Best seller in 13 languages

Highly unrecommend for creationists / inteligent design advocates.

Puts things into perspective in a logical, argumented scientific way.

Anyone who wants to burrow a copy I'll be more then glad to.

I think the book is best enjoyed in small doses.  This sensibility comes from the fact that one should be thinking when reading it, not about the words on the page, but what it says about us, and the universe we live in.  What we are, what we are made of, the indifferent rules that govern us and what the implications are for the limited freedom we do enjoy.  As an thought experiment, try to imagine the life of an individual carbon atom, formed by a nuclear reaction in a star, which just so happened to find itself trapped in limestone on earth.  Imagine further that this atom somehow manages to enter into the carbon cycle where it might become part of you.  Part of your DNA, your hair, your brain.  But a carbon atom's existence as literally part of you is just less than a blink of an eye in the grand-scale of its experience.  Every atom of your being has some extraordinary tale of natural history.  This is the mind-expanding world one enters as one reads the pages of Modern Science Writing.  How terribly parochial many of our conceptions of the world seem when placed on the canvas of the cosmos.

This is knowledge that deserves to shared, deserves to be contemplated by all mankind.  But when pondering this, there comes another crashing reality of natural history, how I came to read the book.  Perhaps I am guilty of projecting my particular aesthetic onto the rest of humanity, but nevertheless the book costs approximately $35.  The local county library has 1 copy, and there are two holds as I write this.  The point is that the high price of this book has a practical effect, it limits the knowledge to a specialized class.  Kate Muir points out that "the Victorians, with their public lectures and royal societies, gloried in debate and celebrated the thrills of fresh knowledge."

I don't think think it is quite fair to critique the popular culture of different eras.  Bemoaning the anti-intellectualism of the masses on one-side without considering how science is presented seems a tad disingenuous.  It is natural that science gets more specialized as it progresses.  A predictable consequence of this is that it may take work to make discoveries fit for mass consumption, as opposed to the Victorian era, where some new discovery could just be presented.

The danger that the discoveries of science become esoteric knowledge of a specialized class is real.  To guard against this, science must be communicated to the public, freely and openly.  Hence we find ourselves in contradiction, as to gain access to the knowledge is comparatively expensive and ignorance is free.  When should science pass into our shared cultural heritage, and should it take as long as some piece of fiction?  Is there some better way to compensate scientific authors for their work?

In closing, I don't begrudge the money I did pay for the book.  It is extraordinary.  I enjoyed as much to think that it deserves to be integrated as part of our cultural heritage as quickly as possible.  But, this knowledge is constrained by the societal conditions in which it was produced.  Does science exist for the benefit of a specialized class, or is its purpose to enlighten humanity?  In the context of current economic conditions, it rests in the former more than the latter.

Scoopit!

The Times has an interesting piece on Richard Dawkins.

Richard Dawkins is that rare specimen, a public intellectual, a knight of the mind who goes into battle against the ignorance and foolhardiness of the populace. Unlike the French, who worship their public intellectuals, giving them pet names such as les intellos, and airing them regularly on serious television and in print, the British like to shove academics into a musty corner, or laugh at them. This was not always the case: the Victorians, with their public lectures and royal societies, gloried in debate and celebrated the thrills of fresh knowledge. The nearest we get to this now is celebrating the thrill of Germaine Greer walking out of Celebrity Big Brother.

The article notes also:-

In these barren, thoughtless times, Dawkins gives people something substantial to chew on. His audience is surprisingly grateful, and also relieved to see someone slapping creationists about and tossing them into the primordial soup, as well as explaining atheism positively.

The article is well worth a look, as is the comments thread.

Dawkins of course is well known for his views on evolution:-

Dawkins says that natural selection is “the most important idea to occur to the human mind”, the slow change of species over millions of ideas disproving the religious theory of intelligent design by God.

That we are still trying to sell evolution to a large part of the public bothers him. “It is weird in many ways that natural selection is still debated,” he says. “But it is not debated by anyone who knows anything about it.” Indeed, Dawkins refuses to share a stage with creationists. “I don’t like giving them the oxygen of respectability, the feeling that if they’re up on a platform debating with a scientist, there must be real disagreement. One side of the debate is wholly ignorant. It would be as though you knew nothing of physics and were passionately arguing against Einstein’s theory of relativity.”

Later the writer notes:-

Dawkins has long been nicknamed “Darwin’s Rottweiler”, a reference to the Victorian biologist T.H. Huxley, who was known as “Darwin’s Bulldog” for advocating natural selection and sensationally debated the cause, in 1860, against the Bishop of Oxford.

That was then and this is now, yet what has changed? “In a Gallup poll 44 per cent of the American people said that they believe the world is less than 10,000 years old,” Dawkins says. “It’s a massive error. I’ve likened it to believing that the width of America from New York to San Francisco is 7.8 yards – that’s the equivalent error if you scale it up to the true age of the Earth, which is something like 4.6 billion years.”

Scoopit!

Professor Flew has recently written his forthright views on Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion. His article, reproduced below, shows Professor Flew’s key reasons for his belief in a Divine Intelligence. He also makes it clear in There is a God (page 213) that it is possible for an omnipotent being to choose to reveal himself to human beings, or to act in the world in other ways. Professor Flew’s article is offered here as testimony to the developing thinking of someone who is prepared to consider the evidence and follow its implications wherever it leads.

bethinking.org - Science + Christianity - Flew Speaks Out: Professor Antony Flew reviews The God Delusion

HT: William Dembski

Here are some things I was wrong about the past semester.
-Formal Education is enough.
-All libertarians are of the same philosophy.
-Non-fiction is boring.
-Nobody is watching your actions.

Reading through the 30th anniversary edition of Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene this weekend has shown me that even the most improbable theories can/will work (pg 159). I wonder what Che Guevera would have footnoted in Guerrilla Warfare if he was revamping it now? Hell, he he would have thrown the original out the window then would have re-write the whole thing.

Don Vandergriff was right about your choices, even if he was meaning to talk about our military.

"Continue to adapt with changing environmental conditions in order to sustain their core beliefs or become complacent, resting on one’s laurels."

I'm going to be wrong. All I can do is keep consuming while never resting of my laurels. In all honesty, what does a 19 year old boy rest on? Looks? Girls I've dated?  My stock portfolio? Places I've traveled? Grades?

Answer: Nothing.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-3113702169494333876&q=trouble+with+atheism&ei=cDKASOD3JomA-gGXkOHKDQ&hl=en-GB]

But let's not yawn too soon.

In the next few posts, I'll look at a few rhetorical dimensions of Scruton's essay, pointing out how he employs useful slights-of-hand. In this first post, I'll highlight how the first three paragraphs launch a covert attack on the personal credibility of the evangelical atheists prior to laying out their actual case explicitly in the text. It is the sort of rhetorical move that often works really well, but only if the reader does not notice it, in which case it can seem crass and small-minded. This being the rhetorical precipice over which the prose is most liable to fall, let's see how Scruton dances along it.

