"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.

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?

Evolution is the Only Game in Town

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg Wed 23/11/2011 10:28. Published in part (less parts in blue)

 as “Who would create a body like this one?” in The Star, November 29, 2011

Siegfried Berger ("Science also expects us to blindly follow" in Star Letters, November 22) in reply to my viciously-trimmed letter published on 17 November, tells us that science is also a dogma.  Not true: Science works on the evidence.  The evidence shows that there is no comforting, "intellectual guiding hand" steering evolution.

Would an intelligent creator have designed the human body like this?  Humans suffer from back problems: Understandable when you consider that we are using, vertically, a spine that developed horizontally.  The discs suffer because they are not "made" to carry compressive loads.

Or, looking at the body from a town-planning point of view, what intelligent planner would put the fun-fair next to the sewage farm?

There are many other examples: Our difficulty in giving birth, the appendix, nerves that follow strange paths.

Evolution indeed proceeds without an end product in mind, but the results are not "accidental".  Mutations arise occasionally by chance. Survival of the fittest then ruthlessly eliminates changes that are not advantageous.  Some have likened it to a Lotto where you can keep your correct numbers for the next round.  After a few rounds you would have all winning numbers!  Thus evolution builds continually on the useful characteristics, constantly improving all the fiercely competing species.

However, many mutations that an intelligent designer would want, haven't happened or did not survive at the time.  So we have short lives, poor eyesight, only two hands, no wings, thin skins, can't digest cellulose, to name a few.

The irrepressible Bob Holcombe weighs in in the same edition, with "Many researchers believe that science need not exclude a creator".

He says that evolution can not be proved because we can not run it as an experiment.  Poor reasoning.  Science works on evidence and logic too.  The results of evolution are there to study, and we have a record in fossils and matching geological strata, along with several dating methods that agree.

Mr Holcombe defends the biblical story of creation as symbolic, with the days representing ages.  What then does the bible mean with the oft-repeated "and it was evening, and it was morning"?  The bible means literal days.  It just happens to be wrong.

Mr Holcombe's "loving god" is obviously not the jealous god of the bible, who delights in genocide and misogyny, approves of slavery and human sacrifice, imposes "original sin", and murders people for collecting firewood on a Saturday.

Finally, Mr Holcombe says that societies that deny god are declining rapidly.  In fact, objective measures of human well-being –longevity, mental health, lower crime, reduced HIV transmission, etc.– are highest in secular societies (western and northern Europe), and lower in those with a strong religious component such as the US and Muslim countries.

The Star's Great Creationism Debate

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg, Tue 24/05/2011 20:46 – Published with minor changes and minus the parts in blue, as “Gaping holes in creationists’ argument” on Mon May 30, 2011.

 

The Creationism Debate of Thurs May 19 2011 needs a whole page of rebuttal, which the Editor is unlikely to give me, but here goes:

Dr AM Levin makes a creditable attempt to reconcile the Creation myth with what happened according to science.  He interprets the "days" of creation as mapping to various geological eons.

For him these are not literal days but "ages".

However he misses a vital point: For each "day" the bible repeats "And the evening and the morning were the n-th day" (in those days, and still in Jewish tradition, the day was taken to start at sunset).

These were meant to be understood as literal, 24-hour days, not symbolic ages.  Or what are "evening and the morning" symbolic of?  

If we are to take the bible as symbolic, perhaps the gods of the bible are also intended to be symbolic, rather that actual existing entities?

Ron Schurink wants us to believe that modern civilization has a debt to monotheistic religion, i.e. Christianity.

We can debate whether Christianity, with its three gods that somehow get shoe-horned into one, is really monotheistic.

However there are two genuinely monotheistic superstitions, namely Judaism and Islam, which he totally forgets.  Both developed high cultures, as did the non-monotheistic superstitions of the east.

History shows that Christianity vehemently opposed scientific progress as far as possible, and its remaining centres of power still do so, as in the Catholic Church's opposition to contraception.

Leon du Toit raises the hoary red herring of the missing links in the fossil record.

It is difficult for us as humans, with a lifespan of the order of 100 years, to understand a hundred times a hundred times that, i.e. a million years.  For anything to survive that long is amazing.

Fossils do not form easily: They need very specific conditions.  So, the fact that we find fossils at all is remarkable.  To find a complete record is well-nigh impossible.  

As Richard Dawkins has wittily pointed out, when a fossil is found that fits neatly into the gap between two others, the creationists are very happy, because they now have two gaps to complain about instead of one!

The case of the eye is another one that Dawkins has dealt with more than adequately.

To inadequately summarise a whole chapter, would an awareness of light in certain cells give the animal an advantage?  Obviously yes.  

That individual would then be more likely to survive, breed, and produce more offspring.  The rare mutations that produced better vision would be favoured, and would propagate.  

As to partially-developed eyes, the eye is a soft structure not preserved, like bones, in fossils.  

However, throughout the animal kingdom today we find eye-like structures in various stages of development: All the way from mere sensitivity to light, through to the eyes of the eagle.

Finally, du Toit says that we have not yet been able to synthesise life.  True.  How long have we been at it, and how long did it take evolution?  Nature, experimenting on a huge number of whole planets, took billions of years –so at least give the scientists a few thousand!

Religion = Slavery and Conflict. Atheism = Freedom.

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg, Mon 18/10/2010 23:30

Elise D van der Pijl (Star Letters, October 10 2010) does not believe that the followers of what she calls "God's Word" over the centuries have been mislead by myth.  Arlene Chaperon (also October 10) is offended and maintains the Bible is the Word of God.

Indeed, over much of recorded history, mankind has believed in gods.  Not just one god.  Hundreds.  With divergent points of view.  Which, if any, was right?

If you are a Christian and believe that Christ is "the light, the Truth, and the way" and that no man comes to the Father but through him, you aren't allowed to believe with the Muslims that there is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.  Your three gods are also inconsistent with the Jewish belief that "the Lord our God, the Lord is One".

Yes, there is a slight-of-hand by which Christians claim a three-is-one god, to appear monotheistic, but I have yet to find one who will lend me three hundred Rand and accept repayment with one hundred since three equals one.

If you are a Christian, a majority of the world's population thinks you are wrong.  A Muslim? The majority of the world disagrees with your beliefs.  Likewise for Hindus, Jews, Pastafarians*, name any superstition you like.

How come you had the luck to find (usually to be born into) the one true religion, and everyone else is headed for damnation?

Why is it that no religion's followers are blessed more than those of any other?  How come your reward comes only after death, unverifiable by any objective means?

It is more likely that all religions are false; political creations used to manipulate the gullible.

Van der Pijl and Chaperon have personal relationships with their god.  People of religions around the world commune in many ways with their diverse gods.  This can involve altered states of consciousness of all sorts.  Trances, self-hypnosis, mass hysteria, etc. seem very convincing to the participants.  They show what the human physiology is capable of.  And how powerful self-delusion and wishful thinking can be.  They do not prove that there is a god.

Reality check: If gods, capable of creating the universe, exist and want contact with us, why do they not manifest in physical form?  Why not have residential and postal addresses, telephones, e-mail, and Facebook pages?  Where are their superhuman ambassadors to the UN and the nations?  Surely this would settle the controversy?

No.  If superior beings exist, as yet undetected by science, they do not seem concerned about our welfare nor care whether we worship them or not.  Stop living in fear of myths, and start living a life of freedom!

* Pastafarians = The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  Not to be confused with Rastafarians.