Bible Study

Because I am an atheist, I have decided to do the right thing and read my Bible every day - as all good atheists should. Of course, being very devout I have already read the Bible through from beginning to end, but that was the Revised Standard Version. This time I decided to read the real Holy Version - you know the one - The King James Authorised Version. If it wasn't the real pucker Holy Bible it wouldn't be "authorised" would it, I mean you wouldn't authorize one that wasn't Holy would you? Of course, when you read it and you read all the "thees, thys and verilys", you just know its Holy; with language like that, well it just couldn't be anything else, could it?

Well, I 've not read a great deal yet, I'm about two thirds of the way through Exodus. Of course, everything I have read so far all makes perfect sense, like God killing all the Egyptian's cattle and livestock, and then killing them all again with hail mixed in with fire. Given they were all dead already, it takes a really Holy God to kill them all again. To be twice dead must surely be a great miracle. Strange that you don't read about the RSPCA getting involved, but then if they all decided the mass murder of all these dead already cattle was the work of a Holy God, then I suppose they would have decided to take a back seat on this one!

Of course, the Holy God of the Holy Bible is really very kind and loving - the same yesterday, today and forever - Helleluia!! He really showed his loving kindness to Pharaoh as every time he seemed minded to let the Israelites go, God hardened his heart and changed his mind again - just so that He could punish him and his poor hapless people all the more (and kill all the cattle twice), so that after a variety of plagues, God deploys His mastercard of killing all the first born of Egypt, not just people mind, oh no, but the cattle as well (offspring of twice-dead cattle - another miracle!). This loving kindness of God is staggering. Of course, if it was God who "hardened the heart" of Pharaoh, then it wasn't really Pharaoh's fault. He was just unfortunate in that by a cruel accident of birth he was not born into the chosen people of the Israelites. He couldn't help himself, and neither would any of us with such a kind and loving God pulling our strings and making us bad!

Oh well, I suppose God moves in mysterious ways.......Good job it's only fiction!

Right or Wrong?

An argument many religious people put forward is that to have a proper sense of morals you need faith in God. Well, it is my contention that this is a load of rubbish as you can have all the faith you like in something that does not exist, but it won't make a blind bit of difference! God does not exist. Its just a very dangerous figment of the deluded imagination.

Anyway, before drifting too far off at a tangent, I guess I'd better set myself on course again.

In the Book of Genesis we find Adam and Eve, the first Man and Woman roaming the Garden of Eden blissfully ignorant of the difference between right and wrong and also blissfully ignorant of the evil trap which this so called kind and loving God had set for them. God had planted a tree in the garden, the fruit of which, once eaten would reveal the difference between right and wrong, good and evil if you will. So we find Eve suddenly being "tempted" and encouraged by a "talking snake" - yeah right - to eat of the fruit of the tree - which after a bit of conversation with the snake, she does. She also gives the fruit to Adam and suddenly they become morally aware. They are then ejected from the Garden of Eden, and Eve punished by the pain of child bearing and the poor old snake has to crawl around on his belly. Of course, as the snake is actually a snake, he doesn't exactly see this as much of a punishment!

My point is this: This "original sin" committed in the Garden of Eden has been passed down through the generations together with its consequences. This can only mean that we are all aware of right and wrong, good or evil whether or not we have faith in God. Also, you only have to look at the jaw droppingly evil atrocities committed in the name of this awful non-existent God down the ages right up to the present day, to realise that where people of faith are concerned, so called morals and knowledge of good and evil is so distorted and corrupted, that any normal person of common sense must realise that its actually religion, faith - call it what you will - which makes people commit evil in the most cold blooded and callous ways imaginable. Yes I know there are any number of atheists who commit evil deeds but at least they don't do it in the name of this so called loving, but actually thoroughly evil God. You don't have to have faith to be morally aware. If you have no faith your sense of morality is almost certainly in far better shape than any "Man of God".

One final thought, your friendly local Church is at the pink and fluffy edge of a much darker and evil system. Don't fall foul of it. Don't be deluded.

And another thing.......

I have just been having an on line discussion with a "born again" Christian - about Evolution. As you would expect, it was a meeting of two opposites, not just opposites, but billions of light-years apart and ne'er the twain will meet.

One of the "proofs" these people espouse for the existence of God is the sheer complexity of the fabric of life. I agree it is extremely impressive and at first sight looks to have been created rather than "evolved".

Answer - read up on chaos theory. Complexity and organisation is a perfectly natural result of the laws of nature. Its not rocket science. And there's the rub. Religionists take these matters and try to pretend they are rocket science in order to prove the existence of their own non-existent god. They also do not understand science. They do not try to understand science. They are blinded by ignorance. To them, ignorance of science is a virtue. Very sad.

Philosophical musings on death and consciousness

This is going to be a bit of a philosophical thought experiment.

I am fascinated and puzzled by the concept of consciousness. I am also fascinated by death.

There is, as far as I can see, a direct link between consciousness and death. We are conscious that we are going to die. We are probably the only species with this foresight. Because we cannot quite accept the notion of oblivion, non-existence - we have invented a number of hypotheses to get around the problem and these hypotheses are mainly enshrined within religion. We thus postulate an afterlife of one kind or another. Because we cannot understand our own existence, or even why anything should exist, the notion of a God, or many gods was mooted throughout the disparate societies of the planet to account for this. And so we have creationism.

