Why I have stopped participating in religous blog discussions

To those of you who have been used in the past to my comments on various blogs for which religious belief is at the heart, I have decided that it serves so little purpose as to be a waste of time.  Most of the mainstream blogs are close knit communities of likeminded belevers, who use these blogs to reassure themselves of their faith.  They usually only welcome 'civilised' non-believers as guests in order to reinforce their own sense of belonging - It's harder to remain cohesive unless there are 'outsiders' to fend off. 

Too many times when atheists have commented and produced strong arguments against what they see as illogical or unsustainable views, the faithful band together and become ever more illogical and fervent in defending the undefendable.

However, my participation has resulted in some helpful  (to me) outcomes;

• I am even better informed about religious belief in general, and the various forms of Christianity in particular.
• I think I have a clearer understanding of what it is that makes many people more prone to belief in supernatural cause/influence/purpose
• I have gained a greater understanding and acceptance of what it is to be a Humanist
• I am convinced that there is no higher purpose to life.  This is all there is. And it no longer troubles me

Epicurus - Much misunderstood, but maybe an admirable example?

What does the term 'Epicurean' imply to you?  To many it implies unbridled hedonism, excess and lack of moral compass. 

But is this really to see him through a lens distorted by political and religious opponents, who saw him as a threat to the fabric of their society?  I am grateful to Alain De Botton for his book 'The Consolations of Philosophy' from which much of the following enlightening material is taken:

Epicurus was born in 341BC on the island of Samos near the coast of Western Asia Minor.  Athens was then the hub to which he gravitated. He took to philosophy from his early teens and read widely.  He was unsatisfied by the conclusions of previous philosophers, so decided that he would come up with his own philosophy of life.  He is said to have written a huge number of books, though sadly almost all have since been lost. 

The 'sound bite' that people tend to latch onto was his view on the fundamental importance of sensual pleasure.  ("Pleasure is the beginning and the goal of a happy life").  This was profoundly shocking to the society in which he lived, for which the great virtues were deemed to be the acquisition of wealth, and courage in battle.  His decision to spend his wealth on setting up a kind of commune to study philosophy, and in particular the pursuit of pleasure, was considered a threat to the fabric of 'civilised' society.  And superficially one can see their point.

But actually Epicurus was teaching a much simpler and arguably purer way of life.  His guiding principles were:

• Friendship We don't exist unless someone can see us existing; what we say has no meaning until someone can understand; while to be surrounded by friends is to constantly have our identity confirmed.  True friends do not evaluate us by worldly criteria.  It is the core self in which they are interested; like ideal parents, their love for us remains unaffected by our appearance or position in the social hierarchy, and so we have no qualms in dressing in old clothes and revealing that we have made little money this year.
• Freedom  In order not to have to work for people they did not like, Epicurus and his companions removed themselves from commercial Athenian society and accepted  the simpler life of an isolated commune, in exchange for independence.  This did not affect their sense of status because they had ceased to judge themselves on a material basis.  Among a group of friends living outside the political and economic confines of the City, there was nothing - in the financial sense - to prove.
• Thought  "There are few better remedies for anxiety than thought.  In writing down a problem, or airing it in conversation, we let its essential aspects emerge.  And by knowing its character, we remove, if not the problem itself, then its secondary, aggravating characteristics: confusion, displacement, surprise.  About death Epicurus would say that it is senseless to alarm oneself in advance about a state which one could never experience (he was convinced there was no afterlife) He said: "There is nothing dreadful in life for a man who has truly comprehended that there is nothing terrible in not living."

Epicurus summed up what he believed was, and was not, essential for happiness as follows:

• Natural and necessary:  Friends, freedom, thought, food, shelter and clothes
• Natural but unnecessary:  Grand house, Banquets, Private baths, Servants, Fish, Meat
• Neither natural nor necessary: Fame, Power

With only minor modification this could equally be true today.

