Finding, Making and Killing time

By Oskar

Time is a fascinating and often incomprehensible thing. Our everyday lives are defined by it, our language almost treats it as a physical entity. We find it, we waste it, we make it, we take it, have it, we even kill it. Despite its extreme relevance to our ordinary functioning as humans, we often don’t take the time (I couldn’t think of a better way of saying this) to consider exactly what it is, what it is doing and how we know it is doing it.

In the studies of geology, evolutionary biology and astronomy, time is often referred to a ‘deep’, (a wonderful example of of metaphor in science if I have ever heard one). This term is attempting to come to grips with the shear magnitude of the time we have found to exist. Our seemingly important lives are less than a single atom in the ‘ocean of time’. We give it numbers in this context. Billions of years. In reality I doubt very many people are able to appreciate the significance of this. A billion years is not something our brains were evolved to understand (I am constantly troubled by the fact that I contemplate such weighty topics with a brain that is essentially a really good food detector).

James Hutton (arguably the first modern geologist) said: “…there is not vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end.” He was criticized, as he was thought to be implying that time was infinite, but my interpretation is that (like any good scientist) he simply didn’t know about such philosophical matters . He simply knew that time (and by extension Earth processes) was old beyond human reckoning.

Of course, when you move away from such physical sciences and into the realm of physics (ironic really), time becomes a whole lot messier. Some would say that time itself does not exist, that what we experience as time is really just our experience of change. To others time is a dimension, a strange one, unlike the spatial dimensions we are able to sense. It goes in only one direction, it cannot be turned on and off, or shaped by human intervention.

I hope I have given you something to think about, this article is by no means and end to itself, but more of a stimulus for discussion. Please comment if you feel you have something to contribute, but even if you don’t,  think twice next time you look at your watch.

Time is an amazing phenomenon, it still strikes me as strange that people are so intent on creating new mystery, replacing their world with imagined ones in an attempt to ‘bring back wonder’ that they claim has been taken by our modern understanding of the world. In reality, their creations could never exceed the wonder and mystery that is our own, rationally revealed world.

That last paragraph was a bit of a personal cause, it can be ignored if you wish.

Atheism is semantically erroneous

By Reuben.

Now that this post’s title has gathered your attention, let me draw your attention to a rather excellent quote:

I’m a polyatheist – there are many gods I don’t believe in.

- Dan Fouts

There is a subtle logic here; most believers (of a theistic or deistic bent) believe in one God – usually one ‘true’ God who has much political clout when it comes to dicatating matter. But they therefore must exclude all other Gods mustn’t they? A Christian does not call their God ‘Allah’ while most Jews do not follow the Scientology God known as Theta (or something like that…it’s hard to comprehend most of what Scientology says anyway). Nobody actually believes in every single conceivable God. It’s logically and morally inconsistent to believe in the God of the old testament whilst supposing that – at the same time – Thetans exist inside us (to borrow the Scientology example again). Jews are not also Muslims, Catholics and those who follow the Bahai Faith. That would certainly render the entire purpose of religion in politics (that is, to divide people based on a set of irrational superstitions) completely and utterly useless for starters…never mind the theological side.

Monotheism thrives wholly on the principle of exclusivity even though you can blatently see that, for example, Jews and Muslims worship the same theistic tyrant (who has given false impetus for both people to engage in bloodshed). You’d be hard pressed to find a Muslim, Christian or Jew who’d freely admit their God is the same as another monotheistic religion. Intelligent believers do concede that the Koran, the Bible and the Torah have many traces and evolved from a common source…but they stop short of saying that, name notwithstanding, their God is the same as each others. For the atheist, this is plain to see. Since it’s obviously inconceivable that all three Gods exist as per their relative religious texts’ instructions side-by-side (thus forfeiting their own ‘all powerful’ identity), monotheism has more than enough to answer for…

