Horoscopes in "The Times" Newspaper Reduce Its Credibility

Sent to The Times, Johannesburg, Wednesday, September 07, 2016 15:01.  Not Published

Sir

I support the letter “Star-crossed reader reacts” by Jonathan Basckin in The Times, Monday September 5.

Astrology has no basis in science.  It is based on primitive misunderstanding of how the universe works.  It cannot predict the future, offering only generalities that confuse and mislead.

When a reputable newspaper publishes horoscopes, it makes superstition look respectable.

For a twenty-first century newspaper like The Times to publish horoscopes is out of keeping with your function of giving readers the truth.

Please stop.

Here is the letter under reply:

Religion is the Problem, Not Just Rogue Pastors

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg, Tue 10/11/2015 08:22.  Published Wed 11/11/2015, as “Religion must obey same rules as rest of society”.

I refer to The Star leader page’s Little Spot today, Tuesday November 10, “Religion needs regulation”, by Thabile Mange, Comment by preacher Ray McCauley “Causing consternation”, and the front-page article “Pray for rain, public urged” by reporter N Nkosi.

Religion gets far too easy a ride, and privileges it does not deserve.

In the process, superstition is encouraged, and progress is held back.

Prayer is ineffective at best, if not actually counter-productive.

For perhaps 10,000 years, the human race has conducted the experiment of praying to different gods.  If any gods answered prayer, it would be obvious by now in the sustained success of the followers of those particular gods.  It would be obvious which gods are real.

Instead, we have a proliferation of dozens of religions, with several, if not thousands, of sects, each claiming to represent the only true god.

Common sense should show that religion is one big confidence trick.  It persists because parents indoctrinate their children while they are too young to think for themselves.

Yet, regulating religion would interfere with people’s freedom of speech, conscience, and association.

The answer is to subject religion to the same rules as all other aspects of society.

There should be no rates- or tax exemptions for religion and its practitioners.  Preachers claiming “miracles” should have to prove them, or face fraud charges.

Religion Makes Fools of Believers

Sent to The Times, Johannesburg, Tue 10/11/2015 07:46.  Published Wed 11 November 2015, minus the parts in blue, as “Scourge of the Believers”.

In The Times Letters, Monday November 9, “Rogue pastors must be brought to heel”, Thabile Mange says that rogue pastors are making fools out of believers.

While the commission is investigating, will they also investigate widely-practiced ritual cannibalism?  I refer of course to churches that pretend to eat the body and drink the blood of Christ, in the form of the Eucharist.  We all know that it’s just wafers and wine –does this not make fools of believers?

How about a book that claims that the universe is less than 10,000 years old, and that life on earth arose in six days, contradicting every shred of evidence –does this not make fools of believers?

Then there are the exhortations to pray to gods for which no proof exists –does this not make fools of believers?

Mr Mange, the problem lies much deeper than a few rogue pastors.  It is religion as a whole that makes fools of believers.

Allow Religious Freedom so that Your Own is Not Curtailed!

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg, Tue 11/08/2015 08:17.  Published Wed 12/08/2015 as “Right to religious freedom abused”.

Sir

On Sunday, EFF members went to the Soshanguve meeting of the End of Times Disciples Ministries, where they threatened the “Snake Pastor” and his followers, and burned the tent used by the church.  According to reports, SAPS members watched and did nothing.

It appears that the local EFF and SAPS members do not understand the concept of religious freedom in clause 15 of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. Everyone has the right to practice their religion free of interference, if they do not break the laws of the country.

If the pastor is causing cruelty to animals, breaking the food health and safety regulations, or endangering the health or lives of his followers, then the law should be applied.  If the church is disturbing the peace, there are by-laws that should be enforced.

It is completely wrong for anybody to force their way into the gathering, threaten violence, and commit arson.  The EFF members who took part must be arrested and prosecuted, and buy a replacement tent.  The SAPS members who failed to act, must be disciplined.

The behaviour of other sects may seem barbaric and bizarre to you, while the brutal and strange practices of your own religion seem normal to you because you have grown up with them.

Oh, your religion has no such practices?

If you are a Christian, have you ever received Holy Communion?  You pretended to eat the body and drink the blood of Christ?  To me, this looks like ritual cannibalism.  If, outside of religion, your children made a game in which they pretended to consume human body parts, you would probably be horrified.

Various belief systems mutilate the genitals of children –and dignify it with the term “circumcision”.

