Pro Liberi

The discovery of a 35,000 year old ivory figure has staggered anthropologists as it shows that even this long ago, our brains and their ability to think in abstract ways were probably as sophisticated as they are now.  Read here.   I’m not sure why it staggered anthropologists myself.

I note that even after all these years we have not changed much in how we view women.   Just breasts and genitalia.  No head or anything else really, that’s just an add on.  It seems women have always been sex objects to us.  Ooops.   It’s just confirmation that the PC crowd are trying to reprogramme over 35,000 (at least) years of genetic programming by legislation.

Strange how the figure is so large as well.   I was always under the impression that it was only over the last few years people have put on a lot of weight.   Could that be a misconception I have recently picked up?   After all Raquel Welch was not exactly tubby in 1 million years BC.  This figure is certainly on the larger side.

Funny though that  it looks just like one of my ex’s.  (although she clearly had a head… I think)

I don’t know.

Mmmm. My shortest post ever. Perhaps I had better explain.

James and I were discussing if there was a God or not. A God as defined in the Christian texts.  James believes there is and I do not. James believes that he has proven it in a series of blog posts on his site and thus we had the following conversation which James posted in his sidebar as a sign that I’m not really interested in any real discussion.

A friend of mine started to argue that God did not exist.
“Which part of the articles did you disagree with then?” I asked.
“Well, I didn’t actually read them, they were so long. ”
“Ah, I see, then how can you say He doesn’t exist?”
“Well, it’s not logical, is it? I’m going to do my posts soon on why He doesn’t exist.”
“I see. And that’s logic, is it?”

Bit conceited to believe that his six posts would be the definitive proof of the existence of God when there are so many thousands of books on the subject but after that I was forced to read the six long posts on ‘[christianity] is fair discussion possible‘ anyway and as expected it was the usual bits of hearsay and facts with conclusions bent to a bias. He has forced me to give him some extra hits and waste a chunk of my life. Some people are really into stat porn, that must be some sort of sin. To be fair in James usual style he has well researched this and pulls many things together into these six posts.  I was intending to fisk it but I think it would take me years to do so.  The typing alone would kill me and I suspect this is a way to get you to concede.   I’m not a debater really but in answer to his post titles I do believe that a fair discussion is possible but what I think he means is that how can he convince heathen unbelievers with no facts.  A discussion is possible but in this situation we all still walk away with our own conclusions because there are still no new facts and who has the time or the will to discuss these things anyway.  It’s been done a million times before.  You believe or you don’t and I don’t.

I look at things logically and scientifically. I want evidence, repeatable proof and to see things for myself if possible. Evidence being something you can weigh in your hands and not some text from two thousand years ago the origin of which is uncertain. I am open to views that I do not understand by don’t want them to just be the answer without any reason. Occams Razor applies but is not always the definitive answer. Nature is a wonderful thing and full of surprises.

All the facts for God are hearsay from when people didn’t have the level of technology we have now. When people could only be struck down by spear, swords or arrows and dead was dead. No CPR or people in trance like states. In short anything unexplained would be attributed to something supernatural sometimes years after the fact and recorded as fact as if recorded that day. Embellished and modified to suit the writer’s bias and bits added to fill any gaps. Today many biblical events are recognised as not factual but symbolic although stated as fact even though we are not 100% sure when the accounts were written, by whom and if they have been modified in the hundreds of years since. We know that texts have been destroyed and texts modified by the church and others in power since records have been kept. None of that is recognised, not even in James posts on the subject, it is still just hearsay and conjecture supported by statements that if you do not think of these alternatives then you are deliberately ignoring options. We are simply expected to take them as fact just because they are from so long ago and make references to historical events that we know happened. Basically it seems we have someone claiming to be the son of God and has a cult of supporters who confirm he made predictions that came true and performed some miracles. Even if he did make predictions and perform miracles does that prove God exists? Miracles could be ‘magic’ tricks that fooled those in the olden days. Imagine David Blain back in time and it does not make a massive leap of faith to accept some people predicting the future especially ones involving humanity and how we react to things especially when recorded after the event itself.

