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The Nullifidian Volume 1 Number 08
From ai815@freenet.carleton.ca Sat Nov 26 06:42:57 1994
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Date: Sat, 26 Nov 1994 06:39:57 -0500
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From: ai815@freenet.carleton.ca (Greg Erwin)
To: a8604728@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca, apabel@prairienet.org, perfecto@pcnet.com,
Eric.M.Kidd@Dartmouth.Edu, ftp@locust.cic.net, rblair@shl.com,
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hammond@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu, timbo@frungy.cbr.fidonet.org,
valgamon@m-net.arbornet.org, mc.wilson@auckland.ac.nz,
sub36@freenet.carleton.ca
Subject: Nullifidian 9412
Reply-To: ai815@freenet.carleton.ca
Status: RO
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*The*E-Zine*of*Atheistic*Secular*Humanism*and*Freethought**
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###### Volume I, Number 8 ***A Collector's Item!***######
################### ISSN 1201-0111 #######################
####################### DEC 1994 ###########################
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nullifidian, n. & a. (Person) having no religious faith or
belief. [f. med. L _nullifidius_ f. L _nullus_ none +
_fides_ faith; see -IAN] Concise Oxford Dictionary
[formerly Lucifer's Echo]
The purpose of this magazine is to provide a source of
articles dealing with many aspects of humanism.
We are ATHEISTIC as we do not believe in the actual
existence of any supernatural beings or any transcendental
reality.
We are SECULAR because the evidence of history and the daily
horrors in the news show the pernicious and destructive
consequences of allowing religions to be involved with
politics and nationalism.
We are HUMANISTS and we focus on what is good for humanity,
in the real world. We will not be put off with offers of
pie in the sky, bye and bye.
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|| Begging portion of the Zine ||
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This is a "sharezine." There is no charge for receiving
this, and there is no charge for distributing copies to any
electronic medium. Nor is there a restriction on printing
a copy for use in discussion. You may not charge to do so,
and you may not do so without attributing it to the proper
author and source.
If you would like to support our efforts, and help us
acquire better equipment to bring you more and better
articles, you may send money to Greg Erwin at: 100,
Terrasse Eardley / Aylmer, Qc / J9H 6B5 / CANADA. Or buy
our atheist quote address labels, and other fine products,
see "Shameless advertising and crass commercialism" below.
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Articles will be welcomed IF: (
they are emailed to: ai815@FreeNet.Carleton.CA; or,
sent on diskette to me at the above Aylmer address in any
format that an IBM copy of WordPerfect can read; ) and
they don't require huge amounts of editing; and
I like them.
If you wish to receive a subscription, email a simple
request to ai815@FreeNet.Carleton.CA, with a clear request
for a subscription. It will be assumed that the "From:"
address is where it is to be sent.
We will automate this process as soon as we know how.
1994-05-08 Yes, please DO make copies! (*)
Please DO send copies of The Nullifidian to anyone who might
be interested.
The only limitations are:
You must copy the whole document, without making any changes
to it.
You do NOT have permission to copy this document for
commercial purposes.
The contents of this document are copyright (c) 1994, Greg
Erwin and are on deposit at the National Library of Canada
You may find back issues in any place that archives
alt.atheism, specifically mathew's site at
ftp.mantis.co.uk. Currently, all back issues are posted at
the Humanist Association of Ottawa's area on the National
Capital Freenet. telnet to 134.117.1.22, and enter <go
humanism> at the "Your choice==>" prompt.
ARCHIVES
Arrangements have been made with etext at umich. ftp to
etext.umich.edu directory Nullifidian or lucifers-echo.
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Shameless advertising and crass commercialism:
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Atheistic self-stick Avery(tm) address labels. Consisting
of 180 different quotes, 30 per page, each label 2 5/8" x
1". This leaves three 49 character lines available for your
own address, phone number, email, fax or whatever. Each
sheet is US$2, the entire set of 6 for US$11; 2 sets for
US$20. Indicate quantity desired. Print address clearly,
exactly as desired. Order from address in examples below.
Laser printed, 8 pt Arial, with occasional flourishes.
_________________________________________________
|"Reality is that which, when you stop believing |
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|Greg Erwin 100 Terrasse Eardley |
|Aylmer, Qc J9H 6B5 Canada |
| email: ai815@FreeNet.Carleton.CA |
|________________________________________________|
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|"...and when you tell me that your deity made |
|you in his own image, I reply that he must be |
|very ugly." [Victor Hugo, writing to clergy] |
|Greg Erwin 100 Terrasse Eardley |
|Aylmer, Qc J9H 6B5 Canada Ph: (613) 954-6128 |
| email: ai815@FreeNet.Carleton.CA |
|________________________________________________|
Other stuff for sale:
Certificate of Baptism Removal and Renunciation of Religion.
Have your baptism removed, renounce religion, and have a
neat 8" x 11" fancy certificate, on luxury paper, suitable
for framing, to commemorate the event! Instant eligibility
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Certificate of Freedom from Religion. An official atheistic
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Poster 8x11: WARNING! This is a religion free zone!
All religious vows, codes, and commitments are null & void
herein. Please refrain from contaminating the ideosphere
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Humanity sincerely thanks you!
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4. Ingersoll poster: "When I became convinced that the
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or phone 1-800-66WALDO !!!
tell 'im: "that nullifidian guy sent me!"