Epicurus also found that conspicuous wealth, or wealth over a relatively modest size, did not increase happiness.  Indeed he was adamant that without the 'natural and necessary' prerequisites, wealth could not bring happiness.  We can do without most of the material things that we erroneously think that we do need, and still be happy, if we only have the necessary requirements for happiness.

This is a very brief and hence superficial summary of his philosophy, but I hope it offers a flavour of the true Epicurus.  I find him rather endearing!

If I had one, would I press a button that would instantly end my life?

I find it curious that the people I know who believe in an afterlife tend to be the most horrified by death.  Surely they should look forward to the afterlife?  It is the people who are left behind, in whose emotional lives there appears a great hole, who deserve our grief. Yet many articles that cover violent death by suicide bombers and others focus exclusively on the victim(s) and the perpetrator(s), all of whom are no longer with us to hear.

As an atheist I am as convinced as I can be that when we die there is nothing.  We cease to exist.  I know that thought terrifies a lot of people.  But I don't feel that terror.  I find the prospect of ceasing to exist quite comforting.  Nothing to regret, no 'if-only's, no knowledge of deeply troubling things of which one was mercifully unaware as a human being.

All one becomes is a memory in the minds of those we leave behind, and within about 3 generations even that fades to no more than a couple of anecdotes.  And so our footprint in the sand is finally erased.  Even famous people are only remembered for what other people say and write about them.  Do we really know what Elizabeth Ist was like to be with,or how she spoke to those with whom she was intimate?  We know a great deal about her, but only as observed, imperfectly, by others; and by what she chose herself to let us know about her.

Does it worry me that my life could end in a few seconds, and all the knowledge that I have amassed over many years, the friendships and loves I have found, the relationships I have had; all immediately ceases except as an imperfect memory in other people's minds; with the things that only I can know, or things that I choose not to reveal about myself ,all dying with me, never to be known. In a word: 'No'.

And so, would I press that button right now?  Hmm...  I have to say 'that depends'...  If I could do so without causing distress and hardship to those close to me who I leave behind, then the answer would be 'Yes'.  But life just ain't that simple.  I find it curious that what most keeps me resigned to staying alive is the horror of what ending my life would do to people left behind, even though, by not existing, I would never experience their pain.

Strange thing, empathy....

“I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; / A palace and a prison on each hand.”

I was reminded by an item on the radio of Byron's works. It reminded me of the alliteration Byron uses with Palace/Prison that so impressed me many years ago.  So many thoughts, dreams and ideas contained in just this one brief combination of ideas.   Sublime!

Is it possible to be a romantic and not to believe in anything outside the natural World?  I think our minds play tricks on us all the time, and we imagine that there are greater forces at work because we simply do not understand our own minds.  But is that such a surprise?  It would perhaps be even more strange if we could understand fully how our minds work.  Hmm...

There is no God?

Recently I've been thinking again about ways that Humanists and Believers can accommodate each others' views, and live side by side, disagreeing but respecting their differing view on the fundamental reasons for our existence.

For a long time I've tried to accommodate the views of believers, based on that aphorism that I can no more disprove the existence of God than a believer can prove God's existence.  I thought I understood religion and chose to reject it on the probability of evidence, and because I found rational explanations so convincing.  But recently I've been trying to really understand religious motivation in a lot more depth, half hoping that I might find something there that would provide a better reason for intelligent believers to believe. 

I have to say that I have failed to find anything.  On the contrary, religion seems all the more ridiculous the more I study it. I presume religion is still ingrained into the human psyche as a by-product of the evolutionary need to find meaning in everything.  I suppose that if one makes that leap of faith and accepts religion as being valid and wants it to be a core part of ones life, then it is relatively easy to find 'truths' that reinforce and augment that desire.  One has only to read many of the blogs that deeply devout people write to witness how they convince themselves at every stage that they are doing the right thing, often relying on hugely partial 'evidence' and ignoring or explaining away that which does not fit their chosen narrative. 

Is that aphorism really valid at all though?  Is belief in a supernatural entity just an idea on a spectrum somewhere between belief in the celestial tea pot and belief in the laws of physics?  And isn't it really quite a long way towards the celestial tea pot?  If so, then am I acting morally in doing nothing to try to stop people leading their whole lives believing, and sometimes ruining them as a result?

