Let’s save the world… prove Jesus

I’ve been given a vision, it’s been sanctified and verified by god himself, I claimed his gift of faith, and i have faith that it is so.

If the New Testament of the bible is ‘on the money’ then people really need to know about it, and quickly. You might say that there are plenty of people out there trying but the fact is that they aren’t very good at it. They’ve had 2000 years to do it, and there are still a large majority not realising what happened in Judea. If it’s true that there actually is an afterlife… and unless we tell Jesus we accept his sacrifice we’re doomed to hell… then, well the race to save peoples souls should be on the news on a daily basis - we need a daily updated on the souls saved - maybe involved some sort of tracking technology. So why isn’t it?

I think, in my not so humble opinion that it’s the way  go about telling others… it’s almost like we want to keep it to themselves. We’re happy to leave it to the shouty street preachers… who just come across as deranged and deluded. Or to manipulative and cheesy Alpha Course types.

So how do we do it? We need to find a Unique Selling Point, we need to focus on the things that are common to all of the other non-true religions and leave them to one side. There are millions of decent moral, right thinking, loving people who conscientiously adhere to their factually inaccurate faith. Everyone who has a faith is really convinced that they commune with their respective god, and that he answers them and guides them and has a plan for them (to some degree). Amount and depth of faith isn’t impressive at all… lest we’d all be turning to militant Islam. But they are all of course being deluded by Satan, except for Christians. Simply using manipulative phrases like ‘Jesus loves you, why don’t you accept the free gift’ gets seen for what it is…the religious equivalent of ‘when did you stop beating your wife’.

We must remember that if the NT is a reliable message from god then we know that he loves and wants us all to know about the Jesus salvation narrative. The most wonderful gift he gave us, something no other faith has, is the historical events that happened in Israel 2000 years ago. Let’s not get caught up in the mumbo jumbo and benign brain washing of the worlds churches - lets stop all this obsession with ‘faith’ - we don’t need to rely on faith, we have facts, that’s what Jesus gave us. He didn’t need to, the resurrection could have been a meta-physical spiritual battle or could all have happened in the middle of the desert so we’d never know.

We need to be confident in that, we need to put it all on the table. We need to accept that a loving god wouldn’t make it difficult for us, if we approach the evidence with an open mind and with our logical and rational heads fully screwed on then he will bless that. Logic and rationality are gifts which he gave us, and he insists we use it lest we fall for the devils seductions. In order to prove the truth to the world we have to be open to the idea that the Jesus stories aren’t in fact real, and that the Jewish messiah could still return and ask why we fell for the devils trickery re: the Jesus church.

Let’s not peddle this self-defeating nonsense that Jesus doesn’t want to make it too obvious too us so we can have free will. This belittles our lord, and threatens to be a barrier to salvation as it makes people rightly suspicious. Jesus could have been a lot more subtle if he’d wanted to - maybe appearing for a moment in each of our dreams and giving us the salvation choice. Instead, if we’re to believe the NT he appeared to lots of people doing magical signs to convince them - sometimes 5000 in one go. Are we saying he respected these peoples free will less than ours?

God won’t punish you for applying your reason and rationality and assuming Jesus wasn’t who it’s reported he was… until you’ve assessed the evidence and decided he was (or wasn’t).

It’s like when you were a kid and your dad said… don’t get into a car with any strangers even if they say they that I sent them to pick you up… make sure you are 100% convinced they are who they say they are. I’d rather you rejected someone I might genuinely have sent for you, than get into the car with the wrong person, that’s the actions of a loving parent.

I’m not talking about getting a bishop with a doctorate in theology and an obvious agenda to write a book packed full of ultimately true, but logically very dodgy assumptions. This is the definition of preaching to the choir - this will be accepted with the same open minds that we read Dawkins! Maybe we should sponsor a panel of the worlds smartest and most qualified people, a cross section of the intelligentsia (perhaps those who are currently non-aligned to any religion but who have proven themselves open minded) and get them to carry out a thorough investigation and publish the results at the UN for all to see, where they can be challenged and assessed.

