Jesus: oh so moral

In the comments section of the Labi Siffre speech transcript over at the March for Free Expression blog, one chap responded angrily to a comment that it was common to ridicule Jesus:

Crusader, you said:
"We have already done our duty challenging, criticising, caricaturing and satirizing Jesus. He is an easy target."
Words of wisdom. How pathetic that we try at all cost to vilify and denigrate a man (and it does not matter in the slightest whether one believes that he was the Messiah or just an extraordinary man), who represented one of the highest moral standards in history (and even the most extremist secularist cannot deny this) of leadership, in the name of the very odd idea of bringing all religious leaders to the same ethical level. I find it quite disgusting.
Will someone please tell me what their problem with Jesus is?
I am waiting in anticipation (of total silence).
What is your problemn with the man called Jesus Christ? Mind you I said THE MAN and not God.

Dear oh dear. It's amazing how few people have actually read the Bible! I was incensed at the suggestion that I could not deny that Jesus is a good representation of moral standards, and responded. For posterity, here is my post:

From the book of Matthew alone:

3:10: "every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire."

3:12: "he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire"

5:29-30: "And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."

8:12: "But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

10:15: "Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city."

10:28: "fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

10:34-35: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law."

25:41: "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels"

See also 15:4-7, 18:8-9, 22:12-13, 24:37, 24:50-51, 25:30.

The Biblical Jesus is every bit as dogmatic and intolerant as every other cult leader in history. Anything he said of any value had already been far better, less ambiguously, and less conditionally articulated by philosophers and religions across the globe. To proclaim him as a representation of the highest moral standards in history is to spit on history's great reformers. Did Jesus free the slaves? Did Jesus empower women? Did Jesus legalise homosexuality? Did Jesus encourage free speech?

No. Jesus' rules were 1)Love God, then 2)Love others. God before people. That says it all really.

Joss
tabtasm.blogspot.com

In many ways, pointing out the bad things Jesus said is a red herring. It's the noticeable things he didn't say. The period of 100 years or so known as the Enlightenment can be credited with a good proportion of the values that we now consider to be quintessential to human dignity and happiness. Consider the truths in the American Declaration Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". Whence are these truths derived? Certainly not from Jesus.

Jesus did not speak out for equality, for all ages, sexes, sexualities, colours and races. Jesus did not speak against slavery. He did not speak out against political religion, yet the diminution of the Church's political power is a crucial element of modern inclusivity and freedom. He made no mention of freedom of speech. In fact, Jesus' message ruled out rebellion, he commanded loyalty and subservience of subjects and servants to their masters (and, ultimately, to the master of all, God). What about democracy? Held up by Western leaders as the ultimate moral political system, yet there is no possible way you could get a call for representative rule from Jesus' example.

Stripped of all references to hell and damnation and adherence to 'every jot and tittle' of the vicious Old Testament laws, Jesus' message is simply to love. I hardly see how that is an astounding moral example since it has been articulated by so many throughout history. And also, it is hardly particularly useful. You cannot go from love to free speech, or from love to separation of church and state - love just isn't the fundamental moral grounding of utilitarian morality, and it is also completely subjective and ambiguous. If I choose to consider Jews, say, as sub-human, there is nothing in Jesus' words that necessarily tells me that his message of love should apply to them. Clearly Jesus wasn't thinking that we should love all living things when he killed a fig tree because it wouldn't bear fruit out of season.

I'll give Jesus credit as having a more compassionate message than most of the other cult leaders, such as Moses and Mohammed. But if I was going to pick a good moral example from history there's no way I'd pick Jesus. Ghandi beats Jesus by a huge long road, and I still disagree with half of what he said.

Labi Siffre's speech

The March for Free Expression website (www.marchforfreeexpression.blogspot.com) has published Labi Siffre's wonderful speech from the rally. I'm going to do an odd thing and repost it rather than link to it, mainly because I selfishly want to have my own copy, as it were:

Transcript of the “March for Free Expression” speech given by Labi Siffre (Trafalgar Square 25/03/06)

The texts for my speech are taken from my blog in poetry form: “Labi Siffre – Poetry Into The Light”


it matters little that something is true, or not
till someone says you must live a certain way
because they believe something is true, or not

The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw has said, "There is freedom of speech, we all respect that. But there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory. We have to be very careful about showing the proper respect."

Well, I say, not all beliefs are worthy of respect. Racist beliefs, homophobic beliefs, sexist beliefs, beliefs claiming the inferiority of the disabled, and claims to knowledge of the existence of a God, none of these are worthy of respect.

I reject the craven philosophies, “I am sincere ... so I must be right”
and “I am offended ... so you must stop”.