I think that the reason people take the leap to a God is back to one of my original posts on how people think. They take facts and when they don’t define a unmistakable and firm conclusion they then take their own biases which they brought to the table with them and then extrapolate until they state that as fact. They jump to ‘God did it’ or as some people say ‘The Flying Spaghetti Monster did it’ because there is no other conclusion to make.

Back in the times of Jesus life was bad. Along came someone who thought life would be better if we all treated each other with certain rules and he spread this word and was seen as a messiah. Today he would have been a charismatic cult leader just like all the others. Back then he was preaching something to make people lives better and giving them something beyond death. It caught on because people were scared of death especially when they added on the promise of Hell as an encouragement. As the rules were generally good ones then it was supported and our whole society took off and flourished whilst the rest of the world went its own way.

After Jesus’ death his followers had a discussion ‘Bugger, I’m out of a job. Those politicians have really screwed us up again. Why do we keep going with the same lot?’ ‘Dole is crap what can we do?’ ‘Well we could keep it up and just carry on’ ‘I like that.’ said Mary. ‘All these non believers keep saying I was shagging Ringo behind Josephs back when he got me pissed’ ‘What about the pesky fact of Jesus being dead and all’ says Thomas. ‘Mmmm. How about when we said he was immortal we meant something invisible like a soul’ ‘We could keep it up and support him in the afterlife then.’ ‘Cool. We had better modify the books a bit then and make them a bit more cryptic like those pesky lawyers do to keep themselves employed.’ ‘Great. We are all agreed then. Meeting adjourned. .John you are the best writer type up the minutes will you.’ (Texts destroyed by the church after discovery) And thus the longest marketing brand in history was created. It continued and to our benefit may I add.

Later on after the whiteys didn’t apologise for anything in history that white people had done another charismatic cult leader made up his own cult and wrote his own book using characters from the previous, now out of copyright stories of Jesus, Mohammed had a great time and although he wasn’t as much of a talker he was hell with a sword and that gets more respect than a good talker any day. So another brand was born. Cults of this size are called religions.

So in the two thousand years since Jesus people have looked at the facts and thought ‘This can’t be right’ but still wanting something after death have come up with their own solutions based on the philosophical thoughts of the brightest. Thus we have other religions all looking to fill the facts gap with explanations.

Nowadays we don’t really follow the rules at all with being unfaithful and coveting that tasty birds ass but we still have that need for God to give us something after death. We still fear the coming darkness. So we call ourselves religious but we are not. We still fear taking that step because we are not certain and our God is vengeful. We would not be willing to die for our God like the Muslims would.

But none of this is proof of God.

My personal big issue is that put simply the facts are;
We exist. Something out there created the environment that lead to us. We can work our way back to the big bang with facts and theories but what about before then? Where did this thimble full of matter come from and what caused it to explode?

If we assume that God exists then what created God then? Does he really love us anyway? After all we have done as a species, slavery and mass murder. Why didn’t he build some safeguards? Why has he not stepped in and fixed the issues in our nature? This is the main reason why my leaps of faith don’t come to the conclusion of a God. I don’t believe anyone who cares in the slightest would allow this state of affairs to continue unchecked. I know people that care so much for others that they screw their own lives up to protect them. Remember that millions of people are born into a situation where they have no control over their lives. Life is harsh and free will, although still there, is to all intents and purposes non existent. When they die after a harsh life of being harsh themselves just to live and help their children live they are judged and allocated to heaven or hell based on how they lived. That is not right nor just.

I just can’t believe in a God that allowed all this to happen and didn’t do a thing about it yet claimed he loved us as his children. All children need guidance yet besides a few rules, good ones mainly I admit, nothing has been forthcoming for 2000 years. Talk about an absent father.

If there is a deity out there then I see him more like a scientist and our solar system our Petri dish. Kept away from other experiments and just left to grow and develop. Perhaps if we even develop interstellar travel he will come back and wipe us out as an out of control experiment so we don’t contaminate the other systems.

So I don’t believe in a God and am I not interested in converting James or anyone else to my beliefs. I can’t support them with facts.   So let them believe in their deities if it keeps them happy and gives them a straw to hang on to as we get older.

They may even be right. I just don’t know.