Life On Mars, Sodium And Gods

There was once life on Mars and still may be. This seems a reasonable opinion to me. It is not an article of faith; Christians, please note. It is an opinion based on credible evidence. That is, it is totally different from faith.

Perhaps, we all need to learn some science:

Fantasy & Science Fiction Question Time (1)

Isaac Asimov had a 30 years correspondence with Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling. Pauling read Isaac's science articles in Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine regularly and wrote Isaac whenever he found an error. Here is an interesting excerpt.
From Pauling to Isaac:

I am writing now about your article in the September 1978 issue. On page 123, you say that Amontons and Guy-Lusac observed that if a gas at the freezing point of water, 0 degree Celsius, is decreased in temperature to -1 degree Celsius, then both the volume and the pressure of the gas will decline by 1/274 of the temperature. This is wrong. What you should have said is that _ _ _ I hope you are keeping busy as ever.

What was the explanation?

Would you Adam & Eve It?

I liked today's joke so I am putting it in this post so that it can still be available when it changes (as it does daily making the site worth a visit even if I have not posted - scroll down the right sidebar):

A little girl asked her mother, "How did the human race come about?"

The Mother answered, "God made Adam and Eve; they had children and, so all mankind was made."

A few days later, the little girl asked her father the same question. The father answered, "Many years ago there were monkeys, and we developed from them."

The confused girl returns to her mother and says, "Mom, how is it possible that you told me that the human race was created by God , and Papa says we developed from monkeys?"

The Mother answers, "Well, dear, it is very simple. I told you about the origin of my side of the family, and your father told you about his side."

Given the images, it must be a bit of a toss up which story the child would be better off believing. The monkey looks more intelligent to me. But then, Adam & Eve are simply daffy and in love, which always makes people appear stupider than they in fact are.

In God's Name: UK Fundamentalist Stephen Green And His Cult

Dispatches tonight broadcast a documentary about fundamentalist Christians in the UK.

Stephen Green was the prime target so his website is the title link. Never let it be said that I do not give my opponents a fair chance to reply even in the form of getting their revenge in first.

Today at least, his website heads up with a reference to Jeremiah 46. Presumably, he endorses this chapter of the bible. I do not suggest he endorses my citation of the St James' version (which qualifies as literature). I am afraid he will have to live with that.

Now, this is a chapter of the bible quite as warlike as some things in the koran. I am puzzled therefore why Mr Green describes Islam as a religion created by the anti-christ. I am also puzzled why he cites a passage "against the gentiles" when he is one.

I set out below some quotations from the Dispatches programme. Some are reported speech because I could not type fast enough.

Unidentified speaker to schoolchildren:

People turned into a pillar of salt

He sent snakes to bite them… This really really happened.

The Headmaster of the school they run:

Using the bible to teach science really really helps.

Refuses to answer questions concerning school teaching that earth is 4-6000 years old.

Andrea the campaigning barrister:

4,000 years.

Islam is a false religion.

Mostly dodged questions.

Other unidentified (but same person):

I have tasted the goodness of God.

I don’t want you to barbecue forever.

The Sayings of Stephen Green:

I don't like it. (On being interviewed).

No I have not met anyone who stopped being gay because of our leaflet. (On the effectiveness of his mission to suppress homosexuality).

The judgment that is looming is the menace of islam – if that is not the judgment of God I don’t know what is. (On a competitor faith).

God has honoured us by visiting financial ruin on the producers and the theatres. (On Jerry Springer the Opera).

The bird pooh was a message from god telling me not to participate in the interview. (On bird pooh falling on his revered person).

Snake Man Escapes By Slithering Out Of Jail In Vienna

The title link is to a Reuters news item. It begins:

"A man has escaped from his Austrian jail cell by squeezing through a food hatch in the door..."

Let us hope the Snake Man is not now in Austria teaching his techniques to Josef Fritzl. Also, please not to the new Austrian Axe Man.

WHAT IS AUSTRIA COMING TO?

This is a selection of articles in The Times. I am a blogger not a newspaper so do not expect "balannce" in the selection. Articles are selected on the basis that I find them interesting; just as the link above to India Knight's opinion was chosen by me as the most interesting link.

Austria: ‘We have to ask what’s going wrong’

Experts reveal that one in six girls in Austria abused at home

Austria fights back against 'Land of Dungeons' tag

Death And God And Burma

The randomness of death demonstrates irrefutably the meaninglessness of life and the non-existence of god.

That is two conclusions drawn from one assertion of fact so I suppose you will want a little convincing.

GOD THE GAMES MASTER

That death is random is not demonstrated by the current loss of life in Burma. A rational god might well have decided that the lives lost were justified by the provocation they would provide for international intervention and the reform of a corrupt government. He would not be a very pleasant god to believe in. He would be using the earth as a kind of game site where he could inflict decisions about climate change and just see how the Sims reacted. Oh gosh! We play games like that.