When someone says, “I know God exists and so, you must behave in a certain way": that is offensive, insulting, inflammatory and unworthy of respect. But I would not campaign to ban their right to proclaim their beliefs, no matter how offensive I judge those beliefs to be.

I stand here able to speak in this way because a lot of people, many of whom would not have approved of me, died, so that I could have the right of “freedom of expression”. I have a duty to defend that right they gave their lives for.

To begin with the lie, “I know god exists” makes you an extremist.

*

When anyone attacks, by insisting that their dishonest and offensive claims to knowledge of “god” be “precious and sacred” to me

i will oppose your vacuous regal prose,
and them, vigorously

*

Consider : it is impossible to blaspheme
without proof of god’s existence

Consider : if you apologise
when you have nothing
to apologise for

of what value are your apologies
when you do
have something to apologise for

Consider : Christianity, Islam, Sikhism,
Judaism, Hinduism, the worship of
the little green goblin from the planet absurdity
none of these is a country
none of these is an ethnicity

they are political philosophies
used to persuade or tell people
how they should live

to criticize, ridicule, lampoon
or insult them, or the belief in them,
is not racist

And finally, consider :
In an age when the most powerful man on the planet (armed with weapons of mass destruction) by his own admission believes he receives instruction directly from God

In an age when Christian believers in “Rapture” and Islamic believers in “the return of the hidden Imam” believe it right to speed us to salvation by promoting the chaos and destruction of the apocalypse

In such an age, not only do we have a right to challenge, criticize, caricature and satirize Muhammad, Jesus, Yahweh and other theistic concepts ... we have a duty to do so.


http://www.intothelight.info/

ozz@intothelight.info

Change is slow and subtle

How do you change people's minds? Activists often give the impression they are looking for some kind of momentous event or revelation to bring everyone over to their cause. In reality, change is much slower and it's much less easy to pin down a precise cause.

Take, for instance, the reason why I became an atheist. There are a multitude of reasons, of course, but it largely stems from the kind of environment I grew up in. An environment where science is lauded, and where superstition is largely considered silly. Critical thinking is encouraged. Ridicule of religion is an important point. Ridicule of religion is both indicative of an environment of religious skepticism and a reinforcer of it. This is why I object to people who say ridicule and mockery is counter-productive.

Every time you watch a TV program or read an article or listen to somebody you are incorporating ideas into your models and beliefs, reinforcing some and reducing others. For instance Sam Harris' book The End of Faith has not convinced me that an aggressive approach to terrorism is the way forward, but it has certainly softened my attitude to such an approach. The books I read and the people I listened to all helped to construct my current set of beliefs. Now, I try to make sure they are justifiable, but most people don't feel the need for that.

And why do I live in a society which allows mockery and ridicule of religion and has quite liberal and progressive social ideology? Because in centuries past, people wrote books that encouraged such an attitude, and these ideas disseminated steadily into society. It's not like everyone who read The Age of Reason just suddenly converted from dogmatic Christianity to deism in a stroke. They won't even have needed to have read it, just to have grown up around people who have.

I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that we shouldn't be disappointed that we can't convert people to our way of thinking one person at a time just by making good arguments. The struggle each of us makes contributes to an ethos that contributes to the environment in which people formulate their beliefs. Just by writing this blog, I'm helping to increase the likelihood of a curious child finding information on the web that helps solidify their beliefs.

I feel like my efforts on the anti-religion front over the past few years have been neither futile, nor merely a purely egoistic recreation. On Martin's Debate Unlimited forum, for instance, I believe I have already seen people's ideas and beliefs change. I've even, gratifyingly, seen some of my own arguments return to the board through somebody else's keyboard. So, even if I never manage to write these amazing books I've always wanted to write and to change the world like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris can, I've still done my fair share.

Ignorant and happy

I recently read a New Scientist article about a tribe in South America who, even after a century of contact with the outside world, happily maintain their old traditions and lifestyle. They have very little concept of ownership and no desire to accumulate goods or wealth. Kinship for them only extends to immediate family. They have almost no understanding of the passage of time and seem to live almost entirely 'in the now'. Even after concerted efforts, they have completely failed to learn basic arithmetic and none of them can count as high as ten. Yet they are completely content.

The tribe makes me ponder two points, one philosophical and one scientific. Firstly, this tribe shows us that civilisation is by no means a guarantee of human existence. And without writing to allow the accumulation of knowledge, technology could never arise. And there is no particular reason to assume that writing will always emerge. If the religionists have their way and civilisation is destroyed, I wouldn't be at all surprised (if I was still capable of being surprised at anything) if mankind went back to its simple tribal ways with no necessary drive to change. Mankind had a simple tribal existence for millennia before the first civilisations and the first written language, and it could go back to that for millennia to come. Ponder that - modern civilisation was not inevitable.

