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Happy Newton Day!
by Richard Dawkins, New Statesman
Reposted from:
http://www.newstatesman.com/200712130029
December 25th is a date to celebrate not because it is the disputed birthday of the "son of God" but because it is the actual birthday of one of the world's greatest men
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel . . .
Advent, we learned at school, was a time of anticipation: of looking forward to the coming of the Messiah. But we boys knew better. Advent was looking forward to something a lot more interesting - Christmas. That great processional tune, played on the organ to announce the Advent hymn, still stirs my depths, fifty years on. It meant that Christmas, which was the main thing each boy had been looking forward to since his birthday, was really coming - and what bad luck on poor Jesus, having his birthday on Christmas Day.
The Advent hymn anticipated the excited sleeplessness of Christmas Eve, then the knobbly weight of the stocking, distended and crackling with promise of the "real" presents to come after breakfast or, in unlucky years, after church. That heraldic minor-key theme, on the trumpet stop, was a fanfare for Hamleys, for Meccano and Hornby Dublo, for overeating in a wasteland of coloured wrapping paper.
We knew little of the theology of Advent. "Emmanuel", we gathered, might be a rather daring misspelling, but it really was just another way of writing "Jesus". How else interpret the familiar words of Matthew (1:22-23)?
Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying/Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel . . .
We never wondered why God would go to such lengths simply to fulfil a prophecy. Nor, indeed, why God would go to the even greater lengths of sending his son into the world in order that he should be agonisingly punished for the sins that mankind might decide to commit at some time in the future (or for the past scrumping offence of one non-existent man, Adam) - surely one of the single nastiest ideas ever to occur to a human mind (Paul's, of course). We never wondered why God, if he wanted to forgive our sins, didn't just forgive them. Why did he have to scapegoat himself first? Where religion was concerned, we never wondered anything. That was the point about religion. You could ask questions about any other subject, but not religion.
We'd have been intrigued if our scripture teachers had come clean and told us that Isaiah's Hebrew for "young woman" was accidentally mistranslated as "virgin" in the Greek Septuagint (an easy mistake to make: think of the English word "maiden"). To say that this little error was to have repercussions out of all proportion would be putting it mildly.
From it flowed the whole Virgin Mary myth, the kitsch "Our Lady" of Catholic grotto-idolatry, the sub-paedophile spectacle of young girls in virginal white First Communion dresses, the goddess status of not just Mary herself but a pantheon of local "manifestations". Pope John Paul II thought he was saved from assassination in 1981 not just by Our Lady but specifically by Our Lady of Fatima. As I have remarked elsewhere, presumably Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Medjugorje, Our Lady of Akita, Our Lady of Zeitoun, Our Lady of Garabandal and Our Lady of Knock were busy on other errands at the time.
Our scripture teachers could have gone on to tell us that Isaiah's "Emmanuel" verse was really nothing to do with Jesus, but referred to a temporary problem in Jewish politics seven centuries earlier. The birth of a child called Emmanuel was a sign to King Ahaz of Judah, to encourage him in his little local dispute with the neighbouring kingdoms of Syria and Israel.
It is typical of the religious mind to force a gratuitous symbolic meaning where none was intended. Christian writers later saw Judah's oppression as a symbol for mankind's enslavement to death and "sin", and ended up unable to tell the difference, like people who send Christmas cards to the Archers. An even funnier example is the late Christian gloss on the "Song of Songs", a frankly erotic document headed, in Christian bibles, by hilariously euphemistic epigraphs such as "The mutual love of Christ and his church".
The desire to fulfil prophecies is where our most heart-warming Christmas stories come from. There is no actual evidence that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, let alone in a stable. But he must have been born in Bethlehem, because the prophet Micah (5:2) had earlier said:
But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou
be little among the thousands of Judah, yet
out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel . . .
So, Luke has Mary and Joseph starting in Nazareth, but forced to go to Bethlehem ("everyone into his own city") to pay a Roman tax (ancient historians rightly ridicule this tax story). Matthew, by contrast, has Joseph's family starting in Bethlehem, but moving to Nazareth after returning from the flight to Egypt. Matthew turns even Jesus's relatively undisputed con nection with Nazareth into a strained effort to fulfil yet another prophecy:
And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. (Matthew 2:23)
Mark, the earliest Gospel, doesn't mention the birth of Jesus at all. John (7:41-42) has people saying that he couldn't really be the Christ, precisely because he was born in Nazareth not Bethlehem, and because he was not descended from David:
Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee?
Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the
To add to the confusion, Matthew and Luke, though theirs are the only Gospels claiming that Jesus had no earthly father, both trace Jesus's descent from David through Joseph, not Mary (albeit through very different intermediates from one another, and very different numbers of intermediates).
Most but not all scholars think, on balance, that a charismatic wandering preacher called Jesus (or Joshua) probably was executed during the Roman occupation, though all objective historians agree that the evidence is weak. Certainly, nobody takes seriously the legend that he was born in December. Late Christian tradition simply attached Jesus's birth to a long-established and convenient winter solstice festival.
Such seasonal opportunism continues to this day. In some states of the US, public display of cribs and similar Christian symbols is outlawed for fear of offending Jews and others (not atheists). Seasonal marketing appetites are satisfied nationwide by a super-ecumenical "Holiday Season", into which are commandeered the Jewish Hanukkah, Muslim Ramadan, and the gratuitously fabricated "Kwanzaa" (invented in 1966 so that African Americans could celebrate their very own winter solstice). Americans coyly wish each other "Happy Holiday Season" and spend vast amounts on "Holiday" presents. For all I know, they hang up a "Holiday stocking" and sing "Holiday carols" around the decorated "Holiday tree". A red-coated "Father Holiday" has not so far been sighted, but this is surely only a matter of time.