Let us look at it two ways.

IF DEATH IS NOT RANDOM

If death is not random then someone decides who dies and when. Think about it! It is a very unattractive proposition. It does not fit at all with a belief in a good god. It only fits with a belief in God the Games master (see above). Wholly innocent people die. Babies die. Very good people die early.

IF DEATH IS RANDOM

A good god could have devised a world where death is random. Could he? If so, he could have devised a world where death was not random but merit related. He did not.

The following FAQ's may assist:

IS RANDOM DEATH ESSENTIAL TO FREE WILL?

The answer is: not really. The only reason for killing people in your game is to score points. You simply need to set up a different scoring system. One that begins: Not Sending Massive Flood – BONUS – 10 Trillion Points.

IS GOD GOING TO STRIKE ME DOWN FOR POSTING THIS?

No, he probably does not exist.

If (contrary to all probabilities) he does exist then I really do not know. Maybe he likes to play with Sims like me in the game.

SHOULD YOU LIKE GOD?

None of the versions I have seen out there seem particularly attractive. If you can find a likable version of god, please let me know.

SHOULD I KILL SOMEONE BECAUSE I BELIEVE IN GOD?

I personally believe this to be a bad idea,

Everyone is entitled to their own view, however.

God Kills 50,000!

Nothing new then.

Really quite a small take in Burma.

God kills about 56.5 million people a year or roughly 155,000 every day.

It amazes me that otherwise intelligent people want to believe in this Ultimate Terminator.

As for Intelligent Design, I could do a better job in my lunch break.

What, for instance, is the point of locusts?

Ok, I know, you need them to inflict plagues.

The Dullard's Answer To Dawkins

Is this really the best that they can do? Having a science degree seems to be being set up as the fatal flaw in Dawkins' criticisms of theism. Well, it would be equally logical to suggest that I am excluded from this debate because I read English rather than Philosophy at University. In fact, let us confine all debate about the existence of god to those who have degrees in theology and have been ordained as ministers in some daft church or other. There's logic for you.

Politicians And God In The USA And In The UK

The title link sums up the position. An atheist simply could not be elected as President of the USA.

In England, religious faith is a handicap for a politician. Thus, Tony Blair did not do god whilst in office.

We like our politicians to be rational in all aspects of their life. You guys in the US appear to need your politicians to at least appear to believe in a supreme being otherwise, perhaps, you fear that they would be uncontrollable. You wish them to fear someone or something.

We do not mind a politician who has a vague religious belief; one that has never really been thought through. That is ok because probably most people do not give god much thought at all and simply tick a box on forms, stating belief of one kind or another, out of habit.

The conclusion I come to is that the UK's distrust of irrational beliefs in decision makers makes for a better chance of good decisions being made. The USA's insistence that their decision makers either hold or, at least, profess such beliefs means that they can only ever be governed by hypocrites and mad people.

I do not conclude that the UK government actually makes better decisions. However, I do prefer to be governed by people who, by and large, do not feel obliged to commit to a fundamentally childish set of beliefs that are beyond logic.

Impeccably Logical Challenge To Dawkins

I love this site. It is a totally logical refutation of Dawkin's theories. In fact, it proves beyond any doubt that Professor Dawkins does not himself exist at all. Just go to the title link and you too can share the experience of being cleansed by the pure and unadulterated logic of this wonderful shaman.

Genome Master Of The Universe Believes In God

I am looking forward to the publication of The Language of God by Francis Collins.

I am not encouraged, however, by the asserted basis of his claim to authority:

"His epiphany came when he went hiking through the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. He said: “It was a beautiful afternoon and suddenly the remarkable beauty of creation around me was so overwhelming, I felt, ‘I cannot resist this another moment’.”

Collins believes that science cannot be used to refute the existence of God because it is confined to the “natural” world. In this light he believes miracles are a real possibility. “If one is willing to accept the existence of God or some supernatural force outside nature then it is not a logical problem to admit that, occasionally, a supernatural force might stage an invasion,” he says."

If that is the foundation for his mere assertions, can we really expect a rigorous intellectual argument, or can we only expect a bunch of improbable declamations?

I accept that it is unfair to judge an author in advance of publication but this surely does not augur well.

Cast your runes carefully.

Lawyers: A New Priesthood?

PETER KING

It is alright, Mr King, I have not prefaced the caption with anything that might in your belief system be associated with your christian name.

“This may sound ridiculous, but I do believe that I’ve been called to be a lawyer.” Peter King, a corporate partner at Shearman & Sterling in London, knew within two days of starting his law degree at Cambridge that he had found what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. “I don’t know why,” he says. “There was just some chemistry.”