Scruton starts out by citing a tradition of antipathy toward organized religion, a sentiment that runs from Martin Luther and Voltaire to Dawkins and Hitchens. Maybe it made sense back in the eighteenth century, Scruton grants, but come on,

The violence of the diatribes uttered by these evangelical atheists is indeed remarkable. After all, the Enlightenment happened three centuries ago; the arguments of Hume, Kant and Voltaire have been absorbed by every educated person. What more is to be said? And if you must say it, why say it so stridently? Surely, those who oppose religion in the name of gentleness have a duty to be gentle, even with – especially with – their foes?

Right or wrong, this stuff is pretty outrageous. After Scruton himself promulgates an unbroken line from Luther to Dawkins, he then complains about Dawkins existing in an unbroken line from Luther. Moreover, he has substituted the atheistic point of view - a coherent set of arguments - for the tendency of atheists to be shrill about them. And so a debate about ideas is replaced by a debate about whether it is good or bad to argue too loudly. This way, in order to be victorious on the level of ideas, all Scruton has to do is prove that his opposition is not comporting themselves kindly as they express their perspective. So long as he shows that atheists indulge in too much amplitude, it will seem as if the substance behind their point of view is also daft.

Fine sport. What's next? A long paragraph, telling us how the world works, of course:

There are two reasons why people start shouting at their opponents: one is that they think the opponent is so strong that every weapon must be used against him; the other is that they think their own case so weak that it has to be fortified by noise. Both these motives can be observed in the evangelical atheists. They seriously believe that religion is a danger, leading people into excesses of enthusiasm which, precisely because they are inspired by irrational beliefs, cannot be countered by rational argument. We have had plenty of proof of this from the Islamists; but that proof, the atheists tell us, is only the latest in a long history of massacres and torments, which – in the scientific perspective – might reasonably be called the pre-history of mankind. The Enlightenment promised to inaugurate another era, in which reason would be sovereign, providing an instrument of peace that all could employ. In the eyes of the evangelical atheists, however, this promise was not fulfilled. In their view of things, neither Judaism nor Christianity absorbed the Enlightenment even if, in a certain measure, they inspired it. All faiths, to the atheists, have remained in the condition of Islam today: rooted in dogmas that cannot be safely questioned. Believing this, they work themselves into a lather of vituperation against ordinary believers, including those believers who have come to religion in search of an instrument of peace, and who regard their faith as an exhortation to love their neighbour, even their belligerent atheist neighbour, as themselves.

There's a lot going on in this paragraph. Let's look at few pieces.

1) "There are two reasons ... " This is just not true. People shout at their opponents for a million different reasons: because they are passionate, because they are promoting a book, because they are sick of repeating themselves, because their opponents are very stubborn, or just because they are irremediably French. Scruton is wise to place this at the beginning of a sentence and at the beginning of a paragraph, a juncture at which many readers are unlikely to pause and think things over.

2) "... They think the opponent is so strong ... they think their own case is weak ..." Notice that both of these "reasons" impute that atheists are faking their beliefs. According to this portrayal, the atheists are cool, calculating minds that soberly assess their case and choose a plan of obfuscation after gaming out other strategies. Public intellectuals generally don't think that way. I mean, really: Chris Hitchens dispassionately realizing that his own beliefs are weakly supported and in need of obfuscatory camouflage? The man simply loves himself too much to entertain the possibility that his ideas are weak, let alone in need of over-fortification. Nevertheless, by construing their argument as essentially strategic, Scruton diminishes the sense that the atheist point of view could be conscientiously held. According to the language, evangelical atheists are frauds - they know full well that they are wrong, and are refusing to admit it for some ulterior reason.

3) "... they seriously believe ... the atheists tell us ... they work themselves into a lather ... their belligerent atheist neighbor ..." Scruton continues to build on the image of the unreasonable, browbeating, animalistic atheist. Again, the problem (so far) isn't with the atheist point of view, the problem is with the atheists.

Only after exorbitantly laying this groundwork does Scruton actually tell us the substance of the athiest case

Dawkins and Hitchens are adamant that the scientific worldview has entirely undermined the premises of religion and that only ignorance can explain the persistence of faith.

Coming at this juncture in the prose, this idea is already undermined by the adamance of the haughty, out of touch, animalistic frauds who hold it. Had Scruton provided this sentence nearer to the beginning of the essay, readers may have allied closely with the atheist position, and Scruton would have a much harder time breaking this allegiance. However, since these words appear on the page only after a flood of disparaging remarks about their authors, many readers have been encouraged to consider the atheist position as inherently weak. In this way, the first two paragraphs of the essay do little more than devalue the honesty and trustworthiness of Scruton's interlocutors, rather than making a positive case of their own.

As I mentioned at the outset, this plan only works for readers who don't notice it. Scruton plays with fire on this because so many of his main subject nouns and clauses ("they think .. they believe") make it seem like this is a story "about" damnable atheists and not their impoverished ideas. If this were intended as an essay of philosophy for readers of same, then this is probably a poor choice. But if this is intended as sheer provocation - which is, by the way, a perfectly legitimate and necessary argumentative activity - then Scruton has surely ruffled the right feathers and at the right moment. If this is the case, however, Scruton will have to explain why he starts out an essay against vituperation by getting up his own lather of it.

Next time: Scruton sets out to astonish us with his ability to exterminate paradoxes like godless little roaches.

Die debat oor Intelligente Ontwerp wat van Julie tot Oktober verlede jaar in Die Burger gewoed het ná my negatiewe resensie van Leon Rousseau se boek Die Groot Avontuur (Human & Rousseau) het verder uitgekring. Rousseau het in repliek op Karel de Pauw se oorwegend positiewe resensie op my boek Geloof, Bygeloof en Ander Wensdenkery: Perspektiewe op Ontdekkings en Irrasionaliteite (Protea Boekhuis), die volgende repliek versprei. Ek antwoord hom ná sy repliek hieronder.

Repliek deur Leon Rousseau

Verlede week was daar in Die Burger ’n ophemelende resensie deur Karel de Pauw van die boek Geloof, bygeloof en ander wensdenkery. (http://152.111.1.251/argief/berigte/dieburger/2007/10/15/SK/13/BBclaasen.html).  Daarin verwys De Pauw by wyse van teenstelling afkeurend na “pseudo-wetenskaplike argumente” in Die groot gedagte deur Gideon Joubert en in my boek Die groot avontuur.

Sowel Die groot gedagte (natuurwetenskappe, sterrekunde) as Die groot avontuur (ontstaan van lewe, evolusie) is bedoel om populêr in die sin van “toeganklik” te wees. Pseudo-wetenskap, daarenteen, is so ’n sterk woord dat dit meestal gereserveer word vir wilde bespiegelaars soos David Icke en Von Däniken, skrywer van Chariots of the gods, en dié is Joubert se boek en myne nie.

