Adding another to the list

I have just read an interesting news article which is practically begging for me to call out another religion, at least in part, for doing a really shitty job at the whole making the world a better place thing they all seem so keen on claiming. Todays violation comes from Buddhist temples in the United States, where it seems some monks have been, shall we say forcing themselves, on teenage and pre teen girls then supposedly vanishing back to Thailand for discipline only to reappear in another US temple shortly after.

The story reveals a systematic flaw in the running of the temples, positions where people are automatically given trust and excuses to be alone with vulnerable people tend to attract certain characters, those who genuinely want to help and those who see easy targets. This is why strict vetting procedures are needed, something which government agencies tend to do ok at but religious institutions, not so much. There is also the vow of celibacy that seems so important for many religious leaders, which has almost certainly got the better of many religious practitioners and lead to some rather unscrupulous behaviours. Due to human nature and every single human alive today being in a chain stretching back unbroken for hundreds of millions of years of individuals who had urges to engage in sexual behaviour, those that did not failed to reproduce and as such have no descendant, causing sexual desires to be so universal and powerful. Large scale attempts to suppress these urges have catagorically been spectacular failures and for these guys it is no different.

But that isn't the biggest issue with this story, the issue is the lack of an official hierarchy, it seems that in the US temples at least, noone claims responsibility. The monks are free to travel between temples as they see fit and noone outside of Asia has the authority to strip a monk of his title for misdeeds. As such the temples idea of handling things internally seems to be sweep it under the rug and if law enforcement turn up after the monk in question has moved to another area noone has any idea where he went, making tracking the guy down that much harder. People need to be held accountable so that stuff like this doesn't happen.

I am hoping every Catholic who reads this feels outrage at the behaviour before realising where they have heard this story before.

A Fools Gambit

It has been a long time since I posted anything, and I would like to blame a hectic workload or long term lack of an internet connection, but it is much simpler, I have been too lazy to write anything of substance so I didn't write anything at all.
Today I am going to lay into Pascals Wager, which was originally put forward by Blaise Pascal who is famous for his contributions to areas of maths, science and theology. He did a lot of work on fluids and pressure with the standard unit of pressure used today being named after him and amongst his contributions to maths was Pascals Triangle, which is a nice demonstration of a few properties of numbers, noticeably Binomial Expansions, there is even a programming language named after the guy. But like many great minds of times gone by he had a bit of a weakness for religion, specifically Christianity which lead he to propose a theological argument known today as Pascals Wager.

The wager looks at 4 different scenarios and considers their costs, it goes something like this:
1) If there is a God and you believe you get to go to heaven (infinite reward)
2) If there is a God and you do not believe you go to hell (infinite punishment)
3) If there is no God and you believe you lose nothing (null)
4) If there is no God and you don't believe you gain nothing (null)
From this it is clear that under Pascals system if there is no God your belief or not makes no difference where as if God does exist and you believe you win big but if you do not believe you lose everything, so the obvious choice is to believe just in case.

So how could I possibly hope to argue with such watertight logic proposed by such a smartarse, maybe I am not as intelligent as he was, maybe I am, that has no real bearing on the situation since in either case everyone makes mistakes. So lets see what I can throw at it.

