Passing the Impasse: Inviting the Religious and Non-Religious to Participate Together

Note: the following is the beginning to something I want to create to help get religious and non-religious people working together, not against each other, to solve problems in the world. What I envision is a group similar to the Interfaith Youth Corps of Chicago that engages people in community service projects primarily, with an optional component that allows people to discuss their differences through civil discussion without any pressure or expectations.

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Throughout my life I have been fascinated by two subjects more than any other: science and religion.

I did not grow up religious. At a very young age I learned about science and critical thinking by watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos series on television. Sagan never, to my knowledge, discounted or belittled religion. He seemed to consider himself an agnostic to the ultimate question as to whether a supernatural being exists or not. However, he never did shy away from putting claims about phenomena in the physical world to the test of reason.

Looking around our world we see several major religious traditions, and countless other smaller ones. Within each major tradition are sects with their own beliefs and practices. It seems that each of these traditions consider themselves correct and others wrong. Could it really be that there is one correct path and all the others are wrong? My own position is simple. My belief is that no one has all the right answers. That certainly includes me. But, when people practice a religion, they often form strong communities based on the ideals of love and shared values. They draw strength from the religion's rich stories, teachings, parables, and guidance for both the old and young. Yet, religions change too. In the Christian gospel accounts, Jesus continually questioned the Jewish religious leaders of the day, leading ultimately to a new religion founded upon his teachings.

Therefore, shouldn't religious people of today continue to question popular religious traditions and practices the same way Jesus did?

Now, what about science? Do the scientists have it all correct? Hardly. In fact, true science is based upon the idea that hypotheses must be tested by multiple independent people and in multiple ways before they become accepted as well established theories. Einstein's theories have been corroborated time and again by experimental evidence. Does that mean that Einstein's theories are complete? No, it does not. It means that they can predict observable behavior accurately under a given set of circumstances. But, there is more research that has to be done before his theories and quantum mechanics can be reconciled. Even then, we may never have a complete and final understanding of how nature operates.

Therefore, shouldn't scientists continually questions ideas and theories the same way Einstein did?

We all know that there are many scientists who are religious, some who even hold to fairly traditional and literal interpretations of many religious texts. Francis Collins is a prime example of someone likely to be known to many. We also all know that there have been many books published recently from prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris that aim to show that science is superior to religion. So, who is correct?

Once again, neither "camp" is correct about everything. There are some things religious people are correct about, and some things that non-religious people are correct about. Life is almost always like this. One side is very seldom entirely correct and just as seldom entirely incorrect.

Personally, I am an agnostic atheist in the following sense: I do not believe that any human being has ever, or could ever, claim to know the absolute truth about the ultimate nature of reality. In this sense, I reject all claims that any particular religion is "correct" about God and therefore I reject all human conceptualizations of God. Mystics of all faiths have come to much the same conclusion. I am not just making this up. To speak about it without jargon, they essentially state that any idea or conceptualization we could hold in our finite, human brain, by definition, cannot be God. A thought is a thing. Mystics say God is not a thing.

However, I am agnostic to the proposition as to whether there is an existence higher than what we experience. I am not calling such an existence "supernatural" as is popularly portrayed. Instead, I offer a simple analogy to illustrate my point. Imagine you are a character in a 3D video game. You've been programmed with such sophistication that you can make decisions within the context of your own environment. The environment is governed by rules and laws. We might call them "game physics". How would you, as a game character, ever come to comprehend the fact that you were actually constructed by human beings in a totally different plane of existence?

Therefore, who is to say that our universe is not a construction of a force that we simply cannot, by definition, ever comprehend?

Likewise, who is to say that it is? I am not postulating our own universe is like that. There are theologians, philosophers, and scientists who have argued both sides of that question with far greater sophistication and erudition than I have to offer. However, what I am saying is that I think religious people and non-religious both need to take a second look at what they believe before they step all over each other. Each side can learn from the other through civil discussion and participation.

The goal of this site is two-fold:

1. Allow religious people and non-religious people for form community groups aimed at helping people in their community, regardless of any creed, belief, or lack there-of.
2. Allow religious people and non-religious people to engage in civil discussion about ideas.

Intolerance is the New Old Toleration (Or, the Resurrection of Harry Houdini and Carl Sagan

I had a long instant-message session with my friend Karl from Texas tonight. I have been chatting with him since long before I had my current job, long before I worked at my last job for four years, before my job before that of 4 years, and my 4+ years of college. I was 17 when I first started chatting with him in an old #U2 chat room. I think he was 16, which is the current age of my own brother. I built a web page for that IRC chat channel. It was the first time I tried to teach myself how to do that kind of stuff, and then I learned PERL and CGI programming to give some interactivity.

A lot can change in twelve years. I now have a career programming interactive information systems after those humble beginning. The entire world now communicates via the internet. We were among the tail end of the early adopters back then, but now we're nearly thirty, and tonight's conversation was not about which U2 album is best or which lyrics are the most meaningful. Instead, both of us now own our own residences, have full-time employment, and are furthering our educations, he with a master's degree, and myself with a technical certification.

Tonight's conversation matched with equal proportion the expansion of our own worlds of personal responsibility our concern over world events and the future of that world. There are a great many things about which he and I can agree that need not be mentioned except for one.

We are both grateful that we live in a country wherein our rights for free expression are explicitly protected in our laws. This enables us to disagree about our definitions of "religion", "god", and what have you. He argues that "atheism" is a form of religion and cites a court ruling that agrees. I argue that the lack of belief in a supernatural deity does not constitute a religion. The distinction is probably not all that important to world events is it?

But, we can discuss it freely, thankfully. The same cannot be said for many Muslims living under the laws of their countries. We are both extremely concerned about militant Islamic fundamentalists that brutalize their own people and westerners, and intimidate the followers of moderate, progressive strands of Islamic teachings. Interestingly, Salman Rushdie will be coming to Atlanta and teaching and speaking at Emory University near where I used to work. His speaking events will be worth attending.

What I finally attempted to argue for was a form of intolerance that Sam Harris has called for in public discourse. In fact, what he is calling for is no different from the current intolerance we already practice in every single strand of public discourse except when it comes to religious beliefs.

Here is a short list of things we are correct to refuse to tolerate.

1) We are right to be intolerant of a surgeon who claim to be qualified to operate on you with only an undergraduate degree in chemistry and no medical degree to justify his belief, and that of his peers, in his abilities.
2) We are right to be intolerant of a car mechanic who refuses to show us diagnostic readings or other instrument print-outs that explain how he justifies his belief that your car needs $2,000 worth of repairs when all you did was bring it in for an oil-change and an alignment.
3) We are right to be intolerant of a man who would claim that it's not his fault when he rear-ends you while talking on his cell-phone and you are waiting patiently at a red-light, simply minding your own business and waiting for the light to turn green so that you can be free to continue on to your destination.

Why then do so many Americans find it so hard to turn the very same intolerance of credulity on their religious beliefs?

