, created or evolved, we are becoming repositories of trust for our children and we are educating them in truth and teaching them to love each other.

We are beautiful, in the eyes of our creator if she exists we are beautiful, in the extent of the beautiful universe we are the ones who live, the ones who love life, the ones who extend life and liberty to each other, we are beautiful, we are our brothers keeper.

The Universe We See

2012-08-25T16:33:00.000-04:00

If God exists, then this is the universe we see:

We can see that God creates children and entrusts them to humanity.
We can see that God is not required to do this, but that she continues to do this.
We can see the joy that children bring to us.
We can then conclude that God must greatly love us in order to continue to entrust us with these children.
We can see that she creates us to live, that, in her eyes, our lives have great value.
We can then ask ourselves what is the best response we can make to her.
We can see that the answer must be in the manner in which we treat each other and in the manner in which we raise her children.
We can see therefore that it is in our best interest to build relationships of mutual trust with our fellow man.

If God does not exist, then this is the universe we see:

We can see that each one of us has a choice: to live in solitude or to live in the community of man.
We can see that we sometimes we need assistance to live, fo, when we are ill or injured or without food and shelter.
We can see we have a basic choice, to fight or to get along.
We can see that if we decide to fight, there will be just one of us left standing, in a mortally wounded state.
We can see therefore that if we value life we should not fight.
We can see therefore that life itself is a value against which moral systems can be built. and that it is in our best interest to build relationships of mutual trust with our fellow man.

In either form of universe, created or evolved, we can see the same clear objective source for morality, that life itself is a value, and we draw its logical conclusion: It is in ourselves we are to trust, it is our bond that will enable us to build a world of peace.

We can begin to see those that betray trust are not necessarily evil, that instead they are lost, no longer able to see the logic of mutual trust. In some cases, they have become ill. In all cases, they are in need of interdiction, restraint, education, and healing.

We are all in need of rational education and freedom from enforced beliefs in ancient ideas of God that contradict the nature of the God we see if God exists at all.

The Decisions of Man

2012-08-05T10:06:00.001-04:00

If God exists, we can see God's nature by observing the Decisions of God. We can see that She continues to create children and entrust them to us. We can see that She is not required to do this, but She does so anyway. Is this decision of God an indication of benevolence, malevolence, or ambivalence?

Whatever your answer, you have learned a truth about God, without a Bible, Quran, or Torah, or any other writing of man. You observed the creation and you learned this without even a single word from God.

God is beautiful, we can see this with our own eyes, our ancestors were mistaken in the scriptures they wrote. God is not a creator of hell, She creates this exquisite universe as a most suitable place for man and then she bestows children upon us, trusting us to raise them. And then we can see from this that indeed, She gives us to each other, trusting us to bless and keep ourselves as beloved to each other as we were beheld in God's eyes when She created us.

We were never evicted from this garden She created. We eat of the tree of life every day in our every embrace and we eat of the knowledge of good and evil when we see that we can respond to the decisions of God by living as repositories of trust for one another, or, sadly, as something less than that. She does not forbid this, She grants us the power and the will to make the Decisions of Man, to decide to live as ones who are like She who created us, as lovers of the generations of Man.

We are beautiful. We are the children of God. And as we live we are being rewarded with a new generation of Man, spectacular in its beauty. Shall we love them? Shall we raise them to love each other? Or shall we instead force them to believe the ancient opinions of our ancestors who were driven by fear to conclude that God is angry and punishes forever the believers in other faiths?

Our ancestors were mistaken and we are mistaken to blindly believe them. And if they live on in an afterlife and can observe us, they are in anguish because they can see they have entrapped us. We are entrapped in fear to question the things that they wrote, the things that were never the word of God but only the opinions of man. We can end their anguish, we can make the Decisions of Man, we can stand in courage to correct their mistakes, to free ourselves from this trap and to hear the heavens resounding in applause.