It would be overly cynical to suggest that Christian faith and being a lawyer are mutually incompatible. I think of all the lost souls slaving for the Legal Services Commission. They certainly manage to combine being lawyers with holding irrational beliefs. I do not mean that they believe in a god. They may or they may not. But they subscribe to an even more improbable belief; namely, that the UK government will one day treat them fairly. The probability that this is true is much lower than the probability that a god exists. This proves only that some lawyers suffer from delusions. If I add that I have met many very able lawyers who used to or still do legal aid work then I must accept the proposition that there exist lawyers who are good at their jobs but cleave to irrational beliefs.

I have recently referred to Thomas Cromwell (Henry VIII's lawyer) in a post. He professed belief in god. But then he had to and was probably just a cynical liar and a hypocrite.

There is no compulsion on Mr King (i.e. no threat that his head will be chopped off if he does not at least pretend to believe in god) and I fully accept that his belief in god is genuine (albeit deluded). See my previous post on Dawkins.

I just find his thought processes somewhat confusing. He ascribes his "calling" to the law in terms of "chemistry" rather than "theology". What branch of chemistry is he referring to? The most likely answer would seem to be "alchemy". Mr King has certainly turned his talents (if not lead) into gold. Thus, if he does believe in alchemy, that may not count as an irrational belief at all.

Pascal's Wager

For no reason I need record here, I mentioned Pascal's wager in the course of a discussion I was having with The Firm's senior partner. In short form I summarised its terms as follows:

We cannot know whether God exists. He may; in which case we are damned if we do not believe in him. He may not; in which case no consequence follows whether we believe or not. Therefore, a sane man will place his bet on God's existence and believe with all his heart. This is because this is the only choice that has any possibility of a desirable outcome i.e. salvation.

The senior partner (who does have a belief system ecompassing matters beyond the material world) reacted instinctively (as most people do) that this was an intellectually dishonest, or, at least not an honourable reason, for believing in a god.

It occurred to me afterwards to re-read the original. Of course, this is considerably more nuanced than my summary. It is readily available at 233 of Pascal's Pensees published by The Gutenberg Project.

The whole of 233 should be read before criticising it and I quote only two extracts:

"If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. This being so, who will dare to undertake the decision of the question? Not we, who have no affinity to Him.

Who then will blame Christians for not being able to give a reason for their belief, since they profess a religion for which they cannot give a reason? They declare, in expounding it to the world, that it is a foolishness, stultitiam;[90] and then you complain that they do not prove it! If they proved it, they would not keep their word; it is in lacking proofs, that they are not lacking in sense. "Yes, but although this excuses those who offer it as such, and takes away from them the blame of putting it forward without reason, it does not excuse those who receive it." Let us then examine this point, and say, "God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions."

and:

"For it is no use to say it is uncertain if we will gain, and it is certain that we risk, and that the infinite distance between the certainty of what is staked and the uncertainty of what will be gained, equals the finite good which is certainly staked against the uncertain infinite. It is not so, as every player stakes a certainty to gain an uncertainty, and yet he stakes a finite certainty to gain a finite uncertainty, without transgressing against reason. There is not an infinite distance between the certainty staked and the uncertainty of the gain; that is untrue. In truth, there is an infinity between the certainty of gain and the certainty of loss. But the uncertainty of the gain is proportioned to the certainty of the stake according to the proportion of the chances of gain and loss. Hence it comes that, if there are as many risks on one side as on the other, the course is to play even; and then the certainty of the stake is equal to the uncertainty of the gain, so far is it from fact that there is an infinite distance between them. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain. This is demonstrable; and if men are capable of any truths, this is one."

Well, perhaps a third, just to illustrate that Pascal was not unaware of the arguments that may be marshalled against him:

"Do not then reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all.""

The Gutenberg Project's edition is a reproduction of the Dutton 1958 New York edition. This is a particularly good choice as the translation has an introduction by T.S.Eliot, one of whose comments is that "Pascal is one of those writers who will be and who must be studied afresh by men in every generation."

The purpose of this post is simply to encourage those who read it to do just that and to point them to an easily available translation of the pensees.

The Real Meaning of Religion

Let me tell you a story.

It begins like this:



That's the thief on the right. Well, it's one of them. The one he told would be in paradise with him that very same day. It could not be any other day because they were both about to die. And it could have been the one on the other side anyway. It is difficult to distinguish between thieves. If his hands had not been nailed in then I suppose he could have flipped a coin. But it's pretty easy for him to do that kind of stuff in his head. Gosh, I just tried it. I can flip a coin in my head!!! You get to come to paradise with me and, oh, you on the other side, your just dead.

But they are such nice people really:

Faith Central: An atheist's guide

Libby Purves, the seemingly nice rational person who presents interesting and intelligent programs on Radio 4, has a new religious blog. It is open to atheists but they have to be "grumpy" atheists.

