Community over individuals

This is a problem: Darrel Gilyard asked to leave association

I appreciate that the story is old, but there are a number of problems with this that need to be discussed. The first is that the point of church is to bring brotherhood to its community, inclusiveness not exclusivity. A church, the individual building not the larger institution, is a building where a group of believers gather for the sake of sharing their belief. Even if each has a different personal belief, they share a general belief in some sort of deity, and get together for the sake of gathering a little strength from the group. People need other people; it just how we are built. Church is not necessarily important as a symbol of religion, but as a symbol of the community; but coming together they gain a lot of strength.

You want to see an example of this? Take a few branches. Now, any given branch can be broken rather easily; it just takes the right amount of force. But, if you band the branches together, you create something that takes a lot more strength to do something about. Even if the bundle is put to flame, thee is the possibility that some of the branches will survive. By banding the branches together you create something that is a little more powerful.

A church is the same. By banding together you get a group of people that can do a lot more than just one can do. You get the combined resources of the group, with people that can contribute resources, time and effort, and can be a great force for good. You can get a lot of good done, especially if they apply their strengths to projects agreed upon by the group. A church that has been powered up can do a lot of really great things.

And then you have this idiot. A church should be somewhere that all of the congregation, regardless of age, should be able to gather at the same time. If you need to make sure that part of the congregation is kept separate for their own good, then the preacher you have chosen is probably not the best choice. The congregation should not be having to make changes for the pastor, but the pastor should be willing to change for the congregation. If the pastor was chosen in order to make changes, that's fine, but working around a restraining order is not something that should even be considered, especially if it means that the congregation must be split in order to listen to the preacher.

Churches are already suffering enough bruises to the reputation. It's a nice message of redemption to enable a pastor that has suffered a setback, but if that pastor is one that has committed a grievous enough crime that he has to endure a restraining order, the message should be really debated. Forgiveness is fine, but the church should come above any individual, not have to lower itself to another.

An Epicurean Argument

Epicurus is probably best known as the Greek that gave us the root for "epicurean", someone who loves food, and is into its delights. He is also known for the following argument against the likelihood of, well, any god:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”
Because we do know that there is evil, we can conclude with certainty that there is no God.

Although interesting as it shows that there were atheists at a time when pretty everyone was assumed to venerate some deity or another, the problem is that the argument makes some basic assumptions. The first assumption is that one can know the mind of a deity. One cannot; the problem is that we simply do not have the same scope of thought as an immortal being. Consider that even a difference of a few years causes a change in opinion, even a subtle one; a nine-year-old has a much different opinion on things than a teenager does, and then someone in his twenties has a much different opinion than either of them.

Not only does our opinion become much grayer as he age, but so does our belief in what constitutes Good and Evil. A child is going to see doctors as evil; they cause him pain, anything that causes him pain is evil, ergo doctors are evil. As a child matures he sees that not everything that causes him pain is evil, and as he sees that sometimes a little pain is necessary to prevent a bigger disease, he actually begins to respect what doctors do. As the child grows up he even begins to fight disease on his own. From this it can be argued that by allowing some evil in the world, a deity could allow us to see its effects, making us more interested in fighting it.

The other problem is that it assumes that Man as a whole does not have free will, that we are merely programmed for specific tasks by some theoretical deity, and set upon our way to do those specific tasks. If that is true, then there is no evil; our actions, regardless of our intent, can never be good nor evil. We simply act as our programming decrees, and therefore our acts lack intent, or volition behind it. This makes saving lives just as equal in value as rape; neither act has intent, they are simply done. This is an ironically comforting thought, as it means that we are not guilty of our actions, but it is just as emasculating; we abdicate any control over our actions to that programming.

In order for there to be Evil, there has to be intent. The person has to be able to make a choice between two or more actions, and then choose the one that is more evil, or at least less good. This presumes the existence of Free Will, the ability to choose something beyond one's supposed programming. Without that intent the argument is invalid; there simply cannot be Evil if one cannot choose it. Ultimately, that makes Epicurus' argument essentially moot: If we have no choice, if our intent is based on programming, there is no Evil, and therefore the existence of a god doesn't matter if he can only exist in the absence of Evil. We can simply say that we are programmed to believe in some deity or another , or not. On the other hand, it can be argued that Evil exists regardless of whether or not there is a deity of some sort; it can be argued the deity allows Evil to exist for however it fits the plan of the deity.

Hitler and Being A Christian

Was Hitler a Christian?

This is both the reason I started this blog and the idea I wanted to avoid. There's just no way to really win it, either way. So let's deal with it either way.

The argument for is that Hitler's parents were Roman Catholic, and so he was a good little Catholic boy. Throughout his career, Hitler maintained his belief, maintaining a belief that he held in common with those underneath him. It was his deep respect for Catholicism that would lead him to making a deal with the Catholic Church so that he would leave Catholics alone as long as it didn't interfere with Germany's rise to power. Although he was eventually disillusioned with Christians, an issue that would magnify itself as World War II turned against Germany, he was nonetheless looking at helping Christianity expand after the Germany won, with an eye towards linking Christianity and historical German beliefs.

However, there is the argument against. Sometime during the First World War, Hitler lost his faith, but realized that religion could be used to manipulate the masses; religion in service to the state could create a much more loyal population. He wrote as such in "Main Kampf", devoting a full chapter to it. He would emphasize his Christian background in the biographical sections, bu most of writings seem to indicate that he was only interested in looking like a religious person in order to solidify his following. Based of the journals of those around him, he also wanted make the pact with The Vatican in order to take it off the list of people who would oppose Germany's rise to power. During World War II, those around him noted that he talked derisively of the religious. His plan for Christianity after the war was to mix Christianity with his beliefs on Aryan perfection, re-fashioning Jesus Christ into a warrior.