Pantheism is more curious. Spinoza espoused his own version of this and touched on the idea that perhaps pantheism is a precursor for atheism. Dawkins takes this one step further and I quote:

“Deism is watered down theism. Pantheism is sexed up atheism”

- Richard Dawkins

It would appear that if we were to truly follow pantheism, the whole concept of a powerful being is void. You might as well, Dawkin argues, call the theory of gravity the ‘God of Gravity’ and Einstein’s relativity theory the ‘God of relativity’. We have effectively supplanted the word ‘God’ with various undisputed observations about the natural world. Scientists may have already found something that links every known bit of scientific truth together. We could call this ‘one rule for all’ as some sort of God – but this might be too ironic, since a scientific explanation does not postulate what we expect to see – rather it explains it. A belief in God explains nothing.

Read on…

I stumbled across this interesting opinion piece recently:

I didn’t mean cultural relativism was the cause of the problem in Islam. I meant it was the source of weakness for the West in dealing with the problems of Islam. There is this quaint view that’s coalesced over the last 30 years especially that you mustn’t challenge anybody’s cultural mores, and in tandem with that, if you live a model left-wing lifestyle, that other cultures will be amazed at how open minded and hip you are, and reward your “respect” with a reciprocal respect for your own lifestyle, culture and ideology and – as a result – we will all live in a multicultural paradise.

This is, of course, bullshit.

The rest of it is here.

I think the author has a valid point. However, it’s not a very pragmatic point. If you enter a meeting to strategise about immigration, assimilation and population change with the quoted premise above, it’s unlikely you’ll get far. It might not be fair or equal to either culture to be more tolerant than them…but it’s certainly causes less friction.

Offensiveness

Offensiveness, as defined by dictionary.com (the best source of information bar Wikipedia), is: causing resentful displeasure; highly irritating, angering, or annoying.
I’ve always supposed that, being a political atheist (or ’secular humanist’…as a more accurate term in the context of politics), I would end up raising the ire of certain groups – particularly ones  such as the Catholic Church, Family First party and SaltShakers all of which I have absolutely no patience or sympathy for. Politically, these groups and I are diametrically opposed on most issues. All three, in my view, are bigoted, anti-science, sexist, homophobic and dogmatic. I’ll discuss the finer details of that later, but for now, I’m talking about offensiveness.

What constitutes offensiveness in this context? If I say “I hate religion”, most people won’t take offense to it because I’m not attacking a particular religion. But because religions vary in their dogmaticness, vitriol and rationality, it would simply be too simplistic to say that all religions are bad, or all are good or all are mediocre. They are all relative; I for one would argue that, compared to the three main Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Islam and Christianity), Sikhism is fairly mild. I also find Mormonism to be particularly bad a religion if not for their door-to-door marketing techniques and the clear absurdity of believing Utah to be some kind of holy site (whereas no other monotheistic religion says so). Utah isn’t Jerusalem. But is this targeting of certain religions fair?

I very much doubt that this poster would be socially acceptable in Australia, given our huge Christian population...

Freedom to insult religion is a fundamental human right, I believe. If the insult isn’t justified, then the argument can be taken down in true argumentative style (complete with jibes at the opposition’s facial hair). If I declare that Judaism is evil because of events in Israel/Palestine and that the conflict there is because Judaism is an evil religion, it can be safely concluded that what I’m saying is abjectly specious. But people should have that right to think that. It might be terribly and deliberately offensive, but it’s no more irrational than Creationism. I’m opposed to any attempt to remove free speech. In that example, I’m fairly sure most Jews would be offended if I called their religion evil. I’m maliciously targeting them. But how is this different to liberals calling conservatives ‘evil’? If someone holds that value (be it religion or politics) close to heart, then it can be very offensive. But what if that value of theirs offends you?