Later maak De Pauw die pap nog ’n bietjie dikker aan en sê “die argumente en feite [in Geloof, bygeloof . . . is] die spreekwoordelike pêrels voor die swyne wat sekere skrywers betref.” Hy verwys kennelik na my en na Gideon Joubert.

Die rede vir dié nydigheid is eenvoudig. De Pauw, saam met geesgenote soos Nathan Bond en George Claassen (skrywer van Geloof, bygeloof . . .) is ’n spraaksame voorbok in die militante ateïstiese beweging. Dié broeders in die ongeloof praat uit een mond.

Daar is ’n verskil tussen ateïste – elke mens het die reg op sy eie mening – en militante ateïste, wat die ateïsme aanhang soos pasbekeerdes wat die hele wêreld wil bekeer en selfs nie die sweem van ’n ander standpunt duld nie.

Hulle verdoem Die groot avontuur omdat ek, sonder om dit as wetenskaplike teorie voor te lê, op ’n paar plekke vertel van my indruk dat daar ’n groot intelligensie agter die wondere van die heelal moet wees. Aan dié ongeveer 1% van die boek het een van hulle 70% van ’n lang, venynige resensie bestee. In Gideon Joubert se boek speel geloof ’n nog groter rol, en hy word ooreenstemmend nog meer verguis as ek. Hulle praat van “Joubertisme” in ongeveer dieselfde toon as wat sekere Christene van “satanisme” praat.

My eie boek was onder meer ’n poging om die kloof tussen geloof en wetenskap (spesifiek evolusie) te verklein, soos ook die doyen van Suid-Afrikaanse wetenskaplikes, prof Phillip Tobias, al lewenslank probeer doen.

Omstreeks 1960, kort ná Koos Human en ek Human & Rousseau gestig het, het ek enkele briewe met prof. Raymond Dart van Wits gewissel. Dit was op ’n besoek aan Johannesburg dat hy my kort daarna aan die woeste wêreld van Australopithecus, die Suideraap, bekend gestel het.

Met idealistiese sending-ywer het ek toe by Human & Rousseau ’n boekie, Die wording van die mens, evolusie vir jongmense, uitgegee, maar kerk en staat was (in Jurie van den Heever se woorde) toe nog so stewig aan mekaar vasgesweis dat dit ons all-time worst seller was. Biblioteke was te bang om ’n boek oor evolusie te koop omdat sekere predikante dit afkeur. Dit was seker een van die dinge wat my aangespoor het om Die groot avontuur te skryf, met die doel om kreasioniste sagkens, sonder aggressie, tot ’n geloof in evolusie te bekeer. Ook in dié opsig het die militante ateïste my boek volkome verkeerd verstaan – anders as gebalanseerde wetenskaplikes soos prof Hilary Deacon, dr Sarah Wurz, prof P A J Ryke (skrywer van Evolusie) en prof Phillip Tobias, wat dit goedgekeur het.

Die groot avontuur is vroeër vanjaar met die Recht Malan-prys vir nie-fiksie bekroon, Die groot gedagte reeds vroeër met sowel die Andrew Murray-prys as die Insig-prys vir nie-fiksie.

Die polarisering tussen geloof en evolusie woed veral in die VSA al baie dekades. Kreasioniste was aanvanklik die lawaaierigste maar deesdae het ’n invloedryke groep  wetenskaplikes ewe onverdraagsaam en kleingeestig geword. En by ons is die lekepredikers vir die ateïsme more loyal than the queen.

As iemand soos Galileo in die 17de eeu gesê het, “Ek is ’n gelowige mens, maar my teleskoop wys my dat die aarde om die son draai en nie andersom nie,” kon hy groot probleme van die onverdraagsame inkwisisie verwag. As jy vandag sê “Ek glo in evolusie, maar my [onbewysbare] indruk is dat daar ’n groot intelligensie agter die wondere van die heelal is”, kan jy groot probleme van die militante ateïste verwag.

Van ’n middeweg soos die een wat ek in Die groot avontuur probeer bewandel, het dwepers nog nooit gehou nie. 

George Claassen se repliek:

Leon Rousseau se tirade waarin mense wat van hom verskil as “dwepers”, “militante ateïste”, “lekepredikers vir die ateïsme” en ander skelwoorde gebrandmerk word, herinner darem baie aan die Jesuïte se selektiewe aanbieding van feite oor hekse en ander “sondaars” tydens die Spaanse Inkwisisie.

Hy verkies om mense etikette om die nek te hang, maar sy betoog hiernaas verdraai die waarheid oor sy boek, Die Groot Avontuur (Human & Rousseau-uitgewers). Ek sal op die gebreke in sy boek konsentreer en my nie tot persoonlike beledigings wend soos hy nie.

 Hy maak beswaar dat sy boek en die soortgelyke pseudowetenskaplike boek van Gideon Joubert, Die Groot Gedagte (Tafelberg-uitgewers), nie as sodanig getipeer kan word nie omdat hulle nie “wilde bespiegelaars soos David Icke en Erich van Däniken” is nie.

 Ek verskil van hom: Altwee boeke is deurspek met pseudowetenskaplike aansprake.

Rousseau vertel ons met smaak van al die wetenskaplikes wat sy boek ondersteun het, maar verswyg om een of ander duister rede die feit dat prof. Phillip Tobias hom ná my resensie oor die boek in Die Burger in ’n brief aan die koerant van die boek gedistansieer het weens die pseudowetenskaplike aard daarvan. (Terloops, die twee beoordelaars van die Recht Malan-prys wat Rousseau se boek bekroon het, was, raai-raai ’n teoloog en ’n sosioloog. Een van hulle het daarna teenoor my erken hulle het nie Tobias se brief aan Die Burger by die beoordeling in ag geneem nie!).

In sy brief, gepubliseer op 9 September verlede jaar in Die Burger, skryf Tobias, nadat ek in my resensie gevra het of hy “die skade wat sy aanbeveling van die boek in die lig van die openlike IO (Intelligente Ontwerp)-aard daarvan, aan sy reputasie as gerekende wetenskaplike doen”, besef:

“Noudat ek die finale gepubliseerde weergawe van Die Groot Avontuur gelees het, het dit vir my duidelik geword Rousseau ondersteun die pseudowetenskaplike konsep van Intelligente Ontwerp ... Veral wil ek van hierdie geleentheid gebruik maak om myself ondubbelsinnig van daardie dele van Die Groot Avontuur wat IO ondersteun, te distansieer” (my kursivering).

Vergeet ’n oomblik my resensie (http://152.111.1.251/argief/berigte/dieburger/2006/07/17/DB/11/BBgclaassenrousseau.html) en lees dieselfde klagte teen Rousseau se boek in die resensie van die wetenskaplike Andries Lategan in Beeld (16 Oktober 2006) (http://www.news24.com/Beeld/Vermaak/Boeke/0,,3-2109-2112_2014373,00.html).  Lategan wys daarop dat Tobias se avant propos eerder met  ’n waarskuwing vervang moes gewees het soos op sigaretpakkies: “Die lees van hierdie boek is skadelik vir ’n gesonde oordeel oor wat evolusioniste sê.”