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. THE AGNOSTIC CHRISTMAS, by R.G. Ingersoll
2. THE CREATOR FLUNKED MATERIALS SCIENCE
by Timotheus
3. Report Card for Elohim, Yahweh.
4. Practising Safe Religion, by Greg Erwin
5. The Reason for the Season, part of an FFRF pamphlet
6. Lions 10, Christians Nil, by Richard Dawkins
7. Book Review, _How We Die_, by Sherwin Nuland
8. Predictions for 1995, Greg Erwin, Carol Roberts,
Michael Haggerty
9. Book Review, _Web of Hate_, by Warren Kinsella
===========================================================
|| BEGINNING OF ARTICLE ||
===========================================================
THE AGNOSTIC CHRISTMAS.
by R.G. Ingersoll
1892
AGAIN we celebrate the victory of Light over Darkness,
of the God of day over the hosts of night. Again Samson is
victorious over Delilah, and Hercules triumphs once more
over Omphale. In the embrace of Isis, Osiris rises from the
dead, and the scowling Typhon is defeated once more. Again
Apollo, with unerring aim, with his arrow from the quiver of
light, destroys the serpent of shadow. This is the festival
of Thor, of Baldur and of Prometheus. Again Buddha by a
miracle escapes from the tyrant of Madura, Zoroaster foils
the King, Bacchus laughs at the rage of Cadmus, and Chrishna
eludes the tyrant.
This is the festival of the sun-god, and as such let
its observance be universal.
This is the great day of the first religion, the mother
of all religions -- the worship of the sun.
Sun worship is not only the first, but the most natural
and most reasonable of all. And not only the most natural
and the most reasonable, but by far the most poetic, the
most beautiful.
The sun is the god of benefits, of growth, of life, of
warmth, of happiness, of joy. The sun is the all-seeing, the
all-pitying, the all-loving.
This bright God knew no hatred, no malice, never sought
for revenge.
All evil qualities were in the breast of the God of
darkness, of shadow, of night. And so I say again, this is
the festival of Light. This is the anniversary of the
triumph of the Sun over the hosts of Darkness.
Let us all hope for the triumph of Light -- of Right
and Reason -- for the victory of Fact over Falsehood, of
Science over Superstition.
And so hoping, let us celebrate the venerable festival
of the Sun. --
The Journal, New York, December 25, 1892.
**** **** **** **** **** **** ****
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
The Bank of Wisdom Inc. is a collection of the most
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famous persons, and especially of our nation's Founding
Fathers. They will include philosophy and religion. All
these subjects, and more, will be made available to the
public in electronic form, easily copied and distributed, so
that America can again become what its Founders intended --
The Free Market-Place of Ideas.
The Bank of Wisdom is always looking for more of these
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needed facts and information for today. If you have such
books please contact us, we need to give them back to
America.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
===========================================================
Now, imagine real hard: try to imagine a major big city
newspaper asking a famous atheist to write a Christmas piece
for them. Also, note that, in 1892, December 25th wasn't
such a big holiday that they didn't publish a newspaper.
===========================================================
You can write bank of wisdom for the full set of books on
disk, or look for them in gopher and web sites around the
net.
=========================================================
|| END OF ARTICLE ||
=========================================================
"They were allowed to stay there on one condition, and that
is that they didn't eat of the tree of knowledge. That has
been the condition of the Christian church from then until
now. They haven't eaten as yet, as a rule they do not." --
Clarence Darrow
===========================================================
|| BEGINNING OF ARTICLE ||
===========================================================
THE CREATOR FLUNKED MATERIALS SCIENCE
by Timotheus
[from the July/August 1994 #13 issue of *The Freethought
Exchange]
Bioengineering is a discipline still in its infancy. We are
only at the tinkering stage where we are learning to effect
small targeted changes in the molecular structure and
function of living organisms.
But just as, long ago, people discovered superior
alternatives to the sticks and stones that lay readily to
hand, would-be bioengineers are noticing that the natural
constituents of living organisms can be improved upon. In
particular, it happens that nucleic acids - DNA and RNA -
are not very sturdy molecules. Nor do they bind as avidly
to their targets as one might sometimes wish.
Chemists at the University of Copenhagen have now strung
nucleic acid base pairs on a peptide, or protein-like
backbone instead of on a phospho-ribose chain. The results
are peptide nucleic acids, or PNA's. It turns out that
these molecules are much more stable and bind to DNA and RNA
50 to 100 times more tightly than the natural nucleic acids
attach to each other. In many circumstances, this could
mean that PNA's would be a better means of encoding genetic
information.
Indeed, it's believed that in the long-ago past, DNA and RNA
not only served duty as replicating molecules of early life,
but filled the role of enzyme catalysts as well. Later,
this enzymatic function was taken over by the more durable
protein molecules which the nucleic acids could cause to be
produced.
The interesting thing about all this for freethinkers to
note is that it is additional evidence, on the molecular
level, that the biochemistry of life was not rationally
planned. Rather, the reason we see DNA and RNA being used
by living organisms for the purpose of encoding genetic
information is simply because PNA's and other such materials
weren't available to nature. Had human beings and other
forms of life really been purposefully created, one might
expect to find all sorts of "exotic" biomolecules
specifically designed to carry out their functions.
Instead, all we find are the same sorts of substances with
small variations here and there, enormous and complex Rube
Goldberg contrivances cobbled together with whatever was at
hand.
The point was not lost on Michael Egholm, one of the Danish
chemists involved in the synthesis of PNA's, who remarked:
"If we had told people [what we were doing] at the time,
they would have laughed at us. It was believed that God
created the best backbone in the world and nothing else
would work."