The reason is that they have grown up believing their religion to be true, or approximately true, if not completely true. Certainly those who attend denominationalist churches tend to have a more reasoned, seasoned, approximate faith than those who cluster around most "non-denominational" churches.
However, at the core of all Christian religions is the unfathomable, inexplicable miracle of a physical Resurrection. This belief is paramount. Without this belief, as St. Paul attests, their belief is for naught. Of course, you can find Christian theologians or critical analysts who do not accept a literal, physical resurrection, but you cannot find a mainline Christian denomination, to my limited knowledge.

This, I believe, is to the detriment of Christians. They allow themselves the belief in physical miracles for their own religion, at least in principle and in theory, yet they disbelieve in the miracles of Hindu believers, or Islamic believers. On what grounds do they hold this intolerance toward other religions? The grounds, of course, vary from person to person. I was told by Chip Ingram that demons perform demonic manifestations in other religions. I have written elsewhere why I believe this is absurd, so I will not recount it here. Other Christians say they accept miracles in other religions. Others, usually older, will simply not enter the conversation.

But, entering this conversation is a must for Christians to engage with today's world. We live during a time in which lunatic Islamic adherents believe that their idea of the creator of the universe has instructed them to kill non-believers. Many of them also unfortunately believe we are waging a war against Islam as Christian crusade, thanks to George W. Bush's ill-fated speech after September 11th, 2001.

As Sam Harris has stated, many Americans don't really understand what it means to be prepared to die for their faith. They can't even comprehend taking their faith so seriously as to literally want to kill in the name of their God. Yet, the Old Testament states that God instructed the Israelites to stone their obstinate sons and daughters to death in the town square. Obviously, Christians don't believe in this kind of punishment for their teenage children. It is, quite frankly, disgusting and repulsive that anyone would think the creator of the universe would ever inspire a human being to inscribe this kind of law. A Christian apologist could argue that times were so uncivilized back then that this was the most civilized thing that could be done in the context of the society of that time. This claim would be a pure assertion, with absolutely no basis in fact. It would be just as absurd.

Since we do not adhere to the Old Testament laws letter-for-letter, since most Christians believe that Jesus ushered in a different kind of God-consciousness, one based upon love, forgiveness, and kindness, we ten d to take it for granted that our religious heritage of the last couple hundred years is more docile than militant Islam.

But, that doesn't get Christians off the hook for the elephant in their tea cup that is the belief in physical, literal miracles. David Hume's famous statement that no testimony to a miracle is sufficient unless believing that it was not a miracle would be even more miraculous is similar to Carl Sagan's statement that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". However, Sagan's statement actually asks too much. An extraordinary claim, such as the claim that many dead people came back to life when Jesus died and walked around Jerusalem when he came back life (Mattew 27:52) is not a claim that requires extraordinary evidence. It is a claim that requires simply evidence, period.

Yet, there is absolutely no evidence outside of apocryphal Christian texts that attest to this miracle. Christians, ask yourself this:
Is the resurrection of one man, seen by several at first, and then by about 500, more miraculous than the resurrection of many dead saints seen by many people?

Of course, we don't know what "many people" is in this context, but we do know that it is a plurality in both cases. We know that the Romans occupied Jerusalem at the time. We also know that no secular historian wrote anything about many dead people coming back to life and walking around Jerusalem.
Some would say I'm making too fine a point of contention here. But stop and ask is this really the case? Is it really too much to ask for some physical evidence of something that you simply would not believe today?

Imagine someone came into your house and told you he had seen a man get shot, die, get buried, and then come out of his tomb and ascend into heaven. You would think this person was a stark raving lunatic! Why then do you believe that it was even remotely possibly that something of the same physical nature occurred 2,000 years ago in a time when people didn't have cell phones, video phones, camcorders, basic photography, or any other recording devices? I contend that you believe it because you grew up believing it, but certainly not because you have any kind of verifiable knowledge. And, you certainly have no more grounds for believing this to be literally true than a Muslim has for believing that the angel Gabriel revealed the Quran to Mohammed in a cave.

I am open to the evidence. I always have been and always will be. I will never say that I am absolutely certain that the Resurrection didn't happen or even that Gabriel didn't reveal the Quran to Mohammed. But, what I will say is that I see absolutely no reason to believe that either event is literally true.

Finally, I leave this post with a thought experiment that I've written elsewhere.

Remember the story about God parting the Red Sea for Moses and the Hebrew slaves? We all know this story. Many of us believe that it literally happened. Others don't believe that. Well, how would God manifest his powers today?

Imagine that militant Islamic adherents kidnap some children of Christian parents and drop them off into a desert, far away from any communications networks. These children have their cell phones with them. They try to place calls, but it is no use. They begin to pray to Jesus for help. Suddenly, a cell-phone tower springs up out of the ground! The children make their calls and get through to someone who can help. The responders begin to trace the GPS position of the cell-phone tower and send rescue teams!

But, the militants, now in the distance beyond the sight of the children due to the earth's curvature, see the tip of the huge tower over the horizon. They begin to turn back, and quickly approach the tower, this time with murderous rage and indignation. The children begin to run for their lives. Suddenly, the cell phone tower crashes down on top of the militants, killing them and sparing the children.

Yahweh has saved his people through the power of modern technology.

If only you could believe it. The same intolerant, bewildering incredulity you have toward that absurd story is exactly how I see your religious miracles, Christians and Muslims. They are incredibly unlikely to have ever taken place, and the only sane response to that realization is to come to the table with humility, reason, and a mind that asks first for evidence before belief.

Some say there isn't a conflict between religion and science. If that's the case, it's only because somewhere in Plato's world of the forms they gave a war of ideas and nobody shared theirs. Ironically, in a war of ideas, those who choose to lay down their intellectual arms for the sake of conversational tolerance turn a blind eye to the militant around the corner who is picking up a real gun or strapping on a real bomb.

For these reasons, I believe we must be intolerant of credulity. We must look at all belief systems with Occam's razor and we must continually question our assumptions. When a Muslim says that he can die for Allah and reach heaven, we must ask him to give epistemological reasons and factual evidence for this claim. We must also ask the Christian who says that Jesus is God's only way to provide evidence.

It is only wishful thinking to state that I wish both Muslims and Christians would sit down and have a pray-off to demonstrate the power of their gods. This will never happen, but these criticism must be stated, over and over if need be.

God, if you're out there, resurrect Harry Houdini and Carl Sagan. We need Houdini to find a way to get us out of this mess and we need Carl Sagan to argue forcefully once more for intolerance of credulity and tolerance of science as he did in The Demon Haunted World.

Since I don't believe that's going to happen, I'm going to have to physically do the next most sensible thing, which is to try to carry on Sagan's efforts in whatever way I can through my own writings.

Any body want to play the part of Houdini? The last time he tried to come back from the dead, he failed.

Satan and The Demons

Good morning! Today I want to discuss a topic that a lot people are afraid to discuss. But, I think it's a good one, because if you look around our world you see a lot of insanity.  You've got people fighting each other, ostensibly because of their religious beliefs. Maybe it's really because of power, money, greed, but a lot of the people doing the fighting believe that their religion is superior to somebody else's and any need to take 'em out!