For better or worse, ours is historically a Christian culture, and children who grow up ignorant of biblical literature are diminished, unable to take literary allusions, actually impoverished. I am no lover of Christianity, and I loathe the annual orgy of waste and reckless reciprocal spending, but I must say I'd rather wish you "Happy Christmas" than "Happy Holiday Season".
Fortunately, this is not the only choice: 25 December is the birthday of one of the truly great men ever to walk the earth, Sir Isaac Newton. His achievements might justly be celebrated wherever his truths hold sway. And that means from one end of the universe to the other. Happy Newton Day!
Richard Dawkins, FRS is Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. His most recent book is "The God Delusion" (Black Swan, £8.99)
http://www.newstatesman.com/200712130029
December 25th is a date to celebrate not because it is the disputed birthday of the "son of God" but because it is the actual birthday of one of the world's greatest menO come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel . . .
Advent, we learned at school, was a time of anticipation: of looking forward to the coming of the Messiah. But we boys knew better. Advent was looking forward to something a lot more interesting - Christmas. That great processional tune, played on the organ to announce the Advent hymn, still stirs my depths, fifty years on. It meant that Christmas, which was the main thing each boy had been looking forward to since his birthday, was really coming - and what bad luck on poor Jesus, having his birthday on Christmas Day.
The Advent hymn anticipated the excited sleeplessness of Christmas Eve, then the knobbly weight of the stocking, distended and crackling with promise of the "real" presents to come after breakfast or, in unlucky years, after church. That heraldic minor-key theme, on the trumpet stop, was a fanfare for Hamleys, for Meccano and Hornby Dublo, for overeating in a wasteland of coloured wrapping paper.
We knew little of the theology of Advent. "Emmanuel", we gathered, might be a rather daring misspelling, but it really was just another way of writing "Jesus". How else interpret the familiar words of Matthew (1:22-23)?
Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying/Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel . . .
We never wondered why God would go to such lengths simply to fulfil a prophecy. Nor, indeed, why God would go to the even greater lengths of sending his son into the world in order that he should be agonisingly punished for the sins that mankind might decide to commit at some time in the future (or for the past scrumping offence of one non-existent man, Adam) - surely one of the single nastiest ideas ever to occur to a human mind (Paul's, of course). We never wondered why God, if he wanted to forgive our sins, didn't just forgive them. Why did he have to scapegoat himself first? Where religion was concerned, we never wondered anything. That was the point about religion. You could ask questions about any other subject, but not religion.
We'd have been intrigued if our scripture teachers had come clean and told us that Isaiah's Hebrew for "young woman" was accidentally mistranslated as "virgin" in the Greek Septuagint (an easy mistake to make: think of the English word "maiden"). To say that this little error was to have repercussions out of all proportion would be putting it mildly.
From it flowed the whole Virgin Mary myth, the kitsch "Our Lady" of Catholic grotto-idolatry, the sub-paedophile spectacle of young girls in virginal white First Communion dresses, the goddess status of not just Mary herself but a pantheon of local "manifestations". Pope John Paul II thought he was saved from assassination in 1981 not just by Our Lady but specifically by Our Lady of Fatima. As I have remarked elsewhere, presumably Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Medjugorje, Our Lady of Akita, Our Lady of Zeitoun, Our Lady of Garabandal and Our Lady of Knock were busy on other errands at the time.
Our scripture teachers could have gone on to tell us that Isaiah's "Emmanuel" verse was really nothing to do with Jesus, but referred to a temporary problem in Jewish politics seven centuries earlier. The birth of a child called Emmanuel was a sign to King Ahaz of Judah, to encourage him in his little local dispute with the neighbouring kingdoms of Syria and Israel.
It is typical of the religious mind to force a gratuitous symbolic meaning where none was intended. Christian writers later saw Judah's oppression as a symbol for mankind's enslavement to death and "sin", and ended up unable to tell the difference, like people who send Christmas cards to the Archers. An even funnier example is the late Christian gloss on the "Song of Songs", a frankly erotic document headed, in Christian bibles, by hilariously euphemistic epigraphs such as "The mutual love of Christ and his church".
The desire to fulfil prophecies is where our most heart-warming Christmas stories come from. There is no actual evidence that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, let alone in a stable. But he must have been born in Bethlehem, because the prophet Micah (5:2) had earlier said:
But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou
be little among the thousands of Judah, yet
out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel . . .
So, Luke has Mary and Joseph starting in Nazareth, but forced to go to Bethlehem ("everyone into his own city") to pay a Roman tax (ancient historians rightly ridicule this tax story). Matthew, by contrast, has Joseph's family starting in Bethlehem, but moving to Nazareth after returning from the flight to Egypt. Matthew turns even Jesus's relatively undisputed con nection with Nazareth into a strained effort to fulfil yet another prophecy:
And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. (Matthew 2:23)
Mark, the earliest Gospel, doesn't mention the birth of Jesus at all. John (7:41-42) has people saying that he couldn't really be the Christ, precisely because he was born in Nazareth not Bethlehem, and because he was not descended from David:
Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee?
Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the
To add to the confusion, Matthew and Luke, though theirs are the only Gospels claiming that Jesus had no earthly father, both trace Jesus's descent from David through Joseph, not Mary (albeit through very different intermediates from one another, and very different numbers of intermediates).
Most but not all scholars think, on balance, that a charismatic wandering preacher called Jesus (or Joshua) probably was executed during the Roman occupation, though all objective historians agree that the evidence is weak. Certainly, nobody takes seriously the legend that he was born in December. Late Christian tradition simply attached Jesus's birth to a long-established and convenient winter solstice festival.
Such seasonal opportunism continues to this day. In some states of the US, public display of cribs and similar Christian symbols is outlawed for fear of offending Jews and others (not atheists). Seasonal marketing appetites are satisfied nationwide by a super-ecumenical "Holiday Season", into which are commandeered the Jewish Hanukkah, Muslim Ramadan, and the gratuitously fabricated "Kwanzaa" (invented in 1966 so that African Americans could celebrate their very own winter solstice). Americans coyly wish each other "Happy Holiday Season" and spend vast amounts on "Holiday" presents. For all I know, they hang up a "Holiday stocking" and sing "Holiday carols" around the decorated "Holiday tree". A red-coated "Father Holiday" has not so far been sighted, but this is surely only a matter of time.
For better or worse, ours is historically a Christian culture, and children who grow up ignorant of biblical literature are diminished, unable to take literary allusions, actually impoverished. I am no lover of Christianity, and I loathe the annual orgy of waste and reckless reciprocal spending, but I must say I'd rather wish you "Happy Christmas" than "Happy Holiday Season".
Fortunately, this is not the only choice: 25 December is the birthday of one of the truly great men ever to walk the earth, Sir Isaac Newton. His achievements might justly be celebrated wherever his truths hold sway. And that means from one end of the universe to the other. Happy Newton Day!
Richard Dawkins, FRS is Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. His most recent book is "The God Delusion" (Black Swan, £8.99)
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Posted: Saturday, December 15, 2007 | PermalinkComments 51 - 100 of 362 |
Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers52. Comment #99334 by Zaphod on December 16, 2007 at 10:49 am
"Isaac Newton was a total nutjob. Did you know that he tried to pop his own eyeball out with a knitting needle as a part of an experiment? That he nearly blinded himself staring into the sun? That he was an avid alchemist?"http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/12/newton_einstein_morons.php
Other Comments by Zaphod
53. Comment #99341 by LeroiJones on December 16, 2007 at 11:21 am
Didn't Newton invent the cat flap? Clever bloke that Newton.. Other Comments by LeroiJones
54. Comment #99378 by Naturalist1 on December 16, 2007 at 1:52 pm
For all the criticism I have seen in this thread about Newton..yes he was a bit of a nutjob...I point out that the great man actually invented modern physics. For that I thank him for ushering in the Enlightenment and allowing me to actually be able to prove things mathematically.As for the Christmas thing...There has almost always been a feast or festival in almost all cultures around the time of the solstice. The Christians stole the date from a previous pagan festival to make it more palatable to the general Roman population.
My favourite is the Pagan festival of "Yalda". These smart people figured out that the days started to get longer again (around the 23rd-25th)...Thus, they celebrated the fact in this "Religious" holiday that they would once again have crops! That they would survive! Imagine...A religious holiday tied to an actual physically verifiable fact involving their "Earthly" survival.
Merry Yalda Everybody!
Darrell
Other Comments by Naturalist1
55. Comment #99381 by Mr DArcy on December 16, 2007 at 2:08 pm
May the great Spirit of Santa pervade the world with His generosity, His benevolence and His wisdom. May those in the northern hemisphere forever enjoy the dreary dark days and the coldest time of year with the memory of at least one good feast.
May those heretics who claim that Jesus rode into Jerusalem upon a reindeer have their noses made red.
May those wise men of the east please inform us how to grow more Myrrh for such is its value that the black gold of Iraq pales into insignificance.
May those ozzies reading this please realise that the real Ashes are but a part of our fireplaces, in this part of the world!
Other Comments by Mr DArcy
56. Comment #99382 by Blake C. Stacey on December 16, 2007 at 2:14 pm
For better or worse, ours is historically a Christian culture, and children who grow up ignorant of biblical literature are diminished, unable to take literary allusions, actually impoverished.
This is actually the part of Dawkins' standard argument set with which I have the strongest quarrel. (As a physics boffin, I naturally have some disputes with the way biologists have talked about issues in present-day physics, but such debates tend to become esoteric quickly.) Typically, one reads an assertion along the following lines: "There are umpty-ump references to the Bible in Shakespeare, so in order to understand our cultural heritage, we have to learn about the Bible." To which I say, read the footnotes!
How many of those Biblical allusions can be clarified with a sentence or two, down at the bottom of the page — or by Ken Branagh's acting and direction? Furthermore, Shakespeare was not a scholar, seeking out jots and tittles of theological nicety in order to win himself tenure. He wrote for people who had heard Bible stories, and thus he gave plenty of attention to the nasty bits ("O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!") in addition to folklore which isn't in the Bible at all ("they say the owl was a baker's daughter"), not to mention an encyclopaedia's worth of Greco-Roman mythology. For his voyages into "serious literature", did Shakespeare turn to Testamental themes? No, he penned poems called The Rape of Lucrece (Roman legend) and Venus and Adonis (Greek myth, filtered through Roman authors). To understand and appreciate in fullness the Bard of Avon, shouldn't we learn about Adonis in addition to Adonai? Even the argument for "cultural heritage" leads us to abandon bibliolatry.