A final example, one that causes untold harm, is when children, too young to think for themselves, are indoctrinated into a fear of Hell.  There is no evidence that Hell exists –-nor Heaven, for that matter.  Forcing irrational fears on children is child abuse.

You get away with these practices because they are part of your religion.  In return, you have to accept that other religions are allowed to practice theirs.

Thanks and RICKgards
Rick Raubenheimer

No, There Are NO Real Angels Among Us

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg, Thu 23/04/2015 18:08 in response to the reader’s letter below.  Not published.

Sir

I refer to the letter “Proof angels are among us” in The Star, Thursday April 23, by Judy Bennett.

Linden Cycle Shop is to be praised for their “angelic” behaviour.  They are obviously good people.

However, the letter can hardly convince us that real angels –mythical spirit beings commonly depicted with wings, haloes, and harps— exist.  Good people, or at least people who behave commendably in certain circumstances, definitely exist: The letter is proof of that.  Taking it as proof of the supernatural is not a logical conclusion.

It is also not logical of Ms Bennett to thank her god and pray for Linden Cycle shop.  What evidence does she have that a god was responsible, let alone the specific one that she believes in?

If I were the unnamed owner of Linden Cycle Shop, I would be annoyed that Ms Bennett believes that a supernatural agency made me behave well, rather than that I did it myself out of my own goodness!

As for praying, scientific studies of the effects of prayer have concluded that it does not work.  The most extensive of these was the "Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer" in 2006 (see the STEP project in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_on_intercessory_prayer). It found that prayer had no noticeable effect on healing, unless patients knew they would receive prayers, in which case (on average) the patients fared worse!

Ms Bennett’s letter may be good for the cycle shop, but her prayers are just a way of pretending to do something, while doing nothing.

Thanks and RICKgards

"Miracle" of Easter? What "Miracle"?

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg, Sun 05/04/2015 22:08 in response to the Editorial below.

Sir

I refer to your Editorial “Let’s honour the Miracle of Easter” on Thursday, April 7.

In fairness, it looks as if the Editor went on holiday and delegated the Editorial to the Sub-Editor who, needing some time off, delegated it to the Sub-Sub-Editor, and so on down the line until it ended up in the lap of a junior staffer.  This could explain why it is thought through so poorly.

The word “miracle” has two main meanings:

(a) An extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by scientific laws and is thus attributed to a divine agency.

(b) A remarkable event or development that brings welcome consequences, or an exceptional product or achievement, or an outstanding example of something.

The Editorial makes the elementary fallacy of confusing the two.

The “South African Miracle” you cite is an example of the second one.  It was welcome, perhaps unlikely, but entirely governed by physical laws.

The alleged resurrection of Christ (if it occurred at all) would be an example of the former type of “miracle”, something inexplicable by science.

The fact that we had a “miracle” of the second kind is no reason to believe that miracles of the first kind take place.

Indeed, the evidence for the alleged resurrection of Christ (if he ever existed), is not convincing.  No eye-witness accounts exist.  The earliest of the gospels was written at least 40 years after Easter.  The gospels differ significantly on major points, therefore some, perhaps all, of them are wrong.  The earliest existing copies of the same gospels differ in thousands of ways, many of them materially so.

Contemporary historical records outside of Christianity do not corroborate any of these major events claimed in some of the gospels:

• Darkness over all the land from noon until three in the afternoon (Matthew 27:45, Mark 15:33, Luke 23:44) (but not John)
• An earthquake at the crucifixion (Matthew 27:52) and another on Easter morning (Matthew 28:2)(but not Mark, Luke or John)
• Dead arising from their graves and walking the streets (Matthew 27:53) (but not Mark, Luke or John)

How is it possible that such (literally) earth-shaking events were not recorded by anybody else?  Or even in all the gospels?

The unbiased observer has to conclude that the resurrection of Christ is not, in fact, a miracle, but a myth.

The Star is –or was until the takeover by Iqbal Surve– a newspaper concerned with facts, unlike some others.

It behoves the Editor, even in the Editorial, to stick to real-world facts and not to indulge his readers in their superstitious fantasies, no matter how comforting or well-entrenched they may be.  By all means, wish the Christians well with their holy day (which not all your readers share) but please do not treat these myths as reality.

Are Nail Clippings Eligible for Human Rights?

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg, Sun 09/03/2014 20:55.  Not published.

           

Sir

John Rowland (The Star, Thursday March 6 2014) in “Punish the guilty, save the innocent”, says that everything he wrote “has a Christian base”.