For example, 9/11: you have Osama bin Laden, we're lead to believe, commanding terrorists and terror cells. And, what do these people believe? They believe that Allah, the Muslim name for God, is directing their war efforts! He has a divine plan and a divine will, and it is his will that these fundamentalist, fanatical, Islamic adherents take out the West. They don't agree with our morals. They don't agree with our culture that we try to export to the rest the world. Maybe they have some genuine concerns with that. I would not disagree with that. But, is taking the lives of many innocent people the right way to go about it? And, in doing so, is believing that you're going to go to heaven and be rewarded rational? I don't think so.

Let's talk about this concept for a second. You've got this idea of Heaven and Hell, right? OK. What did people in the past used to think about the Sun? They thought the Sun revolved around the Earth. They looked out at stars and thought they were heavens, saying "Wow, look at the heavens, look at the stars!" They saw the sun moving. The Sun brought them light, energy and warmth. At the end of the day the Sun disappeared. Where did it go? It went underneath the Earth: The underworld! Wow! What a concept! People used to think the Earth was flat. And, this hot, burning, scorching sun burned up everything under the world. And, where is hell located? It's always down. And, heaven is always up. We still to this day talk about going up to heaven or down to hell. Who am I to say that people who live on the other side of the world are devilish creatures, that they are in hell? And, when they say that their talking about me! If I go down I go to the fiery core of the planet. I don't go to hell. I may come up on the other side of the planet if I can make it through the core, but there's no hell underneath the Earth. Unless, maybe we really do get burned up inside of the core. Who knows! But, when we go up, we go into space, into outer space where there are many other stars. And, now scientists have found there are over 100 other planets in solar systems outside of our own.

Let's talk about this being that rules hell, shall we? His name is "Satan". OK, Satan. We're told that this Satan has demons, and demons can manifest themselves in the world performing Satanic miracles to draw glory away from Jesus Christ the true lord and savior. And, what else about Satan? Satan wants a lot of glory! Yes, yes he wants all the glory for himself. He used to be an angel, one of the beings of light, one of God's great creations. But, he wanted all that glory for himself. This cat was greedy! So, he tried to topple God, and God kicked his ace out! He took demons; he took angels with him and turned them into demons. So, we're told that these demons can come along in jump into our brains and infiltrate our minds and cause us to do crazy things, lunatic things, evil things!

OK, all right, I'm following you. But, let's ask a rational question now. In our modern day and age when we have medicine that, I will admit, does not cure psychiatric illness, but alleviates the symptoms, what kind of conclusion do we draw? Do we say that these chemicals that go into our bloodstream and modify our brain chemistry are also acting on supernatural spirits? Come on! Do supernatural beings have anything more powerful than chemicals at their disposal? I would think so! So, why is it that our modern medicine can alleviate symptoms of so-called "demonic possession"? And, why is it that demonic possession is more prevalent in some denominations (or maybe I should say demoninations) than others? Why in the mainline protestant churches do you not have people recommended for exorcism quite so often as in Pentecostal or Nazarene churches? And, why do some of these other denominations not value higher education quite so much as some of the other more mainline denominations? Just a question.

Another question: I was told by a pastor that the miracles attributed to other religions are attributable to "demonic activity". There is angelic activity over here and demonic activity over there.

OK, I'm tracking you!

But, let me ask you a question then: If demons can physically manifest phenomena in the world, they're not really that interested in glory are they? Because, if they were, I think that Satan and demons would get on television tonight and, say, multiply food in the name of Osama bin Laden. Wouldn't that draw glory away from Jesus? I think it would. But, you don't see that. Why? Well, Christians might say, "Because God doesn't allow it". Well, how come he allows demonic things to take place over here and over there; something that somebody else always saw or heard. And, when you have a pastor talk about it it's something that he witnessed. But, he has no evidence: no video evidence, no graphical evidence, nothing. 

You know, Jesus was said to have cast out a "legion of demons" from a man and thrown them into a herd of swine. And, then the swine ran off a cliff. OK, this leads us to believe that demons are not just some kind of personification of illness or ailment. They're a spiritual-physical being. Spiritual-physical, whatever, trans-physical. I don't know, I'm not up on all this theology. But, if Jesus believed that then I believe that we should be able to see evidence, not hearsay, of these things. I think that's a reasonable concern and a reasonable demand. But, we don't. And, again it's only those certain denominations that are certainly so sure that the demons are spiritual-physical real beings, and not some of the more mainline.

So, this leads us to believe that religion changes. Religious thought changes over the years.

Another thing about these religious books: they were written by men. And, when you talk to pastors about the formation of the canon sometimes they don't want to answer your questions. One question I had was about the crucifixion account in Mark and Matthew. Most scholars believe that Mark was written before Matthew. And, if you read Mark's crucifixion account it says that when Jesus died and then the curtain was torn, and then the guard said, "Surely this was the son of God", or something like that. But, if you then read Matthew's account it says that the curtain was torn and then at that moment there was a great earthquake and the earth did shake and many bodies of saints who had fallen asleep were raised in their tombs and after his resurrection they came at their tombs and walked around the holy city and were seen by many.

OK, I got you. But let's ask a question: what independent attestation is there to this miracle? What did the secular historians write about this miracle? Nothing. Not a thing. There are some apocryphal writings, apocryphal Christian writings about this, but nothing in the secular history. This is a fantastic miracle. This is more fantastic than the resurrection of one-man because this was the resurrection of many men seen by many. 

You have to question the integrity of these books. It is your duty. You cannot blindly believe. You must question. And, when you question, do not simply ask Christians. Ask skeptics. Do not take what is written in these books as absolute fact. You must question. Thank you.

On Wanting to Be Christian

It's interesting to me when people speak to me as if I know nothing about Christianity. They assume that because I profess no belief in it, that I do not understand the stories or that I have not been to church or that I have not heard the "good news" proclaimed that Jesus has born the sins of the world and is my redeemer. They think that I do not know that all I have to do is accept Jesus's atoning sacrifice and that by doing so I will be clinching a place in Heaven by his side when the world comes to an end. They assume that if I only knew these things like they do, then I'd want to be Christian.

But, as that paragraph should attest, this is just not the case. I took religion in general, and Christianity in particular, very seriously for about two years in my mid twenties. Some might say that's not a long time. But let's think about it from an objective point of view for a moment by juxtaposing a couple of hypothetical situations side by side.

Assume that you grew up Christian and then moved to Saudi Arabia in your mid twenties. You were very skeptical of Islam during your youth. But, you began attending Mosque and reading the Quran while in Saudi Arabia. You tried with all your might and will to believe in the teachings of the Quran, many of which you found to be common sense, elegant, beautiful, and deeply moving. But, you had a hard time believing some of the stories, and just could not believe it "literally." That is, you just couldn't believe that an angel Gabriel spoke to Muhammad and revealed God's laws to him literally.

