Einstein: religion is “childish superstition”
Few other historic figures have had their religious beliefs as thoroughly questioned as that of Albert Einstein. I suppose the problem is that he often used the word “God” in his conversations and writings. Of course, atheists would like to claim him as one but he consistently rebuffed this claim since he considered himself an agnostic. He did though reject the notion of a personal, interventionist god. So at most he was a deist agnostic. But even then, he emphatically pronounced that the god he talked of was “Spinoza’s God“, which broadly translates to god = nature.
The religious claims on Einstein is however a curious phenomenon. Why is it that the religious always seems to want the authority of scientists to effectively disprove science? People who believe in an entirely invisible realm without one iota of evidence ever have being produced – a concept in complete antipathy to science – somehow need a scientist to validate their fantasies. And the more famous the scientist, the better. Hence the continuous claims on Einstein as a believer in “god”.
A year before his death in 1955, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to philosopher Erik Gutkind after reading his book, ‘Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt’. If anyone is still undecided whether Einstein believed in a god, I would suggest this passage from the letter will clear up the matter:
The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. … For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong … have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything “chosen” about them.
Until his dying day, Einstein was in awe of nature, the universe. And like all people who know so much about it, he understood how little we know. This was his mystery, his “god”. As Walter Isaacson says in his book Einstein: His Life and Universe,
For some people, miracles serve as evidence of God’s existence. For Einstein it was the absence of miracles that reflected divine providence. The fact that the world was comprehensible, that it followed laws, was worthy of awe.
International Blasphemy Day
Today is International Blasphemy Day. September 30th is the anniversary of the original publishing of the Danish cartoons in 2005 depicting the prophet Muhammed. This led to orchestrated outrage: at least 135 people were killed in the subsequent violent protests, and death threats were made against the cartoonists and their editor.
In this orgy of lies, hate and violence, who did the Pope and the archbishop of Canterbury rush to condemn? The cartoonists, of course! Because one thing these faith-heads have in common is that they dare not allow free thought to question their indefensible pile of absurdity. The idea behind blasphemy is that certain ideas are sacrosanct and off-limits to critical scrutiny. A wall of obligated “respect” has been built around their silly ideas of talking snakes, celestial virgins, personal deities, spiritual realms and bronze-age dogma.
It’s time to break that wall of immunity down, brick by brick. You want to believe an illiterate goatherd with a taste for blood and prepubescent girls is divine and must be worshipped? Fine – feel free. But don’t expect me not to mock this absurdity. You want to believe a tasteless cracker is the actual flesh of your personal voice in your head? Sure. Why not? I respect your right to do that, just like I respect your right to stick needles through your eyelids. But in either case, don’t expect me not to ridicule your sorry ass.
To mark the day, here is a video from the hilarious Louis CK. I don’t know if it’s blasphemous, but it is very funny.
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A total failure!
I watched this video from Edward Current fully expecting to spend a few minutes smirking at a religious fundie, and then move on to something useful. But this is really funny!
It’s so ridiculous I thought it must be a parody. But like the infamous Bananas are Proof God Exists – by that cretin Ray Comfort and his idiot simpering sidekick, Kirk Cameron – it starts dawning on you that they’re actually serious. Which makes it really funny. The ultimate Poe.
With a round zero, it looks like I will burn in Hell along with its evil denizens George Harrison, Douglas Adams, Mark Twain, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, …. Hmmmm… maybe not such a bad idea after all.
Nigerian Taliban rejects vapour theory of rain
The Boko Haram group, also known as the Nigerian Taliban, is a radical Islamic sect that has launched a number of attacks across northern Nigeria. Its main target has been police stations and it aims to overthrow the government and impose extreme sharia law. Boko Haram means “Western education is a sin”, and the group is determined to outlaw it.
Their leader, a wealthy, “highly educated”, Mercedes-driving Muslim fundamentalist, died in police custody on Thursday. But Mohammed Yusuf’s background doesn’t explain his primitive medieval views. In an interview with the BBC, he espoused some interesting views, to say the least:
In an interview with the BBC before he was killed, Mr Yusuf, 39, said such education “spoils the belief in one God”.“There are prominent Islamic preachers who have seen and understood that the present Western-style education is mixed with issues that run contrary to our beliefs in Islam,” he said.