Ultimately, most people agree that human happiness is the fundamental goal of life (if they disagree about how to attain it or what exactly it is). These tribespeople are clearly happy. Why do we bother to advance science and technology, and to come up with more sophisticated political and social models? It certainly doesn't seem to make us happier.

My answer is that there's no halfway house: in a world with some learning and competition there will be advance. You cannot easily force it to halt (although the Church gave it a damn good try in the Dark Ages). We could eliminate medicine only to find the learning cropping up again. We could go all the way back to the dawn of the agricultural age, but we'd still have people inventing better tools and better ways of nourishing the soil. I think you really would have to go all the way back to a hunter-gatherer existence to achieve technological and social stability, like this tribe.

But we could do this if we really wanted to. Why shouldn't we want to?

Because modern technology allows us to live longer (so presumably, the same happiness for more time = more happiness?). But more importantly, it is the only barrier we have against extinction. In a simple existence we could be wiped out in an instant by disease, or by a natural disaster like an asteroid impact. I'm not saying we can necessarily defend ourselves against that now, but certainly technology is the only way it can be done.

So I say, if we consider a guarantee of the future existence of the human race to be a necessary part of human happiness, then we need to push on with technology. Push on, or go back, because there's no staying still.

Labi Siffre

I've discovered why I couldn't find any information about Labi Shiffre - it's cos he doesn't exist! I copy-pasted a typo from the March for Free Expression website. It is really Labi Siffre, the singer-songwriter and poet who wrote the anti-apartheid song "There's something inside so strong".

I understand now why his speech was so lyrical - he was actually reciting poetry!! Check out his website, where there's plenty of poetry on freethought.

Survivors - a note on Apocalyptic prophecy

One other thing that struck me while reading this book Survivors was what on earth the anti-Christ thought he was doing. I mean, if the whole series of events was written down in Revelations, couldn't he read it? Wasn't he aware that he would ultimately be defeated, that he was really just part of God's plan and being manipulated?

Perhaps the antiChrist doesn't have free will. But mankind does, supposedly. Yet the primary aim of these Jesans (and so, presumably, the real-life Jesus Christians) is to follow the prophecy and see that it is fulfilled. Doesn't this scripted apocalypse contradict free will?

It is, indeed, an obvious flaw of the very concept of prophecy that has caused much disagreement among theologians. Should one cause prophecy to be fulfilled? Should one attempt to counteract it? If one believes that an action one can take will fulfill a prophecy, is one obliged to do it? If not, then surely only people unaware of the prophecy can ever be involved in prophesied events.

Apparently there is a movement among Christians that revered Judas Iscariot because he 'caused' the Messiah prophecy to be fulfilled. Weird.

You can get the whole text of Survivors, and find out more about these whacky zealots, at the Jesus Christians website.

Survivors - of God's indiscriminate slaughter

Before The End of Faith I read a book called Survivors that I got for two quid off a geezer in the street. I didn't have to give him two quid, he just asked for 'any coin'. But I wanted to at least cover the cost of publishing and distributing it. In retrospect, I probably should be more careful who I'm giving my money to!

The book is by a group called the 'Jesus Christians', who apparently dislike organised Christianity and follow the example of Jesus in a 'pure' way, impoverishing themselves and wasting their lives preaching. Apparently they disagree with the Left Behind series of books produced by a fundamentalist Christian group in a America, which (again, apparently, I don't know much about them) weave a fictional storyline around the (completely factual, of course) story of the coming apocalypse (as detailed in that wonderful Biblical story, The Revelation). So these Jesus Christians decided to write their own story, much shorter and fitting into the one small book, along the same lines and using a lot of the same names, but 'correcting' all the misinterpretations of scripture. The whole thing must infringe the Left Behind's copyright massively since chunks of it are completely plagiarised (I can say this with confidence because the authors admit it throughout. Did nobody tell them it was illegal?). After every chapter is a short tract relating the story to scripture to give you more of an idea of where their interpretation is coming from.

I quite liked it at first because the story was quite gripping, if simplistically written. The Russians, completely unprovoked, destroy America with nuclear bombs and the story follows the experiences of one family in that time. (The Russians! You've got to be kidding me! Apparently America is the new 'great power', therefore the scene of destruction is removed from the Middle East to America, and the attack must from 'from the North', so by Russia over the North Pole.) Then we get a whole period of spiel while the main character, Rayford, discovers Jesus and leads this group of 'Jesans' up to the time of the 'Tribulation'.