First, which god? The way Pascal puts forward the argument makes it seem to be a choice of either his God or no god, that simply is not the case, even within Christianity there are roughly 30 000 denominations, many of which claim some/all of the others are going to hell. Then there are the gods of all other religions around the world and their denominations, again for the most part mutually exclusive. The same can be said for the gods of extinct religions or those that will be invented in the future. But even there the number of possible gods does not stop, there are an infinite variety of god concepts that will never even be considered, what if one of them gets it right. But tearing apart the numbers benefit isn't all we can do by considering other gods. For any version that can be put forward with the believe or suffer clause there is a god almost identical who is satisfied with being a good person regardless of belief, will reward everyone, punish everyone, not bother with the afterlife at all or only reward those who spent the 2nd Tuesday of each month locked in a purple room with green spots standing on one leg, or any other criteria imaginable. Basicly the wager is only viable when given a small selection of gods (ideally just one) who all follow the believe or suffer scheme and neither of those criteria is even remotely achieved.
But that's not all, assuming an all knowing god who only rewards belief then the belief must be genuine, merely professing a belief just to be safe (the whole point of the wager) just wont cut it, the frauds will spend an eternity in torment just like the other unbelievers. Given that, the wager is essentially pointless since belief is not a conscious choice, it is a result of analysing the evidence that has been presented. Case in point, I rather like the idea of some sort of continuing consciousness after death, at least until a time of my choosing, but with no evidence at all to support such an idea I can not honestly claim belief in an afterlife no matter how much I like the idea.
I can currently think of one more point of contention to Pascals wager, the claimed non zero cost of believing, depending on the specific denomination belief can have any number of costs including but by no means limited to 10% of your income going to the church, any number of psychological and mental hangups about parts of human nature your specific denomination objects to, with sex, masturbation, contraceptives and the gays being rather popular candidates here. But maybe your denomination is a little more hardcore and encourages you to sell everything and use the money to spread the word or explode yourself to strike against the infidels. Mutilation of yourself or children also seems to be popular, probably just to make sure god can tell the holy and unholy apart once they get to the judgement stage.

On a personal note a god such as Pascals who rewards blind faith over a good life is a needy, self obsessed, narcissistic prick who I have little interest in spending any length of time with, given a choice of an infinate amount of time in a lake of fire or as the mindless sycophant to such a character I am not sure which would be the worse torture.

A brief defence of secular worldviews

For the past month or so I have been having regular meetings with a Christian acquaintance, the unstated understanding is we are each trying to (de)convert each other but it is all very amicable, friendly and for the most part points are seriously considered rather than the all to familiar assert and run strategy. Since I am a science guy evidence and fact is a good way to win me over so we started off with that but neither of us were moved. Now we are moving onto a more philosophical approach and as such he has lent me a book called 'The Universe Next Door'(4th ed), so far I have only read the first chapter but the book analyses a selection of world views looking at their pros and cons in what I assume is an attempt at an unbiased manner. From the blurb "In an increasingly pluralistic academic environment, the ability to understand and evaluate various worldviews is vitally important." that sounds promising and I went in with high hopes, only to be disappointed 2 1/2 pages into the first chapter, after a very short and rather brutal secular poem by Stephen Crane.

A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of Obligation."

Followed by Psalm 8 (almost a page long), the author then goes on to briefly contrast these two poems and the worldviews he believes them to be representative of while stating that people in both camps are able to relate even to the opposing poem. (all fair so far) However I have serious issues with how biassed this section is with phrases such as how the unbelievers "long for what they no longer can truly accept" or "wish something could fill the void". These views are admittedly common amongst religious people in the process of deconverting, but for those of us who have never believed and those who have long since become comfortable with a godless view of the world this is outright offensive. But this assault on secular world views continues in the next paragraph which finishes with the line ""Yes, that is just what those who do not have faith in the infinite-personal Lord of the Universe must feel - alienation, loneliness, even despair."

Just from this brief overview in the first chapter it is clear the author has no grasp at all of the mindset of those who do not believe in any deities. The major factor here is that believing everything that exists came about by natural causes in no way detracts from them. Understanding love as releases of neurotransmitters and electrical activity in the brain in no way lessens the feeling of being with the bag of metabolic chemical reactions those feelings are directed to, the touching no less intense for knowing that objects only appear solid due to repulsive forces between the electrons in atoms. Appreciation of the beauty of a flower(vid) is in no way diminished and is potentially enhanced by an understanding of where it came from, how it came about and what it actually is.
Looking up at the nights sky and understanding all those dots are giant balls of gas similar to our sun, many with planets, are only a tiny fraction of our galaxy which is itself a minute fraction of the whole universe is an almost overwhelming thought and is a scale of grandeur utterly unconceavable by those who think this Earth and a few dots of light hung in the sky by god are all of reality. I actually had what could best be described as a spiritual experience a month or so ago based on this very thought. Although my views are still entirely based on what can be proven and demonstrated. (warning my description really doesn't do the experience justice)

Driving home after a hike, everyone was worn out and quiet or sleeping, I was gazing out the window at the stars in a reflective mood, thinking it was possible that at that very moment on a planet orbiting one of those points of light was another sentient being whos existence was entirely independent of anything I have ever known, with an completely different biology and physiology but still looking up and wandering about other life out there amongst the stars. I realise that for it to be occurring around a point of light I could see(only a dozen or so) was far from certain, but for it to be somewhere in the galaxy that was in my cone of vision was rather more likely and expanding to the whole universe would almost guarantee countless individuals all entirely separate in every sense of the word but simultaneously sharing a thought. How is that for connection with the universe. For years I have known the numbers describing how huge the observable universe is but since that night I have a much greater understanding of how vast those values actually are.