A difficulty with Christianity is that there are (per Wikipedia) around 3000 different sects.  Across the spectrum, there are radically divergent views.  Many sects regard the others as hell-bound non-Christians.  “Christians” can be as diverse as Catholics and the ZCC.  All claim to be following “God’s Word”.

What sort of god is unable to express himself clearly enough to avoid being misunderstood in 2999 different ways?

As Ricky Gervais says, “It’s almost as if The Bible was written by racist, sexist, homophobic, violent, sexually frustrated men, instead of a loving God. Weird”.

If there were any truth in religion, over time it would converge to a consensus.  This happens in science.  Instead, religion produces ever more schisms.  This is ample proof that religion has no basis in fact.

Hence, Mr Rowland’s “Christian base” is built on sand.

“By their fruits ye shall know them”:  Religion –particularly Christianity– has produced sumptuous churches, rich preachers, poor masses, ignorance, fear, disagreement, hatred, inquisition, persecution, pogroms, wars, and misery.  It has suppressed freedom, progress, science, and human rights.

Given its history, it should be clear that religion has no moral authority.  Rather, faith marks a person as one that believes things that aren’t true.  A religion is a badge of the irrational, something of which to be deeply ashamed.

Religion is an unreliable guide.  Let us look instead to facts, to science.

Mr Rowland argues against abortion with the usual dishonest emotive argument that a “baby” is aborted.  This is hardly true.

The fertilized egg is known as a zygote. It develops rapidly into a mass of cells called a blastocyst.  This becomes an embryo, which looks like a fish.  From around 10 weeks, it begins to have some human characteristics and is known until birth as a foetus.

A first trimester embryo or foetus is not a viable human being.  The nail clippings Mr Rowland so callously discards are just as much human tissue, just as capable of independent life.  Should nail parings be given human rights?

Later in pregnancy, things become more complicated, and our treatment should be more sensitive and circumspect.

Of course, the unspoken reason that Mr Rowland opposes all abortion is the concept of a “soul”.  His particular branch of his particular religion probably holds the belief (not necessarily shared by other sects or religions) that the “soul” enters the body at conception.  This gives a zygote, in his eyes, the same rights as a fully-grown woman.

Science has found no evidence of the existence of a “soul”, just as it has found no evidence for any gods.  This may distress those who are suffering under the yoke of religion in the hope of a glorious Hereafter, but it is so.  There is no afterlife, no Heaven to come.  It is up to us to make this Earth our Heaven during the brief time that we have here.

I agree with Rowland that “women who find themselves pregnant in distressing circumstances must be helped with all the compassion that society can provide”.  That compassion should include every woman’s right to cheap, safe, legal, early abortion.  Having an abortion is no easy decision.  It should not be further complicated by a patriarchal religion that still regards women as property useful only for producing male heirs.

So Many Gods, So Little Time to Pick the Right Ones...

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg, Tue 07/01/2014 08:29 in response to the letter below.  Not published – we want to make it appear that the Atheists have no answers, don't we?.

Sir

Ebrahim Nathie (Letters, The Star Monday January 6 2014, “Atheism boggles my simple mind”) says that human intellect is fallible, so we should rely on divine intellect, or ”god”.  Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc. say their scriptures prove that god exists, so the burden of proof should be on Atheists.  He concludes that if the religious are right, Atheists are doomed for eternity but if believers are wrong, there is no penalty.

The latter argument, “Pascal’s Wager”, has been well discredited, but there is no harm in doing it again:

Yes, many religions (excluding Buddhism, Jainism, and Scientology) say that there’s a god –or gods, in the case of Hinduism, Shinto, etc.-- but they disagree radically about what those gods want their believers to do.  Accept Jesus as your Saviour, but if Allah turns out to be in charge, you’re damned.  Worship Allah, but if the Jews are right, you’re in big trouble!

With over 3000 gods to choose from, the Theist is no closer to Heaven than the Atheist is.

In fact, the believer is worse off: She will have devoted time, money, and energy to a fantasy, and missed the wonders of reality.  The devoted Jew and Muslim will have missed bacon and prawns.  The Young-Earth Creationist will not have been amazed by geology and evolution.  The Jehovah’s Witness may have died for lack of blood transfusion.

All will have voted for people and supported policies that are not in their best interests, delaying human progress in fields like medicine and ethics.

Ebrahim (since we seem to be on first-name terms now) thinks Atheists have the burden of proof.  In other words, we should prove that there is insufficient evidence for the existence of gods?

