The top ten ways it could get worse

Swine flu is now here in Vancouver – and for the record, they’ve run out of surgical masks at Yoko Yaya.  That’s a Japanese dollar store in Tinseltown.  I checked, for, um … curiosity.

If you look at the news today, there’s nothing in it that would have been credible fiction just 2 years ago.  The black president’s first 100 days, the Great Recession, the Pandemic, Susan Boyle, pirates …

Life has taken a turn – not just for the worse, but for the hackneyed and absurd.  So keeping in that vein, what is the next ‘end of days’ scenario we’re going to heap on this massive cluster frak we call the 21st century?

I don’t know specifically what the next thing coming is, but seeing as I’ve read every word of dystopian fiction ever published – from Nous Autres to World War Z – I think I could work out the top ten most likely scenarios:

1. Terrorists hijack blimp and hold it hostage over Los Angelas
2. That Swiss cyclotron thing goes out of control and can’t be shut off, causing earthquakes, and fears that the planet will be split apart
3. Terrorists kidnap the president’s African half-brother and hold him hostage for a billion dollars
4. On his death bed, Stephen Hawking admits that he and all the other scientists have been keeping Earth’s impending destruction by a black hole secret
5. All the dolphins vanish overnight
6. After a Tsarist coup in Russia, mad Tsar Nicholas XXIII invades the Ukraine in a vain attempt to rebuild the Russian empire
7. A computer virus causes all of our screens to flash in this weird way that only effects children, causing them to commit suicide
8. All the Christians vanish overnight
9. Scientologists reveal themselves as a coalescent super being with weird collective mental powers
10. Killer bees

If there are any I missed, let me know in the comments.

There is no hiccupping in Islam

So Cathy’s daughter is really into Islam.  She gets into a lot of esoteric things,  at Christmas it was Kwanza, a few weeks ago, Salish folk tales.  This week – Islam.  So we were in Richmond last weekend and we got her a book for kids about Islam.

Today Cathy’s reading it to her and she’s learning about the basic do’s and don’t’s of Islam and while they’re reading, Cathy hiccups.  To which her daughter shouts “there’s a rule, no hiccuping in Islam!”.

Then she (the 7-year old) punched her (Cathy) in the chest.  Hard.  First time ever.

I don’t know what that says about anything, but that’s the funniest damned thing I’ve heard all week.

Adult incest the next great frontier

The gay marriage debate is done.  Now the debate’s over polygamy and I presume polyandry.  But once that issue is inevitably settled in favour of plural marriage, what’s next?  I suspect the next great frontier is adult incest.  And why not?

I don’t mean that in a passive, ‘what the hell?’ kind of way – I mean, literally “why not?” – what are the specific reasons that it shouldn’t be so?

The definition of marriage is arbitrary.  Yes, it’s universal in some ways – but it’s always left out some minorities who are looking for something a bit saucier.  Which is fair play to them I suppose.  If we take religion out of it, and argue from first principles, what is to stop us from allowing gay marriage / polygamy / and incest?

And what are those first principles anyway?

I think the one thing the majority of us could agree on, and the closest we can get to first principles, is to say that consenting adults can do whatever they wish with each other (short of cannibalism) in their own bedrooms.

I can see how polygamy offends the idea of free consent in some ways.  For example, let’s take a random fellow, let’s call him Steve.  Now Steve has a wife named Lulu.  He asked her to marry him and she said yes.  She’s grown a bit round the midriff, so Steve’s eye has wandered and now he’s asked Donna to marry him.  She’s said ‘yes’ – but there lies the problem.  Who asked Lulu?  If Lulu is going to be in a group marriage with Donna, shouldn’t her consent be sought?  Shouldn’t she be involved in the ceremony?

I think polygamy and polyandry, in which consent of all parties concerned was enshrined as the determining factor of its legality, would be fine.  This would rule out the religious form of the practice granted, but those people can’t have it both ways.  The only reason polygamy is even on the table is because we’ve removed religion from the equation.  If faith still mattered, then marriage would be between one man and one woman – end of story.  You can’t go back and say that the only religion that doesn’t matter is Christianity.  If Christianity doesn’t matter, Islam doesn’t matter and Mormonism doesn’t matter either.

Now getting to incest – here we have two adults.  If they choose to mate, what business is it of the state to disrupt it?  Yes, it’s disgusting, but so are a lot of things.  If we take religion and tradition out of the equation – what do we have left to say that incestual marriages between consenting adults are wrong?