Lategan spreek hom nes ek, dr. Karel de Pauw, die resensent van my boek, dr. Jurie van den Heever en ander wetenskaplikes uit oor die openbarende toevlug wat Rousseau gereeld in sy boek by ’n Intelligente Ontwerper soek sodra hy nie iets begryp of kan verklaar nie. “ ’n Argument wat berus op iets wat onbegryplik is, kan beswaarlik deel wees van ’n gesprek oor die geldigheid van wetenskaplike teorieë ... Rousseau behoort dalk ag te slaan op Karen Armstrong se waarskuwing in A History of God dat mense wat hul godsbegrip wil haak aan die immer krimpende gebiede van natuurverskynsels waarvoor daar nog nie ’n deeglike teorie ontwikkel is nie, altyd aan die hardloop gaan bly voor wetenskaplike vordering,” skryf Lategan.

Rousseau trek so fel met onwetenskaplike bravade los teen my, De Pauw en andere asof ons die enigstes is wat nie die lig oor sy pryswennende boek gesien het nie, maar probeer dan maak asof hy godsdiens en evolusie, gelowige en wetenskaplike, nader aan mekaar wil bring en wil versoen.

Rousseau en ander aanhangers van Intelligente Ontwerp neem nie kennis van die basiese verskil tussen die wetenskap en geloof nie, dat gelowiges absoluut glo, maak nie saak wat die wetenskaplike sê nie, maar dat wetenskap deurgaans met onsekerhede werk en bly vrae vra.

Armstrong is reg: elke stukkie bygeloof wat die wetenskap aftakel en blootlê ­– en dit sluit die vasklou aan ’n Intelligente Ontwerp-scenario in ­– laat mense soos Rousseau en Joubert, wat hul godsbegrip wil haak aan alles wat hulle nie kan verklaar in die natuur nie, ’n bietjie vinniger aan die hardloop. Is dit hoekom hy so uitasem reageer op my boek wat rasionaliteit en wetenskaplike bewyse voorstaan as die enigste wyse waarop ons kan weet?

Die Amerikaanse fisikus Lawrence Krauss verwys onlangs in sy tweeweeklikse rubriek “World lines” in New Scientist na dié onhebbelikheid so deel van C.S. Lewis se werke wat die populêre standpunt inneem “that science, by explaining the inner workings of the universe, robs it of the wonder that religion provides – a viewpoint that, frankly, I find offensive.” Voeg maar Rousseau en Joubert by Lewis as die Groot Meesters van die Orde van Intelligente Ontwerp, met my oudkollega Leopold Scholtz as hul stafhoof in die hoofstroommedia. Wie sal sy vreemde en wetenskap-begriplose verdediging van Intelligente Ontwerp in sy rubriek Sake van die Dag ooit kan vergeet midde in die Rousseau-debat in Die Burger ná my resensie van Die Groot Avontuur? (http://152.111.1.251/argief/berigte/dieburger/2006/08/04/SK/8/Sakie4Aug.html).

 Krauss se volledige rubriek lui:

 LAST month I read a column in The New York Times by David Brooks (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/opinion/22brooks.html?_r=1&em&ex=1209096000&en=60aba79d67739095&ei=5087&oref=slogin)  that has bothered me ever since. In it Brooks describes an essay about the medieval concept of the universe entitled C. S. Lewis and the Star of Bethlehem by Michael Ward (http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2008/001/15.30.html), a chaplain at the University of Cambridge.

Brooks writes that "while we moderns see space as a black, cold, mostly empty vastness, with planets and stars propelled by gravitational and other forces, Europeans in the Middle Ages saw a more intimate and magical place. The heavens, to them, were a ceiling of moving spheres, rippling with signs and symbols, and moved by the love of God... The modern view disenchants the universe, Lewis argued, and tends to make it 'all fact and no meaning'."

Brooks's and Ward's articles both reflect a popular view that science, by explaining the inner workings of the universe, robs it of the wonder that religion provides - a viewpoint that, frankly, I find offensive. How anyone can suggest that medieval hallucinations might spark the imagination more than the actual universe that we have been so fortunate to uncover is beyond me. The "heavenly actors" populating the spiritual universe of Lewis were, like many religious myths, intellectually lazy creations of fundamentally ignorant minds. It is a far grander kind of imagination that is needed to fathom the real universe.

The night sky isn't populated with mythical beasts, but with a small slice of the 100 billion or so stars in our small island galaxy, the Milky Way, one of 400 billion galaxies in the observable universe. Each of the stars, while not alive in an anthropomorphic sense, houses an exotic world of action at a searing 10 million degrees, releasing the energy equivalent to a thousand billion hydrogen bombs going off every second - a wonder-work of nature's creation.

The light from the stars of other galaxies takes billions of years to reach us. A Hubble Space Telescope photograph, in which every speck of light represents not a star, but an entire galaxy, with each galaxy containing billions of stars, surely spurs the imagination more than any fable. Around some of these stars there may be planets that once housed life. I say once, because the stars that produced the light in Hubble's images are probably long gone. We are literally watching the history of the universe unfold before our very eyes.

In our own galaxy, a star explodes in a brilliant supernova once every hundred years or so, and is briefly as bright as 10 billion suns. Yet most such explosions are invisible, obscured by dust, so in fact the last exploding star observed from Earth in our galaxy was seen by Kepler in 1604 (http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13514-light-echoes-help-gauge-supernovas-fury.html). Yet the universe is so big and old that these events are happening all the time. With a powerful enough telescope a region in the sky at night the size of a dime held at arms length will reveal more than 100,000 galaxies - so many that one may see up to 10 stars explode on a given night. Over time, 200 million stars have exploded in our galaxy, producing almost all the elements that make up our bodies. The atoms in your left hand may have come from a different star than those in your right: we are all star children.

If this poetry of nature does not change the way we view our place in the universe, providing not mere facts but new meaning, then we are truly spiritually bereft. Yet too many people feel that they must invent alternate realities to justify human existence.

Why does it matter if people cling to myths for solace? Because real-world problems such as climate change can only be solved by real-world thinking. Like it or not, the harsh reality is that nature doesn't exist to serve humanity, and turning to myths that put humans at the centre of creation only distract us from appropriate actions.

Brooks's column also mentioned Barack Obama's much-maligned statement that some people turn to religion for refuge from the inequities that abound in Bush's America - a truth many people would rather not hear. If we live at a time when honest questions about the role of religion and people's motivations for action cannot be voiced in public, then I worry about our future.”

 Aldus Krauss.

