WE ARE THE LUCKY GENERATION

Tags

Big Bang, Cassini, Dark Ages, Darwin, Depression of 1929, Edison, Einstein, Faraday, Galileo, Homo Sapiens, Newton, Pasteur, Radical Islamist Terrorism, Russell, Saturn, Space-Probes, Voltaire, World Wars

 

Some would disagree.  People my age (80) have lived through two World Wars and others too numerous to list.  We missed the Depression of 1929, but were hit by the more recent crashes on Wall Street that practically ruined some of us.  We have seen the birth of Radical Islamist terrorism and live in permanent fear or fatalism.  We survived the Cuban crisis, and after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 hoped that relative peace, meaning the absence of World War, would become permanent – until recent threats of nuclear war which North Korea, Russia and the United States are seriously envisaging.

But in spite of all this, when we view the Big Picture, the history of the Universe and especially the history of Homo Sapiens, we realize just how lucky we are.  13.8 billion years are beyond our imagination, and we register the date of the Big Bang with an indifference born of our incomprehension of such an immense period of time.  70,000 years – the age of Homo sapiens sapiens – is more within our mental grasp, though the paltry 2000 years of our Christian era are already difficult enough for us to take in.  500 years : this we can comprehend.  The parish church here in L’Isle-Adam where I live is over 500 years old.  Australia was colonized by Europeans 200 years ago, at the time of the French Revolution.  Columbus discovered America in 1492.  Galileo saw Saturn for the first time in 1610, Christian Huygens in 1659 discovered the exquisite rings surrounding the gaseous planet, the second largest in the Solar System.  In 1675, Giovanni Domenico Cassini discovered the dark region between Saturn’s two principal rings.  And just twenty years ago we launched a space-probe to explore the planet and its famous rings.  After a 1.2 billion kilometer, seven year journey, the probe – fittingly  baptized “Cassini” – has, for the last thirteen years, been exploring the enormous, enigmatic planet.  It is destined to complete its mission and explode on September 15 this year, 2017 !

I have recalled the detail because Cassini, rather than Georgia, is very much on our minds right now.  But as we admire the fantastic photos it has given us (never seen by my parents), we can measure how far we have come – and how far we have gone ! – in just half a millennium.  500 years ago man entered the Scientific Age.  In that very short period of time new discoveries were made that have transformed definitively the life of Homo Sapiens.  You are reading this perhaps with the help of electric light, in a comfortable, fully equipped house, if not a skyscraper appartment, heated or cooled to provide comfort unknown to even our recent ancestors.  Relax !  When you finish reading this, you can put a couple of rocks from the fridge into your favorite drink and catch up on the news on TV – including perhaps an update on Cassini’s latest discoveries.

Travel on land and sea, in the air and even in space, medicine, armaments, agriculture, engineering and information technology are just some of the domains in which we take for granted the progress humankind has made. The differences in our life-style since the time of Galileo and Cassini are spectacular, but so are the differences in the way we live now, compared or rather contrasted with the life of our parents.  My Dad never had even a land-line, drove a car in his life or traveled more than one thousand kilometers from home.  We are the Lucky Generation.

I could say the obvious about the apocalyptic dangers we face today, about the ongoing scandalous inequality between the haves and the have-nots, about the poverty and misery of millions who have never profited from “progress”.  I prefer to limit myself to a word on the gap between the giant leap we have made in our knowledge and mastery of the world in which we live, and the stagnation of our progress out of the Dark Ages of religious belief and superstition.

The contrast is remarkable between life-styles (and life-expectancy !) five centuries ago and today.  One could have expected that we would have also progressed beyond the myths of the 17th century and the religious belief and practice still current today.  The 18th century’s “Enlightenment” did much to expose the incredibility of the religions which dominated life up till then.  But in our own 21st century, billions of people still share the same credulity and live in the same Dark Ages, as they drive in heated/cooled cars to heated/cooled churches to worship the same “God” as our ancestors, who drove in horse and dray to the cool if not freezing churches and cathedrals of yore.

We are indeed lucky to have been born after Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Pasteur, Edison and Einstein, and to have profited from their contribution to science and to the standard of living with its “modern conveniences” we enjoy.  I feel even luckier to have been born after Voltaire, Darwin and Russell, without whom I may never have become an atheist nor author of this Blog.