At this point it starts to get more and more loopy. In order to follow the Bible literally the authors have to start including more and more fantastical nonsense in the story, turning it into a crazy hallucinogenic trip. The leader of the UN becomes the leader of a world government, then he dies and his body gets inhabited by the antiChrist, who has a scary demon face. The antiChrist sets about slaughtering Christians and having massive orgies in a Jewish Temple he's constructed. Then we have The Mark, which is a chip placed literally in the right hand or forehead allowing us to pay for things (forehead, for goodness' sake). The two leaders of the Jesan sect, which is growing in popularity through its message of living like a pauper and cutting off your hand if you've had The Mark installed, have the power to shoot fireballs from their mouths. Eventually, God's kingdom comes down from the sky looking like a giant glass pyramid and all the good people float up to it for their thousand-year reign over the Earth. (What happens after that was never clear. Is it judgement?)

Except for the fireballs and other magics, the whole thing is hilariously literal, the authors trying to find a materialistic parallel for all the guff in The Revelation. Even heaven, or the kingdom, or whatever this pyramid thing that's floating in the sky is, has its own 'divine physics' governing how things work. They even have the Jesan's website being served through this heaven! However, this literalness in many ways serves to make the story even more unbelievable. With magics and revelations and a return to high levels of superstition you could almost imagine some of this stuff happening, but as it is you're trying to reconcile things like the antiChrist introducing widespread execution for anyone connected to the Jesans (or Twelve Tribes as they become known), while the world's populace seem to join in whole-heartedly.

One of the things that brought me into the story early on was that one of the leaders of the Twelve Tribes started out as a humanist, not really believing in God. Rayford sucks him in with the standard theist method of calling god something else that exists (love, the universal human compassion, or some such), and then going back to using the old definition of God without a blink. Another one of these leaders-in-waiting is a lesbian, another a Jehovah's witness etc. They're all bickering away when God speaks through Rayford in a booming voice. They're all converted instantly on the spot. You see, they get a sign! Not like the rest of us.

God is portrayed as a totalitarian, manipulative, mendacious, vicious sadist. Now that does make a lot more sense! Apparently, the reason why the Bible is so ambiguous and God has allowed so many different Christian sects to crop up is because he's been fucking with us, essentially. Testing us, to see if we would be true to ourselves. That's why he could accept the humanist, you see, because he was true to his beliefs.

However, after they've converted, the humanist accepts there's a god. Worst of all the lesbian is forced to accept that god has a right to choose how he wishes people to express their sexual behaviour, and is converted to the holiness of straightness. God, by virtue of having created us, has a right to use us and control us like tinker-toys, and command us to do whatever loopy crap he deems fit. In His Infinite Wisdom, he has seen fit to create homosexuals (or allow them to come about), who must then deny those urges because God is a colossal sexual pervert and our sexual behaviour is of crucial importance to him (I think there's definitely some Freudian shit going down here, I think God definitely needs therapy).

The book was fascinating because it does show you what a range of beliefs we must combat. If you have bought into the complete literalness of the Bible and the genuine proximity of the Apocalypse, you're not going to be persuaded by arguments. Only a revelation of similar magnitude is likely to break down that wall. Nobody can draw your attention to how ridiculous your beliefs are because you have bought into, and convinced yourself of, ideas that are so utterly preposterous it must almost represent some kind of brain damage.

---

I'll tell you a little story as an aside to this. When I was going to the Free Expression Rally yesterday, there was a woman at Oxford Circus shouting stuff about God through a loudspeaker. There was a huge space around her as people were trying hard to avoid her. I was already in my activist frame of mind so I went up to her, tapped her on the shoulder and said "I've got news for you: there is no God. It's all a fantasy. It's in your head!" She looked stunned and was completely silenced. I didn't hear her speak again at all as I walked down Regent Street.

Thinking about my little triumph, I had to be realistic. Just consider what kind of state of mind it must have taken for her to take herself out to humiliate herself on the streets in the first place. She must have been absolutely inspired with the urge to spread her message. It must have completely overwhelmed her character. You're not going to crack that nut with a few words. And similarly so with these other lunatic Apocalyptic Christians.

This is why I try to work at the edges, talking to the doubters and the moderates, and the huge numbers of people with very vague, wishy-washy beliefs. The strong believers have just got too much history for their brains to be completely reconstructed. If a man is not open to reason, you must work with his children. He is already lost.

March for Free Expression

Today Marci and I went to a rally in Trafalgar Square aimed at reasserting our rights to free speech and expression. It was in particular a response to the Mohammed caricature affair but also about the Jerry Springer Opera, the Behzti play about Sikhism, the government's religious hatred bill and so on. The organising website is here.

There was a mixed bunch there. Quite a lot of infidels (I think the NSS had been doing their work), but some people who support free speech not as a matter of principle, but because they have bigotted and offensive things they want to publicise. I'm fine with that, I knew we'd have to expect that and embrace it.