As an atheist, should I have the socially-permissable right to insult the hell out of Christianity – seeing as Christianity as a concept and a religion, offends me? Actually it doesn’t really…but I’m reacting to Christians who are offended by atheists. In an ideal world, nobody would be offended by diverse views on the world – but let’s assume they do. Well..the thing here is that saying Jews are evil (to re use that same example) is deliberate and calculated. Me saying that Christianity is throughly annoying is not deliberately offensive. I don’t go out of my way to insult Christians. I might vote against them or rally against attempts by Family First to destroy secular education…but that’s about it.

Should I make myself feel offended by these people? In reality, I condescendingly cast a weary eye over them and wish they'd just sod off...

People can choose to be offended by someone’s actions, assuming their actions were deliberately offensive. I could choose to be offended by anti-abortion protesters (whose inability to recognise the difference between a bunch of totipotent stem cells is second only to their inability to understand women’s rights), but I’m not. I would understand, however, if a woman who’d recently had an abortion would be offended – particularly if the anti-abortionists were religious ones (the ones who say you’re going to hell if you do X, Y and Z). The midway point between being insulting to someone and unintentionally being rude about their belief system is insensitivity. Most people suffer from this. It’s not deliberate. The problem that lies herein is determining whether something said or done was deliberate or not. It’s no easy feat.

It takes a religious mind to…

…let your daughter die, whilst you pray for her. Of course, we could do what most apologists do and dismiss this case as one of extremism. But surely it takes a tenuous (if not nonexistent reason) justification like that of religion to have such things take place? Would this happen if the individuals concerned were atheists? Surely not.

Discuss.

Language

By Nathaniel.

The idea that we are shackled by our language is by no means a modern one. I think it is safe to assume that all of us here speak a language, and all of us at this blog can read English. We use powerful symbols – letters which in turn form words, which in turn form sentences, which in turn form paragraphs, et cetera – which represent almost everything we can conceive.

The mantra of Ingsoc, the oppressive government in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Arguably George Orwell’s most famous work – and a remarkable impact on modern Western civilization, from futurology to linguistics to politics – Nineteen Eighty-Four carries many powerful themes that still resonate with us sixty years from its original writing. Some of the most celebrated themes are the effects of totalitarianism, nationalism and repressed sexuality. But there is one subject that carries the entire work, perhaps more than the idea of a complete totalitarian state.

Do we control language, or does language control us? Is it a natural, if invisible, force that lives within and through humanity? Some would posit that language is what separates humans from beasts. Some would argue that there is sufficient evidence to claim that the animals themselves have their own language.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four there is a new type of devolved English being created by the oppressive government. It is called Newspeak, and is designed to replace our own Oldspeak. The idea is that our thoughts are controlled by language; remove the shades of meaning that fill English and you have a perfect language for controlling the masses. Everyone truly understand what everyone else means, every single time someone speaks.

Is this a good thing? Imagine how much unnecessary conflict would be removed if everyone knew absolutely what was meant by a national leader or an angry lover. There’d still be a difference in thought, yes – while we may think in our language the argument could be placed that neurologically we simply perceive a translation of powerful ideas and thoughts – but it must surely cut out whatever conflicts we may have.

The late and great Robert Anton Wilson, author of The New Inquisition and Prometheus Rising, states that we shouldn’t remove the dichotomies that make English so versatile, but we should clean up the way we perceive language. For one, we should also speak as if something is assumed, and not an instant given: I believe the world is flat, or I believe that religion is the cause of all conflict in the world. All words are, as he agrees, metaphors; what is ‘the’, except as a tool of separation? The blacks, the socialists, the universe…

The universe is an interesting one. We are all, we know, part of the universe (or Multiverse or your alternative cosmic form)… that is the definition of ‘universe’. So why ‘the’? ‘The’ only serves to separate. That is its function as a word. Another good point is raised by Nietzche: could Descarte have said, “I think, therefore I am,” if he didn’t speak an Indo-European language? It is a convention of that language category that a verb needs a substantive noun before it. Why can’t we translate some Chinese words into English? If it’s just a matter of translating ideas, it should be easy. But it isn’t, really… it’s about translating thought-processes.