Honestly, I can’t think of a good reason.  I’d like to find a good reason, because the idea creeps me out.  If you’ve got one that doesn’t fall back on religious assertions, then I’m all ears.

The Ottawa Citizen has more on this topic here.

Iran to allow woman to take an eye for an eye if she can raise 20,000 Euros

Bottle of acid at the hardware store – $5.99

Amount needed to legally blind an Iranian acid thrower – 20,000 Euros

Medieval justice – priceless

An Iranian woman living in Spain said Wednesday she welcomed a Tehran court ruling that awards her eye-for-an-eye justice against a suitor who blinded her with acid.

Ameneh Bahrami, 30, told Cadena SER radio, “I am not doing this out of revenge, but rather so that the suffering I went through is not repeated.”

Late last year an Iranian court ruled that the man — identified only as Majid — who blinded Bahrami in 2004 after she spurned him, should also be blinded with acid based on the Islamic law system of “qisas,” or eye-for-an-eye retribution, according to Iranian newspaper reports from November.

But Bahrami, who moved to Spain after the attack to get medical treatment, said Wednesday that under Iranian law, she is entitled to blind him in only one eye, unless she pays euro20,000 ($25,110), because in Iran women are not considered equal to men … She says she now survives on euro400 ($500) a month in aid from the Spanish government. [source]

If there were an anonymous tip jar for this woman, I think I might kick in a few dollars.  Guilty pleasure.

Hitchens couldn’t get any cooler

In Britain there’s an expression – “Gordon Bennett” – you say it when you’re surprised at the gall of someone.  Gordon Bennett was this American who did outrageous things on a regular basis.  My favourite story about him is the night that he was introduced to his future in laws – he got drunk off his ass and pissed in the fire place for all to see.

One day, hopefully, future generations’ll shout “Christopher Hitchens” at kids who tuck the table cloth into their shirts at fancy dinner parties, or wipe their nose on a wedding dress or what have you.  I mean that in a good way…

Christopher Hitchens is currently in Beirut sponsored by the same group that owns that crap NOW Lebanon. He got in a few nights ago and surprisingly went out drinking. On his way out of the bar he saw an SSNP poster [pictured above] and wrote on it “Fuck the SSNP”. There just happened to be some SSNP thugs near by–most likely asking people for their ID, and most likely to no avail–and saw him write on the poster and kicked his ass… “I was on the ground,” Hitchens said, “and getting it in the head.” It was a miracle they didn’t pull Kalashnikovs. [source]

BC to allow witch doctors to prescribe medication

There’s a good resource on the web called ‘What’s the harm?‘.  It was created as a reply to a question that skeptics hear all the time – ex. ‘what’s the harm, if people believe in faith healing/ homeopathy / ear candling / etc…?’.  The site lists the harm committed by the practitioners of a few dozen different branches of pseudoscience.

Hopefully, you won’t be surprised to find Naturopathy on their list of pseudosciences. Their entry on naturopathy lists 200 cases where it has caused loss of life or limb(s).  Here’s a typical case:

GATINEAU, QUE. — A Quebec judge convicted a naturotherapist of manslaughter and criminal negligence causing death yesterday for advising a woman to replace her diabetic daughter’s insulin treatment with cane sugar, pear juice, olive oil massages and sea salt baths. Louise Lortie, a self-proclaimed natural therapist from Gatineau testified she gave the advice after consulting a crystal ball, a pendulum and her archangel, Michael.   Lisanne Manseau, 12, of Hull, Que., died March 28, 1994, three days after starting Lortie’s treatment.   Lortie, now 68, was first charged criminally in 1995. That year, she was also found guilty of 34 charges laid by the Quebec College of Physicians of illegally practising medicine.

Which brings me to this article from Saturday’s Vancouver Sun:

Naturopathic doctors in B.C. could soon be allowed to prescribe medications if the provincial government goes ahead with plans to change its health profession regulations.

The changes would make B.C. the first province in Canada to grant naturopathic doctors the authority to prescribe drugs such as antibiotics, painkillers and anti-depressants.

… Dr. Brian Montgomery, founder of Vancouver’s Mainland Medical Clinic, is outraged at the possibility that naturopathic doctors will be allowed to prescribe medications.

He said naturopathy is a “faith-based practice” rather than one based in science and that it would be dangerous to allow naturopathic doctors to prescribe medications. _

“Naturopaths shroud themselves in a patina of science,” said Montgomery, who does not speak on behalf of the BCMA.