In the far flung future, it may be that human beings will
acquire the ability to actively improve upon nature with
biomolecules like PNA's that are specifically designed to
accomplish a carefully-designated purpose but that would
never have arisen "naturally." In that day, perhaps living
things will show evidence of intelligent design: evidence of
humanity's intelligent direction.
=========================================================
|| END OF ARTICLE ||
=========================================================
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"Anyone who opposes methods to control the birth rate, is
automatically voting in favour having the death rate go up."
Dr. Paul Erlich, 'Population--The Vatican versus the People'
on CBC's Quirks and Quarks
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Yahweh's Report Card.
___________________________________________________________
| Report Card |
|---------------------------------------------------------|
|NAME | Subject | Final Grade | Comment |
|--------------|-----------|--------------|---------------|
|Elohim, | Biodesign | F | Work shows no |
|Yahweh | | | evidence what-|
| | | | soever of any |
|Aliases: | | | intelligent |
|God, Allah, | | | planning. |
|LORD, The |-----------|--------------|---------------|
|LORD, Adonai, | Ethics & | F | Fails to grasp|
|YHWH, El, Ya, | Morals | | even the basic|
|The Logos. | | | essentials of |
| | | | the subject. |
| |-----------|--------------|---------------|
| | History | F | Final thesis |
| | | | (so-called -|
| | | | "Holy Bible") |
| | | | reveals abysm-|
| | | | al ignorance, |
| | | | contradictions|
| | | | and incoher- |
| | | | ence. |
| |-----------|--------------|---------------|
| | Cosmology | F | Final thesis |
| | | | (as above) |
| | | | again shows no|
| | | | comprehension |
| | | | of the subject|
| |-----------|--------------|---------------|
|General Comments: |
|In order to be credible at all little Yahweh would have |
|to perform at a superior level to "human beings," who are|
|finite, ephemeral creatures. Unfortunately, his current |
|performance is significantly worse than even average rep-|
|resentatives of the human species, and nowhere approaches|
|their best. Because of this poor performance, Yahweh |
|is not considered invisible, but rather, non-existent. |
|It is a serious matter for someone else fraudulently to |
|submit work for another student. This will be investi- |
|gated. Those who have been falsely submitting work for |
|this student will be punished when caught. |
|_________________________________________________________|
===========================================================
|| END OF ARTICLE ||
===========================================================
**************************
*Cogito, ergo atheos sum.*
**************************
===========================================================
|| BEGINNING OF ARTICLE ||
===========================================================
Practising Safe Religion Greg Erwin
First of all, we would like to make it clear that we are not
encouraging anyone to start using religion. Religion is not
necessary to make moral or ethical choices, nor to explain
the world. It should be obvious to everyone reading this
that the unwise use of religion leads to serious problems,
as ex-users of Assemblies of God, PTL or Scientology have so
tragically demonstrated. Although complete abstention would
be the most desirable; in this modern world, it is obvious
that a simplistic "Just Say No" approach to the use of
religion is not going to work. Friends will invite you to
church weddings, itinerants on street corners pass out
tracts...what, then, can a rational person do?
Religion entices people by its facile explanations of
complex phenomena and by its deceptive and misleading
promises to resolve all of their insecurities and fears.
Now, no one will deny that an occasional belief in a myth
such as Santa or the Easter Bunny can provide a pleasant and
relaxing way to pass some time. It gives people a way to
structure their activities. They participate in time-worn
rituals, put up traditional decorations and sing old songs.
This provides a sense of belonging. It is also undeniable
that many people cannot face life's terrors (and even some
daily petty frustrations) without appealing to certain
imaginary "gods," who, (they are convinced), must be called
on every time a finger is smashed, or a plate is dropped.
Occasionally a religious delusion, such as heaven or
reincarnation, may help some unstable persons get over a
loss by pretending that they will meet the dead in "another
life" or "on the other side." Even here, though, we start
to see the dangers of unsafe religion. People from all
walks of life have paid fortunes to con artists who
pretended to speak to the dead. Under the control of
certain "priests," the victims of religious delusion have
been extorted out of millions of dollars, which are
supposedly necessary bribes to stop "God" from torturing the
"soul" of the dead person. Indeed the addiction can become
so strong that the victims of such frauds will actually
excuse deliberate deception and abuse on the part of the
"priest" or "reverend" with the rationale that any
accusation would be bad for "the church", (which is the name
"religious" people give to the building where they gather to
indulge their habit). In truth, these people have become so
dependent on their delusion, that they cannot imagine life
without it.
The danger may not be apparent when you in indulge
occasionally in the pomp and ritual of a "mass" (and this
may be hard to avoid at certain occasions, like weddings).
More dangerous is the feeling that you need "divine"
reassurance when facing an ordeal, and that you absolutely
must appeal to a supernatural power to get you through.
These can be the first steps on a path that could lead you
to the horrors of a religion besotted life. Yes, the number
of such examples is endless. It may start with a "prayer,"
"Please, God, make such-and-such happen." If you are
unlucky, this may actually occur. How many innocent
children started down the path to the degradation of
fundamentalism by praying for snow on a school day in
winter? They were only "praying" for a delay in some school
test, but, impressed by the efficacy of the prayer, they may
end up as religious fanatics, burning books, bombing medical
clinics, shooting doctors, reduced to begging door to door,
hoping to entice others into the same deadly delusion.
