Though nothing can bring back the hour
William Wordsworth, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
The Meanest Flower
January 14, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Solution to Every Human Problem
July 20, 2021 by Leave a Comment
There is always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.
H. L. Mencken
Hemingway on Fascism
January 9, 2021 by 1 Comment
He remains one of my favorite authors, now made a prophet.
“But are there not many fascists in your country?”
― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
“There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the times comes.”
Tolstoy’s Warriors
October 11, 2020 by Leave a Comment
The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.
~ Leo Tolstoy
Hitch-ing the Supreme Court
September 25, 2020 by 8 Comments
The situation with the Supreme Court in the United States has caused no end of commentary, hand wringing, and gloating along different points of the political spectrum. It all reminded me of a Hitchens quote that boiled things down to the ugly little stone sitting at the bottom of the pot. But first, a bit of context.
[Read more…]Mark Twain on Slavery and the Church Taking Credit for Society’s Corrections After the Fact
April 7, 2015 by
Posted in an excellent article by Ryan Bell today, a quote worth sharing all by itself:
The methods of the priest and the parson have been very curious, their history is very entertaining. In all the ages the Roman Church has owned slaves, bought and sold slaves, authorized and encouraged her children to trade in them. Long after some Christian peoples had freed their slaves the Church still held on to hers. If any could know, to absolute certainty, that all this was right, and according to God’s will and desire, surely it was she, since she was God’s specially appointed representative in the earth and sole authorized and infallible expounder of his Bible. There were the texts; there was no mistaking their meaning; she was right, she was doing in this thing what the Bible had mapped out for her to do. So unassailable was her position that in all the centuries she had no word to say against human slavery.
Yet now at last, in our immediate day, we hear a Pope saying slave trading is wrong, and we see him sending an expedition to Africa to stop it. The texts remain: it is the practice that has changed. Why? Because the world has corrected the Bible.
The Church never corrects it; and also never fails to drop in at the tail of the procession – and take the credit of the correction. As she will presently do in this instance.
— Mark Twain
– See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/yearwithoutgod/2015/04/07/different-era-same-injustice/#sthash.zLR8RsL1.dpuf
A Recent Resurrection to Consider this Easter: Reblog of “The Curious Case of Alireza M.”
April 5, 2015 by 1 Comment
This Easter, advocates of the traditional Jesus tale might consider a more recent example of “resurrection” that foiled a professional execution in the most startling way. The following was a blog post I originally wrote 18 months ago, though the ending has been appended. We now know how the story really ends.
October 18, 2013
An astonishing news story was posted by CNN this morning, with the following highlights:
Convicted by an Iranian court of possessing a kilogram of crystal meth, the 37-year-old man was sentenced to death by hanging at Bojnurd Prison in northeastern Iran, according to Jam-E-Jam, an official newspaper that offered this wince-inducing account:
On the morning of October 9, Alireza M. was taken from his cell to the gallows, where the judge who had issued the order read his sentence aloud and official papers were signed.
Then, a rope was placed around his neck and he was hanged for 12 minutes, after which his body was lowered and a doctor declared he was dead. The doctor, the judge and the prison head then signed the death certificate, and the body of Alireza M. was taken to a morgue for delivery the following day to his relatives.
But the next day, a worker at the morgue noticed that plastic encasing one of the bodies had steam in front of the mouth.
Consider the tally:
- Executed by suffocation…
- By professionals that carry out such executions for a living…
- Death witnessed by multiple people…
- Dead body lowered and inspected…
- Carried away, wrapped, and laid on a flat surface
I can think of one notable case where this sort of thing happened before. [Read more…]
Quote – Neil deGrasse Tyson
May 22, 2014 by 13 Comments
Every great scientific truth goes through three phases: first, people deny it. Second, they say it conflicts with the Bible. Third, they say they’ve known it all along.