There is then the idea that all bastions of power and authority, especially those religious sources, create their own words – their own linguistic symbols – to control and to command. Name a religion that has not invented its own term, especially in a case where one is already available… or for that matter, any fascist or controlling cause. Look at Hitler’s regime, or at the socialist manner of naming words after people – anti-revisionism, for example, as Kim II Jungism. Why would they do that if ‘anti-revisionism’ would suffice? And it does suffice. Most people would be able to grasp the meaning of the word. It’s not a particularly difficult one.

Language, then, to the Nazis and the socialists and to, perhaps, us all, can be a vehicle for casting the blame. Language is a thing that forms naturally, organically, and often at a powerful speed… why, then, shouldn’t it be warped by the intentions of the very people it warps? Those who are controlled by language control language… it is an ancient, familiar cycle of power and deception.

Let’s look at the Bible, an ancient book of wisdom – and here I am only saying that it contains wisdom, not that it is infallible or that it doesn’t also contain a lack of knowledge and insight – that contains the story that concerns the well-known Tower of Babel story. In this story, all of humanity spoke one language before God cursed them with a thousand tongues… cursed them with language. Why would those primitive nomads and foragers consider language as a detriment to humanity, especially as in it’s time it would have been vital for the survival of the tribe?

The question I throw at you, then, is this: can we eliminate racism and sexism and all of those other –isms by modifying language? If we can, should we? How far is too far? Is language purely the thing that sets us apart from the ‘lesser’ species, or is it a disease that we have all caught?

Is religion a form of authority?

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith; we need believing people.

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

Yes, I thought I’d start today’s post with a quote from one of the most famous and ruthless men who ever walked the planet. Adolph was indeed a religious man. Whilst he clearly identified himself as a Catholic, he also is religious in the sense he that he followed a strict, cruel dogma that could not – under any circumstances – be questioned. Religion today is obviously no where near as extreme, but the same form of unquestioning following tends to occur. If, say, the three monotheistic religions (Judaism, Islam and Christianity), were questioned using logic and deductive reasoning (e.g. “if God is morally righteous, why did he allow Hitler to come to power?“), then they – quite simply – would cease to exist in their current form. They rely upon authority for their survival; and what better authority than an ancient convoluted book whose sole existence has been reshaped, altered, censored and re-written across the centuries and is constantly being recited by men in clear authority (e.g. Pope)?

"I don't need to think for myself. I have this book to do it for me."

The reason the Christian Lobby is so avidly against any attempt to cement the separation between Church and State is because it means people will abandon its dogma and find their own path. But this is a good thing. One of my favourite philosophers, Bertrand Russell had this to say in his aptly titled essay “A brief Outline of Intellectual Rubbish“:

As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authoritiy, there is no end to our troubles. Whose authority? The Old Tesament? The New Testament? The Koran? In practice, people choose the book considered sacred by the community in which they are born, and out of that book they choose the parts they like, ignoring the others. At one time, the most influential text in the bible was: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”. Nowadays, people pass over this text, in silence if possible; if not, with an apology. And so, even when we have a sacred book, we still choose as truth whatever suits our own prejudices. No Catholic, for instance, takes seriously the text which says that a bishop should be the husband of one wife.

Bertrand’s digress makes quite an amount of sense to me. All ‘holy books’ effectively act as a Rorschach test and are ‘piloted’ by a figure with power (such as the Pope, or the Ayatollah of Iran) to drive home their own belief system. It’s an intellectual dictatorship; a dogma, by which one may find themselves doing something against their own wishes through the whims of another entity simply because they happen to have faith in an ancient book.  As one anonymous commentator (on a forum somewhere) once remarked “Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned“. Spot-on, I think.

Catholicism explained

By Reuben.