“Like rain. We believe it is a creation of God rather than an evaporation caused by the sun that condenses and becomes rain.
“Like saying the world is a sphere. If it runs contrary to the teachings of Allah, we reject it. We also reject the theory of Darwinism.”
He’s right of course. It’s absolutely preposterous to believe that rain is not a mysterious gift from god! And like the world isn’t flat! Sure… Look – it may be a slightly bigger stretch to believe that god uniquely created every living thing on earth and minutely controls the activities of every single living cell – but he’s a religious man so he must be right.
Catholic Church: Anti-human and morally depraved
In March this year, a nine-year-old girl was raped in Brazil. This vile deed resulted in the child becoming pregnant and so naturally her family arranged for her to have an abortion. This was the rational, moral and caring thing to do. But the family belonged to the Catholic Church which took a very different view: the abortion was a mortal sin and all those who took part – the parent, medical staff, etc – were excommunicated. As a show of leniency, the bishop withdrew the excommunication of the child.
But this was no local aberration of a policy of human caring and love. No – the pope himself has declared that there is no wiggle room, there is no mercy, there are no special circumstances: everyone in an abortion will be excommunicated.
“Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life,” reads the statement, which widely cites past Vatican documents. “The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.”
People don’t matter. Suffering is of no concern. Human kindness does not flow. No, what matters to these vicious pointy-hatted hate-mongers is Church doctrine. This is the reams and volumes of nonsense dreamt up by generations of sexually repressed, hate-filled ego maniacs. Their ludicrous claims of divine inspiration are used to provide legitimacy – the authority – to their pronouncements.
And so they were excommunicated, another bit of doctrine dreamt up by these holy horrors. Excommunication is a very handy tool in the hands of an evil and corrupt organisation. It is their ultimate source of power and the ultimate weapon to use against your enemies and resentment-filled minions. The threat of excommunication is enough for them to think twice about even questioning the Vatican’s authority.
To a practising Catholic, excommunication is a big deal. It means being burnt in the sulphurous fires of hell for all eternity. Think about that. If you believed this odious drivel it would mean you would live the rest of your life in abject terror of what is about to come. Unimaginable pain and suffering, without any letup, for ever and ever. This is not a light sentence. It is a thoroughly evil idea.
And even though the little victim was not excommunicated, it means that she could live with a lifetime of psychological trauma believing her parents were subject to this fiendish fate.
The Catholic Church has shown itself by its actions and doctrines to be a thoroughly nasty, immoral gang. To the ordinary Catholic: your church hates you. Leave it.
Conspiracy Theorists and Creationsts
The Apollo moon landing missions represents the pinnacle of human achievement. It embodies all the traits that we like to think makes us human. Things like vision and inspirational leadership (“We choose to go to the moon“), individual brilliance (Wernher von Braun), purposeful administration (NASA), practical creativity (the more than 4,000 engineers and designers who worked on the project), great enterprise (Boeing, North American, Douglas, and Rocketdyne) and enormous personal courage (the Astronauts). As President Kennedy called it, “The most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which Man has ever embarked.”
It was a triumph for humanity. It showed us what we are capable of. Humans had broken the bounds from which we had evolved and were exploring the Moon. For hundreds of thousands of years our ancestors had gazed at the moon in the night sky, trying to make sense of it. Now we had stepped on the surface of this mysterious place and left out imprint.
But, I suppose predictably, the conspiracy theory kooks have slithered out of their holes and are once again defaming this magnificent, inspiring achievement with their nasty inane Moon Landing Hoax. This is not a small little fringe group of hopeless eccentrics – for instance, 25% of Britons believe it was a hoax. Hardly any popular article or TV news item about the Moon landing is complete without some reference to the CTists. I suppose they are best ignored but this really does irk me. Of course this is being driven by a smaller hard-core group of tinfoil hatters, but their anti-science delusions are having a bad influence on a generation that should rather have been inspired by the Apollo mission.