The Knowledge of Good and Evil

2012-07-22T19:05:00.000-04:00

Speaking in reaction to the July 20 Colorado movie theatre shooting, President Obama tried to find words to express what such a tragedy means for all of us:

"Even as we learn how this happened and who's responsible, we may never understand what leads anybody to terrorize their fellow human beings like this," Obama said. "Such violence, such evil is senseless. It's beyond reason.”

In that last sentence, the reference is unclear. Are the understanding of such actions beyond the capability of reason, or are the acts themselves beyond reason? If the shooter had more carefully reasoned during the formulation of his plan, he would not have so acted "beyond reason." I think however that our capability to understand the event can be well within the bounds of reason. In many such events, the perpetrator is seeking justice for a series of real and imaginary injustices that have been endured.

The clear answer to this lies in the content of the shooters memory. However, does he still retain the intellectual capacity to relate the full content of his memory? And even if he does, can he be trusted to honestly convey the events that led to the reasons for his actions? In this respect, we are at the mercy of each other. We are all capable of lying to one another and because of the shooters actions, we should perhaps not trust him in this regard. And so for this reason, we might conclude that “We may never know...”

However, we do not need the detailed content of his memory; we can ascertain the general content instead. And for that we can examine the content of our own memories and we can speak in general terms as to the content of the memory of almost any man or woman.

We have all experienced injustices. The toddler experiences this when he sees a sibling favored. We experience this in grade school when a teacher's pet is favored. We have an innate sense of equality with one another and favoritism, without reason, is naturally seen as an injustice. For most of us, these little slights are ignored and we press on in life. After all, one might lose a contest of a flipping of a coin, but there are many coins ahead to flip in life.

For some though, it is a different story. The flipping of a coin is never fair. Have you ever witnessed someone being bullied? Have you ever known a classmate who was a universal source of scorn within the social order of the classroom? Have you witnessed or heard of these events where abuse was heaped for no other reason than the random circumstances of the object person's birth and upbringing. Examine your own conscience and place it in the consciousness of the scorned individual and honestly imagine the experiencing of such events. Perhaps your thoughts might go like this, when you wake up in the morning for another day of school and look into the mirror.

You can see that you are not as beautiful as those who are favored in your school.
You can see that your family is poor and uneducated.
You can see that your clothes are old and worn.
You know that you will be bullied once again today, by virtually everyone in your school.
You can see that you can end your own life and you have read that many people in your circumstances do indeed take such a final act.
You can see that you can instead endure the pain for as long as you can and hope for something better.
You can get used to the fact that every word you utter will be met with derision and laughter.
You can get used to the fact that the system of justice in your society permits these torments.
You have no friends, there is nobody to whom you can speak of these things.
You have sense of justice derived from the same rational observation of the universe visible to one and all: we are all born equal to one another, whether or not God exists.
Although you see the equality of human birth, it is apparent that society and its systems of justice do not uphold this truth in the case of you.

Now, imagine many years passing by and the improvement hoped for did not occur. Although blatant physical bullying does not occur so often as an adult, you are still not included in the social invitations. You still have no friends. You are not one of those who are favored in the university classroom. You cannot find employment in anything other than menial jobs. Add to this, for good measure, some very unpleasant memories from childhood; perhaps you were abused to the point where you felt that the sum of the value of your life was not more than that of a trash can or a toilet. Eventually, you find yourself wishing that you had never been born and suicide becomes more attractive, no longer at the dusk, but at the dawn of each new day.

For many like you, who have endured far less than you, suicide is the sad resolution. But, you, before you take that act, you think of justice, that there should be justice in the world.

If God exists, he is not just, you think, because he created a world where a child would have to endure a life like yours.

If God does not exist, the world is not just, you think, because it did not afford you a mechanism to request, with full dignity and right and respect, an injunction against those who were tormenting you.

For twenty four years the Colorado theater shooter lived as his brothers keeper. We do not know the extent of any abuse he might suffered as a child. We can know that those who endure such things wish there was a mechanism to clear their memories of such events. They have the bitter taste of the knowledge of the evil to which man is capable of descent. they would prefer death than to have to speak of the events. We do not know the quantity of injustices he endured while growing up.