On this same basis, does he believe in Jehovah, Allah, Krishna, Odin, Zeus, fairies, invisible pink unicorns, and that he won $50 Million in an internet lottery he didn’t enter?

No: The burden of proof is always on the person claiming that something exists, not on the person asking for proof.

The universe is proof of the existence of the universe, not that it was created by Jehovah, Allah, Krishna, Odin, Zeus, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Religious scriptures look suspiciously like they were written by misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic, and (by today’s standards) barbaric uneducated men, not a transcendent intellect.

What a pity that the Creator did not include a few equations in His Scripture!  If only He casually mentioned E = mc² or that the Earth is 4.54 billion years old and revolves around the sun!  Imagine where we could be now had He described Natural Selection, the law of universal gravitation, or the secret to faster-than-light travel.

Sadly, there is no evidence that a higher mind than ours had any hand in religion.

May I suggest that Ebrahim, instead of bemoaning his human intellect, rather (in the words of the scripture) “become as little children”?   All children are Atheists until they are indoctrinated into a random religion.

Atheism Produces Better Morality than Religion Does

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg, Sun 22/12/2013 22:36, and published Mon 30 December 2013, minus the parts in blue, as “No atheist likely to become a suicide bomber”.

Justin Steyn (“Atheism has to come up with cogent concept of morality”, The Star,Letters, December 20) either didn’t read my letter (“Atheism is the most honest approach”, The Star, December 17) or, having read it, didn't understand it, or, having understood it, didn't believe it.

As I clearly said, few atheists say categorically that no gods exist.  We say that there is insufficient evidence to believe that gods exist.  Unlike the “faithful”, we are prepared to change our minds, given reasonable scientific proof.

Mr Steyn talks about forming a common consensus.  This indeed is what happens in science.  Based on experimental evidence, the vast majority of scientists agree on such things as heliocentric theory (the earth revolves around the sun), that HIV causes AIDS, and the reality of anthropogenic climate change.

Notice that this does not happen in religion: There is no sign that religions are converging to a common understanding.  This is because religion ignores evidence.  This wilful blindness is even hailed as a virtue, as proof of faith!

We are simply talking about what is real.  We apply standards of rationality and evidence to most aspects of our lives: Why not to religion?

Mr Steyn believes that religion is necessary for morality.  He must have a low opinion of himself if he thinks he would behave immorally if God were not watching him.

However, he is wrong.  Humans have in-built morality, put there by evolution.  It should be obvious that a group will do better than an individual will, and that a tribe is more likely to survive if its members cooperate.

Statistics show that nations where atheism is highest have lower crime. Studies in the USA show that states with more religion also have more crime.  The percentage of atheists in prison is well below the percentage of atheists in the general population.

Humans are not the only moral animals either.  Chimpanzees, for example, show altruism and public service to members of their group.

In fact, it is religion that hijacks our morality and turns it to evil ends.    No atheist will stone you for collecting firewood on the Sabbath, or not being a virgin.  No atheist will murder a doctor for performing an abortion.  No atheist will blow himself and you up to get into heaven.

If we look at issues like contraception, abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research, it is the atheists who adopt a “live-and-let-live” attitude, and the religious who are hell-bent on imposing their sectarian views on others.

The Star Letters Friday 20 December 2013

Agnosticism, Atheism, and Eusebius McKaiser

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg, Wed 04/12/2013 08:09, and published Tue 17 December 2013, minus the parts in blue.

Sir

I refer to Eusebius McKaiser’s column on Monday, December 2.

I agree with Eusebius on many things, such as the value of Sunday’s Conference “Thinking Things Through”, and that faith is an intellectual failure.  However, he, in contrarian fashion, also takes a swipe at atheists and maintains that agnosticism is the most honest approach.  I disagree.

Eusebius makes a distinction, between atheism, which he characterises as saying that there is no god, and agnosticism, which, he says, is not committing one way or the other.

Eusebius says that atheists baldly claim that god does not exist.  This is a “straw man” argument, beloved of Thabo Mbeki, where you misrepresent your opponent’s position to make it easier to knock down.

The word “atheist” comes from the prefix “a-” (not) and the word “theist” (a believer in a god or gods).  An atheist is simply someone who does not believe in any gods.  The word “agnostic” derives from the same prefix “a-” and the word “gnostic”, meaning “having direct knowledge” (usually of god).  Few of us can claim to directly experience god, so the majority, theists included, are agnostic.