Education is the key to handling religion. Most people can
handle an occasional carol, hunting for Easter eggs, a
friend's wedding in a "church" or "synagogue," without
taking any of the surrounding mythology seriously. However,
if religion begins to cause trouble in your life, it may
mean that it is not safe for you! Ask yourself the
following twelve questions:
The Twelve Questions (answer as honestly as you can)
1) Have you ever wasted money which was intended for other
purposes, on religion? It is not an excuse that the
"minister" promised that it would come back to you
multiplied manyfold.
2) Are there times when you absolutely must have a
"prayer"? Have you ever faced the humiliation of
asking others to join you, only to find out that they
do not "pray"?
3) Has religion led you into unnatural practices such as
fasting, or "meditating," (sitting immobile for hours
on end)?
4) Are all of your friends and acquaintances "religious"?
Do they all have the same "creed"?
5) Do you find that when you are with non religious people
you have nothing in common to talk about?
6) Are you never with non religious people?
7) Have you ever come to in an unfamiliar "church",
"temple" or "revival tent" broke and unaware how you
got there?
8) Have you ever had to lie because you were ashamed of
the tenets of your religion?
9) Have you ever excused unethical, cruel or illegal
activity on the part of yourself or your co-
religionists "to protect the religion from scandal"?
9) Have you ever thrown away or destroyed, or caused
others to throw away or destroy books or magazines
because they were "against your religion"?
10) Have you stopped talking to family members or former
friends because they do not share your "faith"?
12) Have you ever neglected your health or the health of
your family, thinking that "god" will take care of
things?
If you answered "yes" to more than four of these questions,
you may be in slight danger, but will probably be safe if
you follow our guidelines. If you answered more than six,
it is amazing that you were even able to read this article!
However, you are not doomed. Many have faced similar
problems and have triumphantly freed their minds from this
terrible addiction. You, too, can free your mind from these
chains and learn to think for yourself! The very fact that
you have read this article in this paper serves as a
indication that you can succeed!
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*
= Four simple things that you can do =
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*
Make friends with atheists and freethinkers. Far from
scorning you because of your past, you will find that they
welcome you. Many of them share the same secret shame of a
religious background. You are not responsible for your
past, but you must take responsibility for your future.
Read. I, myself, was once a slave to a religion. I began
my slow march to freedom, inadvertently, by studying the
history of Mormonism. This raised so many questions in my
mind that I was shaken. When I asked the "bishop" what to
do, he said to stop reading. A quick rule of thumb is: if
religious people are against it, it is probably good for
you. Study the history of your denomination. Study the
history of early Christianity. Read books on science,
philosophy and current affairs. Subscribe to this zine and
other atheist and humanist publications. Talk about them
with people from different backgrounds. Change and grow.
Remember, the only people who don't change are dead!
Laugh. Learn to tell tasteful (and otherwise) jokes on
religious topics. You will soon learn the difference
between laughing at and laughing with. Notice that you have
not been struck by lightning. Laugh again.
Let others know. One of the circumstances that allows
religion abuse to continue, is the feeling that "everybody
does it". Let your friends know that you don't do it, and
that your life has improved because of it.
Religion may not disappear, but respect for it may.
(*)
===============================
||ENDNOTE: SEE END OF ISSUE||
===============================
The Reason for the Season, part of an FFRF pamphlet
[contact FFRF at PO Box 750, Madison, WI 53701, they publish
_Freethought Today_ and sell a range of books, pamphlets,
TShirts, Solstice Cards and other good stuff]
The Winter Solstice is the Reason for the Season
The Winter Solstice is the shortest day of sunlight in the
northern hemisphere, when all is cold and bleak. This year
it is December 21, but the date is slowly moving backward
due to the precession of the equinox. It was December 25 at
one time. Many ancients believed that the sum might
continue its disappearance and that the world would end.
A few days after the solstice, when the days began to
lengthen, the New Year was celebrated with festivals of
lights (sun and stars), festive meals and gift-giving. The
holly wreath is a fertility symbol. The Roman Saturnalia
was celebrated in December, a practice that had its roots
millennia before Judaism or Christianity.
No respectable scholar or theologian thinks Jesus was born
in the winter. According to Luke, it happened while
shepherds were "keeping watch over their flock by night"--
most likely in the spring. However, the birthdays of many
other sun gods were celebrated in the winter. During the
first century BC and AD, the Romans celebrated the birth of
Mithra on December 25.
Christians stole Christmas from the pagans. In order to
make their new religion more palatable, Christians simply
superimposed their beliefs over existing mythologies. The
baby in the manger symbolizes the New-Year, the rebirth of
the Sun.
There is no Christmas tree in the bible. In fact, the bible
warns *against* such practices. Jeremiah 10:20-4: "Thus
saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen...For the
customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out
of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with
the axe. The deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten
it with nails and with hammers, that it move not." The
Christmas tree, a pagan symbol, was stolen by Christians.
Why "Jesus Christ is a Myth"
Although most scholars believe that there may have existed a
historical "Jesus of Nazareth," few scholars claim that the
"Jesus Christ" character of the New Testament is historical.
Outside of Paul and the Gospels, there is no first-century
confirmation for the story. (Josephus' tiny paragraph about
Jesus in the _Antiquities_, after 90 AD, was a later
Christian interpolation, appearing only in the 4th century.)
First-century historians who did record the era (such as
Philo and Justus of Tiberius), wrote nothing about Jesus.
The New Testament stories are internally contradictory. One
glaring example is the discrepancy between Matthew's and
Luke's genealogies of Jesus. In some places the New
Testament stories contradict history. Matthew reports that
Jesus was born under King Herod (who died in 4 BC), but Luke
says it happened when Quirinius became governor of Syria (6
AD). There is a discrepancy of at least 10 years here.