But we can know that his act, as are all such attacks, a final attempt to bring justice to the world. Did he, as others who act like this, conceive of a world conspired against him, a world where he was doomed to failure and derision in the eyes of his society stemming from the circumstances of his birth and childhood, over which he had no control, and extending into his adult life where his fellow students now remark that nobody knew the young man, that he had no friends at all?

Society then, for these past twenty four years, left this young man behind. There was nobody to carefully bring him forward. The child retreated into silence and darkness. We have to find a way to bring them forward.

In either form of universe, created or evolved, good and evil have the same definitions. Although expressed in different words in each one of us as toddlers and as infants, before we can speak or understand the language spoken by our family, we all discover the same question that is at the heart of all moral choices:

Am I my brother's keeper?

The Physics of Reincarnation

2012-06-03T02:28:00.000-04:00

Consider two thinkers, Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. We could choose any two thinkers born in separate centuries, but these two will do just fine. In our thought experiment, we have a two time travelling ships equipped with scientific instruments. We travel invisibly so as not to disturb the events we shall witness, and we have a way to be in both machines at once.

In one machine, we journey to the time when Newton was one month of age and in the other, we find Einstein at the same age. Let us stipulate that these two infants, like many infants, look more or less the same. However, none of us knows which machine is which and therefore, we are not sure yet which one of the infants is which. We know that if we follow them forward in time, they will eventually physically differentiate and we will have no problem identifying which one is Einstein and which is Newton. (In this experiment, we are unable to view the surrounding events and period pieces to help us identify them. We see the infants only and they are dressed in equivalent clothing.)

Now, turn back the hands of time ten more months each, to the moment of their conceptions and then forward to the first splitting of the cells. We cannot tell which one is Newton and which one is Einstein.

Now let us follow the zygotes forward in time slowly. At some point in time, between the zygote and the toddler, each one of them perceived their own existence. In other words, at some point, perhaps in the womb or some time shortly thereafter, they expressed, in their own internal language, the meaning of the sentence that we express as "I exist."

"I exist", said Sir Isaac Newton, in his own internal silent language, perhaps startled when he found that he had hands attached to him that were not the attending hands of his mother. "I have these … appendages, I am like her! I wonder if I have a ... yes! I have what I might someday call a nose! And eyes! Ouch!"

Albert Einstein has the same conversation, in his own internal language. Neither one of them has a language that we can understand, but each one of them is a thinking human being abstracting the fact of their own existence, attaining, in this moment, an equivalency of consciousness.

Let us presume that this happens during the third month of infancy. They have now more clearly differentiated physically. But, what do the boys know? They see different mothers, but, what do they know about mothers other than as a familiar face who attends to them? Neither one of them knows that there are other mothers in the world. The taste of their milk is different, but, what do they know of milk? Neither one of them knows that there are other kinds and flavors of milk. Their knowledge of milk is equivalent in that it is the thing they drink to quell their hunger and the taste of it brings no practical difference in new knowledge.

So, observe the boys. Are they not equivalent in every meaningful sense? But, we can see them, simultaneously in our thought experiment, and so we know they are not the same conscious being. But let us now push the reset button. We are back in our own time, still not sure which infant was Newton and which one as Einstein. But today, we know that they both went on to live and die. They were born in separate centuries, not simultaneously as we have just observed. They both exclaimed "I exist' at different points in the landscape that we in retrospect call space-time. Einstein attained an equivalency of consciousness with that of Sir Isaac Newton, but after Sir Isaac Newton had died.

So how can we tell that the infant Albert Einstein is NOT the re-emergence of Isaac Newton in any meaningful sense? How can they themselves tell the difference? At the moment of their attainment of consciousness, they were not differentiated in any meaningful sense with respect to the content of their consciousness, comprised, in that moment, in the understanding that "I exist".