To a believer this may sound extremely arrogant.  I would prefer to think that it was an honest statement of how I feel about this.  As ever, my thoughts are very much work in progress.  I record them for future reference.  I wonder how I will feel about this in 6 months time.

Nietsche was right. There is no God.

OK, so it's an attention grabbing headline.  But having just re-read some of Nietsche's writings I am even more impressed by his ideas, which were truly innovative when he wrote them. 
For many this is a bleak conclusion, and they find it very hard to believe that there really is fundamentally nothing more to life than to reproduce and die.
But this need not be such a bleak conclusion if one accepts life for what it is, and models one's way of life on that premise.  It is possible to lead a full and satisfying life under this truth. 
Religion is so deeply ingrained into our culture that it is not something which it is either necessary nor desirable to try to oust immediately.  There will always be some who need the security of religious belief, and who will never be convinced of the alternative, which is arguably intellectually more challenging. 
However, religious extremism remains one of the major problems facing humankind.  And supplanting one  religion with another religion does not solve the problem.  There will always be those who seek violence, and whilst there are religions there will always be those who use it as the irrational justification for their acts.  Humanism does not breed suicide bombers...
I seem to be going though a phase when I feel particularly negatively towards religion.  I think it has outlived its usefulness, and I'm frustrated that people are so deeply indoctrinated that any amount of contrary evidence is dismissed, at the same time that any amount of supportive heresay and unreliable witness reports are unquestioningly accepted.  Far too frequently believers put up their own 'straw men' to discredit a non-religious view - often 'staw men' that fundamentaly misunderstand or misinterpret what Atheists actually believe.  I admit that many non-believers make no real effort to understand religion in any great depth, but it's my experience that the more conscientious atheists frequently tend to understand the religion of those with whom they argue to a greater depth than those who defend their religion.
What to do about all this though?  Hmm...

Belief in a benificent God is surely an exercise in human wish fulfilment?

Although we feel that the most truthful things are our feelings, in actual fact these feelings are very manipulable. The mind's scepticism is willingly disarmed so that skillful rhetoric stops people being able to think clearly and be critical of what’s being offered. People willingly put themselves in a position to be hypnotized and to lose their powers of reason.

The more bodies you put together the less individual minds remain independent. Intense feeling gets under people’s skin. It’s like joining in a communal purge. They start to speak in tongues. Freudians would say it’s free association - They will speak the truth of their desire. They think that if they speak in this way then it bypasses self censoring, and they start to believe that they can commune truth direct with God.

Welcome to Pentecostalism - a religion for the 21st Century?  It's like a political movement without a central core (unlike Catholicism). Anybody can start a Pentecostalist Church. There is no central doctrine or control. In South America Pentecostalism threatens to supplant Catholicism as predominant Church. And it is also strong in China and in Korea, and even underground in N Korea.
It's been said to be‘In love with the poor’ - it speaks to their needs, and gives their lives purpose.

Of course, it's all fantasy, but if it makes people happy and encourages civilised behaviour amongst many who need something they feel is external to them to tap their innate sense of morality then maybe it is not so bad.  Hmm...

Mike Behe and Michael Reiss debate ID

This link is to the audio recording on Premier Christian Radio. I was curious to know if Mike Behe would say anything new on his recent UK tour. 
In this respect I found the debate beyween Mike Behe and Michael Reiss in Scotland this week particularly enlightening.  I have to say that after hearing it I was even less impressed by the argument for I.D. than I was beforehand.  Ironically this was in large part because he was debating not with a secularist, but with a very sincere Christian.  Thus the 'well he would say that wouldn't he' type defence would not work. 

In fact Michael Reiss makes a very good case for there being no need to even go down the I.D. road, for belief in God as the creator does not require this kind of limited view.  To me the whole I.D. idea seems to be counter-productive - particularly as many 'prrofs' have been proven over and over to be fundamentally flawed.  Conversely the supposed arguments against Evolution can so easily be refuted.