I won’t waste my time debunking their nonsense. It’s been done over and over again. Phil Plait, as usual, does a good job of that. But I have been pondering on what drives these nutters to besmirch this enormous achievement. You can read a few opinions on the psychological make-up of conspiraloons here, here and here. One thing that is beyond doubt is that CTists’ belief in their particular hoax is unshakeable. Hard, irrefutable evidence will not sway them from their beliefs. As Cumbrian Sky notes:
The HBs are never, repeat, NEVER going to be convinced that NASA went to the Moon. It doesn’t matter how many times they read, or you explain, that there were no stars in the Moon’s sky because the photos were exposed for the bright surface and foreground, so obviously teeny tiny faint starse wouldn’t be picked up by the camera. You can tell them a million times that the flags left by the astronauts aren’t “blowing in the breeze”, they’re actually flapping about because they’ve got supporting wire frames to stop them hanging there all limp and embarrassing for the photographs. They slap their hands over their ears and sing out “lalalalalala!” when you try to explain that the shadows cast by objects on the Moon look different to shadows cast by objects here on Earth because LIGHTING CONDITIONS ON THE MOON ARE NOTHING LIKE THEY ARE HERE ON EARTH!!
Does this sound familiar? Isn’t this exactly how Young Earth Creationists behave? No scientific evidence – no matter how slam-dunk conclusive – will sway them from the central idea that a supernatural deity created the universe – with the Earth at its centre, and of course man at the centre of that – about 6,000 years ago. And all living things were created by this imaginary dictator and we remain at the mercy of this space monster. So there! If there is any scientific work to be done it’s within this absolute framework. As Ken Ham would say: “Any so-called fact that appears to contradict the bible is not a fact and needs to be re-interpreted in terms of the bible”. No arguments. Don’t bring the evidence.
Like the religious types, CTists like to gather with like-minded believers and believe that they will “find the truth” and spread it to the heathen out there and foster social change. They believe they have “secret” knowledge which they impart to their inner circle of true believers. This sounds remarkably like the Pagans and Gnostics – and even Jesus himself: “The mystery of the kingdom of God has been granted to you. But to those outside everything comes in parables, so that ‘they may look and see but not perceive, and hear and listen but not understand, in order that they may not be converted and be forgiven.’” (Mark 4:10-12 NAB)
Charles Darwin gave us the priceless gift of knowing that we can actually explain the world around us – including our own origins. Creationists with their deep fear of reality would rather have us believe that we are merely pawns in the hands of an all-powerful, all-knowing celestial ruler and that their is no value in pursuing knowledge since the question of the universe and our origins is settled.
The Apollo mission gave us the priceless gift of knowing our capacity for achieving amazing feats – that humans are capable of understanding the Universe and all its wonders. Conspiracy theorists with their deep fear of anything that is beyond their control would rather have us believe that we are mere powerless pawns in the hands of secret, pervasively evil forces that conspire against us for their own nefarious ends.
These fearful little people should not be entertained and their paranoid ravings should be given no further oxygen.
Jebus or hang!
I took this pic in Lagos, Nigeria last year. It’s one of thousands of ads in the city exhorting its denizens to reject reality and embrace an invisible friend.
This one is just pathetic – in a funny sort of way.
How to get to heaven
Getting to heaven seems to the preoccupation of a big slice of the world’s population. I’m not aware if the concept of heaven exists outside the Christian and Muslim faiths, but by all accounts it seems to be fairly popular.
So how do you get there? The traditional way seems to involve a great deal of piety, worshipping, good works, abstinence, praying, praising, sexual repression, obedience, submission, no crime (except for murdering abortionists) and absolute faith in a deity. Unfortunately for those of us who don’t want to go through these rigours and rather choose to live an enjoyable life, the alternative is to roast in the fires of hell for the rest of eternity. Which doesn’t sound nice.
But not any more. In the nick of time a new service, Reserve a Spot in Heaven makes it much easier. For a modest sum you are guaranteed a spot in heaven (money back if you don’t make it), and are given all the required travel and other documentation. Max your order and you get a VIP access pass to exclusive, elite areas of heaven. Seems like a bargain.
But of course heaven might not be your thing. Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything) for example, thinks that heaven would be more like a celestial North Korea, without the option of dying. Which also doesn’t sound very nice. So what to do?
Well you can also Reserve a Spot in Hell. Now wouldn’t that make the perfect gift?