The absolute meaning of "I exist" can be difficult to grasp. When it first was uttered in your infancy, it was followed by a conceptualization of "me". The terms you used then were not English words. Whatever they were, they became symbols in your subconscious mind. Later you learned the language and adopted the words "I" and "me". Einstein adopted the terms "ich" and "mir" to describe the same symbols. At the symbolic level, at the moment of the taking on of consciousness, there is an equivalency of consciousness, a physical state of being, an event known as the same event amongst all who do so become conscious. In retrospect, we can see that each are different events but with respect to the infant in our arms, we cannot prove that one who has long ago died has not re-emerged into this new conscious life.

It almost doesn't matter who you were before if you can be enabled to find the important ideas you left in the world. The balance of your former private memories are perhaps best left sleeping. This can be a rational meaning of death, a reason why death is selected by evolution. We can survive and thrive in an endless universe if we can shed the weight of our memories that might otherwise drive us down in depression and remorse. Like snakes, we shed the skins of our former memories and emerge in the gilded grass anew.

The physical laws of consciousness are the same for each individual. Matter and space-time combine to form barriers between us, to create a net effect of separate individuality during a specific epoch-place of space-time. Today we are living in the epoch-place of earth in the year numbered 2012. In the year 2300, we will no longer exist as conscious beings who have our specific memories attached. We will instead be conscious beings who have different memories attached. But each one of us will once again be saying, "I exist" and fully embracing the ecstasy thereof.

At the moment that the infant conceives his own existence, he is equivalent to every other infant who conceives the same, without regard to the time frame in which the acknowledgement occurs. Your expression of “I exist” is the same expression made by Sir Isaac Newton, the same expression made by Einstein, the same expression made by Cleopatra. Your consciousness, once emerged, then differentiates and becomes relative to the events of your life that form your memories.

Today, you are You. You are the being that took on consciousness and differentiated to become yourself. You will die someday and after that an infant will say "I exist". The infant will be You, once again, taking on consciousness, free of the detailed content of your current memories, the things that did not go exactly as you might have wished. Your memory is clean and new.

You will be living in a future age, you will be reading the knowledge of the things you wrote as Newton or as Einstein or as Moses or as the conscious being you are today. You will read these writings and correct them and improve them. You will reforge the far flung universe to make a place to live, you will settle on your evening porch and will to light your pipe under skies fading from pink to seven moons.

Created or evolved, you are living now and you can prepare the way, not the way of the Lord, but prepare the way of the child. Prepare ye the way of You.

The Fountainhead of Moral Laws

2012-04-13T22:28:00.000-04:00

We know, from a study of the Problem of Evil argument, that whether or not God exists, there is no evil on the earth until man appears. Man defines evil according to the manner in which he treats his fellow man. At the core of every evil act is a betrayal of trust. This is true in any universe where thinkers are free-willed and autonomous. This is true if God does or does not exist.

When we are born, we have no choice but to trust. Our only hope for survival is that there is somebody, worthy of our trust, who will keep us safe from harm until such time as we have grown to the wisdom and maturity to stand on our own.

We learn to betray each other when we are very young. We learn that we can lie. This starts in the crib, when we discover that we can draw our mother near if we feign a cry of distress. We do not have the conscious vocabulary to verbalize the concepts, but our subconscious is hard at work, storing information in symbols we can no longer consciously understand. Now that we are older, our minds do the work of bubbling up concepts, from our subconscious, and transforming them to courses of action that sometimes escape as impulsive reactions. If you hit your thumb with a hammer in your own garage a colorful curse might escape with abandon. If you are in the company of small children you might catch this impulse and exclaim something more carefully thought out, causing laughter from the children themselves to escape with the same abandon.

At some point in time, still while we are very young and not capable of practical language, we develop our own internal language and we babble all day long about anything that is on our minds. Sometimes, to attract attention, we will make up a story and speak it, unaware that nobody can understand what we are saying. And, if our story has the intended effect of gaining attention, we begin to understand, in our own internal language, the power of the lie.

We learn at the age of 2 or 3 that we can cause another being to veer off of a natural course if we can get him or her to believe a lie. We understand that we must temper this power because we have developed relationships of concern for those close to us. We do not want to lead them down the wrong path. We want them to have good sources of trust in a world where all can lie. We understand that we can be somebody that they can trust. We understand all of this, in our own language while we are still very young.