I do hope for the future health of the Christian religion that this gimmicky I.D. idea gets consigned to history sooner rather than later.  It's a silly notion that may sell books and make some people feel good about themselves, but ultimately just takes many gullible people down a dead end.

Ok, so God did it - but which God?

So often one seems to come across debates between a non believer on one side, and a believer in the dominant God of that particular culture, on the other side.  The alternatives frequently appear to be 'No God' or 'This God'.

But isn't that missing out a vital step?  If I'm to believe that the the natural Universe was indeed created by a deity, how can I be sure that it was, for example, the Christian deity rather than the God of a number of other competing religions?

To be honest, the fact that there are many so many people who equally fervently believe that 'their' God is the true God, leaves me wondering how many people of the hghest integrity must, by definition, be utterly deluded.  Pity those poor wretches who may devote their whole life to their chosen religion, and maybe even die for it, when their belief is nothing but a delusion.


How can one tell who is deluded?  There are no proofs or logical explanations for any of these competing deities, and much of the 'evidence' would not last 5 minutes if subjected to impartial scientific scrutiny...

I remain perplexed by people's wholly illogical behaviour.

Science vs. Religion - 'Kay's view

I came across this comment on a fundamentalist religious apologist's site.  It's quite succinct and to the point so I thought I'd quote it for future reference

"For milennia, religion provided many of the answers to life's mysteries, like what caused disease, why there were disasters, why there is suffering, and even the age of the planet. It was accepted that suffering meant punishment by the gods, natural disasters were the products of their anger, and within the Judeo-christian domain, the planet was less than 10,000 years old. Before writing was developed, legends were recounted by word-of-mouth down the ages in every civilization, providing dramatic explanations for the many mysteries of life, and also solace in the face of the most worrisome mystery of all: death.
Throughout his development, man has feared nature, because he had no control over it. Storms came and took lives. Earthquakes came, mountain peaks blew their top and vomited liquid fire down its sides and belched ash several hundred feet in the sky. It seemed like somebody was angry, because people kept dying in these disasters, so much blood was shed. Man noticed that the invisible powers, or whoever it was that caused the earth to open. the winds to throw giant trees to the ground and the sea to become a wall of water that took wives, husbands, children, mothers and fathers away, those invisible powers had to be respected, or else you could die in the next disaster. "Look how much blood it took, look how many dead were buried after that last volcano." "Perhaps the invisible powers need blood every now and then", thought man, so in order to avert another disaster, man took the initiative of shedding the blood himself and delivering it to the powers.

Thus the notion of blood sacrifice was born:

"Invisible powers, if we bring you blood, will you spare us another disaster?"

Of course because some volcanoes erupted only once in a lifetime, some communities may have believed the blood sacrifices were effective when they saw no recurrence of the eruption or the trembling of the ground. Superstition then gave way to orgaized religions in communities everywhere, hence the plurality of faiths.

Primitive man did not know about microbes and what caused disease. It was a mystery when one of his clan vomited and died, or just didn't wake up from sleep. When a woman died in childbirth or gave birth to a stillborn. He didn't know that his teeth were so close to his brain that the bacteria from their decay could quickly travel to his bloodstream into his brain and his heart. Medical science has now linked dental caries to heart disease.

Man was baffled about death for it was the common fate shared by all, and when we have no facts or suitable explanations, you know what we do: we develop a conspiracy theory.

Legends were handed down in many civilizations, that fires raged beneath the earth that would sometimes open and swallow many, so the legend of hell began, for man had to link that to his notion of appeasing the powers, hence a system of punishment and reward...and if everything evil was beneath the earth, to find a place from whence blessings came was easy. The sky. From the sky came the sun which provided warmth and light. From the sky came the rain that brought precious water, which man found he could not live without. So man looked to the sky or the benevolence of the invisible powers and to the earth beneath for their fury. The powers could also light up the skies at midnight, when it seemed they were angry, because the rumbling sounded like the roars of a thousand lions. Man thought he could hear the voice of the gods in the thunder. Soon he began to think he could interpret the voices

So guess what? Man named a god for each aspect or item of nature, just so he wouldn't have to offend any o the powers. And he worked out a system to appease those gods, bow to them, pray to them, bring flowers, the best animals, virgins, babies -- the gods could have anything they wanted. Just spare us the horrific disaster. Just spare us the final death.
But after so many years of giving the gods blood, people still died, and man could not accept a reality of not seeing his loved ones again, so ideas of the afterlife came to the fore. What happens after we die, he thought.