How could anyone object to that? Let’s make sure they report back before the rapture.

Jebus: Martyr or Murderer?

‘Murderer’ is over egging an already well egged pudding - but it has a nice controversial rhythm to it. Anyway, let me tell you a story passed down to me for generations (say).

They say Jebus was born miraculously in a small town just north of Cardiff, a thousand years ago during the English occupation. He was a bit of a thinker and philosopher and when he came of age some people started to say he was ‘the one’, god’s messiah.

As he travelled into Cardiff one spring morning crowds gathered to greet him as their saviour, he didn’t do anything to correct their assertions so the rumours grew - as they did quite often in those times. He did a bit of a speaking tour talking about god and hinting that he was their long-awaited messiah, but then things started to go a bit sour.

There had been rumours of wondrous miraculous happenings, so a caravan of the sick and the needy started to follow him around. One day he was on the way to a wedding when some people stopped him and said… about 10 percent of our children die before they reach the age of 2… what can we do about it? But instead of telling them about water purification, antibiotics and general child heath care (which if he was god, he would have of course known) he said… sorry, I’m on the way to a wedding… but you’ll like this… while I’m there I’m gonna take some of that pure water which you need, and then I’m going to turn it in to wine, yazam! We is going to par-tay. The villagers used their god-given rationale and knew that this couldn’t be the actions of a loving god so they continued their messiah search.

It kept happening… one day on the way to a friend’s funeral… a group mothers came to him and said, our children have all died in the last month of an infection, dozens more are sick, they were innocent kids who we loved, if you are god can you be merciful and raise them from the dead? He said… hmmm , nah sorry… but tell you what how’s about I resurrect my mate Lazarus instead. The mothers where less than impressed, especially when he refused to give them any hints as to why infections spread in the first place (which he of course would have known).

The mothers decided that if someone had this kind of power, yet chose not to use it (apart from the odd party trick), and chose to let these innocent children die that it was tantamount to murder, or at least man slaughter, certainly not the actions of a loving god - so they continued their search for a messiah. Jebus wasn’t the one. There were later rumours of a personal resurrection, but he’s conveniently lifted himself up into the clouds to heaven… the mothers rolled their eyes with a chuckle and continued to worship Yahweh like they always had.

But maybe the problem was that their minds where too small to comprehend the wonder of why Jebus was actually god’s son, and if only they had opened their hearts a little more to Jebus they would have believed… as opposed to following the non-related Jesus of Nazareth who WAS of course, the one, as his actions and the evidence is a lot more compelling.
Happy Easter

The Algebraic god

To early man, the sun rises from its hollow in the ground, processes over his head before submerging into the earth in the other direction. The wind randomly gathers and calms to power his fishing boat to feed his children. Flowers and vegetables emerge magically from the soil every spring bringing with it nurturing life and sustenance. All tempered by the random terror of earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes.

Not only where there unknown unknowns like nuclear physics, but there were lots of known unknowns such as basic anatomy, circulation and respiratory as well as the ins and outs of animal and human reproduction - the miracle of life itself.

How did we as a species, summon the courage to even leave the cave never mind to survive and thrive? I read a book some years ago now, by the anthropologist Pascal Boyer - I don’t think it would be too much hyperbole to say that it was a turning point. It is called ‘Religion Explained’ and I read it to learn more about how ‘other’ religions emerged. The can of worms was probably open before I read it, but this book spilled them out all over the floor.

He riffs on the idea that ‘Blind Faith’ is a healthy and natural human phenomenon. It’s perfectly acceptable and desirable that before Galileo worked out how earth isn’t the centre of things, and in fact the earth rotates around the sun… that people had to just have faith that the sun would rise every day (some still did a morning dance just in case). They had no tools or knowledge to rationally determine how or why it would. They had to make some assumptions just to get on with the business of living. It’s completely helpful and normal to see it as a mystically defined ‘black box’ or even personify it as a deity.