Is homoeopathy a religion?
Religion often makes people do – and defend – the strangest things. But never so strange as when parents knowingly let a child die rather than defy some arcane religious dictate. Jehovah’s Witnesses immediately spring to mind. Many children – and many more adults – die each year from refusing life-saving blood transfusions. For purely religious reasons. Not that there’s any clear “thou shalt not…” injuction against blood transfusions. No, you’ve got to contort your mind around a few obscure words in the bible to see any possible interpretation against blood transfusions. And for this JWs are willing to die – and kill their children. Very, very strange things indeed.
Of course it’s not only Jehovah’s Witnesses, nor indeed only Christians, who are willing to sacrifice their children at the alter of religious dogma. Take the recent case of Daniel Hauser, a 13-year-old cancer patient who refused medical treatment. The boy is illiterate and appears to have little understanding of the chemotherapy treatment and the fact that his form of cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, is very curable in the earlier stages. His mother actually went to court to justify his decision – based on religious principles. His family belong to a faux Native American cult called Nemenhah, who peddle “cures” for AIDS and cancer. Feeble little Daniel Hauser’s parents were willing to let their son die through their belief in a religion run by a huckster. Luckily the court came to his aid and he will have a chance to live.
Some are not so lucky. Take the sad case of little Gloria Thomas, aged nine months. Her homoeopath father, Thomas Sam, let his little daughter suffer to her death from a case of eczema. Her skin got infected and with her body trying to fight it she could not get enough nutrition from her mother’s milk. She died in a pitiful, highly malnourished state – in great agony.
So what religion proscribed proper medical treatment for this innocent baby? What promise of after-life glory was made in an ancient manuscript? What undeniable holy truth led her parents to the conviction that they should spurn the medical advice of many, many doctors to treat their baby’s skin with medicines and relieve her of her terrible suffering?
Homoeopathy.
As they watched their child die, they persisted in treating her with pure water – with nothing. Was Thomas Sam a true believer? Did little Gloria Thomas’s mother, Manju Sam have absolute faith in giving pure water – without so much as a single molecule of active ingredient – as treatment to her easily treatable baby? What would cause a mother and father to reject the the urgings of various health professionals and persist in pursueing homeopathic remedies which time and again obviously had no effect? Wouldn’t some inkling of doubt creep into their deluded minds?
This bears all the hallmarks of religous fanaticsim. Homoeopathy is not a science. At best it can be called psuedo-science. It is such a crazy idea, so far removed from the realms of the possible, that it takes blind faith to believe that it can have any effect at all in treating any condition. In the pantheon of strange ideas, homeopathy is up there with the stangest.
Gloria Thomas’s parents were convicted in an Australian court of manslaughter by gross criminal negligence. They face 25 years in jail. Thomas Sam is unrepentant.
Homoeopathy might not be a religion, but it sure looks like one.
Funny, those Catholics
The Catholics have come under a bit of stick lately (here and here). So now it’s time to poke a bit of fun at them.
There’s an amusing little test you can take to see what sort of Pope you would be. I seem to come out just all weird:
Seek help now!
You are a giddy combo of the weirder Popes, Stephen VI, Benedict XVI and St Peter
When I saw this headline, “Pope Forgives Molested Children”, I thought, “Yes – of course that’s how he would respond.” But truth is no less stranger than fiction. This one is from The Onion:
“Though grave and terrible sins have been committed, our Lord
teaches us to turn the other cheek and forgive those who sin against
us,” said the pope, reading a prepared statement from a balcony
overlooking St. Peter’s Square. “That is why, despite the terrible
wrongs they have committed, the church must move on and forgive these
children for their misdeeds.”“As Jesus said, ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,’”
the pope continued. “We must send a clear message to these
hundreds—perhaps thousands—of children whose sinful ways have tempted
so many of the church’s servants into lustful violation of their holy
vows of celibacy. The church forgives them for their transgressions and
looks upon them not with intolerance, but compassion.”
Yes, very difficult to separate truth from fiction.
If there is any humour to be found in the vile excretion from that repulsive sack of vomit Bill Donohue and his defense of child abuse, it is in him being totally pwned by Colm O’Gorman, Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland and a child rape victim himself.
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