Science now provides many answers for microbes and disease; we now understand about bacteria, viruses and the mutation of singular-celled organisms; we know exactly what causes thunder and lightning, and we know that we live on a planet that is constantly trying to cool itself, shifting its outer crust to relieve built-up pressure in the core. We know that the closer you get to the center of the earth the hotter the furnace burns, and we know why a mountain ejects ash into the air and liquid rock chases people and animals down the mountainsides and swallows up whole villages below.

We know now that the natural disasters are not the result of some angry god; we know that a female's monthly emissions are not the result of a curse, and that there was no reason for her to bring sacrifices to any priest as was necessary under Mosaic law. We know virgins do not all respond the same at their first sexual experience, so stoning a young bride to death if there was no evidence she was a virgin on her wedding night, was sheer ignorance.

Science now knows about continental drift, the continents moving apart over the ages, even more so with the many tectonic shifts occuring every hour. Science has also worked out the passage of time by studying geological deposits, layers of rock of varying types, and by carbon dating.

We know the world is not 6,000 years old and woman was not made from a man's rib. Few of us now read the creation story and take it literally as mankind drifts into the Age of Skepticism. In 2025 the US military, it is said, will control the weather, and we expect breakthroughs in science regarding the human genome and our DNA -- controlling what is passed down in our genes from our forebears, thus genetically engineering the species. Whether you wish to believe it or not, these are the current trends. Science has demystified nature.

The only mystery that science has no answers for is "what happens when we die?" -- a mystery that religion claims to answer, based on faith, of course. But what is faith based on?

The Bible and Submissive Women

Two ministers in the Church of England are refusing to backpedal from their reiteration of the biblical teaching that wives should “submit” to their husbands. The Rev. Angus MacLeay, and his assistant, Mark Oden, have come under fire in the media after they recently issued a pamphlet and sermon, that quoted Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (5:22-33) and said that old fashioned values would save marriage.
The quote from Ephesians states: “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

I've been participating in a blog discussing the submissive role of women in the Christian church.  I find it revealing that without exception the proponents of female submission appear to be grey haired middle class and/or extreme right wing men.  I just cannot understand, try as I might, why anyone in 2010 should cling to the dubious theological figleaf that is Peter's mysogynist preaching - apparently because he was the vessel for God's infallible wisdom.
Count me out of this ridiculous religion!

Old Arguments in New Clothes

I have been reading a long philosophical article by Professor Ernan McMullin, titled catchily: "Cosmic Purpose and the Contingency of Human Evolution".   Over 37 closely argued pages he expounds his thesis, and backs it up with 11 pages of references.  It is basically an examination of the argument for and against God as the creator.

His conclusion?  If you strip away all the esoteric language he basically says:  "I cannot prove whether God exists, but I assume that he does, and I present here my admittedly unproveable reasons for thinking this.  Some people think that they can prove he does not exist, but they are wrong, and here's why."

In other words we cannot prove either that God exists, or that he does not. 
Haven't we heard that before?  Oh, no more than many thousand times... 
Crikey!  Does this man get paid to do this?

Police and the Power of Prayer?