The point is I suppose that this is blind faith, and it’s ok, and in fact helpful. The Greeks gave names to the black boxes (Aphrodite, Apollo, Thor, and Zeus). The problem surely comes when after a few generations people start to take these gods too literally, develop dogmas and then when a bright mind inquires how the stars fit in the sky - people call him a heretic for daring to deny the authority of Apollo.

Likewise Adam and Eve is a perfectly helpful algebraic black box until it causes people to
limit their investigations into the origins of man. The ‘universe instigator’ god is helpfully algebraic until it colours our investigations into universal origins.

Perhaps the unhelpful kind of faith is that which allows for acceptance of supernatural claims based on less than convincing evidence rather than the kind that helped Newton explain the natural world. It’s the kind of faith which a makes a suicide bomber believe that he communicates intimately with a loving Allah or for a Christian who lives his life in the light the resurrection and virgin birth of Jesus, not because he is necessarily convinced by the evidence but because he has faith in the dogma.

I don’t see this kind of faith as a virtue; it’s not blind faith, its blinding faith.

Storm in a ocean sized tea cup

Well, the time has come. The lead story on the news at ten tonight will no doubt be “BONG:Question Monkey breaks his silence on the Archbishop Sharia row”. Doubtless some of the lesser informed hacks won’t even realised that I WAS keeping a silence.

My take on it is this, it very much depends on what he meant (duh), either it was a completely run of the mill comment which actually didn’t need to be said and it’s just an obvious truism, or it was a shocking affront to democracy and the rights of man.

I have a private members club, let’s call it Fight Club (patent pending), in this club all the members consent to occasionally having seven bells knocked out of them. According to the law of the land GBH is illegal, but the way we enforce law in these matters is very much down to consent - if you consensually choose to have someone staple your privates to the floor, then the law isn’t involved, if you don’t consent then it very much is.

I would though expect the police to keep a close eye on it to make sure every one really is consenting - and there should be no question of what the over arching law is.

So is this what the Archbishop meant, that we should respect and recognise marriages, annulments and arbitrations? If so, then I’ve no problem with it - and I really don’t know why it’s been such a big deal. I fear though that he meant more than this, that he’s suggesting that the law should in some way take into account peoples ‘faith’ and beliefs. The words ‘Thin edge’ and ‘wedge’ come to mind… I do respect people who stand up for what they believe in, like for instance when Quakers refuse to fight in WW2, but its entirely right that they should go to prison for a while… the law has to apply fairly to all no matter what hocus pocus you say you believe.

A better way for the Archbishop to make Muslims feel more respected and equal would be to disestablish the Church of England! It’s an anathema that a Muslim MP has to swear allegiance to the Queen when he or she enters parliament - as opposed to just swearing to fairly and honestly represent his or her constituents. I await the Archbishop’s response to my challenge

I might have found myself an Existential Dilemma

I’ve been dying to get one of these for ages… and I’ve eventually found myself one - not offa eBay or anything, just lying in bed thinking - flip, this whole existence stuff is a bit weird.

I must admit this may be fueled by the fact that my learn-ed brother in law lent me a book of esseys by John-Paul Sartre, which I’m loving. 

In modern civilisation, lets say from the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago, people have been born, lived for an average of lets say 50 adult years then died.

So I am born, try my best to learn the history of all those 200 or so generations that have gone before me, do my little bit to be involved in the process of moving humanity on a little further, get together with another person to create another generation of people who grow up and learn the history of human kind (including the addition made (and being made) by my generation), I then shuffle off the mortal coil, having done my little bit.