Then, of course, there's the English history behind, well, all the English historical plays, from King Lear right the way through to Elizabeth's proud papa. I know that my own schoolbooks left the British Isles behind for most of that time period, focusing on Henry the Navigator while ignoring the Henry of Agincourt. The Wars of what Roses?
It might be a fun idea to build a semester-long class around a couple Shakespeare plays, going over the historical and mythological background necessary to pick up all the references which the Elizabethan audience would have instantly grokked. My high school offered a full class on Greek and Roman myths, so it's not a difficult elective to imagine — but would I demand teaching that material instead of biology, algebra or civics? There are only so many hours in a school day, mind.
I could propose a much better secular argument for religious education, of the descriptive rather than the doctrinaire kind: it might do a little to help keep religion from screwing up the world too badly. This rationale is no doubt troubling to those who do not have a secular view, and might be a harder sell than some pretty praise for "cultural heritage" and repairing children's "impoverishment". Since we are all familiar with this argument, we also know the worry which comes bundled with it: in America, won't religion classes be subverted by the religionists and turned into instruments of proselytization? I wonder if distributing the "religion curriculum" we advocate for secular reasons across multiple classes — history, literature, even civics and government — might be a better way to keep such influences at bay.
Other Comments by Blake C. Stacey
57. Comment #99431 by DavidJMH on December 16, 2007 at 4:44 pm
"Most but not all scholars think, on balance, that a charismatic wandering preacher called Jesus (or Joshua) probably was executed during the Roman occupation, though all objective historians agree that the evidence is weak."Ladies and Gentlemen,
This sentence pretty much says it all, however, when are we going to stop using the words "Jesus" and "Christ" as names. Nobody by the name "Jesus Christ" ever lived 2000 years ago. "Jesus" is a corruption of the Greek word "lesous" which in turn was a transliteration of the Hebrew "messiah" meaning "leader from Roman occupation". "Christ" comes from the Greek title "Christos" meaning "annointed one"; neither of these words originally meant what they have become to mean through centuries of manipulation by "Christian" dogmatists. We must take every opportunity, as with that silly virgin business, to point these facts out to the brainwashed sheep.
Yours sincerely, David.
Other Comments by DavidJMH
58. Comment #99530 by flying goose on December 17, 2007 at 2:09 am
DavidJMH"Jesus" is a corruption of the Greek word "lesous" which in turn was a transliteration of the Hebrew "messiah" meaning "leader from Roman occupation". "Christ" comes from the Greek title "Christos" meaning "annointed one"
Not quite.
Christos does mean anointed one, but it is a translation of the Hebrew messiah, meaning anointed one.
Jesus is indeed from Iesous, which itself is from Jeshua, the Aramaic form of the Hebrew Joshua meaning the LORD saves. Jeshua was a popular name in Palestine at the time.
Other Comments by flying goose
59. Comment #99567 by sent2null on December 17, 2007 at 4:28 am
Cartomancer wrote: Grr, in the spirit of the season I shall refrain from responding in my usual fashion to sent2null's misrepresentation of the days of Kepler and Copernicus (which was the early modern period, not even the middle ages, and certainly not the dark ages), and content myself with pleasant reverential thoughts about Newton Day.
Okay you got me Carto, as I typed "dark ages" I thought "watch a pedentic forum member correct me on this later" and sure enough you couldn't help yourself!! Well thanks for the mild censure all the same and happy season of joy to you! ;)
I'll be sure to get the history books out next time instead of just regurgitating data from my memory banks. sheesh! *wink*
Regards,
Other Comments by sent2null
60. Comment #99571 by sent2null on December 17, 2007 at 4:46 am
Physicist wrote:On the Maxwell/Einstein thing: I disagree because Einstein's SPECIAL relativity wouldn't have been developed without Maxwell's equations and, contrary to popular belief, Einstein was not working in a vacuum, locked away in his tiny patent office in Bern. But as I said, these are subjective judgements.
A very good point, without the extraction of the constancy of c from Maxwell's equations it can be argued that Einstein wouldn't have had a theoretical leg to peg his ideas of relative space and time but he was unique in attaching any physical significance to the idea of an absolute speed limit on c in vacuum. Yes, he wasn't working in a vacuum, as I mentioned a few of the guys (Lorentz being the closest) doing work in non Euclidean geometries at the time were so close but they didn't take that bold leap, nor do we even know if they even imagined. That said, even if I weaken the level of achievement for special relativity there is still the GR which by comparison looks almost magical. In my leisure I've been studying the differential geometric approach to GR and I think about all the "components" required just to build up to the derivation of the summarizing equation, you wonder (at least I did) where the heck it (geodesics,maps..etc) is all leading up to and then boom, like a freight train it hits you. My admiration doesn't come from a "popular" appreciation it comes from actually working the equations, but I definitely agree that the breadth of Newton's achievements easily match that of Einstein if in my view they weren't as "non obvious".
Other Comments by sent2null
61. Comment #99576 by Sara on December 17, 2007 at 5:12 am
To those commenting on Newton's faults and foibles, please keep in mind that point here is not to worship him as a miracle-working God, but to recognize him for his human scientific achievements.Other Comments by Sara
62. Comment #99583 by and7barton on December 17, 2007 at 5:45 am
Quote-"I wonder why no one is ever afraid offending an atheist."
I must say, that as time goes on, I'm sometimes beginning to feel the twinges of being offended.
