The garden of Eden court case

A courtroom. There are two snakes. One is sitting at a Barrister’s bench. The other is lying on the ground.

BAILIFF
Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. The Court of Appeal of Biblical Decisions is now in session. All rise for the case of The Snake versus God at the Garden of Eden.

The judge enters. The Barrister-Snake rises and stands upright. The Defendant-Snake stays lying on the ground.

JUDGE
(to Barrister-Snake)
Why has your client not risen?

BARRISTER-SNAKE
He has been cursed by God, your honour, and he must now…
(looks at papers)
‘Go on his belly and eat dust’. He wishes to appeal that decision.

JUDGE
Very well
(to Defendant-Snake)
Do you swear to tell the truth, so help you God?

DEFENDANT-SNAKE
Well, he hasn’t really helped me so far.

JUDGE
(looking at papers)
I see you were convicted of deceiving a Mr. and Mrs. Adam.

BARRISTER-SNAKE
And it is they who I shall call as my first witnesses.

Adam and Eve enter. They are wearing only fig leaves.

BARRISTER-SNAKE
Mr and Mrs Adam, can you please tell the court what you were doing on the day in question?

ADAM
Well, I was very tired, because I’m only made out of dust, and God had just ripped out one of my ribs to make her.
(Eve giggles)
So I had sent her to get some food.

EVE
And then I met him
(points to the Defendant-Snake)
And I told him that we couldn’t eat from the tree in the middle of the garden, because we would die if we did that.

BARRISTER-SNAKE
And was that true?

ADAM
Well, that’s what God told me anyway. He said we would surely die on the same day that we ate from it.

EVE
But he
(points to the Defendant-Snake)
said that we wouldn’t die, that we would just know the difference between good and evil.

BARRISTER-SNAKE
So you ate from the tree.

ADAM
Yes, we did.

BARRISTER-SNAKE
And did you die on that same day?

EVE
Well, no.

BARRISTER-SNAKE
And how long ago was that?

ADAM
(Counts on his fingers)
Just over nine hundred years ago.

BARRISTER-SNAKE
And you are both still alive.

EVE
Yes. I just recently gave birth to our last child.

BARRISTER-SNAKE
(to Judge)
So I put it to you, your honour, that my client did not deceive the two witnesses, but that God deceived them, and my client told them the truth. If anything, my client should be commended under the recent legislation for the protection of whistleblowers.

JUDGE
(looking through papers)
Well, the Genesis transcript does seem to verify your argument. Very well. Mr Snake, you are free from the curse of going on your belly and eating dust.
(hits bench with gavel)
Case closed!

DEFENDANT-SNAKE
Yessssssssssssssssssss!

Emotional music as the Defendant-Snake rises from the ground in slow motion and runs to the Barrister-Snake. They both embrace by intertwining their bodies.

ADAM
Actually, before we go, can I just say that God cursed us as well.

EVE
He made childbirth painful for me. And he put him
(points to Adam)
in charge of me.

ADAM
And he made the soil barren, so now I have to work to earn a living.

JUDGE
Very well. You are all free from your curses.
(hits bench with gavel)

DEFENDANT-SNAKE
Yessssssssssssssssssss!

Reprise of emotional music as Adam and Eve run in slow motion into the embrace of the Defendant-Snake and the Barrister-Snake. As everyone leaves:

ADAM
Can I still be in charge of her, though?

JUDGE
Of course you can.

SCENE ENDS

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

The fanciful first page of the New Testament

First fiction in the New Testament

How soon is the first fiction in the New Testament? Try the first page. The title is the Gospel of Matthew. In reality, nobody knows who wrote any of the Gospels, other than they were Christians who spoke Greek and lived outside Palestine between about 65-95 CE. It was much later, maybe as late as 180 CE, that the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were attached to these books, in order to give them credibility and authority.