Although there is a part of me that would love to see Jesus Christ wielding a huge ax into battle smiting sinners, it's just wrong. Obviously I'm going to go with the idea that Hitler was not a Christian, but that he using that religion in order to make it seem as if he were one of the people. I appreciate that people expect that of politicians anyway, but there just feels as if there were an extra level of cynicism attached to it in this case. He had, after all, written that he a leader only need to pretend to share the religion of the people, and that he should then use that religion to mollify the people so that he could lead them without question.

I am obviously offended that atheists use him as an example of what Christian leaders become. As I believe that Hitler was never a Christian beyond convenience, Hitler was never an example of what a Christian leader can be. His actions never had anything to do with any form of Christianity as practiced at the time; antisemitism was even being decried by the Church at the time, and killing on such a scale went well beyond any killing in the past. Sure, it can be argued that individual Christians wanted the Holocaust to happen, but it would be hard to argue that more than a small minority of churches wanted to see something like that to happen.

I'm definitely not saying that Christian kings are without sin. Just look at the examples of David and Louis XIV. There were a lot of Christian kings that could have acted more kingly, and definitely more Christian. I'm just arguing that Adolf Hitler was only Christian in the most general sense, and not someone that could be used as an example for any belief system; I'm just not sure he was completely sane based on some of the profiling I have seen done on him. I'm just not really convinced that he was a Christian by any but the most cynical stretch.

My God Loves Me...I hope....

Here's the article in question: The Fires of Mercy

And here's the obvious problem: God doesn't think that way. People are not perfect, nor will they ever be perfect. We all have our individual flaws, and ultimately it is up to us to deal with them. We all have problems with the Big Seven, as well as any number of smaller sins. Some of us are into rebellion not because of the good it brings society, but just to be rebellious. Some people lie because they know no other path. Some people are into eating not just because we all need to eat or even because they like to cook, but just because they feel a need to eat.

We are all sinners.

But that does not mean that God rejects us. He sent down His one and only son to act as a Judas goat to absolve us all of our sins. A careful reading of the Four Gospels reveals that there was no question of Jesus being sacrificed; it is not hard to read a Passover tale in them, where the steps were being followed for a lamb to be slaughtered and prepared for the celebration of when the Angel of Death visited Egypt and slew the first born sons of Egypt. A sacrifice was made then in order to rescue the sons of Israel from death, and a sacrifice was needed again to save everyone from a different sort of death. Jesus was that sacrifice, the ultimate Passover lamb.

God recognized that we all have our problems, and that if He put restrictions of any sort on those who went to Heaven few of us would ever reach those shores. In order for people to reach Heaven, to pass through the Pearly Gates, He would need to forgive us all of our sins. More importantly, He would need to make this declaration open and obvious. There was no more open and obvious declaration than to sacrifice Jesus, so that everyone would know that He had died for our sins, and that we merely need to ask for forgiveness for our sins.

Thus, when people complain of being too filled with sin for God to welcome them in, those complaints are groundless. God recognizes that we all have our sins, hidden in our hearts or worn on our sleeves, and He recognizes that it is just part of being human. Just like any father, He acknowledges that we all have some issues that need to be dealt with so that we can learn from our mistakes and become better people. I hate making the obvious jokes, but part of being an omniscient and omnipresent being is that He has not only been to Vegas, but He probably knows a lot about what goes on there. He had to either make allowances, or get rid of us all. He decided to make allowances.

So if you are ever worried that you will not make into Heaven, that's on you, not God. He knows what you've been up to, and to a degree He exalts in it. He expects you to make mistakes, just as we expect kids to make mistakes, and then to learn from those mistakes. (I would hate to see if he records some of the more spectacular ones for private showings, for his version of Youtube, but you have got to seriously wonder what He records once you realize that ALL fathers record the proudest moments and biggest laughs.) Sure, some people are more likely than others to take a long time learning, but He has all the time in the world. And just like any father, He is always curious and filled with that weird mix of dread and humor about what his children will come up with next.

So if you are worried about if God loves you or not, don't. He really does hate the sin and love the sinner, and is just waiting for you to figure that out.

If you're going to charitable, be charitable....

When an organization claims to be a charitable one, it needs to be charitable and proselytize not by force but by example. A lot of churches do some major charitable works: They get food to those that need it, make sure the cold are warmed through coat and blanket programs, and find ways of helping people cover rent and bills, among many other things. There is no doubt that society needs churches, at least on some level.

However, there is are several problems when the same church that puts out a helping hand asks that the person being helped join the church. The biggest is that this is the same as conversion at swordpoint; the person has no choice but to join, and thus the conversion is probably not going to take. It is at best a false conversion; the person is not looking to be a Christian because he believes the Jesus Christ is the way, but because he simply needs something that the church happens to provide. That is not the way to gain converts, at least those that will support your church in the long run.

It also comes off as being a bully. You are holding back something that someone else needs to survive, and that's just not cool. Getting someone to come to Christ is not about putting them over a barrel and telling them to "Convert or die!"; conversion should be about showing them a way to deal with their spiritual problems, not those of survival. It's sort of okay for Alcoholics Anonymous, but that's because you have acknowledged that the problem is bigger than you and that you need some serious help; giving it to God is just a way of letting it go. However, telling someone that the fate of their house, children, or whatever depends on them converting is just not going to work if you claim to be a charitable organization, and actually causes you to lose a lot of credibility as one.