Happy Frostimass everybody !
Other Comments by and7barton
63. Comment #99595 by BJohn on December 17, 2007 at 6:31 am
I would have expected more thatn this from Dr. Dawkins, who is such a well known and respected atheist:"We never wondered why God would go to such lengths simply to fulfil a prophecy. Nor, indeed, why God would go to the even greater lengths of sending his son into the world in order that he should be agonisingly punished for the sins that mankind.... We never wondered why God, if he wanted to forgive our sins, didn't just forgive them. Why did he have to scapegoat himself first? Where religion was concerned, we never wondered anything. That was the point about religion. You could ask questions about any other subject, but not religion."
Dr. Dawkins seems to try to give the impression he knows Christianity (he's mentions a lot of details about the Bible), but his frustrations on these issues betray a glaring ignorance of the Christian faith.
1. "We never wondered" why would God go through such great lengths to save mankind? I think Christianity has been attempting to understand that one from the begining! Love. And why didn't he just forgive them? Again, Love. Its the only plausible reason that an infinite being would create, let alone redeem, mankind. But love is not an idea that can be summed up by Webster; its content can be plummed indefinetly. If you believe in Christianity, then Christmas is about the greatest moment of revelation--when God humbly condescended to show himself in human form, coming to tell us more about himself in the efforts to deepen his personal relationship with humanity begun in the time of Abraham. That's a gift that goes well beyond "just forgiving us."
2. And the other claim of Dr. Dawkins' paragraph quoted above (that you could question anything but religion) is also problematic--or at least in need of clarification. Does this remark stem from a bad personal experience? It must, for surely Dr. Dawkins is not ignorant of the 2,000 year tradition of Catholic apologetics and theology. Christians have been marveling and trying to understand their faith from the beginning (and its what Christians believe they will be doing for all eternity). Why would God send his Son? That's a big question that has "spilled a lot of ink" over the ages! Nevertheless, there are many who have suffered from those who would push "just believe it and be quiet." That is an evil (pardon the expression) that should be conquered. When an issue of faith divides your humanity--setting your reason and will in opposition, it must be addressed. Thankfully, the claims of the Christian faith do not demand that one act irrationally. However, that is a very big claim that would take a lot of time and text to defend. And it has already been addressed over 2,000 years by men and women more capable than I.
-BJohn
Other Comments by BJohn
64. Comment #99596 by Cartomancer on December 17, 2007 at 6:33 am
And yet, funnily enough, none of them actually seem to have come up with a good answer, have they? Other Comments by Cartomancer
65. Comment #99601 by aquilacane on December 17, 2007 at 6:53 am
Happy Newton Day. I think something like this will need to replace christmas in my house. Give a gift of science. A thought prevoking gift on Newton's birthday in the name of questioning the norm, and always looking for better answers to lifes questions. Other Comments by aquilacane
66. Comment #99605 by nattyadams on December 17, 2007 at 7:07 am
I was born on December 25th! Happy Nattymas! Other Comments by nattyadams
67. Comment #99607 by chrise on December 17, 2007 at 7:15 am
Your description of the anticipation and joy of Christmas as a boy certainly resonates with me.....and suggested another idea. We humans aften seem prey to investing great efforts into strange and seemingly unrewarding pursuits....for the sake of brevity, think Christmas for Christians and....smoking cigarettes!!It just occured to me, a recently reformed smoker, that belief in religious dogma is alot like learning to smoke....it makes no sense at the outset but, what the hell, your friends are all trying it.....it's disgusting at first and completely irrational to keep persevering but, hey, it must be OK...look at the other people who are doing it.
Finally, after years of addiction, any remotely intellectual response to the habit is replaced with well-rehearsed dogma, any discussion is circumvented with almost Shakespearian affront and the only comfort you can find in the habit to which you've, by now, devoted a large portion of your life, is safety in numbers and, "Wills" willing, a new generation of "torch beareres".
Perhaps if religious zealots were viewed as addicts rather than adversaries, their behaviour would make more sense and a sympathetic "withdrawl" policy could be developed, which might then allow them to use their powers of intellect for the first time, unfettered by the "opiate of religion".
Other Comments by chrise
68. Comment #99613 by irate_atheist on December 17, 2007 at 7:28 am
69. Comment #99607 by chrise -There is another similarity as well. By changing behaviour and/or belief, one is tacitly admitting one's previous idiocy in both habits. Humans are not generally known for their humility and admitting their most serious mistakes...especially to themselves.
Other Comments by irate_atheist
69. Comment #99640 by BJohn on December 17, 2007 at 8:34 am
I disagree Cartomancer. I think there are some very good arguments for the existence of God, at least as good as the arguments I've heard for "not-God." Sts. Anselm, Augustine, Aquinas are some of the good ones...but the rest of the alphabet can boast other thinkers as well :-)But I would like to know more... What are the favored arguments against God's existence? One of the better ones I've encountered is probably the most familiar: the problem of evil. But Christianity (and other faiths as well) have presented strong counter arguments. What are some others?
I do not consider science an argument against religion. Christianity (not fundamentalism) makes the claim that God created; it does not pretend to know outline how.
And I think it is pretty arrogant thing to say that all those who have believed in a Supreme Being have "persevered" in something that was "completely irrational" (see Chrisie, below). There have been a great many intelligent people who have been men and women of faith.
How about Aristotle? (another "A-author" :-) He believed that an infinite chain of causality is irrational--and therefore a universe without a First Cause which transcends the universe could not be the truth.