The New Testament contains reports of miracles and other
outrageous claims. It is cut from the same fabric as all
other ancient mythologies. All of the details of the Jesus
story have parallels with earlier pagan religions.
The recent panel of "Jesus Seminar" bible scholars concludes
that 85% of the words of Jesus in the current New Testament
are not authentic.
There were many self-proclaimed Messiahs in the first
century (Theudas, Judas the Christ, Egyptian Jew Messiah,
etc.). There may have been a "Jesus" (Yeshua) after whom the
New Testament story was patterned. But the literary "Jesus
Christ" character of the Gospels--the Jesus worshipped by
most Christians today--is a myth.
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>From the _New Humanist_, the Journal of the Rationalist
Press Association, Vol 107 No 2
they may be contacted at:
The Rationalist Press Association
14 Lamb's Conduit Passage
London WCIR 4RH, England
Annual Membership is 12 pounds and gets you four issues of
the _New Humanist_, other material (unspecified) and the
right to buy members editions of books. A subscription
alone is 10 pounds. Their form has the statement on it that
you are in agreement with the aims and objects of the RPA,
and over 18; should be signed and dated, and provide name
and address. No mention of surcharge for foreign subs,
though there probably is.
)|( )|( )|( )|( )|( )|( )|( )|( )|( )|( )|( )|(
)( BEGINNING OF ARTICLE )(
)|( )|( )|( )|( )|( )|( )|( )|( )|( )|( )|( )|(
LIONS 10, CHRISTIANS NIL
Richard Dawkins puts the case against God
Richard Dawkins, well-known for his books on evolution,
took part in a debate with the Archbishop of York, Dr
John Habgood, on the existence of God at the Edinburgh
science festival last Easter. [Easter '92 ed.] The
science correspondent of _The Observer_ reported that
the "withering" Richard Dawkins clearly believed the
"God should be spoken of in the same way as Father
Christmas or the Tooth Fairy". He overheard a gloomy
cleric comment on the debate: "That was easy to sum
up. Lions 10, Christians nil".
Religious people split into three main groups when faced
with science. I shall label them the "know-nothings", the
"know-alls", and the "no-contests". I suspect that Dr John
Habgood, the Archbishop of York, probably belongs to the
third of these groups, so I shall begin with them.
The "no-contests" are rightly reconciled to the fact that
religion cannot compete with science on its own ground.
They think there is no contest between science and religion,
because they are simply about different things. the
biblical account of the origin of the universe (the origin
of life, the diversity of species, the origin of man) -- all
those things are now known to be untrue.
The "no-contests" have no trouble with this: they regard it
as naive in the extreme, almost bad taste to ask of a
biblical story, is it true? True, they say, true? Of
course it isn't true in any crude literal sense. Science
and religion are not competing for the same territory. They
are about different things. They are equally true, but in
their different ways.
A favourite and thoroughly meaningless phrase is "religious
dimension". You meet this in statements such as "science is
all very well as far as it goes, but it leaves out the
religious dimension".
The "know-nothings", or fundamentalists, are in one way more
honest. They are true to history. They recognize that
until recently one of religion's main functions was
scientific: the explanation of existence, of the universe,
of life. Historically, most religions have had or even been
a cosmology and a biology. I suspect that today if you
asked people to justify their belief in God, the dominant
reason would be scientific. Most people, I believe, think
that you need a God to explain the existence of the world,
and especially the existence of life. They are wrong, but
our education system is such that many people don't know it.
They are also true to history because you can't escape the
scientific implications of religion. A universe with a God
would like quite different from a universe without one. A
physics, a biology where there is a God is bound to look
different. So the most basic claims of religion _are_
scientific. Religion _is_ a scientific theory.
I am sometimes accused of arrogant intolerance in my
treatment of creationists. Of course arrogance is an
unpleasant characteristic, and I should hate to be thought
arrogant in a general way. But there are limits! To get
some idea of what it is like being a professional student of
evolution, asked to have a serious debate with creationists,
the following comparison is a fair one. Imagine yourself a
classical scholar who has spent a lifetime studying Roman
history in all its rich detail. Now somebody comes along,
with a degree in marine engineering or mediaeval musicology,
and tries to argue that the Romans never existed. Wouldn't
you find it hard to suppress your impatience? And mightn't
it look a bit like arrogance?
My third group, the "know-alls" (I unkindly name them that
because I find their position patronising), think religion
is good for people, perhaps good for society. Perhaps good
because it consoles them in death or bereavement, perhaps
because it provides a moral code.
Whether or not the actual beliefs of the religion are true
doesn't matter. Maybe there isn't a God; we educated people
know there is precious little evidence for one, let alone
for ideas such as the Virgin birth or the Resurrection. but
the uneducated masses need a God to keep them out of
mischief or to comfort them in bereavement. The little
matter of God's probably non-existence can be brushed to one
side in the interest of greater social good. I need say not
more about the "know-alls" because they wouldn't claim to
have anything to contribute to scientific truth.
Is God a Superstring?
I shall now return to the "no-contests". The argument they
mount is certainly worth serious examination, but I think
that we shall find it has little more merit than those of
the other groups.
God is not an old man with a white beard in the sky. Right
then, what is God? And now come the weasel words. these
are very variable. "God is not out there, he is in all of
us." God is the ground of all being." "God is the essence
of life." "God is the universe." "Don't you believe in the
universe?" "Of course I believe in the universe." "Then
you believe in God." "God is love, don't you believe in
love?" "Right, then you believe in God?"