The big disappointment was the turn-out. I think I was less annoyed with the organisation than the apathy and short-sightedness of the general public. I told all my friends, and either got no interest at all, or concern that wishing to express the right to offend was encouraging offensive speech, i.e. the sort of propaganda the Muslim community has been putting out. I'm upset with this blinkered view. Where free speech is concerned, people are quite happy to ignore infringements because it's quite interesting how little, in a free society, the average person feels the need to use it. Well, more fool them, I suppose those of us who fear the anti-Enlightenment approaching must do the work ourselves, on their behalf.

I don't want to parrot everything that was said here. Hopefully transcript and audio will be available on the web. There was great eloquence and ideas of huge importance. I was very moved. I think Labi Shiffre probably said it best for the non-believing activist, and I sincerely hope I can get hold of a transcript of his speech, even though his attendance was unplanned.

I've no idea who he is, actually, hopefully I'll find out soon but even Google can't shed any light on him. His message was essentially what I have been saying as my main point during this affair - how can there be any sense in society adjusting its behaviour for religious sensibilities when it cannot even be shown that god exists? The picture illustrates the point. Should we stop masturbating just in case it might kill kittens?

The rally was largely good-humoured. There were a couple of odd incidents. A guy, apparently a supporter of Maryam Namazie, had been talking to the press before the rally and gathering quite a crowd simply because he was the only one who'd actually put the caricatures on a placard (the organisers only didn't for the good reason that it would probably have led to violent conflict - self-censorship rules once again - but they didn't want to detract from the point of rally). You can see the placard in this picture.

Baffling as it is to me that any practising Muslim can be a supporter of free speech and women's rights, he made a good little speech. However, apparently someone complained about his placard and the police under some anti-terrorist legislation I think, were obliged to insist he stop showing it. On the March for Free Expression website they say the complaint was about showing the Danish flag but I don't understand that. Perhaps the comment on the website is just a cover? Anyway the placard was passed around the crowd on the grounds that the police couldn't arrest everyone, and I was hoping to get a chance to hold it for the cameras (or at least my camera!), but it never came to me.

In one other incident a strange short fat black man dressed in odd get-up caused another stir. He had a Tony Blair caricature mask with no nose on a pole, a Nazi symbol made out of four L-plates, and some ambiguous placards that I think implied he was an 'islamofascist' but I'm not sure. I mean, a black neo-Nazi? Do they exist?!

Anyway, a couple of stewards rushed up to him and asked him to leave, or take down one of his signs, or something, I don't know. He protested, and then some of the crowd nearby started shouting for them to leave him alone. We were here for free expression for goodness' sake, if the guy wanted to express something we disagreed with, then tough - that's the whole point of free expression. In the end it seemed like he was left alone. But the kerfuffle ruined the speech of the eloquent lady who was talking at the time.

It is so sad that we were having to have the rally at all. Those rights were won two centuries ago, through much bloodshed. However, if we must fight the Enlightenment a second time then so be it. We will do it, and we will win it again.

Sam Harris' mystical rationalisations

I've read a couple of interesting books recently. One is an Apocalyptic Christian story about the end of the world that I got handed by a street preacher (I have a bad habit of picking up this kind of research material). The other is Sam Harris' The End of Faith. I want to comment on both of them, but I'll start with the latter.

Sam Harris' book is largely about the kind of preposterous ideas that religion peddles, a scathing attack on the idea that these fairytales deserve any sort of special status. It's brilliantly articulated with examples that make it so clear that religion is complete hogwash that I'm envious. It's exactly the sort of book I always wanted to write. Plus, it reintroduced me to the word 'preposterous', which I am now using liberally to describe religious ideas!

However, Harris' last two chapters trouble me. He makes an attempt to show how naturalism can replace the areas to which religion claims to have unique access. I'm in favour of the attempt, I'm just not sure I agree with his analysis. His ideas are ethical realism, and empirical mysticism.

Ethical Realism
Harris says that ethics need not be the closed purvue of esoteric philosophical musings, or religious absolutism. He says that if we get together and agree what we are trying to achieve, eg. maximum happiness for the most people, long-term survival of the species, etc, even getting right down into the nitty-gritty of what precise measurements we are using, then we can study the behaviour that best meets those goals scientifically. No need to invoke a mystical 'force for good' that we have to tap into, we can actually study what is good and bad, and get better at being good.

Fine. I agree completely. But surely the big problem is not deciding what is moral once we've established our goals, but establishing those goals and measurements in the first place. And, from religion's point of view, establishing whether or not there is a moral code 'out there' somewhere that we can find and follow, ie. absolutism.