Facebook is just so awesome. So awesome, in fact, that some Catholics are given the opportunity to explain themselves.

John Ashley's irony-o-meter must be malfunctioning

Hear the words of a ‘modern Catholic’:

Hello, everyone.
As a modern catholic I know why you think that the Pope’s stance seems a little crazy but as someone who understands the rules i thought i’d better respectfully tell you why no ammount of preassure will ever change his mind.
You see the Catholic church will NEVER endorse contraception of any kind because in its founding rules it does not believe in sex for any other reason than for having babies or a token of love in marrige. The church would be contradicting itself if it supported contraception because its just like saying its ok to have sex outside of our rules.
The rules will never change, they are there mostly to protect people – even though I’m sure it seems like nannying. There are heaps of reasons why Catholics don’t believe in promiscuous behaviour but i’m sure you guys are smart enough to know them all, so i wont list them ha ha.
Anyway hope you’re a little clearer now.
Happy easter guys, peace

Of course it would be completely presumptuous of me to say all Catholics actually support the Pope’s futile, irrational and unethical approach to tackling the HIV/AIDS crisis, but it certainly concerns me that the Pope’s stance appears unstoppable. Where’s the UN condemning his stance? There should be public outrage at the retarded policy the Vatican has put out. And will the majority of the world’s Catholics turn against the Vatican? That remains to be seen. Thankfully, we have moderate, reasonable Catholics like Kath.

Entrance to Easter

As many of you know, both me and Oskar are attending The University of Melbourne. I’m doing a Bachelor of Environments (a generalist degree readying us for architecture or urban planning, in my case) whilst Oskar is studying a generalist science degree with mathematics and physics as core disciplines (the only two things in life he truly loves).

As most of you know, this time of the year is special for at least to main religions. For Christians, it’s Easter. For Jews, it’s Passover. On campus, all the Christian groups are banding together in one formidable mass (no pun intended) to promote belief in Jesus (remember him?) and faith. To counter this, the UMSS (University of Melbourne Secular Society of which both me and Oskar are a proud part of ) launched a ‘chalk-campaign’ of writing quotes about religion and reason on the ground. The way we battle things out at university between different groups is by drawing, in chalk, on the tarmac and hope for the best. And the best did arrive. On one such quote, about how religion teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world, someone wrote “Religion makes you good; and go to church“. Does anyone find this slightly ironic? Here’s a secular quote alluding to the supremacy of reason and someone comes along and reinforces this, unintentionally.

The Christian groups have also tried to convert me on many occasions. On Wednesday, I was relaxing with some friends on the lawn when two boys came up and asked if they wanted free chocolate biscuits. Naturally I asked “are there any strings attached” to which they gave a negative. But as soon as I had polished off my biscuit, they launched into a tirade of biblical nonsense – thus making the ’string’ a biblical one (presumably attached to heaven). I told them firmly that I was an atheist, that one of my friends was Jewish and that the other two were Christian, so they took head and engaged with my other two friends who happened to be Christian (Pentecostal). I thought that was reasonable of them.

I declined to debate them there and then lest I bring out my sarcastic fury and insult them; but it did get me thinking about something: Why do Christians go out soliciting their wares more than other religions? It’s certainly the case that here in Melbourne, it’s Christians that go around spreading the ‘word’ of ‘Christ’ – rather than Muslims spruiking Mohammad and his ideas or Sikhs going around spreading the word about their Five K’s. Maybe it’s because Christianity, at least in Australia, is losing its appeal with younger generations and is thus becoming more desperate. That was the atmosphere that I gleaned off the readily-assembling Christian students at any rate.

On a final note, I got accosted by a Fundamentalist Catholic on the tram recently; just thought you ought to know.