RIDENDA      RELIGIO

 

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UNPARDONABLE EXCEPTIONS

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Galileo, Geocentrism, Heaven, Heliocentrism, Hell, Purgatory

(We’re on a roll : four posts in four days !  It must be the coffee or some other substance . . .)

Imagine a politician with an impeccable record (this may require considerable effort, but try anyway).  Or a Pope acclaimed for his goodness, his charity, his tolerance, his intelligence and his courage.  Or a blogger whose 588 posts to date are brilliant, insightful, thought-provoking pearls of wisdom.  Now imagine just one faux-pas by each of them.  The pol is proven to have secretly committed treason.  Or the Pope is proven to have murdered an altar-boy whom he had raped.  Or the blogger posts an eloquent defense of human slavery.  Even for crimes of far less magnitude, such single exceptions to an immaculate track-record would be enough to discredit the politician, the Pope and the blogger.

The post I am about to add immediately to this one – two posts on the same day chalks up another record – ends with the recall of what the Catholic Church ludicrously and scandalously taught us as children about divine punishment for being late for Mass or missing it.  Even if everything else the Church teaches were beyond reproach, surely its pathetic, psychotic, unpardonable doctrine on Purgatory and Hell should be enough to discredit it entirely.

In fact, this doctrine is not an exception.  And therein lies its power.  EVERYTHING the Church teaches (apart from self-evident truths like murder is wrong and that we should love our parents) is false and unfounded.  The very volume of its lies and legends makes any particular one of them appear as nothing extraordinary.  We have swallowed so many fantasies that one more no longer shocks us.  But it gets even worse.  Some tend to praise the Church for recognizing that it was mistaken, wrong, dead wrong – ONCE – in teaching a certain traditional doctrine called  geocentrism : the pre-Galileo illusion that the sun revolved around the Earth.  Rather than praise the Church for recognizing the error it was forced to admit, should not this one outrageous false teaching force us to question its global credibility ?  Its reasons for believing and teaching the divine origin of its “holy” books, the reality of Jesus’ “miracles”, His Real (!) Presence in the Eucharist, the existence of an after-life and of Heaven, Purgatory and Hell, are just as much devoid of foundation as its former rejection of heliocentrism.

This logic escapes billions of believers.  Inconvenient truths are not to be allowed to challenge credulity.  Which is why I continue to ridicule religion and to illustrate its illusions.

RIDENDA      RELIGIO

DOES TORTURE WORK ?

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Galileo, Geneva Convention, Guantanamo, Inquisition, Irak, Jean Moulin, John McCain, President Trump, Torture

Of course it does – some of the time, and, I would guess, often.  Sometimes the mere threat of it is enough; witness Galileo.  When it doesn’t work, the poor bastard becomes a hero : France’s champion French Resistant, Jean Moulin, or – presumably – John McCain in Vietnam.  The Catholic Inquisition continued to use it, not only because it punished heretics and witches who deserved the pain and punishment anyhow, before they suffered the ultimate torture of being burned alive at the stake, but because it forced them to renounce their “errors” and provided the Church with the names of other “criminals”.  The Americans in Irak and Guantanamo, the French in Algeria, the Russians and Germans in World War 2, and probably every other nation at war or under threat, found that it was, and is, a precious provider of vital information.

It works.  But should we allow it to be used ?  The Geneva Convention says no.  The Law says no.  Fundamental human decency says no.  But faced with the credible situation of suffering or death threatened to loved ones unless the prisoner, already without fingernails if not fingers, spills the beans, it is hard to blame him for giving in.

The question is not whether it works, or even whether it is legal.  It is an abomination such that having a President who publicly condones it, has itself become more than civilized citizens can stand.

RIDENDA      RELIGIO

DO WE WANT THE CHURCH TO CHANGE ?

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Abortion, Baptism, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, Confession, Contraception, Fasting, Galileo, Geocentrism, Heliocentrism, Homosexuality, Indulgences, Infallibility of the Pope, Limbo, Mother Church, Original Sin, Purgatory, Real Presence in the Eucharist, Remarriage after Divorce, Same-sex marriage, Stem-cell Research, Wikipedia

There are already, to date, 470 posts on this Blog, with 16,245 views and 5,499 visitors.  I may take the foot off the accelerator for a while, until I get over the gout that makes even driving a challenge.  Doesn’t stop me thinking, though, so I let my fingers do the talking.  But I’ve probably given you enough to mull over for the nonce.  So, today, dear Brethren, the subject is Changes in the Church.  It could have been Much Binding in the Marsh, but you’re all too young to remember that BBC radio classic.