“They use scientific-type sounding words, they will wear white coats, they call themselves doctors, they’ll have clinics, so everything looks very clinical and scientific.”

Naturopaths in BC are regulated by the ‘College of Naturopathic Physicians of British Columbia‘ (CNPBC).  Their site lists only one accredited school in BC – the Boucher Institute.  In the Sun article,  Dr. Montgomery calls Naturopathy a ‘faith-based practice’ – that’s pretty harsh, but you don’t need to take that claim on faith.  Take a look at what these naturopaths are taught, visit the school website (don’t miss the blurb on the front page).  The thing I found most interesting on their site was the Naturopath course curriculum.

Here’s the reason - again, from the Sun:

Lorne Swetlikoff, president of the college, says the revised regulations are within the scope of practice for naturopathic doctors because they are already fully trained in pharmacology, much like medical doctors, and they are trained to diagnose and treat disease.

Read the curriculum.  While there’s not a single course called ‘pharmacology’ – there are four that go into homeopathy (that’s the science of selling diluted alcohol and water for $12 per 20ml bottle*).  In fact, looking at what they study,  theses students seem to spend more time learning about how to water the inside of a patient’s bum than they do about administering pharmaceuticals.

It’s disturbing in two ways.  First, a lot of gullible people will be putting their health at even greater risk.  Second, the more these “alternative” therapies are given legitimacy, the closer they move to the public system.  The fact that people need to pay out of pocket to see a naturpath may be a barrier to them gaining wider acceptance (and exposing more people to ineffective therapies like homeopathy).  There are a finite number of dollars in the public system – we shouldn’t allow a cent of it to be syphoned off by the peddlers of miracle “Nerve Tonic” (literally).

“You can be good without God.” vs “The Vaginas are coming.” Guess which ad Halifax banned from their buses?

The city of Halifax won’t let this phrase on their buses: “You can be good without God.”

They say it’s too controversial.  Think about that for a second.  That phrase is controversial?  Meaning that the bus company believes there is a whole body of people who think that atheists can’t be good unless they submit to a god – though, I suppose believers would mean their god.

That’s a naked prejudice, a blatant prejudice against atheists.  And the bus company isn’t prepared to stand up to that?  In effect, isn’t that saying that the other side of the ‘good without god’ debate has a valid point?

Here’s what the transit authority said about the ads:

“So, if anytime we feel there’s a message that could be controversial and upsetting to people, we don’t necessarily sell the ads.”

Upsetting to whom?  Seriously, if that message upsets you – then who cares what you think?

Here’s an ad that passed the censors and made its way to the back of a Halifax bus – i.e. it passed their ‘controversy and comfort’ test:

Now in all honesty, looking at that, do you really believe this is about keeping the bus grandma friendly?  Coming vaginas vs. good without god?   Someone up there doesn’t like us atheists.

More discussion on this at the Atheist Bus site.

The very defintion of cognitive dissonance: left-winger wishes Palestinians would knock it off with all that Allah business

While the actual definition of cognitive dissonance is: “an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. “*, this is at least a very good example of it.  From the Guardian’s Comment is Free section:

On Saturday I attended the London demo held in solidarity for the people of Gaza…My quibble is more with some aspects of the demo itself…

I had an uncomfortable feeling I couldn’t articulate until I was leaving via Charing Cross tube. It was crowded inside as we made our way to the trains. Two girls started to chant “We are Hamas” (I’m not, thank you very much) but were almost immediately drowned out by “Free free Palestine” before I had the chance to get annoyed. And then it came: Allah hu Akbar, Allah hu Akbar on repeat. Our fellow white travellers said little.

And therein lies my problem. I came to the march to express solidarity with Palestinians and express my anger at Israel’s bombings. I didn’t come to express solidarity with Hamas, nor want to come to a religious march. If I wanted to hear “God is Great” I could have gone to a mosque or a gurudwara. But I didn’t. People can say what they want – freedom of speech etc – but I think this encapsulates a broader problem.

British Muslim organisations have broadly failed to capitalise on the widespread support for Palestinians in the UK, compared to the United States, by constantly bringing religion into a dispute essentially about land…

But many Britons, despite their sympathies, won’t I suspect because they feel such events are dominated by religious types who like to shout Allah hu Akbar, and rudeboys with kaffiyeh bandanas who like to prance around in front of the television. Let me tell it to you straight: it doesn’t help the cause.