In the struggle for life, a well-executed lie can be the difference between life and death. This is true throughout the animal kingdom and it is no less true in the mind of man. Therefore it is important that we learn early on about the power of the lie. Evolution, or our creator herself, has brought us to this state, empowering us with the capacity to lie.

The fountainhead of moral laws is in your consciousness. You always, without exception, within your own internal court of reason, condemn yourself for each instance in which you have judged that you betrayed another’s trust. You cannot escape from this; the testimony of your memory is unimpeachable and your internal moral code is clear. You could have behaved as a repository of trust. Instead you behaved as something less than that.

You have within yourself a perfect system of justice with respect to the things you know. You can choose. You are not a robot. You are a physical law of the universe. You are the fountainhead of moral laws.

The Birth of Physical Laws

2012-04-03T21:29:00.002-04:00

Book Review: Free Will by Sam Harris

Well known atheist and New York Times bestselling author Sam Harris has authored a new book entitled Free Will that is dedicated to the proposition that free will is an illusion. The rationale is clear and compelling. It is a short monograph; the main content is about 70 pages followed by a section of references and endnotes.

Do we live in a deterministic universe? Is each future state of the universe determined absolutely by a prior state? Or is the opposite true? Can a certain state of the universe come into existence without absolute dependence on the constitution of a prior state? The key word is "absolute." If, for example, in any new state of the universe, a random element is introduced, then that state is not absolutely dependent on the prior state. This view of the universe is labeled as indeterminism.

The problem with the standard notion of free will is that it appears to be incompatible with either form of universe. Mr. Harris lays out the reasons for this very clearly. This understanding of free will is labeled as incompatibilism.

But, what exactly is the 'standard notion' of free will? As Mr. Harris points out, the definition can vary and change over time from person to person.

Harris quotes Einstein:

Honestly, I cannot understand what people mean when they talk about the freedom of the human will. I have a feeling, for instance, that I will something or other; but what realtionship this has to freedom I cannot understand at all. I feel that I will to light my pipe and I do; but how can I connect this up with the idea of freedom? What is behind the act of willing to light the pipe? Another act of willing?

Einstein is not compelled to light the pipe. If he were a robot, the lighting of the pipe would be part of the behavior 'detemined' by his programmer. So, when Einstein lights his pipe, who, or what, is doing the "determining?"

NYU Professor of Philosophy Ned Block points out how in the face of incompatibility he decided to adopt a more restricted notion of free will. This position is labeled as compatiblism.

Tufts University Professor of Philosophy Daniel Dennett further refines a compatibilist view. We act because of reasons and further we share our reasons with one another. The concept of 'responsibility' is introduced as wearing its definition on its sleeve. We can be responsible to one another because we are capable of responding to one another.

University of Reading Professor of Philosophy Galen Strawson’s argument against free will is based on a definition of free will as the individuals being solely, ultimately, and singularly responsible for his decisions. Mr. Harris maintains similar positions throughout his book.

Must the notion of free will be glued to the notion of responsibility? Some theists propose that the answer is yes, implying that one is responsible to God, however this is a non-sequiter. Free will can be a bona-fide subject of discussion in both created and non-created universes. The concept of free will, in and of itself, cannot be associated with a concept of responsibility, until one first defines the concept of free will and then answers the question: "To whom, if anyone, is one responsible?" Free will can exist without regard to the asking or the answering of that question.

All choices are constrained by the physical laws of the universe. For example, if one is starving and finds two bushes of berries, one red and the other blue, he must make a decision as to which one of them, if any, is safe to eat. He must eat, and his choices are restricted, but he is free to make a choice. This is absolute freedom in every sense of the word. He is not compelled by prior circumstances to choose red over blue or vice versa. He can flip a coin, or perhaps he can feed some of the berries to animals to observe their effect.