You will seldom find an atheist who says he is 100% sure that there is no god. Most follow the scientific method, which allows for error and correction. One can say with reasonable certainty that Odin, Jupiter, Allah and Jesus Christ do not exist, at least as described in their religious writings.  However, one cannot yet disprove the claim that a god set off the Big Bang and now lives in retirement on Betelgeuse IV, taking no interest in our affairs.

How, does Eusebius, as a professed agnostic, live in practice?

An agnostic has a dilemma. Should he give equal credence to all gods, and worship at church, mosque, synagogue and temple, just in case?

Even that may not be enough: Many Christian sects believe that the others are going to Hell.  Better to worship at all of them! The poor agnostic will have no time left for anything else!

Worse is to come. Different religions believe contradictory things. You cannot truthfully accept Jesus and still worship Allah.

There is only one option open to the reasonable agnostic and that is to disregard the lot.  This is what Eusebius does.  His behaviour is identical to that of the atheist. The only difference is in what he says.  "I am not sure if there is a god or not (but I am living my life as if there isn't)" vs. "I am pretty sure there is no god so I am living my life as if there isn't".

Which is more honest?

Thanks and RICKgards

Rick Raubenheimer
126 Kelvin Drive, Morningside, Sandton, Johannesburg, 2191.
Tel: 011 802-2685. Cell: 082 389-3482. E-mail: rick@softwareafrica.co.za

Islam Pioneered Colonialism

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg (starletters@inl.co.za) Tue 04/06/2013 08:42 and published Fri 7 June 2013 minus the parts in blue. 

A R Modak, in his or her Letter in The Star, Tuesday May 28 (“Look to colonialism for reasons”), while lamenting violence, blames colonialism for Muslim terrorism.

Allow me to remind Mr/Ms Modak that, centuries before the UK or the USA were founded, Islam was itself spread by the sword, colonising the Middle East, North Africa, parts of Europe, and much of Asia.

This violence extends to the present day in majority Islamic nations, where we have only to look at the fate of apostates who leave Islam.

Even those who choose the wrong branch, suffer:  In Syria, Iraq, and Pakistan we see terrible violence between Sunni and Shia.

Deception, threats, and war in support of Islam are authorised in the Quran and the Hadith: Many verses can be found in support of these evils, and only a few in support of peace.

Good Christians, like the Rev Peter Storey (The Star May 29) speak out against the bad parts of their scripture, reinterpreting it in the light of modern morality.

Until good Muslims likewise disown the antisocial parts of their scripture, radicals will have the support they need for violence.

Colonialism is just an excuse.

A R Modak's letter:

Shouldn't Religious Tolerance be a Two-Way Street?

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg (starletters@inl.co.za) Mon 21/01/2013 08:20.  Published in full in the Saturday Star, 27/01/2013 08:20 as “Two-Way Street”.  This is my first letter critical of Muslims to be published in The Star (if the Saturday Star counts)!

The Saturday Star, January 19, had an article “Religious groups battle food sign ban” about a Christian group opposing everyone bearing the costs of food certification for religious groups.

This has had one beneficial effect: Unusually, Muslims and Jews are standing together in opposing the action.

Rafiek Mohamed of the Muslim United Ulama Council of South Africa is quoted as calling for religious tolerance.

Isn’t it interesting that, when Muslims are in the minority, they call for religious tolerance?

By contrast, can anyone think of a country where Muslims are instead in a majority, where a Muslim leader has called for religious tolerance?

We had a headline a few days ago on the internet “Egyptian Court Sentences Christian Family to 15 Years for Converting From Islam”.  In Egypt, ID cards carry a person’s religion (why?) and it is easy to convert a Christian ID to a Muslim one, but impossible to do the reverse.

Shouldn't religious tolerance be a two-way street?

Time Changes the View of the Bible

After I sent yesterday's reply to the Bishop, The Star has published another response to my letter.  Would anyone else care to reply? starletters@inl.co.za

Bible Cannot be Reconciled with Science, and Must be Rejected

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg (starletters@inl.co.za) Tue 22/01/2013 21:14.   

Sir

Bishop Moagi Khunou’s letter “Much agreement between Bible and true science” (The Star, January 21, copy below) is a classic piece on how religion deals with pesky facts.

First, if you don’t have a good response, denigrate your opponent’s views as “hackneyed and discredited” without refuting them.

Then, profess Special Knowledge.  Your opponent is deluded, as indeed are many Christians, but you know better.