There was a rather bizarre and disturbing article in the UK Daily Express today.  Extract:

A SENIOR police officer claims he has slashed the crime rate in his home town – by praying. Inspector Roger Bartlett says the power of prayer has helped catch criminals, boosted crime detection rates and even reduced the number of ­people killed on the roads.  Insp Bartlett, who has 23 years’ experience, is ­“convinced” that faith work has had a positive impact on policing in Barnstaple, Devon.
The 44-year-old Christian arranges prayer meetings where locals are encouraged to pray in a bid to cut crime. He claims his prayers have been answered “on a number of occasions”.
The officer, who is part of the ­leadership team of the local Christian Policing Association, said: “For the past six years or so, I have reported to quarterly meetings of Christians from different churches in Barnstaple who want to pray for local policing issues."
“I have seen a number of specific answers to their prayers like the unprecedented Halloween night in the town when the police did not have to attend a single incident of disorder."
“Also, a prolific serial dwelling ­burglar who, after a significant series of offences, was apprehended in very unusual circumstances within three days of that group praying that he would trip up and be caught.”

This is not just another quirky story.  It is rather disturbing.  Firstly, what possessed the Police to allow this officer to appear in a national newspaper with a story about using supernatural assistance to solve crime?  Second, it is disturbing to know that there are police officers out there who engage in this kind of activity. 

I would be seriously worried if I knew that my local police force were trying to use the power of prayer to catch criminals.  Moreover, what does this say for the impartiality of the Police?  If I were a devout Hindu or Muslim, I would at best be suspicious that this officer would treat me with impartiality, and at worst I would be deeply offended by his behaviour.

If policemen practice their faith in private that is entirely their own business, but this should not be allowed to to become an apparent influence in the discharge of their professional duties.

Reading the Bible - Who'd have thought it!

I guess one of the few positive outcomes of being severely ill is the time to think and study whilst convalescing. Something for which my work would not normally allow me time.

I have become intrigued by religious motivation. It is simply beyond my understanding that intelligent well educated humans can regard wilful dimissal of reality or just plain refusal to develop as a virtue. For how else can those who call themselves true believers reconcile their belief with reality?

Something I've noticed particularly is that when some ardent believers are threatened, it is a common recourse to hide behind a Bible quote, rather than argue the point from simple reason. I cannot argue with them unless I familiarise myself with the context of the verses they quote, so I have found myself reading large parts of the Bible, and I've become quite familar again with many parts of it. (But before anyone reading this gets ideas - no, it has not converted me - in fact quite the reverse. It seems so very much less impressive than when I first read it all those years ago.

From a believer's perspective am I a sinner if I simply cannot, try as I might, find faith? Am I worse than someone who goes to Church every Sunday, who knows orders of service by heart, who behaves in every way like a true believer, and yet who does not really believe in their heart? I wonder how many humans really, really believe? How many have been through the torture and sacrifice that real faith requires?

My search for truth continues.

Pastor denies the existence of God

I saw an article on Ekklesia about a Dutch Pastor who has recently been allowed to continue in his ministry by his regional Church body despite making it clear that he did not believe the existence in God.

In 2007, Hendrikse hit the headlines with the publication of his book titled "Believing in a God that does not exist: the manifesto of an atheist pastor" (Geloven in een God die niet bestaat - manifest van een atheïstische dominee). In the book, Hendrikse distinguishes between believing in God, which he affirms, and believing in the existence of God, which he rejects. Instead, he refers to God as, "happening".

The article goes on to state:

Research published in 2006 by the ecumenical broadcaster Ikon and the Free University of Amsterdam found that one in six clergy of the Protestant Church were either not sure about or did not believe in the existence of God.

The survey also found that clergy aged 35 years or younger tended to be the most certain of God’s existence, while clergy aged between 55 and 65 years were the most unsure. "Overall, the survey indicated that the younger generation was more 'pious' than older generations," the research report said.

With acknowledgements to Ecumenical News International.

I've frequently wondered whether it is an urban myth that some priests come out of theological college as non-believers, and yet go on to successful ministries. Where's the integrity? There are plenty of ways to provide spiritual and emotional support to the community without living a lie.

Religion and Stoning - An unfortunate corollary?

I found this tragic story recently. It's interesting that the Koran does not condone stoning as a punishment, and yet Sharia law is used to condemn individuals to this barbaric death, without even the benefit of a fair trial.