It is definitely not okay if you are doing it as an investment in the local area. Some churches get charity horribly wrong; they interpret the phrase, "and they shall know ye by your works" in a way that it should not be interpreted. Charity is not about seeking to help the community so that the community shall like you; it's also not about doing good works so that you look good. It's about doing good works for the sake of good works. It's not about karma; if you are doing something in order to get credit for it, then it's just as selfish as greed or lust. Charity is not an investment, and should not be looked at that way.

Charity should be seen as doing good simply for the sake of doing good. We need to do good things for others not because we hope they will do good things for us, but because we wish to support our community or simply out of the need to do good things. If there is any other reason, then just donate money and get the deductible. Tis the season to do good for your fellow man, not yourselves.

Breaking Rules: What Would Jesus Do?

Sometimes a miracle needs to be analyzed in more detail. We'll be looking at the wedding of Cana just a little bit more closely, but before we do we need to look at cheeseburgers.

A cheeseburger is probably not a kosher food, as it combines meat and dairy. Unlike a lot of other Jewish traditions, this is one that has more to symbolism rather than practicality. In order to enjoy meat, you need to kill something. There is simply no way around it; in order to enjoy kebabs and sausage, something has to die. This would mean that meat can, in a very real way, represent death. Milk, on the other hand, represents life; given that babies and children tend to prosper when they are fed milk, and that it comes out of mothers, this symbolism was perhaps inevitable.

The separation of meat and dairy is a necessary symbolism, as death and life need to be kept separate. It just works out better that way.

What does this have to do with Cana? Wine and water are also kept separate for basically the same reason: Water was seen as being important to clean things. The Jews, especially in Jesus' era, were constantly washing themselves. Even in the four gospels, there are a number of times were washing someone carries extreme importance, such as Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Jesus, Jesus reprimanding someone for not washing His feet, and Jesus washing the feet of his apostles. So washing was extremely important, and thus keeping water clean was just as important. More to the point, the jars for keeping water were only to be used for water.

So, Jesus has the servants take six of the huge jars for water and has the servants fill them. Not the jars usually used for wine, but he ones used for water. He then turns them into wine, effectively defiling the jars. This wine is then served to the guests, who are surprised by how good it is.

Now, we know this was no mistake. Jesus had argued Mosaic law with rabbis back when He was ten, so we know that Jesus knew the rules. Why did he do this? Because He also had a point to make, and He may as well do then as any other time. It was the same as when Jesus cured the blind man on the Sabbath: The Jews were too dependent on rules just to follow the rules, and we were not worried about why the rules had been established in the first place. Now, He obviously didn't want to say that all the rules needed to be cast down, as He also supported the tax laws in place at the time, and even ate regularly with tax collectors. He just wanted to make the point that if you have no idea why you are following a rule, it may be time to do away with that rule.

Just look at the value of that: This means that if a rule no longer serves its purpose and no one even remembers why it was made in the first place, then we can cast it aside. This is not something to be done without reason, but something that is worth noting. And it is something that we need to note in our personal lives, as we are all bound by rules that we established but now have grown past. Soooo...enjoy that cheeseburger and start looking at what rules you need to cast aside.

Free Will and Russian Atheists

Free will seems to be something that more atheists have a problem with the religious. There seems to be a number of systems that preclude the idea, ranging from everyone simply does what their chemistry does to everything is dependent on a small number of variables; in short, if we know what the original set up was and what the rules were then we would be able to predict everything. That's fine and logical; the quote about butterflies and hurricanes follows from that logic. It would just require a huge computer.

The problem, however, is when atheists see some form of deity impedes the concept of free will. A Russian anarchist and contemporary of Marx, Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin , goes one better than Voltaire in saying that if there were a god, we would need to abolish him. By having a deity of some sort, we are more likely to do what we think the deity wants, or what his representatives want. To a degree History bears this out, especially when we consider things like the Spanish Inquisition and the number of Islamic fatwas that have been created by Muslim clerics.

At the same time, it is interesting how much rebellion against religious leaders there has been. Consider the 65 Theses of Martin Luther, or the creation of the Church of England; if there was no free will, especially when it came to the will of God's representatives on Earth, then how did these things happen? Even in The Bible there are multiple examples, not just one or two, but a number of them, where someone rebels against what God says. Sure, they eventually come around and there are major ramifications when it happens, but the original decision is there. For someone creating a being who is to be totally compliant with His wishes, God seems to have really screwed things up. That there are even atheists says a lot about the lack of control over those He has created.

Now, if He was creating a race that free will, however, he seems to be doing just fine. We have religious schisms, there are atheists, and people follow their own desires when it comes to the question of spirituality versus religion. It just amuses when people say there is no such thing as free will when the main book of the religion they are discussing says otherwise. So, until they build that giant supercomputer, I'm going to enjoy what free will I have....

Mary: Scariest Woman in The Bible?

A lot has been said about what The Bible about the lack of feminist rights. These people have apparently never heard of Mary, mother of Jesus.

Mary was a force to be reckoned with. Look back at the marriage at Cana for a moment; the wine had ran out and Mary asked Jesus to make some more. Jesus, like all kids, didn't want to do any work during a party, and so looked at her and basically asked if she was serious. Mary was not going to take any backtalk from a son of hers, even if He was the Son of God. She looked at Him, told him he was going to do it, and told the servants to just do what he said. When Jesus said to get six jars and fill them with water, you can bet they ran to comply, especially when they saw Mary get the last word in and walk away before Jesus could say anything else.