I think that when we instigate Harris' moral science we're going to come to a lot of conclusions that clash so profoundly with our natural instincts, which are inherently selfish and short-sighted, that we'll find it hard to call them 'moral' at all. It could easily conclude that all disabled or genetically unfit embryos and babies should be terminated for the long-long-long-term good of the species. It would likely conclude that war is justified, that the right to vote should be restricted, and so on. In order to make it satisfactorily 'moral', we'd have to change the goals to be more short-term, selfish, and small-group oriented. In the end, it wouldn't be much more than a study of human social instincts, ie. what do we instinctively feel is good and bad, and that wouldn't produce a consistent message (because it already doesn't).

Even if we accepted the conclusions, whatever they were, having agreed on the premises, how could we come to agreement on the measurements in the first place? And even if we could both agree and follow the conclusions, I still don't see how any system could successfully answer questions like "is cannibalism immoral?". Ultimately there would be a great deal of issues that such a science would have no stance on.

I'm being a little unfair, because I agree that such a science is useful and necessary. But I don't really think it will satisfy the religiots. They don't want utilitarian, Kantian answers to ethical questions, they want the universe to be specifically constructed to divide the good and the ungood. I think such an argument is best kept in philosophical and theological circles attacking the claim that an imposed code can ever be truly moral, or the coherence of a universe that somehow 'encodes' good and evil. Harris' fundamental premise, that there is no moral code except that which we decide for ourselves, is correct, but to people who are unsatisfied with that, one can only say "get used to it, that's the way it is".

Empirical Mysticism
Harris points out that certain forms of mental training and drugs can alter the way we experience our consciousness. He then makes a number of claims: This change of perspective can be empirically studied; it tells us something fundamental and profound that is worthy of investigation; and the erosion of the sense of a strong subject/object divide (the sense of identity and being separate from other things) can lead to an improved respect for others. I don't think Harris argues well for any of them.

For a start, how do you measure a subjective experience? I'm not going to go into it here, it may be possible, but it does seem to beset by the very definition of 'subjective'. Secondly, what precisely does society gain from this profound introspection? And lastly, what evidence is there that these 'mystical' experiences lead to an improved morality? I don't see any perfect societies anywhere near the sorts of places where this kind of mental practice is common.

Ultimately, the sorts of things that Harris is talking about can be duplicated through certain drugs. But to achieve the same state of introspection without drugs takes a certain kind of mental training. This training may indeed be beneficial for an individual, leading to an ability to control thoughts, urges and instincts. But it is the training that does this, not the experiences themselves, neither can we easily claim that society as a whole benefits from individual enlightenment. And the experiences are just trips, they don't tell us anything particularly useful about the way the world is.

The collapse of the subject/object barrier during a meditational enlightenment doesn't actually mean that there is no subject and object! Your thoughts are located in one place, attached to sensory and motor neurons that can sense and act in a particular location. Harris makes out that our sense of identity is a kind of nurtured bias impressed on us from youth. I don't agree; I think it's a valid representation of the self. Yes, we are located in a particular place and have control over these senses and limbs, not other ones. Yes, the 3-space point of convergence of our most acute senses, hearing and vision, is somewhere behind the eyes. The fact that our cognitive functions also take place in the head is indeed irrelevant - they could be going on in another room for all we cared - but I see no reason to believe that if they were in the next room, our sense of self wouldn't be located behind the eyes just the same.

Here's a test - think of the last film you went to that really absorbed you. When you think of the film, do you think of yourself sitting in the cinema watching a screen? Or do you think of yourself as a kind of impassive observer, located wherever the camera is in each shot?

I believe Harris' publishers made a big mistake letting these ideas go out with the political and religious polemic. They need a lot more work, and they detract from the excellent and important principal message.

Thoughts

A body without scars has not lived
A face without lines has not laughed
A heart undamaged has not loved
Live, laugh, love, and grow old
Die memorably scathed

Don't use CB Carpentry

Brace yourselves, I am shamelessly using this blog as a test of customer power. Maybe nobody reads it, but the googlebot does, and that may be enough.

Oxford people: do not use the carpenter Carl Bridges or his 'company' CB Carpentry. He is a complete cowboy. He spent hours on my door, did a shoddy job, and he needs to come back to fix it but keeps avoiding me, always saying he'll phone to arrange a time but never does. He also put my catflap in wonkily. Basically, he's shit. Spend a bit more and get somebody who actually knows carpentry, rather than just how to board up shop windows after break-ins.

Why I don't believe in gods

A new chap is visiting my regular haunt, the atheism board at Debate Unlimited, and firing off huge numbers of posts espousing various Christian doctrines. His endless refrain is that we're intellectually bankrupt because we can't prove that god doesn't exist. Of course we trot out the burden of proof argument that if we must prove gods don't exist, the theist must prove fairies and goblins and all manner of entities do not exist too.