Modern physicists sometimes wax a bit mystical when they
contemplate questions such as why the big bang happened when
it did, why the laws of physics are these laws and not those
laws, why the universe exists at all, and so on. Sometimes
physicists may resort to saying that there is an inner core
of mystery that we don't understand, and perhaps never can;
and they may then say that perhaps this inner core of
mystery is another name for God. Or in Stephen Hawkings's
words, if we understand these things, we shall perhaps "know
the mind of God."
The trouble is that God in this sophisticated, physicist's
sense bears no resemblance to the God of the Bible or any
other religion. If a physicist says God is another name for
Planck's constant, or God is a superstring, we should take
it as a picturesque metaphorical way of saying that the
nature of superstrings or the value of Planck's constant is
a profound mystery. It has obviously not the smallest
connection with a being capable of forgiving sins, a being
who might listen to prayers, who cares about whether or not
the Sabbath begins at 5pm or 6pm, whether you wear a veil or
have a bit of arm showing; and no connection whatever with a
being capable of imposing a death penalty on His son to
expiate the sins of the world before and after he was born.
The Fabulous Bible
The same is true of attempts to identify the big bang of
modern cosmology with the myth of Genesis. There is only an
utterly trivial resemblance between the sophisticated
conceptions of modern physics, and the creation myths of the
Babylonians and the Jews that we have inherited.
What do the "no-contests" say about those parts of scripture
and religious teaching that once-upon-a-time would have been
unquestioned religious and scientific truths; the creation
of the world the creation of life, the various miracles of
the Old and New Testaments,, survival after death, the
Virgin Birth? These stories have become, in the hands of
the "no-contests", little more than moral fables, the
equivalent of Aesop of Hans Anderson. There is nothing
wrong with that, but it is irritating that they almost never
admit this is what they are doing.
For instance, I recently heard the previous Chief Rabbi, Sir
Immanuel Jacobovits, talking about the evils of racism.
Racism is evil, and it deserves a better argument against it
that the one he gave. Adam and Eve, he argued, were the
ancestors of all human kind. Therefore, all human kind
belongs to one race, the human race.
What are we going to make of an argument like that? The
Chief Rabbi is an educated man, he obviously doesn't believe
in Adam and Eve, so what exactly did he think he was saying?
He must have been using Adam and Eve as a fable, just as one
might use the story of Jack the Giantkiller or Cinderella to
illustrate some laudable moral homily.
I have the impression that clergymen are so used to treating
the biblical stories as fables that they have forgotten the
difference between fact and fiction. It's like the people
who, when somebody dies on _The Archers_, write letters of
condolence to the others.
Inheriting Religion
As a Darwinian, something strikes me when I look at
religion. Religion shows a pattern of heredity which I
think is similar to genetic heredity. The vast majority of
people have an allegiance to one particular religion. there
are hundreds of different religious sects, and every
religious person is loyal to just one of those.
Out of all of the sects in the world, we notice an uncanny
coincidence: the overwhelming majority just happen to
choose the one that their parents belong to. Not the sect
that has the best evidence in its favour, the best miracles,
the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained
glass, the best music: when it comes to choosing from the
smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues
seem to count for nothing, compared to the matter of
heredity.
This is an unmistakable fact; nobody could seriously deny
it. Yet people with full knowledge of the arbitrary nature
of this heredity, somehow manage to go on believing in
_their_ religion, often with such fanaticism that they are
prepared to murder people who follow a different one.
Truths about the cosmos are true all around the universe.
They don't differ in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Poland, or
Norway. Yet, we are apparently prepared to accept that the
religion we adopt is a matter of an accident of geography.
If you ask people why they are convinced of the truth of
their religion, they don't appeal to heredity. Put like that
it sounds too obviously stupid. Nor do they appeal to
evidence. There isn't any, and nowadays the better educated
admit it. No, they appeal to faith. Faith is the great
cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and
evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even
perhaps because of, the lack of evidence. The worst thing
is that the rest of us are supposed to respect it: to treat
it with kid gloves.
If a slaughterman doesn't comply with the law in respect of
cruelty to animals, he is rightly prosecuted and punished.
but if he complains that his cruel practices are
necessitated by religious faith, we back off apologetically
and allow him to get on with it. Any other position that
someone takes up can expect to be defended with reasoned
argument. Faith is allowed not to justify itself by
argument. Faith must be respected; and if you don't respect
it, you are accused of violating human rights.
Even those with no faith have been brainwashed into
respecting the faith of others. When so-called Muslim
community leaders go on the radio and advocate the killing
of Salman Rushdie, they are clearly committing incitement to
murder--a crime for which they would ordinarily be
prosecuted and possibly imprisoned. But are they arrested?
They are not, because our secular society "respects" their
faith, and sympathises with the deep "hurt" and "insult" to
it.
Well I don't. I will respect your views if you can justify
them. but if you justify your views only by saying you have
faith in them, I shall not respect them.
Improbabilities
I want to end by returning to science. It is often said,
mainly by the "no-contests", that although there is no
positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there
evidence against his existence. So it is best to keep an
open mind and be agnostic.
At first sight that seems an unassailable position, at least
in the weak sense of Pascal's wager. But on second thoughts
it seems a cop-out, because the same could be said of Father
Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at the
bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you
can't _prove_ that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be
agnostic with respect to fairies?