The Church has changed more than most realize.  We tend to forget the readiness to question traditional thinking and practice expressed in Vatican 2, but more significantly in the sea-change that was the admission that Galileo was right, that geocentrism was contradicted by the scientific evidence of heliocentrism, thereby denying a belief the Church had imposed for 1600 years.  It took the Church half a millennium to admit that it was wrong.  A pity about all those people it had burned at the stake for daring to say the same thing, that the Earth rotates around the Sun and not vice-versa.

The Church has changed other beliefs, rules and rituals, most of them, like geocentrism, very recently.  This Blog has no pretension of competing with Wikipedia, so I will content myself with just a few examples.  Protestants have always admitted the existence of Heaven and Hell.  Catholics had added Purgatory and, in a burst of gruesome godology and lunatic logic, Limbo.  Such a “place” HAD to exist.  Babies who die without Baptism, which would have cleansed them of “Original Sin”, could not, of course, be admitted into Heaven; nor, totally innocent, did they deserve either Hell or Purgatory.  Q.E.D.  No one believes in Limbo now.

Among the rules and rituals recently abandoned or modified, we have the laws of fasting, both in Lent and before Holy Communion, and the practice of Confession and the rite of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament (where have all the monstrances gone ?).  Such modifications hardly merit mentioning, but changes in belief concerning abortion (none, as yet), contraception (unofficially at least, condoned), homosexuality, remarriage after divorce, same-sex marriage and stem-cell research – to mention the most controversial – would be far more significant.  But at present it is unthinkable that Rome would decree that Protestants were right about Indulgences, the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist or the Infallibility of the Pope.  These would not be sea-changes but tsunamis.

My question goes beyond all this.  Atheists would like non-atheists to abandon ALL their beliefs, superstitions and illusions.  But if the Church were to accept all the even mild modifications to doctrine that “liberal” Catholics have been advocating for decades – without, of course, questioning essential doctrines like the Eucharist and the existence of God (!) –  traditional Catholics would be appalled and tempted to create a schism, while the Liberals would have made the Church more attractive to BOTBs.  I, for one, would not welcome such a reform in Catholic doctrine.  Cosmetic changes in dogma could never satisfy me.  The whole ball of wax is nonsense.  No point in giving Mother Church a face-life when she deserves matricide.

DELENDA   RELIGIO

ANYONE FOR ASTROLOGY ?

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"Science et Avenir", "Sphere of the Stars", Angelology, Cardio-vascular illnesses, Columbia University, FreeWill, Galileo, Geocentrism, Kepler, St Augustine

If you wikipede “Christian Views of Astrology”, you will discover that, for once, the Church has had a pretty good track-record in recognizing, since Saint Augustine in the fourth century, that astrology is hogwash.  The Doctor of Doctors was sharp enough to use the diametrically opposed behavior patterns of many twins to ridicule astrology.  Theologians ever since have argued that its doctrines are contradicted by the reality of free will.  One should not be too hard on scientists like Kepler and Galileo, astronomers who were also court-paid astrologists.  Have you never, for a lark, consulted your horoscope ?

There is no point in paraphrasing here  what everyone can find on the Web about Religion, Science and Astrology.  But few of you – if any – would have access to the French monthly “Sciences et Avenir” and its August, 2015, article : “Astrologie, Astronomie : La Science face aux Croyances (Beliefs)”.  I thought therefore that you might appreciate the following item of information.  Did you know that :

“People born in March and April are more affected by cardio-vascular illnesses.” ?  This statement, the magazine points out, “was not made by some medium with her crystal-ball, but by one of the great scientific institutions of the world, Columbia University in New York.  In June this year, the researchers in its Department of Medecine published the result of a study conducted on 1,800,000 persons born between 1900 and 2000, announcing that the month of birth – in other words the astrological sign – allows the determination of illnesses during one’s life . . . The team declared that it has established correlations which, from its point of view, could not be the result of chance” (p.27).

After that attention-grabber, the article goes on to lament that the good doctors were impervious to the avalanche of mathematicians’ criticism of the statistical methods they employed and their obvious unscientific bias.  (I would not like to be one of their patients …).