Would you be an infidel for not believing in Islam? To the Muslim you might. But, when you returned to America, you could continue to be a Christian and nobody would think the worse of you!

Now, put on my shoes for a second. You grew up reading about mythology and many religions, including Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and others that are more obscure. You also grew up with a deep fascination and appreciation of the scientific method and for historical research and evidence based discovery. You grew up around a family of people who not only were artistic, but also very discerning and skeptical and didn't get played for fools by televangelists or fortune tellers or get-rich-quick scams. In short, they worked their butts off to accomplish what they accomplished, with no help from magical beings.

So, even with that appreciation for science and discovery and mythology you put all of that aside when you were 26 and started attending a Christian house of worship out of the deep-felt desire to connect to the some 80 to 90% of the rest of the nation's purported belief system. Like you did when you went to Saudi Arabia (hypothetically) and attended the Mosque, you began to appreciate the stories and parables and, most of all, the ritual and fellowship. But, something inside you did not let you believe in magical beings or miracles.

Would you be an infidel for not believing in Christianity? To the Christian you might. But, when you returned to a community of those who have studied Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, mythology, science, history, and much else, nobody would think the worse of you!
What's more, when you went to work the next day and you sat at your desk to do some hard work you would not be surprised that the work didn't just accomplish itself out of the sheer will of your mind. No, you would gladly work hard to accomplish the end result. And, those around you would do much the same without any surprise that work did not get accomplished without their effort.

Even more still, you and your coworkers would be shocked, surprised and downright skeptical if someone came in from outside the office and told you that they just saw a man get shot by a firing squad and die, and then he rose from the ground and was lifted away by a cloud and was seen by hundreds of others. You'd probably tell him that you weren't born yesterday or that you have some ocean-front property to sell him in Arizona.

This last paragraph is the condensed and modernized version of Christianity. When you ask me to believe it, I will engage you in open minded conversation, but don't be surprised when I ask you to step into my shoes and open your own mind.

What Happened to All the Miracles?

It is not uncommon to hear people speak about the miraculous work of their god in their life or in the events in the world. However, it is almost completely unheard of for a scientist to use a god or a supernatural explanation as part of an explanatory hypothesis. It is completely without precedent to find an accepted scientific theory that uses a god or a supernatural explanation.

I remember a time when I was trying so hard to believe in literalistic religion, despite my brain fighting against me every step of the way, that I nearly convinced myself that a miracle happened. Thankfully, wiser friends advised me that I was just lacking sleep and trying to believe too hard.

But, what is a miracle? The site dictionary.com offers various entries for the word.  http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=miracle. Here is the first:

An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God: "Miracles are spontaneous, they cannot be summoned, but come of themselves" (Katherine Anne Porter).

 WikiPedia offers a lengthy entry about miracles as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle. Given that different religions and even the same religion may not agree upon what a miracle is, where can we even begin? Let's just start by thinking about some common miracle stories that come to mind.

• God parts the red sea to allow the Hebrew slaves flee from the Egyptians, but God causes the waters to flood in on the Egyptians when they attempt to cross.
• Jesus multiplies small portions of food into many portions for a large crow.
• Jesus instantly converts water into wine.
• When Jesus dies on the cross, many holy saints come back to life in their tombs.
• Three days after Jesus dies, he comes back to life and appears to several people, and eventually to about 500 people.
• The holy saints who had risen in their tombs when Jesus died leave their tombs and walk around Jerusalem and appear to many people.

These are common stories we hear, especially in religious institutions like churches or in religious literature. I have chosen only Christian and Jewish stories because most in my culture are familiar with these.

How likely are you to believe that something like this happened yesterday? What if I and three or four other people told you we saw several bodies come out of their graves and walk around the town?

Or, to be more modern, what if we told you that we had been kidnapped. blindfolded, and dropped in a desert with just our cellphones? When we tried to use the phone to call for help, there was no signal. But, suddenly a powerful cell tower grew out of the ground and allowed us to make calls. With the help of GPS tracking, eventually rescue teams found us. But, if it were not for that cell tower growing out of the ground, we would have perished.

How would you react to such a tale? You'd say we were pulling your leg. So, why do people want to believe in miracles from  many thousands of years ago? I believe it brings comfort to people. They grew up in church or in a culture that speaks of these things, and they feel safe believing them. They feel like it gives them a history and a tradition.

Oddly, these are the same people who would never in a million years take their vehicle to a car repair shop that promises to fix their car by prayer or magic. They know that some things just don't work that way. Yet, they feel justified in believing in the miracles of Jehovah or Jesus.

Is it impossible for miracles to occur? I cannot say that it is. I can even think of a way to make an analogy that would demonstrate how they could occur. Imagine that you live on a video tape. The person playing the video tape has seen the video before and decides to change things up and have a little bit of fun with you. He presses the pause button, modifies the tape such that you now are wearing a bright pink tank top,  sun glasses, shorts, and sandals. He then presses play again. You would never even feel the pause button or feel any lapse of time. Instead, it would feel to you as if one moment simply moved into the next. Unfortunately, you had just walked into the door of an important business meeting full of people you've never met before. Everyone turns around to see you dressed very inappropriately. You had hoped to gain their business, but now your brain is confused, because you could have sworn you dressed appropriately.

Would there be any scientific test for this miracle? I don't think there could be. Because you exist at the mercy of the tape player, the tape player can modify the  tape reality any way he pleases and you won't be able to do a thing about it, nor will you even be able to predict when it occurs. This could be an analogy to a god or supernatural forces doing something similar in our world.

But, do things like this really happen? Or, have we explained more and more events with less and less doubt as to their physical explanation? I believe it is the latter. Richard Carrier recently said that there has never in the history of science been a situation in which a phenomenon was originally explained as supernatural or the work of God, subsequently was explained by physics, and then later still reverted to explanation by God.

Never.

As with all things, I advise you to make your own mind up about this. Maybe the truth is that there is simply one "miracle", existence itself. Everything else is natural and the deeper we  study nature, the more and more we will understand its principles and the principles of existence.

Until such a time, I'm not believing in walking dead men, risen saviors, parted waters, multiplied food, or statues that can drink milk. I spoke only about Christianity in this post, but take a look here for some Hindu "miracles", even caught on live video: http://www.milkmiracle.com/.

As you can see from that video, no religion has a monopoly on miracle claims, but at least Hinduism now has some video evidence, right? If you're like me, you realize that this phenomena can be created through a simple process called capillary action. You can try it at home. Just put some milk on a spoon and hold it up to a rounded rock or other surface. A good prop to use is one of the small pagoda waterfall fountains you can put in your kitchen to create ambience.

The moral of the story is that we should not let a miracle be an explanation for anything. We should seek the scientific explanation, which is almost always much more intellectually satisfying and stimulating to our curiosity. When something cannot be explained, simply let it be a mystery. Someday, you or someone else may understand it.

Why I Think I May Be a Humanist

My tongue in cheek title is a spoof on Bertrand Russell's (1) "Why I Am Not a Christian" (2). I have never really given Humanism much thought until recently. But after reading the basic principles of it in several places and listening to some podcasts from the Institute for Humanist Studies, I think I may just well feel fine about classifying myself as Humanist.