The trouble with the agnostic argument is that it can be
applied to anything. There is an infinite number of
hypothetical beliefs we could hold which we can't positively
disprove. On the whole, people don't believe in most of
them, such as fairies, unicorns, dragons, Father Christmas,
and so on. But on the whole they do believe in a creator
God, together with whatever particular baggage goes with the
religion of their parents.
I suspect the reason is that most people, though not
belonging to the "know-nothing" party, nevertheless have a
residue of feeling that Darwinian evolution isn't quite big
enough to explain everything about life. All I can say as a
biologist is that the feeling disappears progressively the
more you read about and study what is known about life and
evolution.
I want to add one thing more. The more you understand the
significance of evolution, the more you are pushed away from
the agnostic position and towards atheism. Complex,
statistically improbable things are by their nature more
difficult to explain than simple, statistically probable
things.
The great beauty of Darwin's theory of evolution is that it
explains how complex, difficult to understand things could
have arisen step by plausible step, from simple, easy to
understand beginnings. We start our explanation from almost
infinitely simple beginnings: pure hydrogen and a huge
amount of energy. Our scientific, Darwinian explanations
carry us through a series of well-understood gradual steps
to all the spectacular beauty and complexity of life.
The alternative hypothesis, that it was all started by a
supernatural creator, is not only superfluous, it is also
highly improbable. It falls foul of the very argument that
was originally put forward in its favour. This is because
any God worthy of the name must have been a being of
colossal intelligence, a supermind, an entity of extremely
low probability--a very improbable being indeed.
Even if the postulation of such an entity explained anything
(and we don't need it to), it still wouldn't help because it
raises a bigger mystery than it solves.
Science offers us an explanation of how complexity (the
difficult) arose out of simplicity (the easy). The
hypothesis of God offers no worthwhile explanation for
anything, for it simply postulates what we are trying to
explain. It postulates the difficult to explain, and leaves
it at that. We cannot prove that there is no God, but we
can safely conclude the He is very, very improbable indeed.
*--*--*
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"The citizen's job is to be rude--to pierce the comfort of
professional intercourse by boorish expressions of doubt."
--John Ralston Saul, _The Doubter's Companion_
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Book Review
Title: How We Die, Reflections on Life's Final Chapter
Author: Sherwin B. Nuland
Pub: Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-41464-4
pp: 278, index, acknowledgments and introduction.
Price: 31.50 (In Canada)
Reviewer: Greg Erwin
The ultimate morbid fascination? Perhaps. Certainly the
one event in which we are all 100% certain to participate
sooner or later. For whatever reasons you may have to want
to know about death, this book is an excellent source of
information on the subject of what happens immediately prior
to it, and how it comes about.
Heart failure, trauma, AIDS and cancer receive detailed
treatment. What you learn is that for all the different
paths to the goal, there are only a few final methods of
bodily failure. The heart stops, or the lungs fail, or
circulation is blocked to the brain, or poisons accumulate.
If the heart stops first, then oxygen can't get to the brain
and other vital tissues and they (and you) die. If
circulation is blocked to the brain, you (your personality)
die, and then through lack of control, vital organs shut
down and the vital organs die. If there is a trauma and
your blood leaks out, nothing gets enough oxygen and it all
dies, the heart exhausts itself trying to pump what isn't
there to pump and you go unconscious for lack of oxygen to
the brain. Toxins may cause bleeding or prevent oxygen from
reaching this that and the other. So, the myriad diseases,
accidents and poisons which exist, all end up doing one or
many of very few things to us.
He gives a reasonable and compassionate treatment of the
assisted suicide question, indeed the whole medicalized
process of dying, whether assisted or not. Arguing
convincingly that the main thing we need is personalized
care. Your best insurance for humane treatment is personal
acquaintance with the doctor.
We learn that it would pay to be very careful to make your
wishes concerning your final days known, very explicit and
as legally binding as possible, in fact, it would be best to
have someone there to be your advocate, if you really want
to have done what you want instead of what the doctor or the
hospital staff wants. The current set-up leaves you at the
mercy of the staff, whose wishes may or may not be yours.
One thing for sure, though, contemporary doctors do not
handle dying patients very well, with few exceptions. The
whole course of their training is rescue and prevention,
i.e., cure; and not much attention is given to recognizing
when this is not advisable.
Next, is that if you have been (as I had been) comforted
into believing that dying was going to be a drifting off
into serene dissolution, you may well be wrong. He states
that, whereas the final minutes are often, but not always,
serene, the days and months leading up to them are often
absolutely hellish.
Well, you can't make intelligent decisions without adequate
and accurate information. This book provides an abundance
of information about a subject which is seldom discussed,
and then, not often accurately.
At least WE don't have to worry about anything afterwards,
or about the bogeyman torturing us forever for seeking
relief.
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When someone says, 'We can't afford to be sentimental,' you
know they're about to do something cruel. When they also
say, 'We must be realistic,' you know they're going to make
money on it.
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Some notes on _Web of Hate_, Inside Canada's Far Right
Network by Warren Kinsella
Harper Collins, Toronto 1994, 386 pages, notes and index.
ISBN: 0-00-255074-1, $26.95
Just a brief note about this wonderful book on the wacko,
far right, Nazi, Klan, Aryan Nations, Christian Identity
bunch. They all seem to intermingle and help each other
out.
In case any humanist readers think that they may not be part
of the target of these people, because they only go after
Jews and nonwhites, take a listen to good ol' Malcom Ross,
the teacher who no one wanted to fire from his high school
position, because he didn't actually spew his vitriol during
class time.