Astrology is alive and well and on the increase.  Contemporary “scientific astrology” is no longer into making predictions but focuses on the “potentialities” of an individual, the strong points of his psyché and the conscious and unconscious manifestations of his personality – depending, as in classical astrology, on the position of the planets at the time of his birth !  Modern astrology is still based on the geocentric vision inherited from Aristotle and Ptolemy, respectively 4th and 2nd century B.C.  In this view the Sun, the Moon and the five planets known at the time are all placed in concentric orbits around the Earth.  All are indifferently labeled as “planets”.  The outside skin of this cosmological onion is that of the “Sphere of the Stars”, which are all therefore considered to be the same distance from Earth !

Over the last ten years, the article tells us, the number of French people who believe in horoscopes has gone UP 2% to 22% of the population !  With credulity like this, is it any wonder that so many people not only in France but around the world still believe the myths and superstitions the Church teaches them ?  At least Rome does not preach Astrology.  But Angelology is just as silly.

RIDENDA   RELIGIO

THANK GOD AND THE CHURCH FOR THE INQUISITIONS !

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Galileo, Inquisitions, Lumen Verum, Robert Haddad

—  “The activity of the Medieval Inquisition (established in 1184) contributed greatly to the restoration of order and repression of violence that had plagued Europe for over 200 years.”

—  “The (Spanish) Inquisition, in fact, was perhaps the most just court system before the modern period.”

As it is inevitable that I will be accused of quoting these statements about the suppression of the Cathars and later the victims of the Spanish Inquisition “out of context”, I will give you the full references so that anyone as outraged as I am can consult them in context.  They are both written statements by an Australian Catholic apologist,  ROBERT  HADDAD, founder of Lumen Verum, an outfit that apparently attracts right-wing Catholic fanatics on Friday nights in South-West Sydney, Australia.  The texts are available on the Net under “Lumen Verum”; scroll down to Haddad’s 30-part course in Catholic Apologetics – Index title : “The Inquisitions”.

There is a cherry on this incredible cake : an attempt to practically JUSTIFY the condemnation of Galileo (between the Medieval and Spanish Inquistions : the “Roman Inquisition”) !!  The French would say “On croît rêver !” : “We must be dreaming !”

Don’t take my word for it.  Check it out for yourself.  This monstrosity deserves worldwide publication.  There is no point in my commenting further on this supreme example of blindfaithblindfolly.

D E L E N D A     R E L I G I O    (this is no laughing matter)

MUSLIM SCIENTISTS

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Age of Universe, Evolution, Galileo, Miracles, Nobel Prize, The Koran, Transubstantiation

They used to be world-leaders, even in the West. Until about 1300 A.D. Today, though they have eleven Nobel Prize winners (seven of them for Peace; Jews have a total of 850), they are, by their own admission, still stuck in the Dark Ages.

OK, I haven’t read the book, just a review. But it is printed in “Science et Avenir” (no.820, June 2015), which is not the sort of publication you pick up at the supermarket check-out. The book, in French, is “Islam, Big-Bang et Darwin” (who said you can’t read French ?). But it is not some journo’s – or worse, blogger’s (!) – rant. Its author, Nidal Quessoum, an astrophysicist, is the Vice-Rector of the American University at Chardja (United Arab Emirates), who presents not just his own opinions but those of the Muslim professors on his staff. The stats are stunning :

– 70% believe in miracles

– 62% reject the “theory” of evolution

– 80% consider that “the Koran contains explicit declarations now known as scientific
facts”

– between 54% and 72% have no idea of the age of the Universe, the Sun, the Earth
or of humanity.

The Vice-Rector’s cautious conclusion : “The way Science is treated in Arabic Muslim countries must be reformed”, and even more importantly, “Muslims find it almost impossible to put aside their religious education … when they are dealing with scientific ideas.”

If Muslims had a Galileo, they would not let him off the hook with a false admission of error. They would lop his heretical head off.

All this must be embarrassing for the “moderate” Muslims who are our fellow-residents if not citizens. But it should also give pause to non-Muslim scientists who also believe in miracles, though they have had to admit that evolution is not just a theory, that their Bible does not teach accurate science, and that they know that the world is not 6000 years old but nearly 14 billion. A few centuries ago, as Christians and as scientists, they would have agreed with their present-day Muslim colleagues. Why do they still cling to miracles ? Face it, fellows, you know that wafer of “consecrated” bread is still bread. Not just in appearance, in its “form”, but non obstante “transubstantiation”, in its “substance”. We all know what’s holding you back.

DELENDA RELIGIO