The universe and its laws cannot explain themselves, no matter how complicated and far reaching we discover them to be. There must have been an "in the beginning" for there to be a now...
That seems like a very rational argument to me.
-BJohn
Other Comments by BJohn
70. Comment #99642 by krisking on December 17, 2007 at 8:35 am
.... and I loathe the annual orgy of waste and reckless reciprocal spending,
...and most true believers would wholeheartedly agree with you.....
..the current situation is a result of rampant consumerism and the delusion that possessions bring us happiness, peddled by the high priests of the modern age in western society to a people who have largely drifted from a sincere belief in the eternal.
Other Comments by krisking
71. Comment #99655 by Cartomancer on December 17, 2007 at 8:58 am
Hmm, there's a very good book out on the subject of why god almost certainly does not exist. Funnily enough written by one Professor Richard Dawkins no less. It's caused something of a stir in recent memory. Name escapes me. You might try reading it some time...Thomas of Aquino, Anselm of Canterbury and Aurelius Augustinus were indeed great thinkers, probably not as great as Aristotle, but all four of them are pretty much obsolete right now.
Aquinas' "five ways", and Anselm's ontological argument are covered comprehensively in the God Delusion. Augustine simply equivocated about taking things on faith, a forerunner of Anselm's "Credo ut intelligam" which we all know is a terrible epistemological argument.
Aristotle's idea of a prime mover (or rather "prime movers", for he envisioned many of them, and if you have one there is no logic stopping you having as many as you like), which forms the basis of the second argument of Aquinas is both unable to account for the origins that mover without infinite regress (probably because Aristotle's conception of the universe was that it is effectively infinite), and inappropriate for the kind of weird physics you get so close the quantum singularity with which our universe began. Causation implies time, and when time is all mushed up with everything else at that point, simplistic everyday notions of beginnings and causation begin to break down. Though I would not claim to be anything like an expert on this kind of higher physics, I can still see that pasting in commonsense assertions from the everyday world is a conceptual disjunct of staggering proportions.
No argument has yet been presented which satisfactorally solves the Euthyphro problem (concerning omnipotence and good and evil). Augustine's assertion about the nature of god as opposed to his will relies on assertion by fiat and so can be discounted. No theological argument is sound because theology starts with its conclusions and then tries to justify them after the fact - that's precisely what Credo ut Intelligam means.
The conclusions of our scientific investigation of the world around us are pretty much the best evidence we have that there is no god. Actually christianity does make claims about the nature of the universe - the existence of a god being the main one. This is a scientific hypothesis just like anything else, and if no evidence can be brought to bear on it then it is an imponderable beyond the scope of our understanding and can be summarily dismissed.
Science has uncovered the mechanisms behind reality, such as evolution by natural selection, which previously were attributed to divine intervention. Given the state of knowledge about the universe in the past, and without more effective explanations, it was not all that irrational to think there must be a creator god - there simply wasn't a better answer. We now have a better answer for hundreds of things that were previously assigned to divine agency and can now realise what a bad explanation it is for all the others - quite apart from the fact it has never been demonstrated empirically. We cannot blame those who did not know better just as we cannot blame those who used to think the sun orbited the earth, but we have long since abandoned that paradigm just as we have abanodoned belief in some kind of god.
Science has advanced our knowledge incomparably over the last centuries, whereas hardly any religion has added anything new to our understanding since it began. Surely this should give you pause as to which deserves to be treated as the better method for achieving a true understanding of the nature of the universe?
I think you should read The God Delusion for the answers you seek.
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72. Comment #99657 by hakija on December 17, 2007 at 9:04 am
For my part, I say, call December 25th the "Day of Giving". Yes, I know, the holiday is grounded in the pagan solstice celebration, but that is four days earlier. And Newton: what a outstanding person, Einstein's genius (as I believe Einstein stated).
I'll remember this during midnight mass, which I still "religiously" attend with my theistic parents and in-laws. The music of the Anglican service in too beautiful to pass up.
Imagine a Hallmark Card for Newton Day:
"An apple falling from a tree
we know it now as gravity
but an age ago an Englishman
invented Calculus and then
physics took us to the sky
on this special day
we remember why..."
Happy Newton Day! !! !!!
and have a joyous and prosperous New Year! ! !
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73. Comment #99658 by irate_atheist on December 17, 2007 at 9:06 am
71. Comment #99640 by BJohn -How about Aristotle? (another "A-author" :-) He believed that an infinite chain of causality is irrational--and therefore a universe without a First Cause which transcends the universe could not be the truth.Congratulations. If you can prove a single one of the assertions you make in these sentences may I suggest you collect your Nobel Prize in Physics. Otherwise just admit you really don't have a clue and are making it all up.
The universe and its laws cannot explain themselves, no matter how complicated and far reaching we discover them to be. There must have been an "in the beginning" for there to be a now...
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74. Comment #99660 by krisking on December 17, 2007 at 9:10 am
Science has uncovered the mechanisms behind reality, such as evolution by natural selection,
This is an interesting comment. How can you justify it?
I've been reading a book recommended by a contributor to these discussions. It's entitled "The Wisdom of Bones" I am really enjoying reading this book. It tells the story of finding fossils of hominids and the search for the "missing link" between them and modern humans.
I've read just over a third so far, and to be frank it seems to be the story of people desperate to find the link, and making guesses about what they have found and extrapolating from what seems to be the flimsiest of evidence. They know the theory and now they are trying to make the evidence fit!!!!