At that time there were many rival Christian Gospels, only some of which ended up in the Bible. The main theological dispute among early Christians was whether Jesus was totally human or totally divine. The faction that eventually won out, and that evolved into today’s Christianity, argued that Jesus was both totally human and totally divine. This enabled them to include contradictory stories about Jesus into what became their New Testament by about 300 CE.

First contradiction in the New Testament

How soon is the first contradiction in the New Testament? Again, try the first page. It begins with a lengthy genealogy of Jesus, to prove he was descended from David and Abraham. The list starts when Abraham begat Isaac, and ends when Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary. But the very next paragraph tells us that Joseph was not the father of Jesus, which means Jesus was not related to anyone in this lengthy genealogy.

In reality, this is a clumsy attempt to merge two contradictory myths: that the Jewish messiah would be descended from King David, and that Jesus had a virgin birth. And the virgin birth myth has a mix of two sources: somebody mistranslated the Old Testament Hebrew word for ‘young woman’ into the New Testament Greek word for ‘virgin’, and early Christians were seeking converts among Greek and Roman Gentiles who were familiar with existing gods who were believed to have been born of virgins.

First absurdity in the New Testament

How soon is the first absurdity in the New Testament? Again, try the first page. It introduces the central theme of the Christian story. We are so used to hearing this fantastic story, and we know so many people who sincerely believe it to be true, that we can easily become desensitized to how utterly absurd it is.

The story suggests that the creator of the universe deliberately interrupted the laws of nature, in order to impregnate a virgin female of one specific tribe, of one of millions of species of sentient life, on one small planet in one small solar system, in one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in an ever-expanding universe, in order to give birth to himself, so that he could die and return to life and write his story in a book, in order to save the descendants of this human virgin mother from the spiritual consequences of a talking snake persuading one of her ancestors to eat a piece of fruit, and furthermore the creator of the universe wants me personally to benefit from this.

In reality, none of this ever happened. It is a cumulation of fictional stories, invented in more primitive times to convey messages through metaphor.

Fanciful first page sets the tone

That fanciful first page sets the tone for the unreliability of the New Testament as a coherent guide to who Jesus was or how Christianity evolved. Many scholars have researched the historical Jesus, and their quest has been well recorded by writers like Albert Schweitzer, David Boulton, and Bart Ehrman.

All of these studies faced the same underlying problems: nobody wrote anything about Jesus during his lifetime, none of the writers of the New Testament had never met him, none of their original texts exist, and the copies that do exist are riddled with centuries of errors in both transcription and translation.

It is on such shaky foundations that the Christian faith is built.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Mass card law protects sale of magic

The Irish Times today published this letter from Atheist Ireland.

Madam, – From September 1st, the Charities Act 2009 has been offering State protection to the Roman Catholic Church, and only this one church, to sell Mass cards (Home News, September 1st). The legality of this Act is being challenged in the High Court, but for a reason that turns ethics upside down.

It is not being challenged to prevent people from selling claims of intercession with the creator of the universe to bereaved and vulnerable people. Instead, it is being challenged to allow a wider number of people to sell such unverifiable claims.

Such thinking exists in the realm of magic and superstition. It is like last year’s special offer by the Pope that, if you visited Lourdes during 2008, you would get a free “plenary indulgence” which would get you early release from a place called Purgatory after you die, and get you sooner to another place called Heaven.

In any other field of regulation, it would be seen as fraudulent to persuade sick or bereaved people to part with money in return for prayers or plenary indulgences. And the underlying purpose of a Charities Act is surely to protect vulnerable people, not to exploit them.

Atheist Ireland is a new advocacy group for an ethical and secular Ireland, free from superstition and supernaturalism, where the State does not support or give special treatment to any religion. 

– Yours, etc,
Michael Nugent,
Chairperson,
Atheist Ireland

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Positive belief changes your brain

A book that argues that God is good for your health is based on research that suggests that it is positive belief, regardless of whether it involves gods, that can be good for you.

Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman’s book is called How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist.

Newberg’s website begins with the dramatic assertion that “God is great for your mental, physical and spiritual health”. Now, you have to start with a punch, so we can read this as shorthand for “Belief in a god can be good for your health”. But even this claim should be tempered by the next paragraph.