Putting this a little into historical context: The word of the firstborn, which Jesus was, was the Word of God, doubly so in this case. Mary had told him what He was going to do, and that He was going to do it even if He didn't want to, and He had better do it now. This was just something that wasn't done. This makes Mary officially the scariest stage mom in history: She knew what her son was capable of, and He had best start living up to her expectations or else. Jesus probably complied because it was easier to turn water into wine than say no to Mom.

This is why Jesus had to go out in the desert for his forty days of testing; that testing would have gone entirely differently if Mary had something to say about it. Sure, Satan may have been the Prince of the World, but Mary got Jesus to back down with a glance. There is no question that she would have gone to the mat for her son, and that would have been a slapdown for the ages.

Mary did a few other things, but her telling the Son of God to do something and expecting it to happen says a lot about the expectations of women in Jewish life. When Jesus questioned her order right off the bat, that should have been it. She, as the supposedly obedient wife and mother, should have had no power over her son. And yet there was no question in her mind that Jesus would do exactly as she said. There is no question that women may have been told to obey, but obviously that was not the expectation.

Another consideration is that Mary is seen as having the power to intercede on one's behalf when it comes prayers to God. That says a lot about the power of mothers, that we expect them to be able to intercede on our behalf in a world where women are supposedly powerless. Obviously there is a lot more to feminism in The Bible when what that is just not actually expected behavior.

The Coolness of a Common Holiday

I keep hearing about the Catholic Church and how it likes to kill pagans at every turn. If that's the case, then could someone please explain Halloween to me?

Halloween began as a decidedly pagan celebration. The timing made some pretty good sense; the fields had just been harvested and animals were culled for winter meats. Even among the human population a lot of deaths were going to happen in the next few months from cold and disease. As even the sun seemed to be getting sicker it was really hard to not think about death. The shamans of the tribe, who were supposed to make sure that the tribe's morale was kept up. Somehow the idea of celebrating the dead seemed a natural, if somber, way to deal with the tribe's issues. Eventually children acting as the proxy for monsters somehow got into it, and Halloween started its path down to our celebration of it today.

Along came the Catholic Church. The Church has always been looking for ways to increase its numbers. Admittedly there can get rather obnoxious about it, but some of their best campaigns are the peaceful ones, such as Ireland and snakes, or when they can get others to make the threats, such as a certain Viking king. Halloween is probably one of their greatest PR campaigns ever; you can see the missionaries saying, "Sure, we celebrate our dead as well around there; we have all these saints, see, and so we can get behind the idea of celebrating their deaths." Odds are there was some celebration, even if it was a quick toast, the clergy being human and the season being rather fit for thinking about death.

Although it's a given that the celebration was kept when the pagans became Christians, I'm not sure if it can be truly said that The Church kept the holiday but were able to find a sacred purpose for it so much as they liked the idea, Catholics having a morbid fascination with death, but the holiday and its traditions stood. At least, until recently.

As a number of Christian groups have decided to get away from all things satanic, Halloween has come under fire. This makes a certain degree of sense given its pagan origins. I personally like the idea of Halloween as compared to a generic harvest festival. Harvest festivals are just reasons to celebrate the fading sunlight; Halloween is a reason to celebrate the dead and their departure from our lives; there is just something fitting about it being when everything else is being harvested. I also like the idea of embracing our own demons, and allowing them to be seen on the outside; people being flawed, it is sort of nice to have one night a year when we allow masks to show our true selves.

Ultimately, all I am saying is that one needs to remember where Halloween comes from, but embrace it rather than run from it. Happy Halloween!

Great Quote, Wrong Direction

Let's make fun of Penn Jillette, or specifically his quote, "If every trace of any single religion were wiped out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.”

Yeah, re-read it once or twice. Now, I used to respect him up until I caught a few episodes of his. It's not so much the opinion presented, but how it was presented; he was just a little over the top for me. Admittedly, I do have a preference for just enough kill when it comes to debates, but I think once you attack something a little too much, you create sympathy for what you are attacking. This quote doesn't help much.

Now, I'll give him the first part; just look at how many different religions humans have created since the beginning of time. In a lot of ways, I'm pretty sure that although some of the basics would be there, such as the Golden Rule and karma, but I think that no matter how rationality is judged, you will always have people that will believe in some form of higher being. It's interesting how many scientists started their careers as atheists, and now believe that there is a higher being based on their research. So I have no problem believing that if all religion were somehow eliminated, something would eventually take its place.

The second part is the problem. The issue is that nasty science background I have; I'm way too well aware that a number of scientific discoveries required a little bit luck. I'm not talking Jonas Salk and smallpox vaccine type of accidental, where a discoverer just had to pay attention to who wasn't catching a disease and follow up on it. I'm looking at a number of inventions required for technology that were pure accidents, such as the vulcanization of rubber; if it weren't for someone falling asleep, and it either would not have happened, or happened at a much later date. But just look at how much our technology is based on vulcanized rubber; the vehicles we ride on require it not just for the tires, but valves, seals, and a range of little things. Even though some of these have been made out of different materials, it's hard to think of what our society would be like today without vulcanization, and that's just one of a dozen or so inventions that are society as a whole is dependent on that are based more in luck than actual intelligence, and none of those are guaranteed to be discovered again if we had to restart.