It really worries me that whilst the practice of one of the World's largest religions may in its purest form be relatively harmless, it does not take much for self-important sadistic humans to subvert its teachings to their own twisted morality.

The 2009 film The Stoning of Soraya M. is about the harrowing true story of a woman sentenced to death by stoning because her husband accused her of infidelity. The film is based on a book by journalist Friedoune Sahebjam. He wrote this after hearing the story of 35-year-old Soraya Manutchehri (mother of seven) and her brutal stoning from her aunt while he was stranded in a rural village in Iran. According to the Washington Examiner, Soraya was innocent but the deadly mix of misogyny and extremist Islamic law, allowed that she was stoned to death because her husband wanted to marry another woman:

The victim was Soraya Manutchehri, a 35-year-old mother of seven who, in her own prophetic words, had become "an inconvenient wife." Bartered away in an arranged marriage at 13 to a petty criminal named Ghorban-Ali, who was 20 years old at the time, Soraya bore nine children over the next two decades, enduring two stillborn births and regular beatings from her husband, along with his insults, his consorting with prostitutes, and his campaign to turn her two oldest sons against her.

On August 15, 1986, with the complicity of a local mullah who had been imprisoned for child molesting under the Shah, Ghorban-Ali showed himself to be more than a garden variety sociopath and town bully; he was a sadistic monster, and Islamic fundamentalism was his enabler, his aider, his abettor.
In the anarchic days of the Iranian Revolution, Ghorban-Ali had found work as a prison guard in a neighboring town. There, he met a 14-year-old girl whom he wanted to marry. Polygamy was encouraged in Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran, but Ghorban-Ali didn't want to support two families, and did not desire to return his wife's dowry. How to rid himself of his "old" wife? That was the easy part. Accuse her of infidelity. No matter that her husband had not actually seen anything untoward, or that Soraya was completely innocent, or that her husband's cynical accusations were only backed up by his cousin, who as it turned out had been coerced into concurring with the vaguest of accusations: a smile here, a brushed hand there.
What court of law would find someone guilty on such flimsy evidence? A "sharia" court is the answer. And so Soraya was convicted. The sentence was death-death by stoning.

It is even more troubling to see how the religion of Islam is being subverted to justify utterly barbarous murders. I am informed that nowhere in the Koran is stoning mentioned as a punishment.

It is also quite appalling that the majority of cases of stoning sentences have been against women. 9 out of 10 of the people recently awaiting stoning in Iran were women. It is unacceptable for anyone to die by being stoned to death, but it is even more unacceptable that this punishment is being disproportionately meted out to women.

Furthermore, the underlying misogyny at play in extremist Islam must also be called into question. There is a maddening double standard at play here. Men are free in their sexual relationships yet women can be stoned to death for simply doing the same things as their husbands.

For instance, in the Iranian Penal Code, a married woman has no right to divorce, a privilege which is reserved for the husband. Women have no custody rights of their children after age seven. As a result, women who can obtain a divorce by proving their husbands are either abusive or an addict, choose not to do so for fear of losing their children. A man can marry up to four wives simultaneously, and may establish a sexual relationship with any other single woman through a temporary marriage, without the requirements of marriage registration, ceremony, or obligation to any possible child that may result. Furthermore, a woman is legally obliged to submit to her husband’s sexual demands and to do her best to satisfy him sexually. Hence if a man is sexually unsatisfied or in an unhappy relationship, he has many avenues open to him to dissolve the marriage and/or satisfy his sexual needs in a temporary “marriage”. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these legal options are denied to Iranian women, and any woman seeking alternative intimate relationships is, in the eyes of the law, “committing adultery”

The practice of stoning is more widespread. For example, on October 27, 2008, Aisha Ibrahim Duholow, a young Sudanese girl, was stoned to death in a stadium in front of 1,000 spectators. According to the government she had begged for the "Islamic punishment" after confessing to infidelity; but according to Amnesty International, she was just a 13-year old girl who had gone to the authorities to report a gang-rape. The gang rapists were never charged.