This states that: “Newberg, therapist Mark Robert Waldman, and their research team have concluded that active and positive spiritual belief changes the human brain for the better. What’s more, actual faith isn’t always necessary: atheists who meditate on positive imagery can obtain similar neurological benefits.”

Wait a minute! Actual faith isn’t always necessary? Atheists can obtain similar benefits? From meditating on positive imagery? But meditation need not even be spiritual, never mind theistic. It can be approached quite rationally as a potentially transformative neurological experience.

Based on this, the result of Newberg and Waldman’s research could be more accurately presented like this: “Active and positive belief, including meditating on positive imagery, can change the human brain for the better. This is the case regardless of whether you believe yourself to be spiritual or believe in gods.”

The book could be more accurately retitled as: How Positive Belief Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist.

And none of this, of course, has any bearing on whether or not the beliefs are true.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Stephen Fry on religion

Here is a wonderful reply by Stephen Fry when asked if secularism leads to a world without imagination and beauty.

(If you can’t see the video, follow this link to the original article.)

Fry begins: ‘I don’t think we should ever allow religion the trick of maintaining that the spiritual and the beautiful and the noble and the altruistic and the morally strong and the virtuous are in any way inventions of religion, or particular or peculiar to religion.’

He then compares the Genesis myth of Christianity, which leads to humans apologising for being sinful, with the Prometheus myth of the Greeks, which leads to humans believing that whatever is divine is within us.

And he concludes: ’That’s what religion has become, a feeble and anaemic nonsense, because we understood that the fire was within us. It was not in some idol on an altar, whether it was a gold cross or whether it was a Buddha or anything else. We had it. The fault is in us and not in our stars but also the glory is in us and not in our stars. We take credit for what is great about man and we take the blame for what is dreadful about man. We neither grovel and apologise at the feet of a god, or are so infantile as to project the idea that we once had a father as human beings and we therefore should have a divine one too. We have to grow up.’

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

The Greatest Show on Earth

“What is the greatest show on earth? Well, it’s life. The whole diversity of life, the complexity of life, the beauty of life, the sheer number of species that are all doing their own thing in their own way. How does it come about? By evolution. Evolution by natural selection. The book is about the evidence for evolution. How do we know it’s a fact?”

— Richard Dawkins introducing his new book, the Greatest Show on Earth

For decades before writing about reason and faith in The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins wrote prolifically about science for a popular audience. Now he returns to this turf, with a book that outlines the evidence for evolution. Here are some extracts and reviews of The Greatest Show on Earth, which is out today in the UK and on 22 Sep in the USA.

Extract from Chapter 1

“Imagine that you are a teacher of Roman history and the Latin language, anxious to impart your enthusiasm for the ancient world… Yet you find your precious time continually preyed upon, and your class’s attention distracted, by a baying pack of ignoramuses (as a Latin scholar you would know better than to say ignorami) who, with strong political and especially financial support, scurry about tirelessly attempting to persuade your unfortunate pupils that the Romans never existed…”

Read full extract here

Extract from Chapter 2

“We can turn to the example of dogs for some important lessons about natural selection. All breeds of dogs are domesticated wolves: not jackals, not coyotes and not foxes. But I need to qualify this in the light of a fascinating theory of the evolution of the dog, which has been most clearly articulated by the American zoologist Raymond Coppinger. The idea is that the evolution of the dog was not just a matter of artificial selection. It was at least as much a case of wolves adapting to the ways of Man by natural selection…”

Read full extract here

Review in The Times

“Thank the Lord for creationists. Without their blinkered belief in the biblical account of how life came to be, Richard Dawkins would never have felt the need to give us The Greatest Show on Earth. And what a fine, lucid and convincing exhibition he puts on, walking us through the natural world to demonstrate that evolution by natural selection is everywhere…”