That also assumes that our technology went the same route. There is the possibility that are technology could have gone down more eco-friendly paths, making the society we know now to be something entirely different. Or it could have gotten nastier as people had to fight for resources; Europe, for example, is notorious for its lack of arability. Or it could be just different, but equivalent, with animals taking the place of machines, sort of like a higher tech Flintsones. If society's knowledge base got a reboot, there are just no ways of knowing what could happen to our knowledge, and what we would eventually recover or find.

So...I'm choosing to disagree with Jillete's quote. It just doesn't square with our actual science...

Why It Sucks To Be A Medieval Witch...

[Please not that I'm discussing witchcraft as actually practiced in the Middle Ages, and not modern Wicca. Any modern witch that thinks that he or she is practicing it as it actually was seriously needs to open up a history book. And don't get me going on druids...]

Witchcraft was not always the great thing that we think of today. Rather than rituals meant to pull a group together and harness the power of the group for beneficial reasons, witchcraft was usually practiced for the benefit of one. There was no price to casting curses, or doing evil; it was just a person using knowledge that was passed down from person to person, and then they could use that knowledge as desired. Although I will readily admit most of what we know about medieval witchcraft is rubbish at best and spin at worst, there was some truth to problem.

It needs to be noted that witches came in two stripes: The wise woman who did what she could because she was essentially a nice person, and the more ambitious version, who did what she did in order to gain power. In places that were far from big cities, and away from places where medicine ruled, it was not that uncommon for a witch to be the main medical practitioner. Generally speaking, the Church left them alone, as long as they behaved responsibly and didn't call attention to themselves; there was just no profit ticking off a village by removing its doctor.

This does not necessarily mean that the witches of yore were practitioners of some form of paganism. Usually they were just women, usually who were not married or whose husband died young, who picked up a few more tricks than the average person did, and became valued for that skill. They knew which herbs and minerals worked, and were able to remember how much it took to make the difference between healing and killing. In the countryside, this made them valuable those skills made the difference between life and death. An important skill, yes, but hardly magic, and definitely not the same as today's wicca, which are related more to druidism and its rites than actual witchcraft.

However, when the witch did bring attention to herself, the Church would have to investigate. If the witch had a reputation for using her "powers" for political power or for killing animals or people, then she would most likely end up being tortured; a witch that just cured people would usually escape punishment. Until the Spanish Inquisition, this was pretty much how the Church dealt with witches.

The Spanish Inquisition was a problem. They began punishing people for all manner of ecclesiastical crimes, ranging from adultery to witchcraft, and everything in between. Although blame on the Inquisition has focused on their persecution of witches, it needs to be realized that they went EVERYBODY, adulterers, homosexuals, witches, and anyone else that they could; they were enforcing biblical law. This is not to whitewash the crime against humanity by the Inquisition, but rather to widen it, and point out that this was actually worse than thought. Eventually Rome would deal with the problem with help from the rulers, as it took some time for them to find out what was going on, but by then the damage was done. It did not help that some of the inquisitors fought back even as they continued their "good work", making life horrible for everyone.

After that, witches melted into the woodwork. There were intermittent problems, such as Salem, that did not help their reputation, but by the end of the Inquisition there was simply no good reason for witches to even exist, as their role was taken over by actual doctors, and so they became the bogeymen that they did. Sometimes the victors really do write the histories...

The Dark Ages and the Light of Science

So, we've discussed the infrastructure and societal changes that would have made the Dark Ages not so dark by themselves. However, there were also scientific developments that need to be allowed for, and some of them are virtually vital to science today.

[A quick note on the Greeks: It needs to be realized at some point that, although the Greeks had made major discoveries, these discoveries were usually hidden away by the discoverer; rather than dispersing the information as scientists do today, it would most likely have been seen as hubris to do so back then, and as hubris was something to be avoided, the information would have disappeared with maybe a shrug of the shoulders and a "that's cool." As far as I can tell, it wasn't until the Middle Ages that this attitude changed, as monks and nobles started compiling information at the orders of the local rulers, possibly to avoid the waste caused by replication of efforts, noting that a discovery here helped one there, or just to compile the information. This formal order eventually changed to an informal one, creating the scientific sharing we know now.]

In medicine, the biggest limitation was not the Catholic Church, but disease. As disease was usually fatal and germ theory was centuries in the future, even doctors died from infections. As even bathing was suspect, making washing up the exception, and that meant that disease had a very nice vector. This is why there was a moratorium on dealing with dead bodies; it had died from something, and so staying away from it was probably a good idea. This was formalized when most of the dead bodies were available due to some very nasty diseases. Nonetheless, doctors did perform autopsies, and mapped out the various systems of the bodies, even if they had to be very sneaky about it. These anatomical charts would eventually be released; however, because they lacked knowledge of how they worked, and some systems were invisible to the naked eye, they wouldn't lead to any major advances for a few centuries.

However, what advances did happen in medicine came from chemistry. As chemists figured out why certain plants cured the way they did, they able to create more effective ways of dealing with diseases and other ailments. Also, there were a number of advances in how to distill, extract, and test the chemicals to determine what the chemist was dealing with.

There were also advances in surgery, childbirthing, and veterinary sciences, partially because of the forbidden autopsies, but also because people started realizing that those areas had actual import. Although most of this was still relatively simple compared to what we have and do today, they were still major advances over what was going on. Astronomy slowly became an actual science, but otherwise slowed up, and physics was just getting off the ground.