In the Humanist Network News podcast (3) episode #18 (4), cognitive scientist and popular author Stephen Pinker (5) makes the following statement, emphasis mine:

Stephen Pinker: ... I'd like to begin with a question. Why am I here? Why are all of us here?

In my case, I study the human mind, and in studying the human mind I inevitably face the assumption which almost everyone in the field shares, that the mind is a product of the brain, a biological organ, and that the brain was shaped by natural selection and the evolutionary process. That doesn't leave any room for some immaterial entity called the soul, a ghost in the machine. It doesn't leave much room for a narrative of the universe in which humans were put on Earth for a purpose, a moral purpose given by some animate entity, which they are charged with carrying out.

On the other hand, even though I am a materialist, as are most people who study the mind, I still feel that there is a place for meaning and purpose and something larger than ourselves. But when you have this set of beliefs you can feel awfully lonely. I did not have many friends on the politically correct left, and I had even fewer friends on the religious right, and I was kind of feeling, I can't be the only person who has this set of beliefs. They just seem so obvious.

And then at some point, a few years ago, it occurred to me: I'm a humanist. That's what I am.

Humanist Principles

From the Institute for Humanist Studies' web site, http://humaniststudies.org/humphil.html, Humanism is defined as:

Are you a humanist?

• Do you try to live an ethical and fulfilling life without religious belief?
• Do you think science and reason lead to more reliable knowledge than faith?
• Do you support secular government and an open society that guarantees human rights for all?

If you answered "yes" to these questions, you might be one of the millions of humanists on Earth -- people who live meaningful, fulfilling lives based on reason and compassion.

Humanism in brief

Humanism is a philosophy of life inspired by humanity and guided by reason. It provides the basis for a fulfilling and ethical life without religion.

• Humanists make sense of the world using reason, experience and shared human values.
• Humanists see no convincing evidence for gods, the supernatural, or life after death.
• Humanists believe that moral values are properly founded on human empathy and scientific understanding.
• Humanists believe we must live this life on the basis that it is the only life we'll have -- that, therefore, we must make the most of it for ourselves, each other, and our world.

Humanist philosophies have arisen separately in many different cultures over many thousands of years. Whether or not they use the term humanism, tens of millions of Americans and hundreds of millions of people around the world agree with the humanist philosophy of living a happy and productive life based on reason and compassion.

Definitions of humanism

Humanism is:

"...seeking, without religion, the best in, and for, human beings." Chambers Pocket Dictionary

"...a doctrine, attitude, or way of life centered on human interests or values; especially: a philosophy that usually rejects supernaturalism and stresses an individual's dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason." Merriam Webster Dictionary

"...a non-religious philosophy, based on liberal human values." Little Oxford Dictionary

"...an appeal to reason in contrast to revelation or religious authority as a means of finding out about the natural world and destiny of man, and also giving a grounding for morality... Humanist ethics is also distinguished by placing the end of moral action in the welfare of humanity rather than in fulfilling the will of God." Oxford Companion to Philosophy

"The rejection of religion in favor of the advancement of humanity by its own efforts." Collins Concise Dictionary

"That which is characteristically human, not supernatural, that which belongs to man and not to external nature, that which raises man to his greatest height or gives him, as man, his gr.eatest satisfaction." Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences

"A system of thought that centers on humans and their values, capacities, and worth." American Heritage Dictionary

I also like the WikiPedia definition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism

Humanism is a broad category of ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appeal to universal human qualities—particularly rationality. It is a component of a variety of more specific philosophical systems and is incorporated into several religious schools of thought. Humanism entails a commitment to the search for truth and morality through human means in support of human interests. In focusing on the capacity for self-determination, Humanism rejects the validity of transcendental justifications, such as a dependence on faith, the supernatural, or allegedly divinely revealed texts. Humanists endorse universal morality based on the commonality of the human condition, suggesting that solutions to human social and cultural problems cannot be parochial.

Local Atlanta Resources

For those in the Atlanta area interested to learn more about Humanism, check out this site:

http://www.geocities.com/gahumanists/ for the Humanists of Georgia.

There is also the Atlanta Freethought Society, http://www.atlantafreethought.org/, and the Fellowship of Reason: http://www.fellowshipofreason.com/

This is definitely something I want to check out more about.

References

1. Bertrand Russell: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell
2. Why I Am Not A Christian, by Bertrand Russell: http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html
3. Humanist Network News podcast: http://humaniststudies.org/podcast/
4. Humanist Network News episode #18 Transcript: http://humaniststudies.org/enews/?id=299&article=1

Some of Stephen Pinker's Books

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/books/llld/index.html

TheocracyWatch: Bow Down and Obey, or Stand up and Fight

This post is dedicated to the legacy of Thomas Jefferson, without whose voice of reason and pen that crafted a call to freedom none of us would likely be here today.

And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

Thanks Also to YouTube

I am so thankful also for YouTube. Thank you to the creative people who built it. Read about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube. They have done their part to enable the rest of us to take back this nation through self-education from the powers of unreason that currently threaten freedom of thought and religion, not just in the United States, but all around the world. This post will focus on the United States and the rise of theocratic aspirations among a group of politically well-connected theologians and pastors.

Quotations that Support the Separation of Church and State

Ed Buckner and his son Michael have compiled a large collection of quotes that defend the separation of church and state at:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ed_buckner/quotations.html

Both Ed and his son are members of the Atlanta Freethought Society, which you can learn about at: http://www.atlantafreethought.org/

You can get in on the conversation with other Atlanta area people interested in these topics by subscribing to the Atlanta Freethought Society Forum's newsletter at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/afsforum/

First Freedom First

This is a great video that demonstrates why the United States of America is a democratic republic, not a theocracy. We are not Iran. This video features more than a dozen of all kinds of different beliefs discussing why the First Amendment protects all of us and why we must defend it against those who would take it from us. The web site for the organization that created it is:

http://www.FirstFreedomFirst.org

Selected Quotes from the Founding Fathers on the Dangers of Government-Sponsored Religion

Here are a couple of good collection of quotes about the dangers of religion in the hands of governments by such people as Thomas Jefferson, the author our very own Declaration of Independence, and the third President of the United States. It also contains quotes from James Madison, the fourth President.

Thomas Jefferson on Christianity and Jesus

Thomas Jefferson wrote a book about Christianity, the Bible, and Jesus. Read about his writings here:

• The Jefferson Bible: http://www.amazon.com/Jefferson-Bible-Thomas/dp/0807077143
• The Jefferson Bible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible
• From Jesus to Christ, Thomas Jefferson and His Bible: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/jesus/jefferson.html

Here a few other quotes from Thomas Jefferson about Christianity and Jesus:

• Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. --Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
• But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. --Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
• Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear. --Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
• Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State. --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802 (emphasis my own)
• The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills. --Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814

You can read more quotes from Jefferson about religion here:

http://nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm

The Bloodshed in Europe Lead to Their Views and To the First Amendment

These guys had seen the blood shed in Europe. They knew first-hand what happens when governments enforce religious belief upon people.