 Die Rousseauseaanse en Jouberteaanse pro-Intelligente Ontwerpargumente word nou in gewysigde vorm deur ’n buitengewone professor in sielkunde van die Universiteit van Pretoria, Wilhelm Jordaan, herhaal in ’n bespreking van Geloof, Bygeloof en Ander Wensdenkery in die Winter-uitgawe van Boeke-Insig, die puik kwartaalblad onder redaksie van Irna van Zyl. Koop dit gerus, veral om die verstommende vergelyking wat hy tref tussen wetenskap en godsdiens onder oë te kry. Ek lewer in die Lente-uitgawe van Boeke-Insig repliek op Jordaan.

 Intussen wag Karel de Pauw steeds op 'n antwoord van Joubert oor die verkeerde wyse waarop hy wetenskaplikes buite konteks aanhaal om sy godsdienstige sienings te probeer staaf.

 ’n Laaste gedagte: die Amerikaanse genetikus Jerry Coyne som die Rousseau- en Intelligente Ontwerp-benadering raak op: “. . . die werklike oorlog is tussen rasionaliteit en bygeloof. Wetenskap is maar een vorm van rasionaliteit, terwyl godsdiens die algemeenste vorm van bygeloof is . . . As die geskiedenis van die wetenskap ons iets wys, is dit dat ons nêrens kom deur ons onkunde ‘God’ te noem nie.”

PROF WALTER VEITH LECTURES IN HEIDELBERG

Professor Walter J Veith obtained his doctorate in Zoology from the University of Cape Town in 1979. While senior lecturer in Zoology at the University of Stellenbosch from 1979-1987, he made important discoveries concerning the origin of life and the theories of evolution and creation [apparently not important enough to stun the legit scientific community]. Retired professor from the University of the Western Cape, Dr Veith is one of the few scientists who believes that the theory of evolution does not provide a plausible explanation of our origins [hey, not all scientists can be smart]. Dr Veith's research has led him to the discovery that archeology, history and world events prove the Bible to be true, turning him from an atheistic evolutionists to a Christian creationist [gods I wish I could get him and that schmuck Richard Dawkins into the same room - poetry]. In the last 20 years, Dr Walter Veith has lectured internationally to large and enthusiastic crowds [drunk naturally] in Europe, Africa, Canada and North America on the creation/evolution question, diet and disease, and Biblical truths. Dr Veith will be lecturing in Heidelberg Town Hall from 21 to 27 July. Come and listen to this world renowned speaker.

I might actually go, if just for the farce of it.

The Art of Reading Scripture (Ellen F. Davis & Richard B. Hays). I've been looking for a long time for an apologist counterpoint to my favorite Biblical scholar, Bart Ehrman. Ehrman is excellent, and extremely scholarly, but he is in fact an agnostic. He began as a Fundamentalist, but in-depth exposure to the actual Bible drove his faith from him. Not surprising; it did the same thing to me. But even so, I've wanted to find an actual scholar who was still a Christian apologist. That C. S. Lewis is considered a great modern apologist just demonstrates how bankrupt the field really is (c.f. my review of Mere Christianity).

Then I discovered Richard B. Hays in a "debate" with Bart Ehrman. This is much more a conversation than a "debate" and there is not dramatic disagreement between the two. Even so, Hays is a Christian and apologist, and I was interested in more of his stuff. In the process I found The Art of Reading Scripture, and through that I discovered the essays of Ellen F. Davis, who is worth reading no matter your beliefs. The rest of this book, which is a collection of essays, is inconsistent. Some are insightful, some are useless, but as a whole I recommend this book to Christians and non-Christians who are interested in exploring the place of scripture in the modern Church and the modern world. Of particular note is the clear understanding among these authors of the actual history of the Bible. These are not contra-evidence "Answers in Genesis" positions (which I now refer to as "fourell" positions due to the covering of the ears and chanting "La La La La" which is required to hold them). These are actual scholars who understand the...interesting...history of the Biblical canon, and yet are honestly seeking its place in a postmodern world. You will need to get used to talking about postmodernism. Nearly every essay mentions it.

The Black Hole War (Leonard Susskind). I thought I knew a thing or two about quantum mechanics. Hah! The maximum information density is proportional to the surface area of space and not its volume? This is crazy talk. I know nothing. Susskind kindly leads us through the difficulties and absurdities that are quantum mechanics with almost no resort to equations. I originally wasn't even going to blog about this book here, because it doesn't really relate to the religious topics I focus on here, but I was struck by one thing. Much of The God Delusion talks about the wiring of the human mind. There are certain things that make sense to us because we have an evolutionary disposition to think that way. What does Susskind tell us right off the bat? Quantum mechanics is hard for humans to understand because we have an evolutionary disposition that does not include the very small or the very fast. Susskind's "middle world" is exactly the world described by Dawkins when he describes how religion natural forms, and how morality can also easily form without religion due to our wiring. In both cases, we have to consciously break our natural wiring in order to see the world more as it is. There's a whole sermon in that.

Free-thinkers often love FIRST EDITIONS of old books. Imagine how violated we would feel if somebody entered a property owned by a secular group, and when nobody was looking, snuck and tore a page out of a displayed first edition of the Origin of Species, then brought it home, recorded a narrative of how he had obtained it, shot video of it being pissed on, and posted it on the Internet.

Or how about fossils?

Imagine an atheist group that gives a fossil trilobite necklace to new group members, kind of like a Kurt Vonnegut "granfalloon"---a shared object that enhances group solidarity. It's something that the group members identify with and wear.

And lets say that a group of religious fundamentalists enters a meeting and pretends that they are new initiates. They receive ten of these necklaces, under pretense of joining the group, then go home and smash them with hammers and post them on the Internet. They scroll this message over the smashed pieces: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Period."

Isn't this obviously illiberal behavior, and a threat to an atheist group's right to form an efficiently functioning association, without interference, infiltration, or harrassment?

Until atheists leave their property and go out into the community to distribute literature, there is an expectation that their group has a reasonable degree of control and privacy surrounding its functioning.

Myers's momma surely must have taught him to respect people's boundaries. What's his problem here? Might it be that he is not a liberal---but instead has an authoritarian personality---but just happens to be on our side (the agnostic/atheist side) of the God question?

Below is Myers’s paragraph, from his blog last week, that generated the initial controversy. We need to keep it in mind that this, and not something else, is what he is defending:

Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There’s no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart. If you can smuggle some out from under the armed guards and grim nuns hovering over your local communion ceremony, just write to me and I’ll send you my home address. 

MnIndy: Has the outrcry over your post given you second thoughts about getting a host and treating "it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web"?

Myers: The response has done nothing but confirm it: I have to do something. I'm not going to just let this disappear. It's just so darned weird that they're demanding that I offer this respect to a symbol that means nothing to me. Something will be done. It won't be gross. It won't be totally tasteless, but yeah, I'll do something that shows this cracker has no power. This cracker is nothing.

Myers's response here is mendacious. It is not "respect to a symbol" that is being demanded. It is respect for harassment-free religious assembly. 