How Fundamentalists ‘think’

By Reuben

Across the Internet, there is much discussion and discourse on how exactly the Bible, Koran etc pines against homosexuality, abortion etc. As discussed here, some have a more liberal interpretation of such texts. But what makes a fundamentalist determine what’s heretical/bad/liberal/logical from what’s conservative/backwards/myopic/traditional? How do they ‘think’ (and note that I use the term ‘think’ with a certain amount of irony here) or infer biblical, non-biblical or anti-biblical themes from seemingly unconnected policy areas?

The way in which I’ve been thinking about this is their reactions to certain movies – even movies that aren’t overtly on religion. One such movie is V for Vendetta – a fabulous movie in my opinion -  and it has been slammed by many Christian religious groups. I have no clue why; V for Vendetta talks about the tyranny of the British government in the near future when the country becomes a fascist state. It explores the process of change in government through its protagonist – a shadowy character called ‘V’. The main themes in V for Vendetta are:

• Freedom and civil liberties (how the people are being oppressed)
• Estranged Romance (the two main characters develop a bond).
• The believability of deceit and lies (how the fascist state came to be established).
• The limitations of technology (as V says: “ideas are bulletproof“).
• The potentials of anarchy (the fascist reign is toppled).

Naturally, the next question we should be asking ourselves is ‘where does V for Vendetta discuss religion?’ It doesn’t. The only reference I can think of is that the main antagonist – Chancellor Sutler – who masterminded the fascist state is a “deeply religious man“. But, like Hitler, he is clearly motivated by evil – not religion. His character would be just as effective if he were an Atheist.
When his henchman proclaim “strength through unity, unity through faith” the context is not biblical in nature at all, even if the characters themselves are actually religious. If the fascist state was theocratic, logically it would be hunting out atheists as well – yet it’s made very clear that queers, refugees and the mentally unwell are the main targets. Atheism is not painted in a good light or a bad light; it’s not even mentioned.

Chancellor Sutler: a religious man, but places evil in a higher regard

There is no religious undertone whatsoever in the script, but that doesn’t stop our fundamentalists from seeing a pernicious agenda designed to topple their core beliefs, dogmas and superstitions. If Chancellor Sutler was an atheist, would they back down their criticism?

According to ‘Christian Spotlight’, V for Vendetta’s moral ranking is “offensive“. For the most part, their criticism is a reverse ad hominem claim – ‘the evil guys are Christians…why are you making Christians evil?‘. Yes, supposedly Christianity is the antithesis of evil. Here these reviewers roar:

The movie is preachy to say the least, and harps on three major themes and one minor one: 1) the evil of America; 2) the government control of media; 3) the evil of Christianity; and 4) the innocence of Islam.

Yes…that’s right. It’s all against America. To borrow Christian Spotlight’s own ad hominem-styled arguments, V for Vendetta portrays America in a good light…because the fascists are against what they call ‘Arse-erica’. Clearly freedom of speech (which is what V for Vendetta is considerably about) is not in any way, shape or form ‘American’. The irony continues unabated:

The second fiction of the movie is that of a government-controlled (or supported) media which brainwashes its populace. In reality, this is true only of oppressive regimes and socialist societies like England where the media is, in fact, already Leftist. In the United States, we have a freedom of speech that is so wide-ranging in its liberties that it permits our media to print blatant forgeries libeling our President.

Yes, the BBC is obviously less objective than Christian news channels. But this point is irrelevant to the script anyway; the media outlets depicted in V for Vendetta were very much censored. How is this disputing the freedom of America’s press?
Finally the truth is revealed:

The only totalitarianisms we have known in the modern era are either secular or Islamic, precisely the ones that the United States is trying to protect the world from.

Watch out Christians, when the new atheist/Islamic/British order takes hold, you won’t be spared. And here’s the icing on the cake:

And when movies persistently portray our country and our faith as evil, even skeptical believers who think that Hollywood is too shallow or too objective (!) to make anti-Christian movies should sit up and take notice.

Got that Hollywood? You’ve got an agenda to uphold.

Finally, here’s a trailer of V for Vendetta:

Also published on YAS.