~ Neil deGrasse Tyson
Quote – Richard Carrier, “Why I Am Not a Christian”
February 12, 2014 by 15 Comments
I’m cognitively defective. Or that’s what Christians tell me. It’s not true, of course. But the curious thing is how desperately they need to believe there is something wrong with me. For otherwise, they cannot explain how someone so well informed about their religion could reject their faith—indeed, someone who doesn’t just give it a pass, but rejects it as firmly as any other bizarre cult or superstition. Which is what it is. This book is about why.
Carrier, Richard (2011-02-28). Why I Am Not a Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith (Kindle Locations 35-38). Philosophy Press. Kindle Edition.
~~~
Well, on the background of some responses that I’ve received during my exodus from the faith, I certainly resonate with the felt diagnosis from others. And the more people I converse with, the more I realize how common this viewpoint is… and how guilty I myself have been of the same.
Quote – Sam Harris – Tell a devout Christian…
January 22, 2014 by 28 Comments
Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it.
Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever.
~ Sam Harris (link)
These sort of statements are the kind with which we Christians flatly disagree. We find them [Read more…]
Pew Research and Thoughts on End Times Expectations
December 19, 2013 by 5 Comments
To reprise of my prior observations about Harold Camping’s decease and legacy, Pew Research conducted a poll earlier this year that proves relevant. This was originally brought to my attention by John Zande; thanks John.
Today a staggering 41% of US citizens (130,000,000 adults) believe that their Middle Eastern god will commence its mass extinction of all creatures in their lifetime. It’s a ghastly figure but it is a number reflected in the multi-billion dollar Christian apocalypse industry that has in just the last twenty years produced 29 End Times films (with such grand titles as “Tribulation” and “Judgement”), 60 documentaries (like “Racing to the End Times”), and some 1,120+ grotesquely warped End Times books, of which the Left Behind series has alone sold over 40 million copies.
~ JZ
For my own commentary, I will simply observe that I have been in two kinds of Christian groups… [Read more…]
When I read the Book of Mormon, I feel closer to Jesus Christ.
December 16, 2013 by 28 Comments
This ad appeared on the CNN home page today and if clicked will take you here.
In a single sentence, this ad illustrates the problems outlined on one of my prior pages, Faith Card. Our existential sense of spiritual truth simply does not work. It is not a barometer of fact or fiction. It is not a compass that leads to anywhere. Our intuition does not work where spiritual matters are concerned. Well meaning, “faithful” people are all radically divergent in the direction their respective compasses point.
Pleasant Mormons like this young woman, far from being in the service of the devil, are doing the best they can. But they have been hampered by an unfortunate paradigm, which claims that the really important things in life must be known by faith. This general belief, that faith is the mechanism by which we know spiritual truth, is shared by the broad range of religions. And it is a demonstrably ineffective and wayward mechanism.
Faith constitutes a proposal regarding process… “This is how you find ultimate truth.” Your internal sense of relationship or spiritual presence should be your guide. That burning of the bosom should be your guide. Truth feels a certain way when you have it. You know, because it sounds right. You know because you know. You know because of your sacred texts. But at bottom, this type of knowing is followed by everyone in religions that oppose yours.
The cleverest part of faith, however, may be found in a self-validating defensive mechanism. Faith concurrently makes objective knowledge claims while maligning the validity of the one process which can call it’s bluff: critical thinking. Answers to the most pressing questions, we are told, can only be known by faith. Study, analysis, science, and the like are all said to lose their potency where ultimate questions are concerned. “You cannot answer these questions through such means,” comes the admonition from those who have never actually tried.
Belief in belief: the tragedy that all religions share.
I encourage my Christian readers to visit the Mormon website linked above. I would further encourage reading of Buddhists and other faiths. You will see a repetition of themes in how religious viewpoints are defended, advanced, and arrived at. The means of thinking are entirely analogous, but the specific claims are contradictory. And that should raise the question: what if faith is a flawed mechanism?
Quote: Richard Carrier on Christianity
December 15, 2013 by 26 Comments
I’m sorry to say that, after 35 years as a Christian, yes, this is what we believe.