If a Catholic approached Myers on the street and offered him a piece of religious literature, or a statue of the Virgin Mary, or told him to bow and receive a communion wafer on his tongue, Myers would be within his rights to receive such items from the evangelist and then desecrate them on the Internet. He is equally free, any time he pleases, to go to a Catholic bookstore, purchase an item, and desecrate it on the Internet.

It would be uncivil and juvenile, but he could do it.

But what Myers is actually wanting to do is of a different order. He is going out of his way to procure, by deceit, within the confines of a church's property, an object that Catholics do not share with nonbelievers. Period.

He is, in short, encouraging his readers to interfere with a particular people's ability to practice their religion without interference within their own property boundaries.

And he is indulging a primitive and volatile human passion: iconoclasm (taking from a religious people, against their will, objects sacred to them for desecration or destruction).

This is an enormously serious breach of the liberal foundations of our society. We would not, for one moment, condone or tolerate an anti-Semite interfering in a similar fashion with a Jewish synagogue service, and we must not condone or tolerate an atheist attempting to interfere with a Catholic mass.

Tolerating such behavior threatens the very foundations of a liberal society. 

To illustrate the seriousness of this issue, let's imagine that, not Myers, but an anti-Semite, was interviewed by the Minnesota Independent, and let's replace the word "cracker" with "Talmud" in the interviewer's question and Myers's response:

MnIndy: Has the outrcry over your post given you second thoughts about getting a Talmud from a synagogue and treating "it with profound disrespect and heinous Talmud abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web"?

Anti-Semite: The response has done nothing but confirm it: I have to do something. I'm not going to just let this disappear. It's just so darned weird that they're demanding that I offer this respect to a symbol that means nothing to me. Something will be done. It won't be gross. It won't be totally tasteless, but yeah, I'll do something that shows this Talmud has no power. This Talmud is nothing.

If an anti-Semite gave such a response, would we not hear the illiberalism, intolerance, paranoia and hate undergirding it? And wouldn't we recognize immediately that the Jewish community was being harrassed by a fanatic?

Myers needs to come down off his high-horse, admit he exercised poor judgement in a rash moment, apologize to the Catholic community, and reaffirm liberal values. Otherwise, agnostics and atheists should treat him as an illiberal pariah upon our community.

Below is Myers's paragraph, from his blog last week, that generated the initial controversy. We need to keep it in mind that this, and not something else, is what he is defending:

Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There’s no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart. If you can smuggle some out from under the armed guards and grim nuns hovering over your local communion ceremony, just write to me and I’ll send you my home address. 

• Both a Virgin Mary icon and a communion wafer are fashioned for a sacred purpose.
• Cathedral icons and communion wafers are used for purposes of ritual, symbol, and worship.
• Neither cathedral icons nor communion wafers are manufactured by the Catholic community of believers for any other purpose than ritual, symbol, and worship within the confines of their church property.
• To destroy or desecrate an object used for a distinct religious purpose, and against the will of the community of believers to which it belongs, is to engage in iconoclasm---and so both cathedral icons and communion wafers are subject to iconoclastic gestures by someone who might be wishing to engage in a hostile symbolic gesture toward Catholicism. 

Two reasons this makes University of Minnesota biologist, PZ Myers, an advocate of iconoclasm:

• Myers asked his readers to enter Catholic churches, and under false pretenses obtain from priests communion wafers, then secret them from church property.
• Myers asked his readers to send him the communion wafers via mail for the purpose of his desecrating them, and posting their desecration on the Internet.

Here is Myers's exact quote, posted on his blog site, last week:

Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There’s no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart. If you can smuggle some out from under the armed guards and grim nuns hovering over your local communion ceremony, just write to me and I’ll send you my home address.

Please note that at the end of Myers's quote, he explicitly recognizes that to obtain communion hosts from a Catholic service requires an act of "smuggling," beneath the watchful eyes of "armed guards and grim nuns." In other words, even though Myers knows that the act is a gross violation of the space of a religious community, he encourages it anyway.

Can a liberal individual, group, or society, secular or religious, condone such interference with the free and unharrassed practice of religion and still be liberal?

Would we tolerate an anti-Semitic group interfering with a Jewish synagogue service in a similar fashion?

Hedges has been an international correspondent for the New York Times, and he wrote, last year, a widely discussed book on the dangers of Christian fundamentalism titled, American Fascists.

In his most recent book, Hedges's thesis is that the neo-atheist movement is as susceptible to authoritarian, and even totalitarian, impulses as religious fundamentalism.

Hedges's book is thus practically a primer to thinking about the drift of PZ Myers away from liberal tolerance and basic civility. 

Hedges is concerned about the human propensity toward externalizing evil, demonizing opponents, and committing violence in the name of utopian progress, whether conceived as bringing on the second coming of Jesus, an Islamic caliphate, or a more broadly secular society.

A few months back, when I first read the book, I thought that Hedges's rhetoric was excessive, and I was not prepared to call the neo-atheist impulse as, in the main, tending toward the authoritarian or the fundamentalist.

But after following reader forum comments on various topics at Dawkins's website, as well as the recent incident surrounding Myers, I now think it is fair to say that prominant neo-atheists sometimes veer toward being illiberal, and are often attracting followers who are deeply bigoted, impatient with nuance, intolerant of human diversity, and psychologically closed off in ways that mirror fundamentalism. 

Another thing I like about Hedges's book is that he does not let neo-atheist leaders (such as Dawkins and Sam Harris) off the hook wherever they indulge in illiberalism (as in the areas of parental control over child-rearing, and saber-rattling toward Muslim nations). He offers an example of a principled, liberal stance against extremism and intolerance. 

Hedges wants to live in a pluralistic global society, not one that increasingly veers toward homogenization (religious or secular). He wants people to grow up, walk in the shoes of others, and not be so cock-sure of their own conclusions.

But in this sense, alas, Hedges is being a bit Utopian himself.

Still, I Don't Believe in Atheists is an excellent, life affirming, and complex reflection on the human condition. The title of the book strikes me as mostly a way of grabbing attention so that Hedges can address the (to me more profound) subject of the human propensity toward totalitarianism.

In this sense, a good book to accompany this one is Michael Burleigh's Earthly Powers, a historical study of the clash between religion and politics in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Hedges book can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Believe-Atheists-Chris-Hedges/dp/141656795X/ref=cm_cr-mr-title

Mockery, parody, and blasphemy are forms of speech that should always receive vigorous and outspoken protection. But what PZ Myers did is of a very different order of seriousness. Myers called on people to broach a group’s inner private worship space, and what this means is that Myers moved from the realm of BLASPHEMY to ICONOCLASM.

Iconoclasm is the destruction of sacred objects taken from others against their will.

Iconoclasm is not just a gesture of disagreement or mockery, but an infringement upon the rights of people to practice their beliefs without expectation of harrassment.

An extreme example of iconoclasm is this passage in the Bible (2 Kings 10.26-27), in which the monotheist King Jehu, in a fit of Taliban-like zeal, had a temple to Baal destroyed, and its ruins turned into a urinal, a place to take a piss:

And they brought forth the images out of the house of Baal, and burned them.