In fact, denigrate anyone likely to disagree: They are “casual or simplistic minds”, not “serious students”.

Knock down some straw men and deliberate misunderstandings of your opponent’s position, throw in a few apparent “facts”, a casual lie like a deathbed conversion of Darwin, skirt around anything difficult, and you’re done –what could be easier?

Only a believer is qualified to criticise the Bible?  Hardly. Reading the Bible with an open mind is one of the surest routes to atheism

Let us confront what the Bishop avoided:

I was refuting Mr Lee’s claim that the Bible is “the infallible and inerrant Word of God”.  I showed that it is not inerrant (error-free) as it has serious mistakes, and not infallible (incapable of error) as it has been modified over time.  I said nothing about whether God personally wrote the Bible, one of the Bishop’s straw men.

There are plenty of professing Christians who believe that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, including about 30% of US citizens: They are called “Young-Earth Creationists”.  However the Bishop is welcome to believe that a Divine Space Opera took place between the first two verses of Genesis.

Let’s also ignore that in Genesis 1, God creates plants first and man last, after all other animals, but in Genesis 2 He creates man first.

What we can’t ignore is that in Genesis 1, God creates day and night on the first “day”, and then it was evening and morning (a literal day –not an “age”). Plants are created on the third day, and the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day.  Thus we have day and night proceeding before the creation of the sun.  The earth is supposedly older (much older, the Bishop claims) than the sun, which is itself two days older than Adam.  Please try to reconcile this with science!

The Bishop claims that there is agreement between the Bible and “true science”.  “True science” is a tautology: If it’s not true, it’s not science.  No doubt the Bishop only regards as true the parts of science that don’t contradict his myths.

There is a big difference between a Bible written by fallible men, and science done by fallible men.  Science is self-correcting.  Experimental results –facts– are checked against the proposed model.  There is stringent peer review.  Scientists compete for the best explanation that fits reality.  Hypotheses that do not work are discarded.

Religious books, on the other hand, are not rewritten when they prove inaccurate.  The believer is not encouraged to check that his beliefs match reality.  Instead he is called upon to believe ever-more absurd things in order to demonstrate his “faith”.

For example… If all the eight-million-odd species on earth were on Noah’s Ark and got off on Mt Ararat, isn't it strange that we find marsupials only in Australia?  The Bishop seems to believe that they ran and swam (or built boats?) all the way there without any being left behind!  Continental Drift, coupled with evolution, is a much sounder explanation.

Note how the Bishop skirts the genealogy of Jesus.  “The Saviour had to be born in the house of David” –what nonsense is this?  Does the Bishop know how babies are made?  Matthew 1-16 deals only with the male line: Either Joseph is Jesus’s genetic father, in which case Jesus is the “son” of David, the “son” of Abraham –but not the Son of God– or, if God inseminated Mary, then Jesus can be claimed as the “Son of God” but he has no family tree, and the “prophecies” are false.

Of course the Bishop has no answer to the 500-year difference between the conflicting so-called genealogies of Jesus in Matthew 1 and Luke 3.  If God “inspired” Matthew and Luke, he “inspired” at least one of them to lie.

We can find biblical phrases that can be shoe-horned into agreeing with modern science after the fact.  Nevertheless, the Bible has been used, and continues to be used, to suppress science and human rights.  One thinks of church persecution of Galileo and Copernicus, the “Creationism” rampant in the US, and persecution of gays in Africa.

According to Wikipedia on “Deathbed Conversion”, Charles Darwin did not “surrender to the wisdom of God in the end”.  Deathbed conversion stories should be taken with a pinch of salt.  It is claimed that Christopher Hitchens too had a deathbed conversion: He called for a priest, and converted him to Atheism.

The Second Coming of John Lee

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg (starletters@inl.co.za) Mon 07/01/2013 09:32.  Published minus the parts in blue [plus parts in red] Monday 14 January 2012 as “Bible is contradictory, a product of fallible men”.

I refer to John Lee’s letter “Nobody will determine end of days, only God” (The Star, Monday January 7 2013).

Mr Lee needs to check his assumptions.  The Bible is not “the infallible and inerrant Word of God”, as he believes, and one can prove this easily.

First proof - objective reality: The two creation myths in the Bible are both wrong. They can in no way be reconciled with the true age of the earth as corroborated by many scientific methods.  The tale of Noah’s ark begs the question: How did all the kangaroos get to Australia and the llamas to Peru?