In technology, there were still trying to figure out how things worked. Most of the obvious changes came in engineering as weapon designs became more complicated and weapons themselves increased in quality; note the evolution of the crossbow and its deadliness. Building also became a little more advanced, as did carpentry in general; compare the thatched huts of the farmer to the towns. Admittedly all of this was comparative baby steps, but you need a firm grasp of the basics before you can really start having fun. More to the point, it was all of this experimenting in the so-called Dark Ages; you can argue that advancement was slow-paced, but the point is that there was advancement, and without the basics established in the Dark Ages, we would not have been able to advance as far as we have today.

In short, a quip meant by Voltaire to be insulting was taken far too seriously.

The Dark Ages: Not so Dark...

For someone known only for his snarky tongue, Voltaire has had a lasting effect on civilization. One of those is one small thing he said, but that has reverberated throughout history; in essence, he called the period lasting from roughly the fall of Rome to the Renaissance (roughly the fifth through fourteenth centuries) as the "Dark Ages", as he believed that no advances occurred during that time. As any decent historian will tell you, Voltaire was wrong.

There are basically three ways to look at this. The first is that the medieval era was full of infrastructure building. Although there was little in the way of exploration, as Europeans stayed close to home, Europe in general was building up. Understand one thing about Europe that is different than other areas; there is a lack of arable land compared to other areas, mostly due to the mountains that virtually cover the continent, and also because of, ironically, the water. All of that coastline makes farming difficult due to the presence of windborne salt, and swamps slow progress down. In essence, you had to find and exploit land in order to survive.

With a growing population, every acre of land had to be exploited, and that encourages building towns every few miles in order to better be able farm the area. You will also have roads between those towns to better facilitate shipping grain long distances. As the roads and rivers become more important for trade, you need to protect them, requiring standard armies. You also need the administration and skilled smiths to support the armies, farmers, and other niceties of building up a society. In short, as any decent gamer will tell you, that's a lot of infrastructure to build, especially when you realize that almost none of it has really changed; we've paved over the roads and computerized it, but I think a valid argument can be made that a bureaucrat from the Eighth Century would be at home in the Twelfth and in the Twenty-First.

The second is that there was a lot of societal change. Again, more of a firming up, but there were a lot of wars fought for honor and resources. As these wars were fought, nobles started realizing that alliances were good things, as were rules in combat; after all, if both sides were aware that there were limits, and that as long as those limits were worked within, the odds of you surviving that battle increased. Thus generals that killed everyone were looked down on, and those that could win a battle without shedding blood were considered more heroic. There was still bloodshed, but if you gained a reputation for slaughter odds are good that people would gang up on you.

You also had a lot of different schools of thought, developing into the schisms and what not of Christianity. The Catholic put some of these schools down, but at the same time they let most survive, even adopting some of them into the fold. In essence, as long as the school of thought played within the rules, odds are it would be adopted rather than killed.

You also had people start realizing that they had a lot more power than they thought they did. Not only did nobles start asking for more responsibility and therefore power, but so did merchants and guilds. Even the peasants started stretching their muscles; a number of rules and regs regarding peasants started going by the historical wayside, such as the right of the first night and being able to move freely from town to town. In essence, people were moving more and more towards more democratic forms.

So far, we have a lot of infrastructure building as well as advancements in the way people are thinking. All of this required a lot fundamental changes in society over a relatively short period. But, there is one area I'm leaving alone for its own entry...

Science vs. Religion: Astronomy

It's been oft said that religion and science have little to do with each other, and that religion inhibits science. Nothing could be further from the truth, as religion has actually helped science along. Some of these connections should be explored. The best place to start is astronomy.

Once people began to farm, knowing when to lay crops down was extremely important. This need started to lay down a basic paradigm: almost everyone farmed, there were a few nobles, and the small remainder took up learning about the universe. Getting food was pretty much a full-time job, as was ruling; the original nobles were busy adjudicating disagreements, deciding what to do with neighboring tribes, which came down to fighting or marrying, and other like things.

This meant that the you had a very small number of people dealing with the gods. When people were more nomadic, the shamans had little time to really explore the universe, and so they noticed little more than constellations and correlated that to the behaviors of animals, plants, and weather, allowing the tribe to make plans more than a few days in advance. This was a serious advantage and allowed for regular religious rituals, as well as tracking time. Eventually they were able to stretch schedules into years. They also linked the times of the year to personality types, making astrology somewhat important.

When the tribes settled down and started farming, they were able to start doing more, and so started making calendars, with some of these being quite immense. After all, because of farming people started having more free time; they didn't need to gather food all of the time, and so were able to do some of the first public works projects. This explains a lot of the truly large buildings; the people would farm in spring, harvest in fall, and do maintenance chores during the winter. There was some weeding and brewing during the summer, and maybe some art, but it was mostly a very boring season, making it ideal for war and building. So they did.

Because watching the stars was so important, these first projects tended to be calendars. Big calendars. Some have noted how coincidentally major structures are lined up with specific constellations and directions; if your life depended on the appearance of a specific star, you would probably line up your biggest building to that star. Astronomy was actually pretty sophisticated when you realize that they were not doing it with computers and telescopes.

Oh, and another cool about the early astrologers: They kept records. Because tracking the stars was so important, they kept track of them and recorded their findings, and modern-day astronomers have been able to use these recorded numbers to determine a lot about the skies back then.

But the lesson to take away here is that even as they were doing what amounted to a lot of scientific inquiry, and that there was definitely a practical edge to that inquiry, the reason was fundamentally religious. By knowing the skies you could know your future and, in times of crisis, know the will of the gods. It's worth noting that the book religions each have a proscription against divination, possibly because God talk to His flock directly, and also as a way to make them different from the surrounding tribes. Nonetheless astrology lasted as a science until the 12^th century or so, when it started to be replace by astronomy, which stripped out the supernatural underpinnings and made it mere divination. Astronomy has become important to almost every branch of civilization, as its discoveries have led to advances in almost every area. Not bad for something started by some superstitious savages...