Since I hope to have clearly established that my world view in no way lessens the joys available to many of us during our time it is time to briefly touch on another point. The aesthetics of one worldview over another in no way relate to how true either of them actually is and for me personally, knowing reality is more important than being able to appreciate the highs of life. Fortunately I do not need to make that choice.

One final thought. Sure it is rather bleak that death is final and absolute but that just gives us all the more reason to make the most of this finite life while we have it, and help those we care for to do the same.

Two pieces of news

There are a couple of news stories this week which boil down to people being massively retarded

First is this article about some English yobs vandalising a 'holy' tree. The headline claims the tree was 2000 years old and planted by Joseph of Arimathea(the bible says this guy donated his tomb to Jesus) but a little bit of reading shows it wasn't anywhere ear that old, the tree has been regrown from cuttings at various times throughout its history and there appears to be no evidence supporting the 2000 year claim although its predecessor has been fully grown since at least the 1600s when Oliver Cromwell and his goons hacked it down. While the tree is an oddity in that it blooms twice a year and supposedly none of its offspring grown from seed do calling it a 2000 year old holy tree is pushing it.

Anyway the point is as far as I am concerned it is just a tree but given its cultural significance the vandalism was almost certainly aimed at pissing of the local Christians, and damaging monuments is just a real dick move.

The other article that interests me is this, it seems that shoppers in wal-marts across America are going to be subject to the short video clip at the bottom of the linked article. This is part of the 'See something, say something' campaign which is getting progressively more retarded. In an attempt to fight terrorism the public are being encouraged to report any suspicious behaviours they see. Sounds sensible right? Wrong, very wrong. First no information is provided to discern a local eccentric from someone planning to vaporise a mall. Next time you are out on the streets, or shopping or whatever keep an eye out for anything suspicious and keep a tally of how many you see. Are those people all terrorists, no, are they all criminals, very unlikely. Now imagine the time it would take for you to report all these events to a police officer. Now imagine the amount of police time taken up if everyone reported every suspicious event they saw. Flooding the police force with false positives is probably the most ineffective way of fighting terrorism imaginable especially since government agencies are already swamped with people reporting possible suspects. Not only does it waste massive amounts of police time it keeps people afraid, then again a fearful population will make rash decisions when it comes to a security/privacy and freedom tradeoff.

"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither" and will often lose both.

Benjamin Franklin

10 Commandments Revisited

One of my earliest blog posts was an analysis of the commonly quoted version of the 10 commandments, this post will be my attempt at 10 rules to live by that would provide far better moral guidance.

1. Treat others how they wish to be treated, if you do not know turn to No.2.

2. Treat others as you would wish to be treated (unless you know that for some reason they would not appreciate it).

3. If there is still any ambiguity just don't be a dick.

4. Do not discriminate against others for any reason (unless they are applying for a position that it can be clearly demonstrated they are unable to adequately fill eg a blind bus driver)

5. Do not accept claims of any significance without sufficient evidence, but accept the claim if suitable evidence is provided.

6. Do not commit logical fallacies or other intellectual dishonesty when debating with others.

7. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, however insane, just as long as they do not lead to stupid actions but if you publicly voice your beliefs be prepared to defend them.

8. Do not sacrifice privacy for security, the level of control granted to the government will be too easy to abuse should a git ever attain power.

9. Develop science to cure disease, prevent poverty and just generally improve life for everyone.

Since I am struggling to find enough things to fill the list we will assume this list is intended as a direct replacement for the biblical version so
10. I am the lord your god, please follow the religious practices outlined elsewhere in this text(they would also need rewriting).