I suppose this is Nietzschean ‘death of god’ thing… the thought that there is no overarching ‘watcher’ of the whole of history happening, the players just nip in for a while, do their bit, then pass the baton to someone else. A very few make a mark which reverberates through history, I wonder if will, probably not, oh dear that’s a bit depressing

A prize for anyone who guesses the amount of commas

The nature of knowledge in the 21st century and beyond

OK, I thought of the title before I thought what it was going to be about. The idea I have in my head is the old put-down to thicko mate that goes something like hey! don’t learn anything new, there’s no room in your head and something important like how to walk might pop out the other end

It’s that … and it’s the fact that 8 year old kid can apparently instinctively pick up a Playststation remote and start playing in the 3D conceptual worlds that mystify adults or can text their chums on the mobile phone without a second thought to how the menu structure fits together.

My point (I think) that I’m driving at is … people today aren’t smarter than 10-50-1000 years ago, it’s just that we have a different kind of knowledge and about different things.

Maybe my point is that in the past knowledge about the things we use day-to-day was more fully understood by the masses. When you travel to work in a horse drawn carriage you were pretty much on top of the science that makes it happen, or when you played with a jack-in-box again even as a kid it’s not hard to fathom the mechanics, one period of physics the next day in school would suffice.

Today it would be impossible to be anywhere near on top of the technology and physics which we encounter on a daily basis, even the greatest scientists of our time won’t grasp all the physics, chemistry and micro-technology they come across by the time they get to work. This is a phenomenon which will only accelerate.

What does it mean for us? Does it actually make us more gullible to bad-science? Is this why L’Oreal tell us that their shampoo can alter the nature of our hair DNA? Do we now just accept things on anecdotal evidence (homeopathy worked for my mate, so there must be something in it)? It’s partly why I see no end to religion and superstition - if someone says they’ve had a vision from Jesus or the virgin mary appeared to them, the reaction is usually one of ‘ who am I to say it didn’t happen’.

It might just look like it to me, but are we the first generation who doesn’t really care how things work? Men of about 60 (my dad’s age) are all about taking things apart to see how they work, they assume they can self-mend things when they break. For my generation and younger the idea of trying to fix a Playstation or even a car when it breaks down seems ludicrous.

What are the implications?

You’ll gather it’s not an idea I’ve fully thought out, im just sending it out there to see if I can find any traction.

Some nice pod casts

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/culturevulture/podcast.xml

Paste that into your iTunes postcast bit… the best one, i think, if the Stephen Fry/Hitchens one on blasphemy - interesting as always. The theos among you will like his references to CS Lewis. If only that tw*t Hitchens would shut up a bit, which he does, after someone in the crowd shouts at him .

I think Stephen Fry is great but i think, as i say, Hitchens is on of the most annoying arrogant people on earth. Even though i agree with the large part of what he says - which just shows that sometimes it about ‘how you say it’.

You can listen to the MP3 here.  The first ten mins and the last ten mins are the best.

It’s not exactly a ‘debate’ as both are in more or less in agreement. It reminds me somewhat of those Greenbelt ‘debates’ i used occasionaly attend (but in the other direction).

The comfort and alure of the subculture

All I’ve got so far is a title…  I’m awaiting inspiration

Premise: Most times it seems people are more comfortable being in a majority, group experiments have shown (as in, I saw it on a documentary once!) that people will say they the most ridiculous things which they know to be untrue, just because everyone else in the group says it. Other times though people seem to strive to be considered ‘different’. I think its rare that people strive to be in a minority of one, but as far as music, culture and society go the smaller the subculture the better, and when a music group or cultural totam becomes too popular and ‘mainstream’ people abandon it for this very reason (although they rarely admit it). Why?

The Gardener of Good and Evil II

In a recent post, i gave myself the lofty task of deciding on the nature and causes of good and evil. Then realised that i know nought, so left it.

But i think I’ve found out that someone has already done the job for me. Alfred Nobel. His prizes set out to reward those who advance knowledge in areas of certain human progress - maybe these are the definitive areas of goodness - and the cause of this advancement, is ‘Good’.

So… Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Medicine and in recent times Economics.