"[white Christians] have been conditioned by Humanists to
accept their ecomonic theories, their moral perversions and
their historical fairy tales by the careful conditioning
processes and their famous reinforcing buzzwords such as
'bigot,' 'fascist,' 'racist,' amd 'anti-Semite.'"
"[past generations have] succumbed to the Humanists' lies
and allowed two World Wars to destroy the flower of our
Race. Now, through abortion, they are willing to sacrifice
the BUDS of our Race."
Anyway, all you could possibly want to know about the
Holocaust deniers, Church of Jesus Christ Christian,
Identity Christianity, who runs REAL women, what is the
Christian Defence League, and other most interesting stuff,
is in the book.
Many questions are raised, like why Matt McKay's Nazi
affiliations are simply regarded as pranks, and why the RCMP
did not prosecute or even charge Nazis with their clear
assaults, thefts and destruction of property at a gathering
in 1991. I can't imagine the government giving that much
leeway to a union or any other left-wing group.
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"The man who gets on his knees has not learned the right use
of his legs." [Lemuel K. Washburn, _Is The Bible Worth
Reading? And Other Essays_]
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Predictions for 1995
Predictions for 1995!! Definitely by unpsychic, dull,
ordinary type people with no help from any ghosts or other
supernatural entities. Will we do better, or worse, than
than the pundits, jeezers and crazies? Check back in
December 1995!
>From the illustrious editor & publisher:
I predict that the Bosnian war will still be sputtering
along much as it is now. However, it may be that they will
claim that it has ended. It will not spread to Macedonia in
1995.
There will be a severe famine in Africa.
No cure for or vaccine against AIDS will be found.
More than one pair of pommy royals will finally break up.
Queen E will still be around.
[the best reason for Canada, New Zealand or Australia to
become a republic: imagine Chuckie's face and EARS on your
money!]#
#Long term: Canada and Australia will be republics before
the year 2001.
The economy of North America and Europe will be about the
same as now. No big inflation, no real recovery. Employment
will increase slightly, mainly in the low-paid service
sector. The reason for this is that all the causes of
inflation have now been well-hidden among the sectors of the
economy which are not measured in the various indices.
The new states of the former Soviet Union will stumble
along, none will join with the Iranians in taking up Shi'a
fanaticism. Nasty little fights on the order of Armenia vs
Azerbaijan will continue without resolution. There will be
a rise in "nationalist" antiSemitic, Nazi-style fascist,
irrational political movements. Some of these Nazis will be
elected in local governments.
In Europe, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary and Poland
will do OK, the rest of Eastern Europe will struggle. The
European Union will increase in membership. Turkey will not
be allowed to join in 1995.
Castro will die.
South Africa will do well. The fanatical whites will
continue to be a minor irritation without significant
impact. The rest of sub-Saharan Africa will continue to do
poorly with at least one and probably two, countries
suffering severe famine. An incident in the war in Sudan
will shock and horrify the world.
A famous child star will confess/admit to having been
molested by Michael Jackson.
/*****************************************************/
[From Carol Roberts, indexer and copy editor,
e-mail: Carol.Roberts@mixcom.com]
Here are my predictions for 1995:
Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley will split up.
The Pope will die.
The Second Coming (or first, depending on how you count)
will not occur.
Elvis will be sighted in a mall in Scottsdale, Arizona.
A woman seeking an abortion will be shot by anti-
abortionists.
The number of reports of child molesting by Catholic priests
will rise by 50%.
/=\/=\/=\/=\/=\/=\/=\/=\/=\/=\/=\/=\/=\/=\/=\/=\/=\/=\
from Michael Haggerty
[who is about as psychic as a fencepost]
{that is HIS statement} gae
I made the following predictions a few months back in a post
on CompuServe and I'm still standing behind them.
=-=-=-=
There will be more sex scandals in the halls of the US
congress.
Another war will break out in Africa before the end of this
century. Many thousands of innocents will die senselessly.
A new, as yet unknown disease will be discovered and many
people will suffer its effects before a cure is found.
The radical factions of the white minority in South Africa
will create problems for the new government there. There
will be a campaign of terror and violence that will not end
before their leader is killed or jailed.
A new cuisine will be introduced to the popular culture in
America and it will become a common part of the diets of
many Americans.
The number of smokers in this country will decline over the
next 20 years.
Ronald Reagan will be one of the next two former presidents
to die. (It won't be my fault, by the way.)
Clinton will suffer even more scandals before the '96
elections.
A new, unsuspected environmental health hazard will be
discovered and many Americans will be affected.
[these go a little beyond the 1995 limit]
[they are from Michael Haggerty]
I predict that a famous world leader will have to step down
from power before their time in the next 20 years.
There will be a great earthquake in Southern California that
will be one of the worst disasters on record. Relief will
arrive from all over the world. This will happen before the
end of the 21st century.
Some absolutely safe predictions:
A natural disaster will kill thousands.
Many governments will change hands.
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Once again: ISSN: 1201-0111 The Nullifidian Volume I,
Number 8: DEC 1994.
(*) ENDNOTE: For the terminally humorless, that was what is
called satire.
--
nullifidian, n. & a. (Person) having no religious faith or belief. [f.
med. L nullifidius f. L nullus "none" + fides "faith";] / If this is a
humanist topic then I am President of the Humanist Association of Ottawa.
Greg Erwin. ai815@FreeNet.Carleton.CA