Turning to the genesis of the universe, as you do, creationists espouse the notion that God created it because nothing can happen without a "first cause". Also, because God is God, He doesn't need a first cause to bring Him into existence because He is the eternal one, in whom and by whom everything exists. The problem I find with this idea is that there is no more reason for the universe to exist as there is for God to exist. If this god can exist without any beginning or first cause, and as this god must by definition be part of what exists, then by the same token, there is similarly no reason why the universe itself should not exist without a beginning or "first cause", and both concepts are equally conceivable - or inconceivable.

Consider this. We need a "first cause" because the laws of physics demand it. We are taught at school that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Also, there is the law of the conservation of energy which states that the energy in a closed system remains constant and can neither be created or destroyed, but changed from one form of energy into another. If we look at Einstein's famous equation of E=mc2 where E is energy, m is mass and c2 is the speed of light squared, we see that matter and energy are part and parcel of the same thing. We are made of energy. Anyway, these, and all the other laws of the universe exist because there is a universe within which they can exist and can work. However, if there were no universe, or any kind of anything (or nothing) in existence, there would similarly be no laws for anything to apply to. We thus find ourselves in a situation whereby there is, by its very non-existence, the potential for a universe to spring into existence complete with its own laws of physics which govern its evolution. My belief is, therefore, that the universe sprang into existence by the "Big Bang" because there was no law of physics to prevent it from doing so. There was no need for a first cause. There was no need for a god. There is no need for God, or any god; the universe just is, because there was nothing to stop it from being otherwise.

Consciousness is a real puzzle. How can something which is made up of matter, irrespective of how complicated our make-up is, have self awareness, or whatever it is that makes me "me" and you "you"? In his book "The Emperor's New Mind" by Professor Roger Penrose, the concept of consciousness is explored in depth, and without any firm answers. From Penrose's arguments, it would appear that we will never be able to re-create consciousness on a digital computer, no matter how "clever" we make the program. It is apparent that consciousness emanates from a much deeper level of existence than we have so far managed to delve. He looks at quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle, as well as quantum entanglement and the other spooky effects of the sub atomic worlds, of which we know so little. From Penrose's perspective, until we have a proper understanding of the laws of quantum physics, there is no hope of us understanding the phenomenon of consciousness, because it is from this quantum level of existence that consciousness would appear to arise. We should also consider that scientists are developing a new type of computer which works using quantum mechanics as the basis of it's operation, and this type of computer is called a quantum computer. Still very much in its infancy, and a long way from appearing on the high street, the development of such a device holds out the prospect of our current most powerful computers looking like no more than pocket calculators by comparison. Such a computer may hold the way for us to either simulate or create (how would we know the difference?) an artificially conscious entity. Even so. this is no more than wild speculation and there is much we do not know about the sub atomic universe and the laws which govern it. Hopefully, when the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is finally repaired and up and running, we should make significant strides into a deeper understanding of the quantum world and, possibly, consciousness. Indeed, it may well be the case that only biological systems can exhibit consciousness, and we may never have a complete answer to this mystery. Even so, that is no reason to defer to a god, simply because we have not discovered a convincing answer to a question.

Moving swiftly on - what happens after death? Or, to put it another way, what happens to ME after I die? I have a simple solution to this conundrum, and it is tied in with consciousness. In order to be conscious of anything, you have to be alive, or to put it another way, in existence. I cannot be conscious of not existing as I have to exist in the first place to possess consciousness. In other words, death, or being dead, is not something any of us can experience. To put it as simply as I can, if I am dead, I am in the same state of non-existence as I was before I was born. I had no complaints then, and I do not expect to have any again when I have shaken off this mortal coil. The only thing I did have in this non-existent state, was the potential for coming into existence. In as much as I can never experience, or be conscious of being dead, by the same token I can only ever be conscious of being alive and I therefore have a kind of immortality. The only thing "I", if it be "I" can experience after death is being born again as a new conscious entity somewhere in the universe. In this respect, I am immortal, but will almost certainly have no recollection of any previous existence, notwithstanding the odd instance of apparent cases of reincarnation which appear to refute this notion. Either way, I do not think we should fear death, but only the manner in which we depart.

One final conundrum is this: why am I "me" and not someone else. What is it that indelibly links "me" to this body and personality, and not to anyone else. Or, to put it another way - when I awaken in the morning, why do I still find I am "me" inside of my own body and not someone else in a different body? You might think the answer to this is obvious, but think about it and you will see, hopefully, that the matter is not as clear cut as it might seem. Indeed, it might be that what we call consciousness is merely an illusion and the true nature of reality is actually permanently hidden from us.

Thought for the Day

As today is Sunday and "The Lord's Day", I thought I would preach a little sermon. I've had plenty of practice at it - I used to be a lay preacher. Here is my Thought for the Day:

None of us asked to be born. We had no choice in the matter. Now that we are here, we are told that we are born sinners and need deliverance otherwise we will spend an eternity in hell. Now that's very fair isn't it? The blood-thirsty God who we are told created us had his own Son tortured, mutilated and killed for our salvation. (This god is, of course, an ideal model of fatherhood). Unless you believe this and accept this executed (but now miraculously arisen son) into your life you will die in your sins and go to hell. Doesn't that make you feel good? Thankfully, its all a work of fiction, like all other religions, and obviously untrue. So relax, enjoy your life, do good unto others, do no evil - not for god's sake (he doesn't exist), but because common sense and common decency says its right. If you make the odd honest mistake, don't feel guilty about it, and whatever you do, don't listen to or take advice from those who do so from a religious position. Be true to yourself. You now have the secret of a happy and constructive life. Go in peace........

Amen.