This chap's response has always been that most people through history have believed in gods. Our response, again, is that the truth isn't in the numbers; that millions also believed the sun went around the earth; that there are well-established, understandable reasons why people invent gods; and that, in any case, people have come up with very different gods through history, which demands explanation whether gods exist or not.

However, this whole argument is fraught with the danger of antiprocess. Yes, our arguments are fair, but I must remain aware that I use the argument ad populem on occasion myself, not to prove anything, but to make a point. In particular, when arguing for evolution (goodness knows why I ever have to do that in this modern world, but backwards thinking is scarily prevalent), I sometimes ask what the creationist thinks must be going on in the scientific world that almost every scientist in the world believes evolution to be a fact. Presumably it must either be a massive conspiracy, or all those scientists are incredibly stupid yet have somehow still made it to the lofty heights of academia. But this really is an argument from numbers. I suppose it is possible, if absurdly far-fetched, that god's intervention in the evolutionary process is too intermingled with ordinary 'micro'-evolution to be detectable.

The theist in question has a point, that the prevalence of belief in gods does demand an explanation from the atheists as to why they reject the popular view. I should say that the majority of European atheists are not strongly exposed to theistic culture and the typical reaction is one of indifference to religious belief rather than outright rejection. But for people like me, where are we coming from?

The real answer to this question should be that there is no evidence for gods and therefore no belief in gods. Why would you believe in something you see no evidence for? But this is unsatisfactory as an answer to the typical theist, and also it is not really the true answer in my case. My main reasons for not believing are categorised below. Note that most of these are not disproofs or necessarily logical arguments, they are merely my reasons. The rationalisations have, in many cases, come first, but my mind is somewhat unsatisfied with a list of atheistic rebuttals as a way of establishing its world view, hence these rather more emotive appeals to common sense.

1. The god idea is absurd
Imagine for a second, if you can, that there are no gods. Now reflect on religion: the prayers, the ritual, the faith healing, the tribalism, the conferment of moral leadership on men in funny dresses. All revolving around a complete fantasy. The whole thing is completely ridiculous, almost comical if it weren't so horrifically wasteful and pursued with such gravitas. It is only when you are convinced there is no god that this realisation can become a reason in and of itself: the god concept is self-evidently absurd.

People brought up in non-theistic environment have no problem seeing god for what it is. They have no problem telling you they don't believe in god because the whole idea is no different from any other fantasy. The rest of us must struggle with our in-built conditioning, the social prejudice that sets god aside from other fantastical ideas. In the odd moment of clarity, I found that my brain would process the god idea objectively, and, for a moment, forget to recognise it as special and partition it into whatever protected area of my mind it has for god. And I would almost laugh at the comically infantile nature of the god idea, much as a Western Christian might laugh at the Hindu elephant-god Ganesh or multi-armed Vishnu. Soon, this became the most important reason for my disbelief.

It's nigh on impossible to convey this silliness to anyone living in a god-prevalent culture. Essentially, god is like a child's imaginary friend. This sort of floaty ever-presence, giving us comfort in times of trouble like a baby's blankie. Allowing us to imagine loved ones who have died, frolicking happily for eternity in a land of candyfloss and gummi bears.

This is to say nothing of the utterly absurd theological concepts in religious doctrine. Like the Christian idea of salvation, with god unable just to forgive people and instead having to go through a tortuously round-about process of having himself brutally murdered - that somehow resolving a dilemma of his own creation. The Hindu (and sometimes Buddhist) idea of reincarnation with bad people being reincarnated as dung beetles and the indetectable cosmic essence of Karma permeating the universe and flitting around passing judgement. The Islamic notion that their religion is one of peace when the founder was a confessed conquering imperialist and the strongest adherents keep killing people. The creation of the entire universe in six days. Dinosaurs on the Ark. The idea of 'love' so ineffable it resembles human love only in that it uses the same word. The idea of love being completely sufficient as an inherent purpose to existence. The constant, unending rationalisations of natural disasters; god was angry, god cannot intervene, man brings it upon himself (yeah, man brought down a mudslide to kill 200 children), god works in mysterious ways.

It's sad. But it's also silly. Very very silly.

2. The diversity of religions
This used to be my number one until it was knocked off top spot recently. No matter which way you swing it, there is no consistent concept of god in religion. They all agree that gods exist, but they don't agree what they are, what they're like, what they did, and what they do. Every single religious argument is refuted by another religion. Every argument against another religion refutes your own. People from other religions have ancient texts, ranges of stories, arrays of supposed evidence, and quite equal levels of conviction, personal experience, and revelation.

There is no reconciling religions with each other without throwing out absolutely everything but the concept of intelligent creation - not even heaven is universal or even similar when present. And intelligent creation is irrelevant on its own, it tells us nothing about how to live and how we die.