I hope the book gets better with more convincing evidence.
I'm not saying that evolution did not happen....but this evidence is pretty thin, so far
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75. Comment #99661 by krisking on December 17, 2007 at 9:11 am
Science has advanced our knowledge incomparably over the last centuries
Yes, amazing isn't it.....and the Bible predicted it!!
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76. Comment #99662 by krisking on December 17, 2007 at 9:12 am
Irate atheistIf you can prove a single one of the assertions
Can you prove you exist?
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77. Comment #99663 by irate_atheist on December 17, 2007 at 9:14 am
77. Comment #99661 by krisking -Yes, amazing isn't it.....and the Bible predicted it!!Yes, I distinctly reading in Samuel (or was it Kings?) 'And they shall create a worldwide connectivity conduit for these computers I describe, and it shall be called the internet'. Fantastic at predicting the future, this book of yours.
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78. Comment #99665 by chrise on December 17, 2007 at 9:18 am
What I was driving at was that even the most eloquent argument can be based upon an irrational premise...for instance the ancient understanding of our visible universe was based on a false premise: the notion that the Earth was the centre of the Universe.Many wonderful and ingenious theories to explain planetary "wobble" etc were produced to substantiate this view of the Universe - all, incidentally beyond my own theoretical abilities as a fairly pedestrian scientific thinker....the point I'm making is that, given our current knowledge of "Life, the Universe, and Everything", a believer in doctrinal ideas which have been left behind by modern knowledge have a certain affinity with people who continue to smoke cigarettes despite the knowledge concerning lung cancer etc.....In other words, religious doctrine shelters its believers from the rigours of examination, proofs and, inevitably therefore, advancement.
So, Since the New Testament, for instance, we have learned, through critical thought:
(a) The earth is not the centre of the Universe.
(b) The Universe is older than 9000 years,
(c) The human genome has evolved over a period of time which, until recently, we were unable to comprehend.
Unfortunately, the reference book for Christian religious dogmatists hasn't changed since the last political amendments were made some long time ago.....Of course it's hard for these people.....and many of them are really smart!......much smarter than me....if tehy really have something to contribute then they need to be less "evangelistic" and more "gnostic".
As a 14 yr old, in a final act of frusration, I prayed to God and asked him to turn my Aquarium into a set of Golf Clubs. I promised him that he could just show me....it didn't have to be the really full-on proof in front of my family - he could just change it back without me ever playing a round of golf.....I'd have been a witness to his almighty power right there and then!.....just like he said he wanted in the "good book"....
In the end I bought my own Golf Clubs...and I'm more enthralled by the real mysteries of the Universe than ever.
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79. Comment #99669 by Cartomancer on December 17, 2007 at 9:27 am
Blimey, the trolls are coming out to feed in greater numbers than usual today.I'm glad you're enjoying your book about the investigation into the fossil record. How wonderful it is that we are free to assess when scientists go beyond their remit and fail to take an objective view of the evidence. In fact there are literally dozens of scientists waiting in the wings who would love nothing better than to prove that this particular evidence is flimsy. Funnily enough however they all seem to agree on the basics of evolution by natural selection and the validity of the mountains of real, actual, mutually-corroborating evidence there is for it. Sounds good for my money!
And the bible, or indeed your average cookbook, can foretell just about anything with enough creative semiotics and interpretative jiggery-pokery. It apparently foretold Plato's cosmology. And Aristotle's. And Newton's. And Einstein's. Funny that. When you have something that is actually impressive to show us, you know where to come...
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80. Comment #99672 by alexmzk on December 17, 2007 at 9:37 am
Yes, amazing isn't it.....and the Bible predicted it!!
amazing! do you think you could use the Bible to accurately predict any future events, or does it only work retrospectively?
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81. Comment #99674 by krisking on December 17, 2007 at 9:40 am
Yes, I distinctly reading in Samuel (or was it Kings?)
Try the last chapter of Daniel
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82. Comment #99677 by krisking on December 17, 2007 at 9:47 am
Funnily enough however they all seem to agree on the basics of evolution by natural selection
not all......
http://www.allaboutscience.org/evolution-of-the-human-brain-faq.htm
...and many of highly educated scientists believe in the existence of God!
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83. Comment #99678 by krisking on December 17, 2007 at 9:49 am
(a) The earth is not the centre of the Universe.
(b) The Universe is older than 9000 years,
(c) The human genome has evolved over a period of time which, until recently, we were unable to comprehend.
Does the Bible contradict any of these?
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84. Comment #99679 by krisking on December 17, 2007 at 9:55 am
And the bible, or indeed your average cookbook, can foretell just about anything
Quite so.....
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85. Comment #99680 by krisking on December 17, 2007 at 9:57 am
Funnily enough however they all seem to agree on the basics of evolution by natural selection
Do I have a problem with this? NO!! Why should I?
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86. Comment #99681 by krisking on December 17, 2007 at 10:00 am
Spirit of Santa
Didn't the great god "Coca Cola" invent this, in order to dupe us into buying their brown liquid?
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87. Comment #99683 by steve99 on December 17, 2007 at 10:03 am
...and many of highly educated scientists believe in the existence of God!
But most don't, and that is rather a strong indication of the consequences of a detailed knowledge of science.
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88. Comment #99684 by krisking on December 17, 2007 at 10:06 am
Richard Dawkins, FRS is Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. His most recent book is "The God Delusion" (Black Swan, £8.99)
Is he doing a good job of raising the public's understanding of science?