The issue needs a certain amount of political maturity that neither the Socialist Workers Party nor the Muslim Association of Britain, the chief organisers, are able to muster. Arguably, this is done to the origin of these organisation themselves.

Either way, it also explains why, following the massive anti-war march of 2003, not much really followed through. Their focus was on creating a narrow Muslim/socialists alliance which ended up turning off most well-intentioned middle-of-the-road people not long after. The “We Are Hizbullah” movement was especially ugly, following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, as is the inclusion of extremist groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir.

My point is this: unless Muslim, Sikh and other organisations find ways to broaden their coalitions, whether through language or focus, then their issues can easily remain neglected. Many of the Muslim organisations who organise these marches, for example, are rarely seen expressing solidarity when non-Muslims are involved in human rights abuses. I think that’s short-sighted.

It’s a problem of first principles isn’t it?  That may be where people like this have gone wrong.  They seem not to have noticed that as Hamas’ missiles were plowing – unanswered – into southern Israel, their particular patch of dirt was Judenrein*.  That is to say, the only Jew on Gazan soil, was a hostage, kidnapped by the elected government of the strip (pictued above).

So if it’s not about land what is it about?  Look around, all that unpleasantness at the demos … the Allahuakbar business, the ‘rudeboys’?

Here’s a hint:

Jean Meslier – Superstition in All Ages – Part two of twenty

Part two of the atheist bible.  Part one can be found here.

WHAT IS THEOLOGY?

There is a science which has for its object only incomprehensible things. Unlike all others, it occupies itself but with things unseen. Hobbes calls it “the kingdom of darkness.” In this land all obey laws opposed to those which men acknowledge in the world they inhabit. In this marvelous region light is but darkness, evidence becomes doubtful or false, the impossible becomes credible, reason is an unfaithful guide, and common sense changed into delirium. This science is named Theology, and this Theology is a continual insult to human reason.

By frequent repetition of if, ‘but, and perhaps, we succeed in forming an imperfect and broken system which perplexes men’s minds to the extent of making them forget the clearest notions, and to render uncertain the most palpable truths. By the aid of this systematic nonsense, all nature has become an inexplicable enigma for man ; the visible world has disappeared to give place to invisible regions; reason is obliged to give place to imagination, which can lead us only to the land of chimeras which she herself has invented.

IV. MAN BORN NEITHER RELIGIOUS NOR DEISTICAL.

All religious principles are founded upon the idea of a God, but it is impossible for men to have true ideas of a being who does not act upon any one of their senses. All our ideas are but pictures of objects which strike us. What can the idea of God represent to us when it is evidently an idea without an object? Is not such an idea as impossible as an effect without a cause ? An idea without a prototype, is it anything but a chimera? Some theologians, however, assure us that the idea of God is innate, or that men have this idea from the time of their birth. Every principle is a judgment ; all judgment is the effect of experience ; experience is not acquired but by the exercise of the senses; from which it follows that religious principles are drawn from nothing, and are not innate.

V. IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO BELIEVE IN A GOD, AND THE MOST REASONABLE THING IS NOT TO THINK OF HIM.

No religious system can be founded otherwise than upon the nature of God and of men, and upon the relations they bear to each other. But, in order to judge of the reality of these relations, we must have some idea of the Divine nature. But everybody tells us that the essence of God is incomprehensible to man; at the same time they do not hesitate to assign attributes to this incomprehensible-God, and assure us that man can not dispense with a knowledge of this God so impossible to conceive of. The most important thing for men is that which is the most impossible for them to comprehend. If God is incomprehensible to man, it would seem rational never to think of Him at all; but religion concludes that man is crimnial if he ceases for a moment to revere Him.

VI. RELIGION IS FOUNDED UPON CREDULITY.

We are told that Divine qualities are not of a nature to be grasped by limited minds. The natural consequence of this principle ought to be that the Divine qualities are not made to employ limited minds ; but religion assures us that, limited minds sh’ould never lose sight of this inconceivable being, whose qualities can not be grasped by them; from which we see that religion is the art of occupying limited minds with that which is impossible for them to comprehend.

VH. EVERY RELIGION IS AN ABSURDITY.

Religion unites man with God or puts them in communication; but do you say that God is infinite ? If God is infinite, no finite being can have communication or any relation with Him. Where there are no relations, there can be no union, no correspondence, no duties. If there are no duties between man and his God, there exists no religion for man. Thus by saying that God is infinite, you annihilate, from that moment, all religion for man, who is a finite being. The idea of infinity is for us an idea without model, without prototype, without object.