You can read a book about the many wars in Europe that were, at least ostensibly, fueled by religious differences here:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/European_History/Religious_Wars_in_Europe

These wars are part of the reason that the founding fathers wrote the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights in this way:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The first clause in the first sentence is known as the Establishment Clause, and you can read more about it at these links:

• http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/rel_liberty/establishment/index.aspx
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause_of_the_First_Amendment

The second clause in that sentence is known as the Free Exercise Clause, and you can read more about it at these links:

• http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/rel_liberty/free_exercise/index.aspx
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Exercise_Clause_of_the_First_Amendment

This Can't Happen to Us, Right? Wrong!

It's comforting to think that politicians can't enforce their own particular religious viewpoint upon us as citizens. We think that this cannot happen. This is just a comforting illusion. It's not based on reality. It can happen to us, and there are people trying to make sure that it does happen to. They are known as Dominionists, those who believe in Dominionism. You can learn about Dominionism on TheocracyWatch's web page here:

http://www.theocracywatch.org/dominionism.htm

Theocrat: Rousas John Rushdoony

Or, you can read some quotes from one its major champions. I think these quotes should be enough to give anyone the picture loud and clear.

Rousas John Rushdoony is considered one of the pioneers of Dominionism. Here are some quotes from Rushdoony:

• Democracy is the great love of the failures and cowards of life. [R.J. Rushdoony, _Thy Kingdom Come_,1978]
• One faith, one law and one standard of justice did not mean democracy. The heresy of democracy has since then worked havoc in church and state . . . Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies. (p 100) [R.J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law]
• Christianity is completely and radically anti-democratic; it is committed to spiritual aristrocracy. [R.J. Rushdoony, Reconstructionist theologian, from _The Religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance and Pluralism In America_, published by ADL]
• God's covenant with Adam required him to exercise dominion over the earth and to subdue it (Gen. 1:26 ff) under God according to God's law-word.
• The restoration of that covenant relationship was the work of Christ, His grace to His elect people.
• The fulfillment of that covenant is their great commission: to subdue all things and all nations to Christ and His law-word. [R.J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (Nutley, NJ:Craig Press, 1973)]

TheocracyWatch: Informing Citizens About the Rise of Dominionism

If you are interested in what these people are trying to do to your government and your own religious freedom, you can visit http://www.TheocracyWatch.org, a watchdog organization at Cornell University.

Here are five videos on YouTube about Dominion Theology. They paint a very scary picture about the history of this movement.

Here is another brief video by someone on YouTube. No, he's not famous or well-known, but the video clips of people he shows and the writings that he presents are from well-known public figures, like Ronald Reagan and Jerry Falwell.

What Can We Do?

We can start by paying attention. Turn off the television. Tune into history. Tune into YouTube and find information that is not being fed to you by corporate media that is often controlled by conglomerates that don't care to tell you anything about history. Speak out against theocracy in America. There are several organizations that help with this cause.  The largest one that I know of is Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

http://www.au.org/site/PageServer?pagename=aboutau

If you are from Georgia, they have a Georgia chapter at:

http://www.au-ga.org/index.html

Also, here is Jeffrey Selman's web site. He is the man who defended the Separation of Church and State against the Cobb County School Board:

http://www.jeffreyselman.com/index.htm

More Resources

Some more interviews with Ed Buckner about Church & State separation:

• America Is Not A Christian Nation
  Freethought Radio features southern secular activist Ed Buckner, Ph.D., talking about how to combat the myth that America is a Christian nation. Ed has a chapter in the new book, "Everything You Knew About God Is Wrong." The show also features some timely news updates and commentary. (MP3, 51 min, 23.5 MB)
• The Constitution, Politics, and Church & State (Real Audio), an interview with Ed Buckner (2000)
  T. J. Walker interviews Ed Buckner of the Atlanta Freethought Society about American politics, U.S. constitutional history, and his new co-authored book Quotations That Support the Separation of State and Church.

Richard Dawkins: The Enemies of Reason, Etc.

"Science is the poetry of reality" -- Richard Dawkins, The Enemies of Reason Part I, 41:25

"Science replaced private prejudice with publicly verifiable evidence" -- Richard Dawkins, The Enemies of Reason Part II, 14:46

Richard Dawkins is awesome. He is really confronting the insanity of unreason and superstition in our world as hard as he can right now. He's taking the battle to the foreground, visiting psychics, visiting astrologers, and submitting claims to empiricism.

Here is Richard Dawkins confronting irrationality and delusion in video form, following on from his book The God Delusion.

You can read more on WikiPedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enemies_of_Reason

And on his web site: http://richarddawkins.net/article,1556,Enemies-of-Reason,Google-Links

Here is an excerpt from WikiPedia

Is it rational that the dead can communicate with the living and give sound advice on how they should live their lives? What about sticking pins into your body to free the flow of Chi energy and cure your illness? Or the bending of spoons using your mind alone? Is that rational? Richard Dawkins doesn’t think so, and feels it is his duty to expose those areas of belief that exist without scientific proof, yet manage to hold the nation under their spell. He will take on the world’s leading proponents in their field of expertise, meet the victims who have used them and expose the history of the movements – from the charlatans who have milked these practices to the experiments and testing that have failed to produce conclusive results.

Part I

This reminds me very much of Carl Sagan's Cosmos in which he explains how ridiculous astrology is. One of the most interesting parts for me is at minute 36, when he discusses B.F. Skinner's experiments with Pigeons and shows how they developed superstitious beliefs when he rewarded them randomly with food. The pigeons would do things like looking over their shoulder to try to "invoke" the random food dispersal mechanism.

Notes

• Post-modernism and relativism have lead to the closing of physics departments.
• Post-modernism has lead to valuing private feeling over verifiable evidence.
• The internet is both a help and a hindrance to truth.

Part II

This part discusses the history of medical advances thanks to science and reason, but today there is far more retreat into irrational belief and superstitious theories.

Notes

• Tried and tested scientific medicine is under attack from superstition
• Shows how a formerly traditionally trained general practitioner is now talking about "Chakras" might be "black holes" inside the body. (This is completely insane)
• Shows how quantum theory is increasingly used by people like Deepak Chopra are capitalizing on the ignorance of people.
• Famous physicist Richard Feynman: "If you think you understand quantum theory, you don't understand quantum theory."
• In his face-to-face interview with Chopra, he confronts him on the use of scientific language.
• Homeopathy:
• The irrational claim that diluting a medicine makes it stronger!
• They just use water that has a "memory" of active ingredients that are not actually president any more.
• This is more than insane.
• People can call themselves homeopaths without any credentials

Richard Dawkins at TED Talks

Richard Dawkins is Oxford University's "Professor for the Public Understanding of Science." Author of the landmark 1976 book, The Selfish ... all » Gene, he's a brilliant (and trenchant) evangelist for Darwin's ideas. In this talk, titled, "Queerer Than We Suppose: The strangeness of science," he suggests that the true nature of the universe eludes us, because the human mind evolved only to understand the "middle-sized" world we can observe. (Recorded July 2005 in Oxford, UK. Duration: 22:42) - More TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com

V. S. Ramachandran on the History of Truth and Science

V. S. Ramachandran is one of my favorite scientists and thinkers. I first learned about him on Ramachandran's Notebook from PBS.