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89. Comment #99685 by steve99 on December 17, 2007 at 10:09 am
not all......
http://www.allaboutscience.org/evolution-of-the-human-brain-faq.htm
Posting such embarrassing nonsense does not help your case. Just to pick one example:
"Evolving the brain after the eye means that the eye's function is not immediately usable, and so cannot be an advantage."
Any zoologist would be able to point to real-life examples of creatures that have eyes, but no brains, such as box jellyfish.
The problem with such articles is that they insist that things must be a certain way when even a little understanding of the subject reveals that this is just nonsense.
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90. Comment #99686 by krisking on December 17, 2007 at 10:09 am
mountains of real, actual, mutually-corroborating evidence
And where are these mountains of evidence?
I'm still reading......
.....until I see the evidence for myself......
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91. Comment #99687 by walk on December 17, 2007 at 10:16 am
Going back to some posts by Sara (36) and monkey2 (45) on the existence of Jesus (and I realize this has been mentioned elsewhere), there's an investigation named "The Jesus Project"see: http://www.cfiwest.org/calendar/JesusProject.htm
and: http://www.jesus-project.com/
which, over the next 5 years will try to come to a conclusion on this question. The participating scholars will be made up of theists and atheists. Should be interesting.
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92. Comment #99688 by alexmzk on December 17, 2007 at 10:16 am
And where are these mountains of evidence?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
this is a good place to start.
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93. Comment #99689 by steve99 on December 17, 2007 at 10:17 am
I've read just over a third so far, and to be frank it seems to be the story of people desperate to find the link, and making guesses about what they have found and extrapolating from what seems to be the flimsiest of evidence. They know the theory and now they are trying to make the evidence fit!!!!
Actually, the evidence for human evolution is very strong. It may sound silly to extrapolate from a few teeth, but those teeth can tell you a phenomenal amount. Bones are in a way like holograms - you can tell much about the whole from small parts.
I hope the book gets better with more convincing evidence.
What evidence would you need?
I'm not saying that evolution did not happen....but this evidence is pretty thin, so far
The evidence is stronger than in most areas of science. Just name me one thing you require evidence of, and I will describe such evidence.
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94. Comment #99690 by krisking on December 17, 2007 at 10:21 am
no brains, such as box jellyfish.
Also know as a sea wasp !
The animal even has eyes, three on each corner. Two of the eyes in the set detect only light, giving the animal a sense of direction. The third eye is an image-forming eye complete with a lens, like our own eyes.
"The animals have eyes but no brain. No one knows how they process what they see," Seymour says.
A brush of a mature sea wasp's tentacle causes heart failure and death within minutes.
Sounds terrifying.....Wonder if anyone is courageous enough to find out how they process what they see.
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95. Comment #99691 by krisking on December 17, 2007 at 10:25 am
The evidence is stronger than in most areas of science. Just name me one thing you require evidence of, and I will describe such evidence.
.....until I see the evidence for myself...... I have to say.... I am hoping that by the end of the book I will feel more convinced. So far, the writer has himself described the problems of making the theory fit the facts....rather than the other way round.
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96. Comment #99692 by walk on December 17, 2007 at 10:26 am
krisking,Because the fossil record is so sparse (most bones turn to dust), I believe the most definitive proof of evolution comes from genetics. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the proof is fairly conclusive, right up to the ape to man connection. You also might ask yourself why evolution is taught at almost every school and university throughout the world, and is corroborated in all the science books and encyclopedias.
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97. Comment #99695 by steve99 on December 17, 2007 at 10:36 am
.....until I see the evidence for myself...... I have to say.... I am hoping that by the end of the book I will feel more convinced. So far, the writer has himself described the problems of making the theory fit the facts....rather than the other way round.
I am sure the theory they are trying to fit is not evolution by natural selection, but simply a certain idea of the shape of the human 'family tree'. That animals change over time is not questioned. That this by natural processes like selection is not questioned. The matter that is the subject of debate for human ancestry is the relationship between the fossils found.
Look at it this way... imagine you are researching the history of a modern-day family, and there is some confusion about who married whom, and the patterns of relationships. For example, it may be suspected that someone who acted in the role of mother for a child may actually have been an elder sister. This kind of confusion can occur, but it in no way challenges the mechanism of human reproduction! I mean, some confusion about ancestry would not lead anyone to propose that a particular person had miraculously appeared... that would be silly :)
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98. Comment #99697 by krisking on December 17, 2007 at 10:38 am
You also might ask yourself why evolution is taught at almost every school and university throughout the world, and is corroborated in all the science books and encyclopedias.
hmmm.....not really a strong argument in the current climate!!
I am not saying that I don't believe in evolution. It seems perfectly sensible to me, at least theoretically. I am concerned that it doesn't all seem as secure as is claimed by websites such as this one....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/human/human_evolution/
Other Comments by krisking
99. Comment #99698 by steve99 on December 17, 2007 at 10:39 am
I am concerned that it doesn't all seems as secure as is claimed by websites such as this one....
What reason do you feel you have to consider it insecure?
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100. Comment #99699 by steveroot on December 17, 2007 at 10:43 am
84. Comment #99677 by krisking on December 17, 2007 at 9:47 am
"...and many of highly educated scientists believe in the existence of God!"
Argumentum ad verecundiam!
Steve
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51. Comment #99332 by Azven on December 16, 2007 at 10:33 am
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