Now, all i need is someone to start giving out prizes for evil … oh yeah, thats the Big Brother final.

(will really have to think of a better ‘pay off’ gag than that!)

John Humphrys on Billy Graham

Browsing in Waterstone’s yesterday, I read an excerpt from the new John Humphrys’ book. It made me laugh as it’s a situation I recognise all too well. (honestly, its not just because having links to such things, ups a blog’s hit count!)

(on attempted conversions)
A friend took me to “HTB” otherwise known as Holy Trinity Brompton, a rich church in the most fashionable area of London. This is were the phenomenally successful ‘Alpha Courses’ were born. It’s the sort of church you may be invited to ‘give God a clap’. I hated it.

Another friend asked me to attend a Billy Graham meeting in Earl’s court with her. Before we left she told me God helped her in everything she does. Only the other day he had helped her find a screwdriver just when she needed one. I told her the joke about the Irish catholic, desperate to find a parking place before a vitally important meeting , who promised God that if he helped out he’d give up smoking, drinking and fornication. Miraculously a place appeared. The Irish man looked up to head and said, ‘Never mind, I’ve found one.’ My friend was not amused.

On the way to Earl’s Court her car broke down. I suggested lightly it must mean God didn’t want me to go. No, she said darkly, it’s the Devil. She meant too.

At the meeting there were endless quotations from the Bible to prove whatever point he was making. This always puzzles me: if a preacher is using the Bible to convert someone, to prove that God exists, then surely he must first prove the Bible is the truth and not just a collection of writings that contradict each other and were written long after the events they purports to describe. If, on the other hand, he assumed we accept the truth of the Bible, why is he trying to convert us?

John Humphrys, In God we doubt

Update: My mrs must have read the post, and bought me the hardback! To be fair to JH, its a decent read - a lot less polemic than others in the genre… in fact its not even in the religion bashing genre… he has as much ire for the Dawkins of this world as the religious whack-jobs.  He’s the master interviewer, and he brings it to bear on the leaders of the three main churches… and they don’t back away. 

The Cult of Princess Diana

What would it take for Diana to be regarded as a prophet from god?

My answer is, as you’d expect is not very much (otherwise it would be a more rubbish post).

I saw a picture on the front of a newspaper recently of a man on his knees at the gates of Buckingham palace praying  in front of a picture of Diana, surrounded by flowers. The notion occurred to me, was Diana a goddess of sorts, or at least in less enlightened times, could in 50-100 years have a reasonable religious following.

How far would things need to be exaggerated for it to be said that she healed people with AIDS, and preached love and understanding? How hard would it be to find apostles who said that she changed their lives for the better? And that she was persecuted for her beliefs and cast out of the royal family etc

A guy called Joseph Smith claimed to have dug up some gold plates in America in the early 1800s, and said that it was a message from god, and revelation about the way forward. A man, who believes this, is now in with a reasonable chance of becoming President.

Maybe in these days of 24 hour news and intimate inquiry into every part of celebrity the Diana Cult wouldn’t last long - but who knows  (see scientology)- I wouldn’t be surprised if King William IV’s son is head of the English Church of Diana

food for thought, or at least a curly wurly for thought.

The gardener of good and evil

What is evil? Don’t worry im not going to pretend that I have any sort of philosophical insight, I know that many have addressed this question and come up with smart and involved answers. But someone said to me recently that we shouldn’t defer our debates to others clever than us, it’s up to everyone to discuss the big ideas, no mater how inadequate we feel.

[jeepers! you know what I've just realised? I sometimes write this blog, with the voice of her offa sex in the city in my head. Very worrying]

People talk about things being evil, even non-religious people. It’s a given. But is it helpful to our common progress and that of our planet and our children. For such an important and basic element I think it is ill defined.

Maybe it helps to think about good things and bad things that happen and analyse what the causes are, and maybe the cause of that good thing, is ‘good’ and the cause of that bad things is ‘evil’. Is that too simplistic? Yes. But I like simple things, there lies beauty.