Second Proof - logic: A document that contradicts itself cannot be true.  The self-contradictions in the Bible are many and well-documented.  Among the more glaring ones are [Such as] the two conflicting genealogies of Jesus in Matthew 1 and Luke 3.  From Abraham to David the records agree.  From David to Joseph there are serious discrepancies.  Luke has 40 generations between the two; Matthew has 25, a difference of about 480 years.*

Matthew 1 starts “This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham”.  When he gets to Jesus in verse 16, he contradicts himself, saying “…Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus”.  The original writer of the book of Matthew probably had Joseph as the father of Jesus.  A later writer then grafted in the “Son of God” myth, apparently not realizing that if God was the father of Jesus, then Mary’s cuckolded husband Joseph and his entire descent were irrelevant.

Third proof – the Bible has changed: Since Mr Lee has internet access, he should look up the book “Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why” by Bart D. Ehrman, and the web site www.codexsinaiticus.org which deals with Codex Sinaiticus, the "Sinai Bible".  The latter is over 1600 years old and includes the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. It differs substantially from modern Bibles, and from slightly younger versions like Codex Vaticanus and Alexandrinus.  There are literally thousands of differences, many minor, some major, between these early versions of the Bible and the one Mr Lee reads.  How can something that appears in so many different versions be infallible or inerrant, let alone the “Word of God”?

The Bible is, simply, [It is] the work of fallible men who knew very little about the universe and explained it as best they could to try to control their followers.  We know better now.  Second Comings, Revelations, Heaven and Hell are just lies to scare the faithful.

*Footnote: I have set up a spreadsheet comparing the Old testament, Matthew 1, and Luke 3's genealogies of Jesus.  e-mail me if you'd like a copy.

---

Mr Lee's Letter:

We are not meant to know! Let superstition and ignorance prevail!

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg, Sun 15/07/2012 12:34, published Tuesday July 17 (minus the parts in blue) as “Archaic logic makes little sense”.  Dr Levin’s original letter is below.

Sir

Amazing how even a breakthrough like the discovery of the Higgs Boson can be spun in favour of superstition by proponents like Dr A. M Levin (“Accept what we are meant to know”, in The Star, Thursday July 12).

Contrary to what Dr Levin may think, we know a considerable amount about the “how” of the universe: Much more than was known by the authors of the bible.

As to “why” the universe exits, it is a meaningless question, based on an assumption that there must be a reason for everything.  This sort of thinking caused men to invent gods in the first place.

If we had meekly believed that we were “not meant to know” things not “revealed” in scripture, we would still accept plagues and natural disasters as punishments from the gods.  Instead, vaccination and weather forecasts save lives uncounted; billions live longer, healthier and happier lives than ever before in history.

                                              

It is sad when educated people like Dr Levin (who seems to be a medical practitioner), in professions based on science, nevertheless try to retard progress with outdated and discredited texts like the bible.

If Dr Levin wants to quote Deuteronomy, would he also like us to not eat rabbit, pork or calamari (Deuteronomy 14:7-10), or stone to death non-virgin brides (Deuteronomy 22:20-21), or make rape victims marry rapists (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), or prevent banks charging interest (Deuteronomy 23:19)?

Promoting Religion is Reprehensible

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg, Sun 17/06/2012 16:19, not published.

 

Sir 

An acquaintance sent me an e-mailed PowerPoint presentation, “Center of the Bible”. Here is my reply, which deserves a wider audience: 

Dear Neil 

I am sure you meant no harm in sending me your chain-letter e-mail promoting religion, the bible, and prayer. No doubt you believed it was a Good Thing to do. Let me explain why I find it reprehensible. 

Imagine that you got an e-mail from me inviting you to a festival of the Sun God, based on ancient Egyptian writings. We will offer prayers and, to ensure good rains and a bountiful crop, will be sacrificing some first-born: Yours might be lucky enough to be included. You should command your wife and slaves to attend as well. 

I’d expect a sharp reply from you castigating me for my barbarism and superstition, pointing out that the Sun is a common star with no supernatural powers, that praying and sacrificing to it will not influence the weather or crops, that your wife is an adult who makes her own decisions, and that no decent person today owns slaves. 

Now, make two changes to my hypothetical invitation: Replace “Egyptian writings” with “Bible”, and “Sun God” with your name for God. 

Human sacrifice is a theme running through the Bible from Isaac to Exodus to Jesus: Indeed, it is a central tenet of Christianity that it is a good thing to torture an innocent man to death in the place of the guilty. Civilised? I don’t think so. 