3. The universe works precisely as we would expect it to were there no god
It is only oneself that is changed by belief. The universe trundles on with complete indifference to us. Prayer has no effect, and the loved ones of theists and atheists alike die in horrendous and pointless ways with complete impartiality. Injustice prevails, deviousness is rewarded and generosity punished. Nature contains, in equal measure, wonder, beauty, cruelty, and ugliness.

4. The indifference of nature is incompatible with a loving and powerful god
The riddle of Epicurus goes "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?"

Evil, in this case, is of course referring both to man-made evil, natural disasters, and diseases and conditions. Now, we know god must be pretty powerful, because otherwise there wouldn't be much point in appealing to him through prayer etc. But god is also supposed to be loving. No loving human would stand by while natural evils are taking place if they had the power to stop them. That is the very essence of love. But somehow we're supposed to believe god's love is compatible with his doing precisely that.

One argument is that if god intervened it would affect our free will, but I don't see how. Just because a god stops asteroids from hitting the earth or cancer from eating a child's bones, it doesn't mean we don't have free will. Another more esoteric argument is that perhaps the only way the universe can 'work' is if such disasters are allowed; but not only is that ad hoc, it ignores the fact that god is supposed to be able to create matter from nothing. It is hardly conceivable that god can will a universe from the void but cannot do something simple like preventing tonnes of mud from crushing a school. It also contradicts the supposed reports of divine intervention in the past.

Fundamentalists have it much easier than liberal theists. Their god is not just loving, he can be vengeful and jealous, and he reeks his vengeance in a highly indiscriminate manner. It makes perfect sense to Pat Robertson that their god's punishment for America's sins was to fail to prevent the September 11th attacks, regardless of the fact that there were many non-Americans killed, and a huge number of people who would have subscribed to Pat Robertson's values. It makes sense to Hindus that god used the Boxing Day Tsunami in Asia to take vengeance on Muslims, and to Muslims that Allah used it to take vengeance on Hindus and Christians.

But to the liberal, 9/11 and the Asian tsunami were extremely perplexing events. Their bumbling rationalisations bounced from justification to justification, but basically they boiled down to one thing: god works in mysterious ways. God is quite monumentally mysterious, yet these people still claim to know how it wants us to live our lives. The whole thing is unfathomable.

5. The more educated the person about the way science tells us the world works, the less likely they are to believe in god
There is a direct correlation between understanding of the mechanisms of nature, and irreligiosity. There are notable exceptions, but there is no denying the correlation. I am willing to make the conjecture that god is therefore largely an explanation of the unknown to most people, and the more that is known the less god there is.

In surveys, most people say that the reason they believe is not because of design or god-of-the-gaps, but because of the need for purpose and meaning to their existence. This does not detract from the point: this is merely a need. Thinking people recognise that their belief cannot hang entirely on their fears and desires. When the universe is better explained by a godless set of principles, the urge for purpose typically gives way.

I should point out that theistic purpose is inherently shallow; god-given purpose is still unexplained while we do not understand the motivations of god, and it is hardly respectful of my freedom of intellect, or my humanity, to be told that my purpose is defined by another like the communist state deals out job titles to citizens.

6. The only arguments for god worth anything prove nothing but a dead-beat deistic god
All apologetics boils down to arguments for deistic creators. Even if we accept that the universe must have been created, it tells us absolutely nothing. We don't know why the universe was created, or what for; we don't know whether god is still around; we don't know whether it cares what we get up to or not. We certainly know nothing about the afterlife (which does not exist in apologetics and remains eternally a tacked-on product of faith and fear).

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That pretty much sums up my main reasons for not believing in gods. I says gods, in the plural, advisedly. I have equal disbelief for the gods of all cultures, past and present. Clarence Darrow said

"I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose."

Ultimately, that's the nub of it. No god strikes me as any more special or worthy than any other supernatural, mythical, or fantastical concept, volume of believers notwithstanding.

Why do cats purr?

I was motivated to find out why Morphy purrs and perhaps what makes him purr more than most cats. I assumed that science would have an answer to this question. However, after extensive research (i.e. I looked in Wikipedia and one other website) it seems that nobody really knows for sure!

Apparently it's not just an expression of contentment (which would seem evolutionarily odd anyway). The most plausible explanation I see is that it is used as a signal from the mother to her kittens, the kittens being able to feel the vibrations of the purr more easily than discerning any other vocalisations. In adulthood, it is more an expression of friendliness or good will, in a similar way to a person's smile or laugh, to indicate absence of threat. I can understand such involuntary expressions of emotion in a social species, but in more independent animals like cats it is more surprising; hence it seems it must be a remnant of a childhood trait. Perhaps purring has been selected for in domestic cats, making its evolutionary purpose, genuinely, to please people! But be wary of that theory - wild felines purr as well, even cheetahs and tigers!