How Important is a Name?

Here's a weird case from a morals perspective: To what degree should we be able to define our own identity?

Here's the story: Judge Rules On Name Change

The problem is that the judge's ruling, from a strictly legal perspective, is fine. That is, from the perspective of the law as defined by the State of Oklahoma Judge Graves is in the right here. There are a number of people who would prefer not have sex or enter marriage with someone who has had transgender surgery even as they otherwise accept that it is a person's right to do so. There is also the legitimate issue of whether or not the person is legally male even after the surgery has been completed; the judge's point that person remains male at the cellular level and then using that for his standard is legitimate. There are a number of other standards that he could have used, such as Ingram's ability or inability to become pregnant or if musculature or skeleton had changed, but that's at the discretion of the judge; nonetheless, in all of those cases Ingram would have been still male. The last point is iffy, about the gender change being an effective disguise, but that one could have gone either way.

Ultimately, from a legal perspective, I can understand the judge's ruling.

However, it doesn't work out from a morals level. The judge errs by bringing the biblical quote into the situation. The problem is twofold: The first is that he may have erred by adding a religious element, especially when rendering a judgment such as this given the current atmosphere; the summoning of the biblical spirit when so many transgendered have reason to hate the religious was a serious error in judgment.

At the same time, he may have erred when he decided against the name change. If Ingram really wanted to demonstrate his change, his name is a vital step. Names have power; changing his name to represent her new status (pronouns work here, I believe) is a powerful first step towards solidifying that new identity. She was attempting to make a point by changing her name to fit her new persona, demonstrating to her community as a whole that she had a fundamental change in who she is.

She, through the free will that we were given by God, was acting to make a change in her life that she felt was necessary. She did not feel that she was a man, and was taking steps to change that. This was not a simply or easy solution, and it was no doubt reached only by seriously considering all of the different factors involved. She decided that the identity she was given at birth did not fit her, and so decided to change that. It was her choice, and, as long as she was willing to accept the ramifications of that decision, she should have been allowed to make whatever changes she felt as necessary.

In that regard, the judge erred. If he is arguing that she could commit fraud by using the female name, then an equal argument could be made that she was committing fraud by using the male name. The name no longer reflects who she is and, if expectations are based on her name, she is not going to get the behaviors towards her that she is expecting. Worse, as she if for all intents and purposes a man, she is going to mess with those expecting a man rather than a woman. The judge is messing with those expectations on a number of levels, and I'm not sure how correct that is. Let's just hope Ingram appeals and gets the name she deserves...

The Biblical Genesis

So, how closely does Genesis 1:1 through 1: get it right? Let's take a quick look...

1: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Okay, so far so good. After the Big Bang, matter coalesced into pools of matter. These pools eventually formed into nebulae, and those nebulae into stars. This process would repeat a few times, and eventually our sun and solar system would form. Eventually Earth would cool, and separate into the solid part and the gases surrounding it.



2: Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Oh, forgot about the water. Oops. So, after a while the Earth really cools down and the water vapor in the clouds starts raining down. This takes a few centuries, but eventually the clouds open up. Oh. Just a sec, getting ahead of ourselves.



3: And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4: God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5: God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
Okay, so let's back up just a little. The Earth needed to cool a little before you could see any sign of the Sun. Until that point, light from volcanoes and lightning, diffused and reflected by clouds, would have ensured that the globe was lit day and night. When the Earth cooled to the point where it could rain, that light was dimmed and sunlight, such as it was, took over. However, because of the cloud cover, all you could see if it was day or night based on how light the clouds were. When the rains were over----



6: And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7: So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8: God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
So now we have the clouds and seas. Sweet.



9: And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10: God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
You have all of that water going everywhere, effectively flooding the world. For a little while the Earth was covered by water, but eventually, due to a combination of tectonic action and water evaporating, the land masses started popping up.



11: Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12: The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13: And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
Okay, so now we have a problem. Sort of. About now a number of chemicals would combined with all of that rampant electricity to form amino acids. These amino acids would form eventually into blue-green algae, the first cellular life form on the planet, and also the first plant. So we have plants, just not in the variety we originally wanted.



14: And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15: and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16: God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17: God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18: to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19: And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
Oh, we still have those frigging clouds. All that carbon dioxide isn't exactly making for starry nights; think Los Angeles, but on a global scale. But we now have photosynthesizing plants on the scene, and they start taking in the carbon dioxide and converting it to oxygen. This deals with the clouds once and for all, allowing the stars to finally be seen from the surface of the planet. This of course also means that we could finally see the Moon and Sun, you know, if we were alive back then.



20: And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21: So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

So let's do some serious time condensation. The Sun is shining, and evolution happens. The algae evolves, and plants and animals swarm the oceans. Fish start swimming, and they lead to amphibians, who lead to reptiles. Reptiles lead to birds and mammals. So now we have fish in the oceans and birds in the skies. Man evolves, and finally invents television. God is finally able to watch a decent football game.

Overall, not bad. Too many plants on one stage, but otherwise I think there is a nice correlation. Feel free to comment below.