Here’s some good stuff. I think people could agree that things which help people live a healthy, happy, more comfortable and longer life are generally good. Also, I don’t think it’s promoting a hippy agenda to say that things which achieve harmony and common human agreement and respect are, in general, regarded as good.

So specifically, some examples; the ability to make fire; forging of basic tools; The Enlightenment; establishment of laws and social discipline; identification of germs (germ theory), invention of antibiotics; mass communications; industrialisation and efficiency of labour; economic theory and progress (the likes of Adam Smith); eradication of diseases; construction of housing; shelter and roads; generation and harnessing of electricity,

You know what… I’ve gone and got bored of this post already… so I’ll leave it at that, if anyone wants to add any comments and add to the list of good things/bad things then maybe I’ll come back with a post script to analyse the causes. And we can put the world to rights.

Defining yourself by what you aren’t

What is it with people calling themselves atheists these days (as if it’s new!). Why do people allow themselves to be labelled as the antipathy of something, rather that the positive assertion of something else. We don’t call Liberals unauthoritarians, or conservatives a-progressives, or dogs a-cats … it tells us very little about a persons world view. It also gives the upper hand to that which you are defining yourself against, as it then becomes your responsibly to justify why you don’t think something, rather than theirs to define why they do - which is logically lopsided.

It’s akin to a Christian, when asked, describing himself as a Gentile! It doesn’t really say much to say you are non-Jew.

That’s all I gotta say - annoys me a little… not a lot… but enough to get onto a blog post, which isn’t saying much.

British MPs are spending the summer considering god

A survey by BBC News found today that the most popular summer read for British law makers, is Dawkins’ “God Delusion”. It was the most popular among labour MPs, and second among Liberal Democrats – the Tories seem to be sticking successfully to the party line, and reading their colleague William Hague’s  bio of Wilberforce.

The oath sworn by every MP after every election reads ‘I…..swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth…’.      We live in interesting times.

 

Given that third on the list is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, maybe we shouldn’t read too much into it

Do I offend?

Do I offend? I was saying that phrase over and over in my head… because it’s from some movie… and I couldn’t work out what it was… Google didn’t even help. Then suddenly I remembered. Pretty in Pink ‘Duckie’ says it to the Molly Ringwald character, ONCE! It’s bizarre that I remember that. My sister loved this movie and watched the video about 500 times, so it must have osmosis’d into my head. Anyway, this post was attempting to be about something a little more controversial and important, asking the question (as is my want) about the nature of offence.

My parents used to have a little cardboard flyer sitting on top of the TV that said ‘Seen any good (or offensive) TV lately, why don’t you give them a call and tell them’ it then had the phone numbers of the TV stations.

It’s a well worn chestnut (if that’s not mixing the metaphor) that with out freedom to offend, there is no freedom of speech. If you try to curtail someone’s right to say something that annoys or insults you, your culture or beliefs, then the end result is that your own freedom to say what you like gets curtailed.

Why on earth should my mum and dad think it’s a good idea to phone up a TV station to complain that they were offended, why on earth should the TV station care? (you might say they care because they care about keeping viewers, but should that really cause them to censor!?) And surely if my parents took a step back they would see that it’s a good sign that the media has no qualms about offending them if they think it serves some artistic, entertainment or satiristic goal. When David Icke went on the Wogan should to show us all that he’s a nut job, no one said… hey, hang on, lets be sensitive here, someone’s beliefs are their own business, lets not ridicule.

I’m talking early/mid 80s here, but there’s a direct link to controversies like Jerry Springer the Opera, and the Shik protests against the play in Birmingham last year (Behzti). The idea that a piece of art or satire should be censored because a group of people are offended is ludicrous! They are free to not attend the play or change the TV channel. The very idea of blasphemy, i find dangerous, its one thing curtailing peoples rights to incite hate or violence but its something of a different order to take away the right of people to make fun of my beliefs.