Definition of Christianity #1: Fundamentalist Version:
The belief that some cosmic Jewish zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.
~ Richard Carrier, Lecture “Are Christians Delusional?”, Skepticon 3
Definition of Christianity #2: Liberal Version:
All that Eve stuff is baloney. But I still have an imaginary friend who manipulates the world for me, and he also magically impregnated a woman two thousand years ago, and she bore him a son who underwent an ancient ritual of blood sacrifice in order to dispel a curse laid upon me, thus ensuring that I will be immortal (although I’ve never seen this work for anyone else before).
~ Richard Carrier, Lecture “Are Christians Delusional?”, Skepticon 3
Jesus’ Atonement:
God needs blood to fix the universe, but only his own blood has enough magical power to do it, so he gave himself a body and killed it.
~ Richard Carrier, Lecture “Are Christians Delusional?”, Skepticon 3
Quote: Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell
December 3, 2013 by 80 Comments
Daniel Dennett, at the Second World Conference on the Future of Science, in Venice, 2006 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
There is an asymmetry: atheists in general welcome the most intensive and objective examination of their views, practices, and reasons. (In fact, their incessant demand for self-examination can become quite tedious.) The religious, in contrast, often bristle at the impertinence, the lack of respect, the sacrilege, implied by anybody who wants to investigate their views.
~ Dennett, Daniel C. (2006-02-02). Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (pp. 16-17)
In my own limited personal experience, I can attest that this quote resonates with reality. Not everyone bristles, of course, though some do. I think maybe the bristling is saved for outsiders, and I was an insider.
Some of my friends have simply acted uncomfortable. A number have flatly not wanted to hear or know anything about my investigation. Yet several have actually thought even my very attempt at examination was foolhardy… I wish I could count the number of times I’ve been told that the project of investigating the claims of Christianity simply cannot be transacted, that is flatly impossible, and that it lies beyond critical inquiry. There is a pretending that our faith is made of “faith stuff” that never touches earth, a pretending that Christianity does not make claims about history that can be checked.
We Christians claim a trove of knowledge. Human knowledge can be checked, can be examined, and can be disconfirmed. There are no grand exemptions. Just as Christians would say that Islam is objectively wrong, and could provide reasons why this is so, likewise our own views can be examined under the same cold light of inquiry. We have enjoyed our own proclaimed asymmetry far too long. And we are increasingly being called on it.
Dennett argues that we should conduct such inquiry for religion in general, and with vigor. I agree.
The Curious Case of Alireza M… Thoughts on Resurrection and Being “Mostly Dead”
October 18, 2013 by 13 Comments
An astonishing news story was posted by CNN this morning, with the following highlights:
Convicted by an Iranian court of possessing a kilogram of crystal meth, the 37-year-old man was sentenced to death by hanging at Bojnurd Prison in northeastern Iran, according to Jam-E-Jam, an official newspaper that offered this wince-inducing account:
On the morning of October 9, Alireza M. was taken from his cell to the gallows, where the judge who had issued the order read his sentence aloud and official papers were signed.
Then, a rope was placed around his neck and he was hanged for 12 minutes, after which his body was lowered and a doctor declared he was dead. The doctor, the judge and the prison head then signed the death certificate, and the body of Alireza M. was taken to a morgue for delivery the following day to his relatives.
But the next day, a worker at the morgue noticed that plastic encasing one of the bodies had steam in front of the mouth.
Consider the tally:
- Executed by suffocation…
- By professionals that carry out such executions for a living…
- Death witnessed by multiple people…
- Dead body lowered and inspected…
- Carried away, wrapped, and laid on a flat surface
I can think of one notable case where this sort of thing happened before. [Read more…]
Quotation: Voltaire on Miracles
October 2, 2013 by 6 Comments
The daughters of the high priest Anius changed whatever they chose into wheat, wine or oil.
Athalida, daughter of Mercury, was resuscitated several times.
Aesculapius resuscitated Hippolytus.
Hercules dragged Alcestis back from death.