The ‘free’ in free will refers not to the quantity or quality of choices. It refers to the individual’s capacities to make a choice and to carry it out. If, in the example above, only red berries were found, the choice remained to eat no berries at all and to press on instead for more reliable food. Yes, death is the risk, but death is the risk of life itself.

Definition of Free Will

Free will is the collection of the following four capacities of a thinking agent:

The capacity to observe the present: Options exist out of which one or more can be chosen.
The capacity to observe the past: To use ones memory in the evaluation of the current options.
The capacity to conceive of the future: To predict the probable net effect on future states of the different choices that might be made.
The capacity to carry out a selected choice.

The net effect of the possession of free will, in a deterministic or indeterministic universe, is to act in conjunction with the physical laws of the universe to determine, predict and cause the existence of a selected future state. The will of man thus becomes a physical law of the universe. In a non created universe, the physical laws of the universe have dictated that new physical laws will come into existence and we see them arise with each newborn child. In a created universe we see the same thing and more, for we see our children as the continuous gifts of a loving creator who entrusts is with their care.

The autonomous thinkers of free will, be they atheist or be they theist, can reason together to create the rationale and the enactment that will ensure freedom of thought for all newborn children so that they can cause to exist a selected future state of world peace and the realization of an effort to spread the human population across the universe. We are physical law of the universe, created or evolved, we can move the ancient mountains, in faith or in resolve.

Honor in the Court of Reason

2012-03-09T23:39:00.000-05:00

Every man is honorable within his own high court of reason. He has all of the evidence, his testimony is unimpeachable, he knows the truth of the things that he has done. He sees himself as his own perfect witness, his own perfect prosecutor, how own perfect judge, and his own perfect jury.

If God does not exist, the honorable man can hope for the certainty of death. Thinking processes are ended, memories are dissolved, and he truly rests in peace. He can, before his time is up, make whatever improvements he can make in the world as partial reparations for what he sees as guilt.

If instead at death he finds himself in the arms of God, it is not her judgement that he fears. Those ones that he hurt in life, to whom he might have brought joy instead, did suffer at his hand and time cannot be unwound to make amends. A man who has caused pain to others at some times during his life, will himself ask God for the gates of hell. He will reject any offer of salvation. He will have judged himself as unworthy of living with decent people and he will seek his eternal punishment because there is no other way that he can see to repair what he has done.

And if this is you, yes you, the one reading, then after this contemplation, you will finally lift your head towards the face of God, in courage and in honor, to ask her for the justice of your punishment. And you will be astounded at her wisdom, the wisdom you see in her eyes when you find yourself at last within her vision, her contemplation of your being.

She knows the origin events; she sees what you can never see. She sees your conception and your evolution in the womb, she sees your birth and the perfection of the innocence of your youth. She sees your nature, that you were created as an autonomous thinker and that you are capable of doubting the truth of every word you hear and the meaning of everything you see. And she sees how you labored in your years of life in your constant state of not knowing the things you thought you should wish to know.

And then you learn that another witness must be heard there, in your own high court of reason. It is she who is your most perfect witness, she has seen the things you could not see. And she will stand as well, as an unrelenting friend, to your own high court of reason and she will make clear the paths to follow for your peace and you exoneration.

And one of these might be this very world, in the very state in which you left it. And you might see then that there is no other just punishment, you must be born again, in the world, and suffer under the consequences of what you did and what you failed to do. You are honorable within your own high court of reason.

She will offer this as a path to follow and if you are to accept it, you will once again be born, a newborn child, untroubled by your prior memories, capable of the greatest goodness, a precious gift to man. Yes you, you are given to the world of man, precious in the sight of God. We are given to each other, we can see this with our own eyes, we have never needed a prophet or a scripture to instruct us, we have had only to consider our response to God.

And even today, while you still live, you live as precious within her sight. And perhaps this is your second life, or your third or fourth on earth. And maybe now, you can decide, to create a world of peace for man.

You can see clearly now, that man is lost, we are as sheep without a shepherd. How is it that you will rise? What gentle things can you do, now that you are wise, to at last lead man to a world of peace? In your own high court of reason, if you could pay your debts, would the price be any less than this?