Laws condoning stoning are still on the books in Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.

Does God exist - 2 - The Cosmological Argument

Why does anything exist? - why something rather than nothing? The argument is that unless God exists, the question is unanswerable. If the Universe had a beginning, who created the Universe if not God? Human experience informs us that something can't come out of nothing. What we need, it seems, is a cause which itself has no cause; and God fits the bill.

Claims and counterclaims have been made since the idea was first postulated. Bertrand Russell said something simple but profound:

"...the Universe is just there, and that's all".

Why cannot the Universe be infinite, regardless of whether we can comprehend that. We are after all just short lived carbon life forms living precariously on a small planet revolving around an unremarkable star.

We seem to be tantalisingly close to a scientific explanation for the origin of our Universe and the apparent "Big Bang" that started it all. But let's suppose that humankind is not able to fully understand the origin of the Universe, before our brief existence (In Cosmic terms) is snuffed out by our dying Sun. The fact that we do not understand something is not sufficient cause to say "God did it".

Let's imagine that every day my cat sees me taking food from the cupboard to feed him, but is never there when I replenish the cupboard. My cat has no idea why everything always comes from that cupboard or why it is there, but he knows that it does, he knows that it always has done, and has no reason to doubt that it always will. He has no facility to understand the process. But might it not seem reasonable to him that a God lives in the cupboard, a God which always provides, and apparently from nothing? There is a perfectly logical process, but he is mentally unequipped to understand it. As far as he is concerned I am the one who acts as an intercessor (I know how to open a can and he marvels at that!), and therefore perhaps I am the equivalent to his High Priest, if you like.

At a different scale and level of complexity, doesn't the God that humans assume exists fit the same mould? OK, so this is a gross oversimplification, but surely the basic prionciple is the same.

Does God exist? - (1) The Ontological Argument

Christian apologists are fond of "proving" that God exists using logic or philosophical arguments. Are the proofs mere word games, or is there more to them? One of the oldest widely disseminated arguments is the so called "Ontological" argument. In the late 11th Century St Anselm argued that we can deduce the existence of God from the mere idea of God. Just by thinking about what God is we can deduce that He exists. St Anselm's argument was:

By definition God is greater than which none can be conceived.
God can be conceived of as just an idea, or as really existing.
It is greater to exist than not to exist.
Therefore, God must exist.

Over time various philosphers have exposed the flaws in this argument.
Initially Anselm's contemporary, the monk Gaunilo, objected that logically one could prove anything exists by this argument. St Anselm's response was that this argument could only be applied to God, because only He could be perfect and unique.

But it was not until Emmanual Kant in the late 18th Century that the Ontological argument appears to be have been conclusively rebutted. Kant showed that the argument wrongly assumes that existence is a property. According to St Anselm the concept "God" contains contains the idea of existence. So the statement "God does not exist is a contradiction in terms. Therefore he must exist. But Kant claimed that existence does not add anything to, or define, a concept. To say something exists merely means that some object corresponds to the concept. Existence is not the same as a concept. Therefore it is not true that "God exists" must be true.

However, this argument is still used today in various forms, and with further justifications and explanations.

In future posts I'll summarize further arguments. Next will be the "Cosmological Argument"

Charles Kingsley on the fossil record

I've just recalled a quote by 19th century writer Charles Kingsley, made when discussing his doubt that God made the World complete with fossils that appear to predate the Creation. He said:

"I cannot believe that God has written on the rocks one enormous and superfluous lie"

I find myself ever more perplexed by the creationist view of the World. How can they sustain their belief, when every argument they produce can so easily be refuted, and when the much simpler rational solution is so blindingly apparent? I find it scary that people can be so intent on self delusion. Of what else are they capable?
I do acknowledge, however, that most Christians do not subscribe to such a literal view.

The origins of religion: evolved adaptation or by-product?

There is an interesting piece at Trends in Cognitive Sciences which debates whether morality is a product of religion or religion is a product of morality. Click on the title to read.
Thought provoking. But is it really so surprising that they find people without religion to be as moral as those with religion?