The first three cover a huge variety of restrictions such as don't murder, don't steal, don't lie, don't rape, probably shouldn't commit adultery either, slavery is bad, so is assault, and so on but also cover social things such as showing respect for others and just generally being nice. Most prohibitions also come with a clause of without just cause such as a homeless man stealing food to survive would be morally ok even though to avoid ambiguity it would need to remain legally wrong. But some such as slavery and rape are ALWAYS WRONG, also not all crimes are equal. eg murder needs a legal penalty adultery doesn't.

This is just something I have thrown together in 20 minutes so it could probably be improved on but I still think it is in a different league to the Biblical version.

Al Quida defeats the USA

This isn't about some terrorist attack that has crippled the US beyond repair, or assassination of high ranking officials collapsing the government, this is about fear, America are shitting bricks and in a 'war on terror' that means you just lost. So what is this all about, baby names, here in the UK.

I have just found a news story about how Mohammed is the most common baby name in the UK. Immediately upon watching that some alarm bells should start going off because the presenter is clearly American and the bottom right corner has the CNN logo, why hasn't the British media picked up on this story, I can think of two reasons, it is a non issue and its a perversion of statistics. Here is the official top 10 and this page links to an excel document of the top 100 it is quickly apparent that Mohammed is not the most common name, so how did the story come about. Easy, all variations Muhammed, Mohammed, Mohamed, etc were taken as a single name, I would be prepared to bet my laptop the same can not be said for other names (James, Jamie, Jim or William, Will, Bill etc) so the statistics are utter bullshit.

Even if the claim was accurate so what, minorities often favour traditional names while people with British heritage are more open to all sorts of weird names, and it is only one year so it may just be a fad. Either way it doesn't change the fact that less than 5% of the population is Muslim so they really aren't taking over. Also most Muslims are perfectly normal people so this is not a terrorism issue either.

As for the bigot who would like it to be an indigenous name at the top of the list, only 1 of the top 10 is truly English (Alfie, from the old english Alfred) and one other (Jack, considered independent to but derived from John which is itself a translation of a Hebrew name) is technically English but has roots in a non English name.

So how does all this tie in to my original point, the story was warped and twisted and even then was not news worthy so the only reason it would have been broadcast was a bunch of scared, closed minded attention seekers trying to spread panic and fear. What do terrorists want to do, spread panic and fear. Once people start broadcasting stories like this the media not only publicises terrorist activities they are manufacturing a fear of terrorists without the terrorists actually needing to do anything. They can't scare us because we are already terrified sounds like an Arnold Rimmer line but it is certainly not a solution to anything.

Census

Next year Britain is having another census, this will provide all the official population statistics used in policy decisions for at least the next decade, so it is rather important that the figures are representative of the population. As such a campaign has been started to encourage accurately answering one specific question which may seem insignificant but can have massive implications.

The problem here is people who have a cultural heritage of being Christian but do not attend church, do not believe in the biblical god and are in no way practising Christians, or those who have been baptised or grew up Christian but no longer believe have in the past answered the census question "What is your religion?" with Christian. This reduces the recorded percentage of non-believers and exaggerates the percentage of believers, leading to

More public spending on religious stuff including the last governments push to build loads of faith schools (a subject for another day)

Keeping bishops in the house of lords 'just because'

Continued ritual worship in schools

Laws on things such as equality still having privileges for the religious

amongst other things. The harm inflicted by each of these is fairly obvious so I wont bother attacking religion today that is not the point of this post.

So if you go to church week in week out. If you think indoctrination into the Christian faith is a good use of public money in this economic climate. If you believe the bible is literally true and that a morally perfect being can justify inflicting an infinite punishment on everyone who was a good person without accepting that beings existence. Feel free to tick the box for Christian, the goal here is an accurate census, not one biassed in my favour.(aint intellectual integrity a bitch)

However if you were baptised but lost your faith, if you were raised Christian but saw through the bullshit, if you do not attend church weekly and you acknowledge the Bible is a book of bronze age myths or if you have just never been convinced by preachers claims, please tick no religion. Or at the very least deist if you believe in some sort of non personal god. (I will be defining all the different types of belief systems in an upcoming post that just needs tidying up)

If you are still not sure where you stand then it probably isn't with the Christians, but the link up top has a few glowing neon links to pages that can help you decide.