A 500 Year Plan

2012-03-02T20:44:00.003-05:00

We are transforming our world to a place of peace by learning to raise our children to love one another.

The people of the world are beginning to rise and they are seeking to transform the world to a place of peace. They understand that atheists and theists must work together to make this happen. Theists and atheists are changing in many ways for this very purpose.

Theists are beginning to understand that God expresses no objection to atheism. While it is true that our Bibles, Qurans and other scriptures seem to hint otherwise, theists are beginning to question these conclusions.

Theists are beginning to understand that, If God truly exists, the overwhelming love of God for man is evident in the fact that God continues to give us children in spite of our sad history of raising them to mistrust or even hate each other.

Observing this love of God, theists are beginning to understand that God would never give a Bible, Quran or other book of scripture to man because he observes that we will emerge with separate interpretations and create our separate groups of religions that cause us to mistrust and fight with each other.

Instead of a book, theists are beginning to understand that God gave us our senses and thinking processes to observe the creation. Observing the creation, and the overwhelming love of God, theists can now see clearly that their ancestors were mistaken in many of the ideas expressed in the scriptures. If our ancestors do live on in an afterlife, and if they can observe our progress, theists are beginning to understand that our ancestors would have a source of anguish because they never intended for us, their descendants, to fear to question their opinions. They wish instead that we would fully examine their writings and make the corrections that they themselves are no longer able to make.

Theists understand now that it is the unquestioning belief in scripture that is preventing the theists and the atheists from transforming our world into a place of peace. They are now examining their scriptures, and comparing what their ancestors wrote to what they see with their own eyes. They are carefully considering their long held beliefs and they are understanding how they must gradually adjust so that they can truly begin to raise their children to love all of the children of God. They understand that this is not an overnight process. Some of them take great comfort in their current belief system and with good reason find that they should not change what they believe, sometimes because of an inescapable fear of condemnation and for these people it is up to the rest of us to allow them their beliefs while making improvements for the younger generations.

Form this we can all see that this process will require a continuous collaboration of the generations of man. This positive work begins in this generation, the generation of 2012. Our children will carry it forward. Some of them will continue to fall into the traps of unquestioning belief in the opinions of their ancestors but as each generation passes, more and more of the children of God will be transitioning to more rational belief systems that are designed to enable all of man to work together to at least build a beautiful world of peace.

The theists and the atheists will be working together to make this happen. How can the theists begin to trust the atheists? The theists can see that the atheists are changing too.

Atheists are beginning to understand that if they can make a full commitment to a plan for transforming the world to a place of peace, then the theists themselves would be encouraging them to take leadership roles in governments throughout the world. The theists understand that atheists who think and act with reason and logic toward a global state of peace and equality will have an important role to play in any viable plan.

The atheists understand that the theists perhaps have the most critical role, because it is the theists who must begin the great adjustment to the beliefs passed on to them by their ancestors and to begin to raise their children, not in slavish belief in written opinion, but in knowledge and in love.

So a clear foundation for mutual trust between theists and atheists is reachable by beginning the work to create a generational-spanning plan to transform the world to a place of peace. This writer considers that it will take 500 years of gradual generational improvements in the education of each new generation of children as well as gradual improvements in the governments of man but this is just a starting point for discussion. It could take less or more time than that.

The discussions are just beginning. What is your opinion?

A Universal Moral Code

2012-02-25T15:39:00.000-05:00

Theamology, like atheism, requires a secular moral code, a code that is not dependent on religious writings or beliefs. Moral concepts are created using conclusions derived, as a course of reason, from an observation of the universe. The difference between an atheist and a theamologist is the manner in which they observe the universe. The theamologist first makes an assumption that the universe is created and then observes the universe to see if anything can be learned about the nature of the creator. The atheist makes no such assumption. In theamology, here at the beginning of our new epoch of understanding, we use the feminine pronouns to reference God and call her by the name of Thea. The reasons for this are found elsewhere in this blog.