And they brake down the image of Baal, and brake down the house of Baal, and made it a draught house unto this day.

PZ Myers’s call to his readers to steal hosts from Catholic churches is in the family of this kind of Jehu-like gesture—it is simply being concealed from full consciousness because he is asking them to obtain “a cracker.”

But we might absorb the disturbing import of his request more fully if he were to ask his followers to steal hymnals from churches, or statues of the Virgin Mary, large or small, and desecrate them, or spray paint a church wall with the word “ATHEIST.”

If Catholics sold consecrated hosts to tourists in Catholic gift shops, then desecrating a host would be fair game for Youtube video desecration (though uncivil, and in extraordinarily poor and juvenile taste).

But they don’t. There is an expectation of unharrassed privacy around consecrated wafers, and they are as sacred a symbol to Catholics as the icons within their churches.

Hence Myers asked his readers to broach the boundary between blasphemy and iconoclasm, one that no liberal society can condone and go on being liberal.

In a civil and free society, iconoclasm is every bit as bad as racism and sexism. It makes the exercise of basic freedoms impossible, and makes all of us susceptible to hooliganism.

That’s why Myers should apologize. He shouldn’t lose his job, but he should apologize.

And if he doesn’t, Catholics, atheists, and agnostics should call him on it, and not defend, intellectually or otherwise, his uncivil and illiberal gesture.

I'd like to offer one more analogy.

If Myers was an anti-Semite, and his call went out to his readers to pretend to be Jews, and visit synagogues, and steal symbols of their worship, and con rabbis, under false pretenses, into giving them something from their synagogues, so that Myers could get the objects in the mail and desecrate them on the Internet, we would have moral clarity on this.

We would recognize immediately that anti-Semites are harrassing Jews in their private religious practice, and we would condemn it in the clearest possible terms.

That's what we need to do here.

This is what we need to do with regard to PZ Myers.

This may seem like an uncivil statement, but it is actually the opposite.

Nothing could be more corrosive to human interaction than the inability to express one’s true thoughts. Therapists have long told us that family relationships are only as strong as the amount of truth that can be safely expressed within them.

How much more so with the human family?

Of course, in our day-to-day interactions, people wisely avoid discussing religion and politics. But it must be possible to honestly speak about them somewhere. And that is one of the functions of media and the Internet: to give free expression to thoughts and feelings that may be inappropriate to display elsewhere, such as the workplace.

Thus, when a person places a crucifix in a vat of urine or draws an image of Muhammad with a bomb in his turban, and displays it on the Internet, that person is saying,

I feel that religious sensibilities are treated with too much deference in the public square and I reject the concept of the sacred as such.

You may not like such a message, but it is not without intellectual content and there must be a place for sentiments like this one to be expressed publicly.

Toward the beginning of George Orwell’s novel “1984” a man living in a totalitarian society takes the fateful step of writing a diary. The moment his pen touches the paper he perceives it as the signing of his own death sentence—and yet he continues.

He begins the diary with this dedication:

“To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone.”

If we forbid cartoonists to draw Muhammad, or the creators of "South Park" to make fun of Richard Dawkins---and if we drive them into isolation by threat of violence or law, and force everyone into polite conformity in the name of respect for religious opinion, then that diary dedication cannot be addressed to our time.

Think about that.

Now having said this, why is PZ Myers's recent call to his blog readers to "score" consecrated wafers from Catholic churches, and send them to him for Internet desecration, of a different order of seriousness than blasphemy?

Because Myers is calling on people to broach a group's inner private worship space, and what this means is that Myers has moved from the realm of BLASPHEMY to ICONOCLASM.

Iconoclasm is the destruction of sacred objects taken from others against their will.

Iconoclasm is not just a gesture of disagreement or mockery, but an infringement upon the rights of people to practice their beliefs without expectation of harrassment.

An extreme example of iconoclasm is this passage in the Bible (2 Kings 10.26-27), in which the monotheist King Jehu, in a fit of Taliban-like zeal, had a temple to Baal destroyed, and its ruins turned into a urinal, a place to take a piss:

And they brought forth the images out of the house of Baal, and burned them.

 

And they brake down the image of Baal, and brake down the house of Baal, and made it a draught house unto this day.

PZ Myers's call to his readers to steal hosts from Catholic churches is in the family of this kind of Jehu-like gesture---it is simply being concealed from full consciousness because he is asking them to obtain "a cracker."

But we might absorb the disturbing import of his request more fully if he were to ask his followers to steal hymnals from churches, or statues of the Virgin Mary, large or small, and desecrate them, or spray paint a church wall with the word "ATHEIST."

If Catholics sold consecrated hosts to tourists in Catholic gift shops, then desecrating a host would be fair game for Youtube video desecration (though uncivil, and in extraordinarily poor and juvenile taste).

But they don't. There is an expectation of unharrassed privacy around consecrated wafers, and they are as sacred a symbol to Catholics as the icons within their churches.

Hence Myers asked his readers to broach the boundary between blasphemy and iconoclasm, one that no liberal society can condone and go on being liberal.

In a civil and free society, iconoclasm is every bit as bad as racism and sexism. It makes the exercise of basic freedoms impossible, and makes all of us susceptible to hooliganism. 

That's why Myers should apologize. He shouldn't lose his job, but he should apologize.

And if he doesn't, atheists and agnostics should call him on it, and not defend, intellectually or otherwise, his uncivil and illiberal gesture.

Let's go beyond the surface and examine the issues that will make a difference in eternity.  John 15:5  Jesus said:  I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.  (NIV) No matter what good we do, or how good we do it, if isn't done in Jesus's name it will not count for anything in eternity.   Romans 3:10  There is no one righteous, not even one.  (NIV)  If you are not ignoring your conscience, the truth of the Word of God will hit your heart.

We think of our lives as being very important; but here is what God says in James 4:14  What is your life? you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  (NIV)  John 17:3  Now this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ[Yeshua HaMashiach] whom you have sent.  (NIV)
Our lives pass so quickly, do you want to make the most foolish gamble and put  off thinking about eternity until it is too late?

We all know people who are liars, but who does the Bible say a liar is?  1John2:22
Who is the liar?  It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ [Mashiach]
Who is the only truth?  we will find this answer in the following verse in the Bible.
John 14:6  Jesus said:  I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the father except through me.