Obvious Caveats

I guess some obvious caveats are in order before I really get going. The first is that I am not going to be basing my biblical interpretation on a literal reading of The Bible. I am going to be taking the position that The Bible is an allegorical construct; it is a great book to go to for advice, but it is not to be read literally. This is not to disrespect it by any stretch; the problem is that there are a number of historical events and personages mentioned in The Bible, but they are mentioned in terms of what they stood for. A good example is the destruction of Jericho through sound; although there is some evidence of Jericho being destroyed by earthquake at the same time as the Israelites coming through, it is unlikely that the town was destroyed by the power of trumpets, unless they were a lot bigger than we have been led to believe. It makes a great story and warns of God's power, but is not likely to have happened as reported.

The second is to keep in mind that most of my academic training is science. I'm not going to try and justify the difference; it is my personal belief that there is no need for a reconciliation between the two; science explains the what, when, where and how of existence, religion grabs the who and why. As humans we need all of those questions answered, and sometimes we need some sort of higher power. This is not to weaken the case of science, but rather to simply say we don't know. There are also those really weird coincidences that no one can explain, ranging from something as simple as a candy bar being sold long after no one even makes it all the way to the orderliness of a particular organism. There just sometimes hits a point where something is so well ordered that it has to be an artificial construct even when we know it's 100% natural. We need someone to blame, and we know it's not us this time.

The last is that you need to keep in mind that the biggest problem with studying The Bible is that it's hard to do with the original language. Hebrew has a number of limitations when it comes to expressing thoughts, as does even Greek; the languages are old enough that there just simply are not the words to express certain concepts. There are also some concepts that the ancients had to deal with on a daily basis that we simply don't. We have no problems with the concept of an atheist in this day and age; the idea of someone who did not believe in some sort of a god would have been completely foreign to our ancestors. Because of this there will always be translation issues as translators need to not only know the language but the nuances of the culture, and that's not always easy. So be prepared for some weird translation issues...

With that said, I guess I can start having some fun.

Foregoing Modern Thought

Before we get going, we need to eliminate one of the bigger fallacies about previous eras: One cannot apply modern thinking to non-modern settings. It can get sort of interesting when one attempts to impose modern thinking on, say, medieval settings without understanding that it just doesn’t apply.

This is important to understand when we are dealing with a number of social mores. Slavery is the obvious example, as the modern concept is rather limited. This should obviously not be seen as an endorsement of slavery, as we have moved on and it simply no longer applies to our way of life; even prisoners used to do work that others would not, such as cleaning highways, should be compensated for their work. However, in the ancient world it did have a number of advantages, such as allowing a way to preserve cultures when the culture was threatened by conquerors (the culture would be enslaved rather than exterminated), a way to provide for services that few wanted to perform, and spreading of genetic traits (a major bonus when inbreeding was all too frequent).

Another is too assume that cultures were more simple simply because they do not need to deal with today’s politics. It can be argued that the extreme reactions of the time (easily taking offense for even pretend offenses and acting on them) made local politics more interesting, and required a far more delicate touch than they did today. Just the issue that someone could be accused of something and that the accusation needed to be taken seriously no matter how ridiculous the charge could easily make life interesting for the accused. Without today’s necessity for proof courts could get interesting.

It also needs to be noted that a number of assumptions we have about other eras need to be noted every so often. It is almost amusing how many people assume that the Victorian Age is without love or even sex beyond the need to procreate despite the mountains of evidence we have that prostitution flourished, that erotica took on new forms (some that could not even be imagined before its beginning), and that romance was definitely on the wax. We need to look at our own assumptions and investigate whether or not they are worthy of maintaining.

The point here is that our assumptions about how life worked in prior ages is all too often based on invalid information, and sometimes satire or parody took on a life all of its own (such as the apocryphal stories of table legs covered to avoid amorous attentions of young men). We need to allow that not all of the stories are true, and that sometimes are ancestors did what was appropriate for their lives then, and without our current knowledge. It may not work today, but that does not mean that it did not work for them; it was a simpler time, and that applies to technology as well as it did to the people. This is a necessary first step.

Genesis

Welcome to the inaugural post of Stupid Atheist Tricks. This blog is all about misconceptions atheists seem to have about us religious types, especially Christians. It seems like we are lumped into the same group as the right-wing fire-and-brimstone fundamentalist types. Not all Christians are necessarily against abortion, gays, or even rock and roll music; there are moderates and even some of us are relatively liberal. But that doesn't seem to matter; all that seems to matter is that people can lump us all together into one big group that they can easily hate. I'm not really sure how I feel about that.

Worse, it seems that some atheists have decided to go militant. On a number of discussion boards that I've been on recently, and even on Facebook, there seems to be a moratorium on reasoned debates and they have been going straight for the jugular. It's been sort of weird that the religious types have been using science and other facts in their arguments and that atheists seem to be using more visceral and anecdotal arguments; the usual roles have been switched. This is sort of amusing, in an ironic sort of way, as atheists have always said that atheism is the more logical and rational choice.

This is not to say that certain religious groups are not going to come under fire on this blog. Yes, the Westboro Church is in my sights. After all,if I'm going to point out some of the misconceptions I'd better point out some of the groups that base their logic on those misconceptions. The point of this blog after all is to address the misconceptions, not attack atheists; there's no fun in that. So if I'm appearing to attack atheists a bit much, I'm really not; I'm attacking the misconceptions of the atheists as much as possible.

Expect this blog to cover a lot of weird ground. I'll be looking at the Russian and Chinese Revolutions, Genesis, homosexuality, and a lot of interesting ground in the Middle East. In short, if you have the patience, and can deal with some weird takes on religion, expect to read some great posts. At least I hope there will be some great posts; I'm always optimistic. So, let's have some fun, shall we?