The theamologist observes the universe and discovers that, if Thea does indeed exist, she is careful to not disclose any evidence of such existence to man. Therefore the theamologist observes the same physical universe as the atheist: they both see no evidence whatsoever for the existence of a creator.

The theamologist, having assumed the existence of a creator, can conclude that the creator had some choices to make in the manner in which the created thinkers would be given to live with one another. The theamologist next observes that, in spite of our sad history in the manner in which we treat our children, Thea continues to entrust us with newborn children. The theamologist now understands that he is given a choice, he can live as a repository of trust for children, or he can live as something less than that. From this observation the theamologist can conclude that he is held as dearly beloved by his creator. From these observations, questions of morality are clarified. Thea never had to speak a word in order for man to learn a rational basis for a moral code. We have had only to observe the universe to learn the difference between good and evil. The theamologist begins to understand that it is not only his children with whom he has been gifted, but it is every other man and woman as well. We can be repositories of trust for one another, or we can be something less than that. The basic moral good for the theist then is to live as a repository of trust for his fellow man. Anything less than that can be considered to be on a course towards that which is not good, or that which is evil.

This moral code can be understood to be secular in that it is not dependent on the speeches or writings of man, nor is it dependent on any purported word of God. It is derived form a strict observation of the universe. As such it is suitable as a reasonable basis for a secular, non-religious moral code for our world.

The atheist makes no such assumption as to the existence of a creator. How can the atheist come to an agreement with the theist as to the basis for a moral code. What can be a basis for a rational, secular morality?

In the secular world, morality is declared. Man stands as a group and takes oaths to defend the notion that all people are born equal. Each person is entitled to freedom from oppression, of any kind, from any other person, group of persons, or legal entity, including business, religious, and governmental entities. Our governments, religions, and business institutions shall not oppress the individual.

We can see that such declarations are congruent with the theists understanding that he must live as a repository of trust for his fellow man. Accordingly, the theists can now begin to work with the atheists to finally establish the rationale behind a universal moral code for man and this of necessity will be in the form of a declaration, arrived at after rational debate. The work begins today, at the dawning of our new epoch of understanding. Where can we begin?

It begins today, in all countries of the world. Each new generation, in each country must take an objective look at their founding documents, make the necessary corrections, and improve them for the next generations. After a progression of generational improvements, each country will become more aligned with the others in their devotion to the establishment to absolute freedom form oppression and the creation of an equalization of opportunity for each individual. It will not happen overnight. It will be a result of a collaboration of the generations.

In America, it is time we stood and examined our founding documents. Did our ancestors get everything right?

For example, in their preliminary writings, they spoke clearly of a separation of church and state. However in our constitution, this is not so clearly spelled out. Were they mistaken in this regard? It appears that indeed they were mistaken, because we see today the separate sects of religions tryi9ng to impose their scriptural moral values on other citizens through writ of law, in spite of what appears to be a clear inclination on the part of our founders that there be a complete and certain separation of church and state.

As another example, are our founding documents in error because there is no clear separation between business and state? After all, we do observe that big business, through its powerful mechanisms of influence over elected officials, has a major influence on the laws that are created. This can be seen to result in oppression, where the individual rights to engage in free trade are restricted by being forced to make deals with the larger businesses who have entrenched themselves through writ of law. Do we need improvement here? Did our ancestors fail to for see this in their original writings?

We must correct the writings of our ancestors. We must no longer accept them as perfect in any way. Our ancestors did they best they could, in the time when they lived, and if they do somehow live on they are counting on us to examine their work and to make the corrections where needed to improve the world to a global state of peace. To fail to do so is to dishonor them. It is an act of fear to fail to question their writings and we know they meant well, and it was not their intention that we would be reduced to a state of fear in regards to correcting them. This applies to religious and political writings. We must learn to have the courage to challenge everything that has been written.

We have a clear path forward, the atheists and the theists can agree on a set of reasoned moral tenets that are not dependent on any system of belief, but rather on a grasping of each other’s hands in trust, that we shall re-engineer our world to a state of peace, however long it takes.