One day we will have to give an account for our lives.  Hebrews 4:13-14  Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.  Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.  (NIV)

So many do not understand the mercy and love the Father has for us.  The fact that you are still breathing is a sign of his love for you.  Your very breath is in His control.  If He wasn't merciful and compassionate, you would have died long ago.  2nd Peter3:9
He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance[teshuvah] (NIV)

You may not understand God's ways, but that is why he is God, and you are not.  Isaiah55:8-9  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord[HASHEM].   His grace has appeared to you, but you just don't know it.  Titus 2:11-14  For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.  It teaches us to say no to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope--the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ [Yeshua HaMashiach] who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (NIV)

We are called to be worshippers of God, but most of us do not live our lives this way.
We focus our time and energy on things that do not please the Father.  The Bible says in Romans 1:25  They exchanged the truth of God for a  lie, and worshiped and served created things , rather than the Creator---who is forever praised.  Amen.  (NIV)

We have a choice to receive Jesus [Yeshua] in his mercy now, or experience him in his wrath in the judgement to come.   Revelation 6:15-17  Then the kings of the earth. the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains.  They called to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!  For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?"  (NIV)  There will be no excuses in that day.  Romans 1:18-20  The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.  For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature---have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.  (NIV)

The biggest x-ray machine for our heart is what comes out of our mouths.  Matthew 15:18-19  But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.'  For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.  These are what make a man unclean.  (NIV)  Matthew 12:36  Jesus[Yeshua] said:  But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgement for every careless word they have spoken.  For by your words you will be acquitted and by your words you will be condemned.  (NIV) 

If you know you are not right with God, confess your sins with Godly sorrow and ask Jesus [Yeshua] to come into your heart and fill you with His Holy Spirit.  Attend a Church that believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.  Get baptized.  Read your Bible daily and follow the teachings of Jesus  Walk in His Love to all you come in contact with.

                                           Shalom in Jesus [Yeshua]

NOTE - I tried making this post on PZ Myers blog a while back, but  Im getting a message  that "it has been withheld for moderation". Strangely other entries are making it to Myers blog. Lets see if this post actually gets approved on the Myers blog.

UPDATE - ( 19th July 2008 ) This post has now appeared posted on PZ Myers blog.  #415

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/fresh_thread_dont_fill_this_on.php

This is a response to comments from delusional atheists over at PZ Myers blog who feel that atheists can network, organize and work for a common cause and yet not be called a "movement" or an "organization".  The following comments were in response to one of my comments made on this page- http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/fresh_thread_dont_fill_this_on.php

 #208 Richard -
"Heaven forbid that thinking atheists should not follow like sheep everything that PZ says. We should be more like the Catholics who question nothing that their priests do to them or their members and just shut up and bleat.Non-believers"

 #218 Gunofsod-
"Get it straight PZ Meyers does not speak for me as an Atheist any more than you serious atheist circle jerks. This isn't a club, there are no dues, no tithes and no self appointed spokesmen."

# 191 Wowbagger -
"Atheist movement? What the fuck? Get a clue. It's not a gang. It's not a sewing circle. It's not a fucking country club that you choose to join because you think the golf course has the best back nine in the tri-state area or because you're impressed by the wine list."

-------------------------------------------------------

Scrolling down this page will reveal the  obscene amount of approval and cheer, that Myers has been showered with by people who obviously share his beliefs. So far I see no one among the atheists questioning Myers acions.  With all the talk about atheism not being a club, is it forbidden that atheists even question Myers actions?

Its simply obvious that Myers has become a celebrity in blogs run by atheists. In addition to people here praising Myers, heres something I found... http://copache.wordpress.com/2008/07/16/pz-myers-notice-me/

We all thought this type of blindeyed fanboyism was confined to the domain of pop stars and actors. Whats even more more embarassing is that Myers actually responded...

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/this_better_not_start_a_trend.php

Then heres an excerpt from user comment #238 -

"If non believers and other freethinkers in the USA believe that their cause will be further improved without conflict and without having to provoke and chock the religious folks, they are as deluded as the religious folks."

This is just one tiny example to illustrate the strong "us" mentality  among atheists.

This same "us" mentality is echoed

-In the repeated targeting of communities holding, lets just say, incompatible viewpoints.

-In the networking between atheists to form alliances.
This link provides a list of atheist organizations  http://richarddawkins.net/atheistResources

-In the organized campaigns to achieve common goals under the banner of atheism.
Please go to  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Atheists#Court_cases to read the legal campaigns run by just ONE atheist organization.

The fact that atheism  has now now evolved into "movement" status is pretty clear.

And for those who still insist that atheism isnt a movement...denial makes for  a warm blanket.

I tried to upload a copy of the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case, but I guess you'll have to use the Wikipedia article (with the memo related to the verdict under Wikisource) while I figure out why I can't upload files to my blog.

In the meantime, I have to go take a shower, have lunch, mind the gap and commute for hours for a meeting. Pff...

Holy Sonnet XIV: Batter My Heart, Three-Person'd God
John Donne (1572-1631)

Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,'and bend
Your force, to breake, blow, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt towne, to'another due,
Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue.
Yet dearley'I love you,'and would be loved faine,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie:
Divorce mee,'untie, or breake that knot againe,
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you'enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish mee.

I love John Donne.  I once read a commentator state that his is 'the most seductive spiritual poetry and the most spiritual seductive poetry ever written'.  This sums him up pretty well.  Born Catholic, after succumbing to pressure from King James To convert to Anglicanism he eventually became the Dean of St Paul's, gave really cool sermons and obsessed about death in a very creative manner.

The reason I love him (apart from the fact that his poetry rocks) is that he really craved God. He ached for God with an intensity that shakes me. I can taste it in every line of this poem. I understand it. I feel the same, sometimes.

Yesterday Wolf and I were in a book shop and I saw Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion. The title scared me, I leafed through it with ill-concealed hysteria and asked Wolf if he found the title sad or threatening. Wolf is grounded in his faith (unconventional, he is no monotheiest) and moves easily past naysayers. I fear contamination. A guy, a clever guy, a scientist, publishes a book asserting God is nothing more than a dangerous delusion and I linger, fearfully - wanting to read it, and yet not.

It is like passing the scene of a car accident, not wanting to look and yet wanting to. You want to look and see people ashen faced and trembling, lighting cigarettes and saying "what a relief I could have been killed". You want to see survivors not corpses. I want to read The God Delusion and survive. I don't want to be contaminated with even more doubt.

Like Donne I crave God, like Donne's God, mine remains just beyond my fingertips. People who know God exists draw me, people who know He doesn't scare me. The beauty of faith is in its struggle.

To protect myself from Dawkins the non-believer I call upon another love, Einstein, the pantheist - speaking in Hindu:

'A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.'

So who's deluded now? Thanks Albert I owe you one.

Most of us are aware of the background. William Paley (1743-1805), a British philosopher, argued that just if you were to find a watch in a field you would assume a designer, so also the universe itself must presuppose a designer. No one, he believed, would expect that nature would construct this fairly simple machine, no matter how long it had to do so. He then reasoned that the universe is infinitely more complex, and thus, calls infinitely more for an intelligent designer.

Supposedly, this argument was finally refuted by Richard Dawkins in his book The Blind Watchmaker. Dawkins believes that evolution explains this complexity naturally, and therefore no designer is necessary. He further argues that the argument is self refuting:

Organized complexity is the thing we are having difficulty in explaining. Once we are allowed to postulateorganized complexity, if only the organized complexity of the DNA/protein replicating engine,