Heres returned to the world after passing a fortnight in hell.
The parents of Romulus and Remus were a god and a vestal virgin.
The Palladium fell from heaven in the city of Troy.
The hair of Berenice became a constellation.. . .
Give me the name of one people among whom incredible prodigies were not performed, especially when few knew how to read and write.
~ Voltaire, Miracles and Idolatry, cited from Hitchens (2007)
Dangled Over a Flame: Jews and Jesus Among Pagan Gods
September 28, 2013 by 16 Comments
Justin Martyr (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Justin Martyr provides an interesting look at apologetics in the century following Jesus’ life. His First Apology was dated to between 147 and 161 AD. Greek and Roman god worship was alive and well, and Christianity was trying to grow from the same cultural earth as these various competing religions.
To make his case, Martyr compares Christian claims about Jesus to the existent mythology of the culture. It must be noted that the pagan themes and beliefs pre-existed Christianity. They were antecedent, and Christian doctrine blossomed against this backdrop.
Martyr makes it clear that the pagans already had themes that appear in Christianity, for he makes the argument in several ways that “we propound nothing different from what you believe”, and he addresses several key areas:
- The Word
- Sonship
- Divine Conception
- Suffering and Death
- Resurrection and Ascension
Martyr’s leading argument (all emphasis following mine):
And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter.
Quotation: Michio Kaku on Galileo & Bruno
September 21, 2013 by 5 Comments
In my conversations, some have doubted that what a person specifically believes about Genesis matters. Many believers take a casual approach to the text today and cannot imagine that martyrdom has ever been joined to Genesis. Jesus perhaps, but not Genesis. To the contrary: it has carried sufficient gravity to not only execute dissenters, but to do so with leading figures, as an example. There can be little doubt what fate would have befallen Galileo had he not recanted.
From “Parallel Worlds”:
The mixture of science, religion, and philosophy is indeed a potent brew, so volatile that the great philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600 in the streets of Rome for refusing to repudiate his belief that there were an infinite number of planets in the heavens, harboring an infinite number of living beings.
Galileo’s and Bruno’s sin was not that they dared to divine the laws of the heavens; their true sin was that they dethroned humanity from its exalted place at the center of the universe.
It would take over 350 years, until 1992, for the Vatican to issue a belated apology to Galileo. No apology was ever issued to Bruno.
Quotes from Rabbis & Scholars on the Exodus, Abraham
September 12, 2013 by 6 Comments
(updated 9/12/2013) The quotes below serve as auxiliary material to that already cited on my Israel’s Origins page, and I recently found them collected in a new-to-me blog. The original author cites these quotations with additional discussion, and I suggest checking it out (Thanks John Zande). The original post can be found here: Well, this is a little embarrassing, isn’t it? Meanwhile, the meaty collection of quotations:
“Defending a rabbi in the 21st century for saying the Exodus story isn’t factual is like defending him for saying the Earth isn’t flat. It’s neither new nor shocking to most of us that the Earth is round or that the Torah isn’t a history book dictated to Moses by God on Mount Sinai.”
~ Rabbi Steven Leder of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple.
“The rejection of the Bible as literally true is more or less settled and understood among most Conservative rabbis.”
~ Rabbi David Wolpe of the Conservative Sinai Temple
Quotes from Francis Collins
August 21, 2013 by 13 Comments
I selected a few salient quotes from Francis Collins‘ book on evolutionary development and faith, The Language of God, which I would recommend reading alongside the resources already suggested by Ayala, Venema, and Falk (though Falk is better). Collins is a Christian and was the leader of the legendary Human Genome Project. His book is an apologetic for both evolutionary development and the Christian faith.
On supposed micro/macro evolutionary distinctions:
The distinction between macroevolution and microevolution is therefore seen to be rather arbitrary; larger changes that result in new species are a result of a succession of smaller incremental steps.
On the connection between evolutionary theory and medicine:
Truly it can be said that not only biology but medicine would be impossible to understand without the theory of evolution.
Jericho Brisance 