You can visit the web site here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mind/notebook.html

Here is an excerpt from the site about his work and revolutionary discoveries.

Vilayanur Ramachandran has been called a Sherlock Holmes of neuroscience. Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, and adjunct professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, Ramachandran has brilliantly sleuthed his way through some of the strangest maladies of the human mind. He has done this by marrying simple tools such as mirrors and cotton swabs with an insatiably inquisitive mind and a tonic sense of humor.

One of the areas in which he has made some of his greatest strides is in the arena of phantom limbs, in which amputees and even those born without one or more limbs feel pain and other sensations in their missing body parts. Here, read Ramachandran's vivid descriptions of his experiences with phantom-limb patients and how he has managed to understand their singular dilemmas and thereby help them.

Here is a lecture in which he discusses phantom limb syndrome, synesthesia, and neuron innervation.

 

For a great interview with him in which he discusses Galieo's contribution to the concept of experiment and investigation, and how Aristotle took too much for granted without evidence, visit the Science Network:

http://tsntv.org/

If it is no longer on the home page, click here for the medium quality version:

http://tsntv.org/media/tss-rama300.mov

Phantom Limb Syndrome

Phantom limbs are a very fascinating subject! The discovery that Ramachandran made was that pepole who had limbs amputated or severed would sometimes "feel" them still present. To make a long story short, he figured out how the brain fools us. He also figured out how to map sensations on particular parts of the body to specific places inside the brain.

You can learn more about phantom limb syndrome here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb

Synesthesia

Synesthesia is another fascinating condition. In this condition, people get their senses confused. They may smell colors, or taste shapes. It's very confusing, but it all has traces into brain activity.

Learn more about synesthesia here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

Beyond Belief 2006 Symposium

Dr. Ramachandran participated in the 2006 Beyond Belief symposium, a gathering of prominent intellectuals discussing the state of the public understanding of science and religion. You can watch all the footage of the symposium on this web site:

http://beyondbelief2006.org/

Here are several excerpts from Ramachandran's time at the podium:

Seizure-Induced Religious Experiences

Some other clips of Ramachandran

Hanging on For Dear Life: Why "Near Death Experiences" are, First and Foremost, "During-Life Experiences"

Category: Religion and Philosophy

Click here to listen to the podcast version of me reading this post.

A Near-Death-Experience is, by Definition, a During-Life-Experience

Last year I had a long conversation with a coworker about Near-Death-Experiences. At the time I wrote up the following notes about this discussion.
He said that based on the anecdotal evidence that shows a large number of people from a large number of cultures have a very similar experience called a life review, he believes there is strong evidence for consciousness surviving physical death. These life-reviews may consist of the following characteristics:

• A "reviewer" who takes you through your life and shows you the good and bad things you have done and how you affected people in your life.
• Making things known that seem like they could not possibly be known during the state of "near death".

You can read more about this all over the web. A good place for the anectodal evidence and cited research is: http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research24.html

For the skeptical side, see the Skeptic's Dictionary, starting at the following URL which has many links to further reading at the bottom:
http://skepdic.com/nde.html

Anecdotal Evidence About Near-Death-Experiences

My coworker wanted to argue that it is more probable, based on the anecdotes, that there is some external entity interacting with these people during these near-death-experiences. I want to make a couple of observations about this chain of thought, also using probability.

Some General Observations on Living Objects' Tendency Toward Persistence

A first distinction to make is that a near-death-experience is, before anything else, more properly dubbed a during-life-experience. To restate it: everything a person who has undergone a "near-death-experience" is experienced during life. Therefore, we must first exhaust all possibilities that the causal explanation of the experience came from something biological and physical prior to attempting to explain it supernaturally.

Looking now at probabilities, let's look at some other "near death" experiences that still must be classified as "during life". To generalize the experience, first let's lay out a common pattern that we will observe:

1. A living object is nearing perceived death
2. Living objects nearing perceived death struggle to achieve continued persistence of existence through any means possible.

Now, let's look at other cases of what happens when a living object suspects onciming death.
1. Cells attempt to repair themselves if they are harmed.
2. Tissues attempt to repair themselves if they are harmed.
3. Organs attempt to repair themselves if they are harmed.
4. Therefore, bodies attempt to repair themselves if they are harmed.

In each case of living object, the object makes use of its immediate surroundings to try to continue its existence. This principle is well-founded and well-observed in both our everyday experiences and in scientific analysis.

Even when human beings starve themselves of carbohydrates, the body systems struggle to produce ketones from existing immediate resources to struggle toward continued existence. We don't even have to consciously decide to do it. We may decide to do the Atkins diet, but our bodily tissues decide to preserve themselves of their own volition!

The Human Brain During NDEs

Now let's look at the case of the human brain, imagination, perception, consciousness, or whatever you'd like to call it. Given that the brain is, first and foremost, a physical entity composed of other physical entities, I believe we must first look at its resources to apply this general principle that every single other living object demonstrates.

What resources does the brain have? It is composed of neurons. The human brain has over 100,000,000,000 neurons. That is 100 billion. Each of these are linked to as many as 10,000 other neurons.[1] In the context of our perception, these neurons serve to provide us with memory banks and imagination.

Given that, in general, living objects tend toward using all possible resources to persist their existence, which is more logically justifiable to conclude from the following two scenarios about near-death/during-life experiences?

1. That some external being is directing a "life review", or
2. That the brain is attempting to use whatever its immediate resources are to continue its existence, including memory and imagination?

It is well-admitted that such "life reviews", while they may be generally similar, are widely differing as well. This is natural to expect given that each human brain has different memories encoded into its neurons. Even near-death researchers admit that the culture in which a person grows up strongly influences what the person will "see" during a near-death-experience.[2] For example, Christians may see Jesus, but Hindus may see Krishna.

Am I saying that it's impossible that an external being is directing these experiences? No. What I am saying is that we must first look at the general principle of living objects to tend toward persistence, and then apply that to the human brain and imagination before attempting to explain the experiences as something other than natural.

This idea is not original with me. I've read about it in various formulations on different sites. You can find out more about NDE accounts and find links to people both supportive of a supernatural explanation and to people who believe in a physiological explanation at the following WikiPedia topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience

References:

1. The Human Brain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain

2. Gary Habermas, author, speaks about Near Death Experiences in a variety of cultures: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8225341779641252488&q=habermas+near+death

Penn & Teller's Take on NDEs

A Disturbing Film: Jesus Camp

There is a very disturbing film out called Jesus Camp. You can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Camp. The WikiPedia entry links to the film's official web site.