The Old Testament gives detailed commandments for the keeping of slaves, including the requirements for selling your daughter into slavery. The New Testament supports it. The “Good Book’s” attitude towards women is that they are possessions: Witness Lot’s willingness to give his daughters to a mob to be raped. Good? I don’t think so. 

As with many other books, the Bible contains its share of wisdom, but there is a lot of bad stuff there too. If you take the Bible as the word of a God that must be obeyed, you would murder me for speaking against Him, and kill everyone you know for working on the Sabbath. 

I am worried when an educated 21st-Century person advocates the Bible as anything more than a myth from the infancy of our species. Today anybody with matric knows more about the universe than the authors of the Bible did. Yet your opinion of me is so low that you think I follow it. 

The god depicted in the bible is a nasty piece of work: Rigid, jealous, angry, sectarian, misogynist and genocidal. Fortunately it is obviously also fictitious.

Prayer is at best a waste of time, and may well be counter-productive, as shown by scientific studies (for example, the 2006 "Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP)" led by Harvard Professor Herbert Benson). You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. 

In an age when religious fanatics who welcome Armageddon can get hold of nuclear weapons, you are doing our planet a grave disservice by spreading superstition. Please reconsider. 

Thanks and RICKgards

Gay Marriage: Human Morality is not stuck in Biblical Times

Sent Sun 13/05/2012 15:00 to The Star Johannesburg, not published, and The Times, who published it.

 

Sir

President Barak Obama recently bravely endorsed gay marriage.  This was followed by a chorus of opposition, most of it claiming to be Bible-based, specifically on Leviticus 18:22.

Apart from homosexuality, the Old Testament forbids many things that we do today: Working on the Sabbath (Exodus 31:14-15) (penalty: death), eating pork (Leviticus 11:7-8) and seafood (Leviticus 11:9-12), pre-marital sex (at least for women!) (Deuteronomy 22:20-21) (Penalty: death), wearing mixed materials, to name a few.

 
On the other hand, the Bible allows selling one’s children as slaves, and lays out a complex set of rules governing slavery (Leviticus 25:44-52, Exodus 21:1-11 and 20-21).

 

The bible also condones rape under certain conditions (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) and moreover forces the victim to marry the rapist:  In March Amina Filali committed suicide rather than marry her rapist under Morocco’s barbaric "rape-and-marry" law. 

Apart from occasionally wishing we could sell our troublesome brats, in the civilized world we have moved on from the morality of 3000 BC.  We no longer condone slavery, nor regard women as commodities whose virginity is more valuable than the person.  We do not stone to death people who gather sticks on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-36).

 

To our credit, modern morality is not based on the Bible, but rather on a consensus of fairness and tolerance developed gradually over centuries.  This applies across most countries, irrespective of religion –or freedom from religion.

 

“Ah, but,” the religious apologist may contend, “we now follow the New Testament and Christ’s teaching that we treat others the way we want them to treat us” (Luke 6:31).

 

Fine.  Then how about applying this principle to gay marriage too?

Islam not only Accepts, it Promotes, Violence

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg, Sunday 18/03/2012 22:14, not published as predicted.

Sir

I doubt that the Editor will publish this, since the Star shows remarkable reluctance to publish letters critical of Islam. Or perhaps it is not so surprising when one considers how readily the proponents of the "Religion of Peace" use violence when their religion is criticised.

I must take issue with the statement of Dr Heldar Ali Balouji of the so-called "Islamic Republic" (a serious contradiction in terms) of Iran, in the Star of Tuesday March 13, "Islam does not accept harmful acts against mankind".

A few quotes from the Quran should dispel this misinformation.

[8.39] fight with them until ...religion should be only for Allah

[9.12] ..fight the leaders of unbelief..

[9.123] O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you...

and Muhammad’s Ultimatum to Foreign Kings: (9:29) “Fight with those from among the people of the Book, who do not believe in Allah nor in the Last Day; who do not make unlawful that which Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful, and do not adopt the Right way as their way. Fight with them until they pay Jizyah with their own hands and are humbled.”  (Jizyah is a tax levied only on non-Muslims)

Finally: (4:34) "Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. ... As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and BEAT THEM." [my emphasis]

Here I assume that Dr Balouji includes "womankind" within "mankind":  Perhaps, like many Islamacists, he doesn't.  Or maybe beating is not, in his opinion, a "harmful act".

Islam not only accepts, it promotes, harmful acts against humanity.

What other belief actively promotes martyrdom and mass murder?