Read full review here

Review in The Economist

“A SCIENTIST on a flight across America falls into conversation with his neighbour, who turns out to be gratifyingly interested in his research on wild guppy populations in Trinidad. He probes deeply the scientist’s methods, his findings and setbacks. Then comes the big question: what is the theory underlying the work? Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, replies the scientist. The rest of the journey passes in chilly silence…”

Read full review here

Querying the Dawkins view of science

“At the website for Dawkins’ latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth, we read: “Evolution is accepted as scientific fact by all reputable scientists”. However, a theory like evolution may be composed of facts but it must always extend beyond logical boundaries into the unknown – such are the “facts” of logic on which science rests. We cannot therefore explain the process of modern science using reason alone as Dawkins would have us believe…”

Read full article in Australasian Science Magazine

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

4 literally happy songs

For an overdose of literally happy songs – that is, songs with happy or happiness in the title – here’s Happiness by Platinum Weird, Happy Days Toytown by the Small Faces, Endless Song of Happiness by Yael Naim, and Happiness by Orson.

Happiness – Platinum Weird, 2006

Happy Days Toytown – Small Faces, 1968

Endless Song of Happinesss – Yael Naim, 2007

Happiness – Orson, 2006

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Same sex ice cream

Ben and Jerry’s has changed the name of its Chubby Hubby ice cream to Hubby Hubby, in support of the legalisation of marriage for gay and lesbian couples in Vermont.

Here’s the footage from a CBS news item on the name-change, in which free ice-cream is given to the public. (If you can’t see the video, go to the original post.)

Listen out for the woman at the end, whose taste-buds are more powerful than her conscience: “Homosexuality is wrong and disgusting, but I’ll take the free ice cream.”

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

New Irish law protects sale of mass cards

From today, the Charities Act 2009 offers State protection to the Roman Catholic Church, and only this one Church, to sell Mass cards in Ireland. The legality of this Act is being challenged in the High Court, but for a reason that turns ethics upside down.

It is not being challenged to prevent people from selling offers of intercession with the creator of the universe to bereaved and vulnerable people. Instead, it is being challenged to allow a wider number of people to sell such unverifiable claims.

Church Monopoly

The new law defines a mass card as a card that indicates “that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (howsoever described) will be offered for the intentions specified therein”. It is now a crime to sell such a card in Ireland other than by agreement with a Bishop or Provincial of the Church, and “the Church” is defined as “the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church.” Furthermore, it is presumed that a seller does not have such an arrangement unless they prove otherwise. Anyone convicted of breaking this law can be jailed for up to ten years or fined up to €300,000.

Thomas McNally, who sells Mass cards in Longford, Ireland, is challenging the legality of the Act as he says it confers a Church monopoly on Mass card sales. He claims to have an arrangement with the Most Rev William Pascal Kikoti, Bishop of Mpanda, Tanzania, for signing Mass cards. The State has agreed not to take any prosecutions under the new Act until the case is heard, probably in October. Here is the Irish Times report on the legal challenge.

Magic and Superstition

Such thinking exists in the realm of magic and superstition. It is like last year’s special offer by the Pope that, if you visited Lourdes during 2008, you would get a free ‘plenary indulgence’ which would get you early release from a place called Purgatory after you die, and get you sooner to another place called Heaven.

In any other field of civic regulation, it would be seen as fraudulent to persuade sick or bereaved people to part with money in return for masses or plenary indulgences. And the underlying purpose of a Charities Act is surely to protect vulnerable people, not to exploit them.

As an aside, many religious people consider the selling of sacraments to be grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters they hold sacred. They may be tempted to complain under the new blasphemy law that Justice Minister Dermot Ahern plans to make operational in mid-October, around the same time as the Mass Card High Court case.

So, all in all, October should be a great month for legalising nonsense in Ireland!

Join Atheist Ireland

Atheist Ireland is an advocacy group for an ethical and secular Ireland, free from superstition and supernaturalism, where the State does not support or give special treatment to any religion. We welcome new members to help make this happen. You can join us at http://atheist.ie

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

« Previous Page