One of the points the adults in the film raise several times is that we are "One nation under God", but the founding fathers did not intend to create a religious nation. They intended to create a nation that had religious freedom. If anyone doubts this, just read Thomas Jefferson's words. I've included some of his words at the bottom of this email.

Furthermore, take a look at this excerpt from an article in Slate that covers the history of the pledge of allegiance.

http://www.slate.com/?id=2067499

Given this tradition, it's not surprising that the original Pledge of Allegiance—meant as an expression of patriotism, not religious faith—also made no mention of God. The pledge was written in 1892 by the socialist Francis Bellamy, a cousin of the famous radical writer Edward Bellamy. He devised it for the popular magazine Youth's Companion on the occasion of the nation's first celebration of Columbus Day. Its wording omitted reference not only to God but also, interestingly, to the United States:

"I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

...

The campaign to add "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance was part of this movement. It's unclear precisely where the idea originated, but one driving force was the Catholic fraternal society the Knights of Columbus. In the early '50s the Knights themselves adopted the God-infused pledge for use in their own meetings, and members bombarded Congress with calls for the United States to do the same. Other fraternal, religious, and veterans clubs backed the idea. In April 1953, Rep. Louis Rabaut, D-Mich., formally proposed the alteration of the pledge in a bill he introduced to Congress.

For the YouTubers, here is a video that shows various founding fathers with quotes about religion and religious freedom superimposed on paintings of them.

Here is a collection of quotes from Thomas Jefferson about religion and the separation of church and state.

http://candst.tripod.com/tnppage/qjeffson.htm

Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State (Letter to the Danbury Baptists, 1802).


Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle (letter to Robert Rush, 1813).


I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling in religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must rest with the States, as far as it can be in any human authority (letter to Samuel Miller, Jan. 23, 1808).

I can no longer be silent in defense of the values of this country. I care about our future far too much. I will not be mocked or scorned by people of religious conviction. The separation of church and state protects religion from government and protects government from religion. Any unbiased reading of the founding fathers' words proves this was their intention without any doubt. I will not sit idly by while religious extremists try to revise the history of the founding fathers and distort their intentions.

Instead, I will treat them with kindness and respect, as I do all people, but I will ask them to provide evidence for their beliefs. It has always astounded me that people who consider themselves religious "conservatives" and like to say that "liberals" believe things based on "what they feel" remain dogmatically immune to looking at their own beliefs and realizing that they are founded upon feelings, not upon evidence.

Here are some very troubling video clips from the Jesus Camp film.

Film Trailer:


A Nation Down the Drain (Part I)


A Nation Down the Drain (Part II)


Praying to George W. Bush
In this clip, children pray to George W. Bush.



Ted Haggard Bashing Gays
Ted Haggard, who has now admitted to having an affair with a homosexual man, bashes gays in this video clip from the film.



A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom

"SECTION I. Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to exalt it by its influence on reason alone; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time: That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness; and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminals who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

"SECTION II. We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

"SECTION III. And though we well know that this Assembly, elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right."

Daily WTF: Jose Luis De Jesus Miranda, The Second Coming of Jesus?

Thanks to Dr. G. for this information about a man claiming to be the second coming of Jesus:

He says that Jesus appeared to him and integrated himself inside of him. He also says he wants to be the president of the biggest government the world has ever seen. He also asks for money, money, money.

The Man-Christ-Jesus has reincarnated in a man from Puerto Rico, according this video:

Here is a brief history of the man, with warnings:

The WikiPedia entry on this man is very brief so far:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Luis_de_Jesus_Miranda

Disgusting Fraud Alert: Peter Popoff is Back

News like this makes my heart sink.

But, it also motivates me to speak out in defense of otherwise defenseless and innocent people who are being taken advantage of by disgusting and evil people with absolutely no regard for honesty.

Peter Popoff is back and is making millions of dollars scamming people! He is the televangelist that was exposed on national television as a complete and utter fraud 20 years ago by James Randi and Johnny Carson. Randi and Carson played video and audio that showed how Popoff's wife would send him information about audience members so that he could call them up and then tell them that he was being spoken to by God and had special power to heal them or grant them their wishes.

He's back selling Miracle Spring Water! Can you believe this? This man is selling miracles through the television! People are losing their money to this creepy crook and he just does not care at all. He laughs all the way to his million dollar home.

Few things get me seriously riled up, but this kind of disgusting charlatanism infuriates me! It is beyond vile and horrifying for a human being to prey on another person's ignorance and willingly lie and cheat them!

Peter Popoff's Charlatan Spring Water

Inside Edition Exposes This Fraud

They call him "The prophet who profits", and show how he was exposed twenty years ago.

John Stossel Exposing Peter Popoff

James Randi Exposes Peter Popoff

Despite his work, people still believe in Popoff today! This is so sad.

Aaron Ranen's Documentary Exposes Peter Popoff

Penn & Teller Interview James Randi About Peter Popoff

What is most amazing is that people just ended up sending their money to other televangelists after he exposed Popoff.

The Need for Critical Thinking

It is so incredibly important for people to learn the skill of critical thinking. There is no skill more important than this to be taught in schools, in my opinion. How in the world is this nation going to survive when we cannot even remember 20 years ago that Popoff was proven a charlatan? How in the world are we going to survive as a nation when people continue to place their hopes in invisible things and don't care about the beauty and glory of the real world that they know is absolutely real?

Here is a magician talking about critical thinking:

USA Losing Grip on Science and Engineering

See this article for evidence that the United States is losing its grip on the dominance in science and engineering:

http://ec.europa.eu/research/headlines/news/article_04_05_11_en.html

For years, the European Union has treated the USA as a yardstick for what it needs to achieve in science and innovation. That stick – measuring performance in terms of research graduates, patents, prize winners, scientific citations, etc. – appears to be getting shorter, US experts reported earlier this month.

Asia’s ascendancy and Europe’s determination, especially in basic science, have begun to erode America’s dominance in science and innovation, according to John Jankowski, a senior analyst at the National Science Foundation (NSF). “The rest of the world is catching up – scientific excellence is no longer the domain of just the US,” he told the New York Times last week.

The leading American daily offers many examples where the USA fears a loss of scientific status. One area, international patents, is still strong but Asia is on the rise. The US share of industrial patents has fallen steadily over recent decades, now standing at almost 52%. In published research – once a US mainstay – it has also experienced serious decline.

In physics journals, American papers went from 61% in 1983 down to just 29% last year, according to a tracking study by Physical Review. A European Commission study showed that Europe overtook the USA in the mid-1990s as the world’s largest producer of scientific literature. Many of the USA’s woes are outlined in the National Science Board’s January report ‘An emerging and critical problem of the science and engineering labor force’.

Of Universes, Demons, and The State of Education With Thanks to Carl Sagan

Here is a partially completed video of an essay I wrote about the topic of science and engineering education in the United States two years ago.

You can read the essay and see other related videos in this post:

http://joshuagough.blogspot.com/2007/06/of-universes-demons-and-state-of.html