Balderdash! Me, grumpy! I commented as follows:

"The plethora of religions justifies belief in the existence of an instinct to believe in something supernatural but renders extremely improbable the existence of a god to believe in.

The existence of astrologers and the many who read them does not indicate even a tiny probability that astrology is an accurate guide to any individuals' future.

Theists are caught in the same trap. That is why they must rely upon "faith". Faith is a way of ending rational argument. It is the Ace of trumps. Faith = "I believe in X. I can offer you no justification except that millions of others are equally deluded. However, X must be a true belief because I believe in X."

That theists cannot win rational arguments is demonstrated by their final answer: which is to kill you. Islamists are in the news but Christians used to do exactly the same thing."

One might add that many believers in astrology are also theists. They may have a "belief" gene i.e. they will believe in anything.

Not that I have anything against faith (properly regarded):

Richard Dawkins is God: Gosh! I've only just read The God Delusion

God prevented me from uploading this image of Himself correctly. It will be lightning bolts next!

I suppose he did not let me download or upload it because (a) fuck's sake, He's God or (b) it was a bad likeness or (c) copywright infringement or (d) he really is just a greenish panel of nothingness.

Those of you who believe (a) to be the correct answer may as well turn your monitors off. You are beyond redemption and beyond reason. Restarting the computer is probably too difficult for you, so I have kept it nice and simple. If you cannot find the button to turn off the monitor, pull the plug out of the wall and go to bed with a nice cup of chocolate. When you wake up, sell your computer. Knowledge and information are not things you need. Buy a PlayStation. I believe (without knowing and without having any evidence at all and, indeed, without caring whether there is any evidence) that they include a free game entitled "Suicide Bombers and the Ultra-Virgins". You will like it.

Those who answered (b) or (c) are only mildly less insane.

The correct answer was, of course, (d).

There is no God. Professor Dawkins has proved it.

Well, he didn’t really need to. The basic idea is obvious. Did he really need to write a whole book about it? Most of the book is either elaboration or written in support of his alternative explanation for life: Darwinian evolution. His alternative theories may be right (and they are certainly interesting) but you do not need to buy into the positive exposition to realise that the Christian, Jewish or Muslim “god” is an improbable explanation for life on earth.

The improbability of god is summed up in a three word question. Who created god? Once you realise the infinite regression this traps you into (Who created the being or thing that created the being or thing that created god?) no sane person can believe in god.

My school had a joint debating society with a nearby girls’ school. I ran it (essentially, this was the 70’s and the girls mostly just did as they were told - with the exception of my girlfriend: see below). I once held a debate on the existence of God and the utility (or otherwise) of Jesus as a role model. The headmistress of the local girls’ school forbade her pupils to even attend.

That’s right! She did not say “Go forth, and defend Jesus.” She simply did not want the pure little ears of “her girls” to be exposed to contrary opinions. As I remember it, she did not let them attend a debate on homosexuality either. So, god and gayness had a special status. You were not allowed (at least, her girls were not allowed) to dispute the given truths that god was good and gay was bad.

You probably think I am making this up and you will be reinforced in your belief if I tell you that the girls’ school was called Nonsutch School. OK, ye unbelievers go to their website and be justly smited for thy unbelief! And, one girl did turn up! Admittedly, she was my girlfriend at the time but she went to Nonsutch School and defied her headmistress.

I went to Sutton Manor High School (as it was briefly called in an attempted act of camouflage) or, as it is now proud to call itself, its original name, Sutton Grammar School.

I bet the headmistress in question would like me to give her a capital letter. She, dead or alive, does not deserve one (and that goes for god too), but my Headmaster does. Dr Walsh was a religious man and his doctorate was in science (I think, physics). But, although he suspended me on three occasions, he ignored reported sightings of me on the premises and was always a lively and interested participant in our personal debates (otherwise, my harangues, or, from his perspective, the disciplinary interviews).

Lots of (but, crucially, not all) theists act as if they are sane in other aspects of their lives.

It is the “not all” bit that justifies Professor Dawkins’ book and the time and trouble he took to write it.

Incidentally, he is also a very good writer and I have found it difficult to put down this book notwithstanding that I had other pressing matters requiring my immediate attention. That is about as good as it gets if you are looking for praise from me. But, of course, neither “god” nor Professor Dawkins will be even slightly interested in my opinion. On the other hand, at least one of them exists.

I am so convinced of his existence that I have pre-elected myself as High Priest of the cargo cult that will arise around Professor Dawkins' bones. So please address me as Your Holiness in future. Otherwise, Steven will do. But NOT Steve. I'll cast a spell on you if you call me Steve. And you know that, as the preemptive High Priest of the Church of Richard Dawkins, my spells work.