THE NOTION OF GOD IS IMPOSSIBLE.

If God is an infinite being, there can be neither in the actual world or in another any proportion between man and his God ; thus the idea of God will never enter the human mind. In the supposition of a life where men will be more enlightened than in this one, the infinity of God will always place such a distance between his idea and the limited mind of man, that he will not be able to conceive of God any more in a future life than in the present. Hence, it evidently follows that the idea of God will not be better suited to man in the other life than in the present. God is not made for man; it follows also that intelligences superior to man such as angels, archangels, seraphims, and saints can have no more complete notions of God than has man, who does not understand anything about Him here below.

IX. ORIGIN OF SUPERSTITION.

How is it that we have succeeded in persuading reasonable beings that the thing most impossible to understand was the most essential for them. It is because they were greatly frightened; it is because when men are kept in fear they cease to reason; it is because they have been expressly enjoined to distrust their reason. When the brain is troubled, we believe everything and examine nothing.

X. ORIGIN OF ALL RELIGION.

Ignorance and fear are the two pivots of all religion. The uncertainty attending man ’s relation to his God is precisely the motive which attaches him to his religion. Man is afraid when in darkness physical or moral. His fear is habitual to him and becomes a necessity; he would believe that he lacked something if he had nothing to fear.

XI. IN THE NAME OF RELIGION CHARLATANS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE WEAKNESS OF MEN.

He who from his childhood has had a habit of trembling every time he heard certain words, needs these words, and needs to tremble. In this way he is more disposed to listen to the one who encourages his fears than to the one who would dispel his fears. The superstitious man wants to be afraid ; his imagination demands it. It seems that he fears nothing more than having no object to fear. Men are imaginary patients, whom interested charlatans take care to encourage in their weakness, in order to have a market for their remedies. Physicians who order a great number of remedies are more listened to than those who recommend a good regimen, and who leave nature to act.

XH. RELIGION ENTICES IGNORANCE BY THE AID OF THE MARVELOUS.

If religion was clear, it would have fewer attractions for the ignorant. They need obscurity, mysteries, fables, miracles, incredible things, which keep their brains perpetually at work. Romances, idle stories, tales of ghosts and witches, have more charms for the vulgar than true narrations. In the matter of religion, men are but overgrown children. The more absurd a religion is, and the fuller of marvels, the more power it exerts; the devotee thinks himself obliged to place no limits to his credulity ; the more inconceivable things are, the more divine they appear to him; the more incredible they are, the more merit he gives himself for believing them.

XIV. THERE WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ANY RELIGION IF THERE HAD NEVER BEEN ANY DARK AND BARBAROUS AGES.

The origin of religious opinions dates, as a general thing, from the time when savage nations were yet in a state of infancy. It was to coarse, ignorant, and stupid men that the founders of religion addressed themselves in all ages, in order to present them with Gods, ceremonies, histories of fabulous Divinities, marvelous and terrible fables. These chimeras, adopted without examination by the fathers, have been transmitted with more or less changes to their polished children, who often do not reason more than their fathers.

XV. ALL RELIGION WAS BORN OF THE DESIRE TO DOMINATE.

The first legislators of nations had for their object to dominate. The easiest means of succeeding was to frighten the people and to prevent them from reasoning; they led them by tortuous paths in order that they should not perceive the designs of their guides; they compelled them to look into the air, for fear they should look to their feet; they amused them upon the road by stories ; in a word, they treated them in the way of nurses, who employ songs and menaces to put the children to sleep, or to force them to be quiet.

XVI. THAT WHICH SERVES AS A BASIS FOR ALL RELIGION IS VERY UNCERTAIN.

The existence of a God is the basis of all religion. Few people seem to doubt this existence, but this fundamental principle is precisely the one which prevents every mind from reasoning. The first question of every catechism was, and will always be, the most difficult one to answer.

XVII. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE CONVINCED OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.

Can one honestly say that he is convinced of the existence of a being whose nature is not known, who remains inaccessible to all our senses, and of whose qualities we are constantly assured that they are incomprehensible to us? In order to persuade me that a being exists, or can exist, he must begin by telling me what this being is ; in order to make me believe the existence or the possibility of such a being, he must tell me things about him which are not contradictory, and which do not destroy one another ; finally, in order to convince me fully of the existence of this being, he must tell me things about him which I can comprehend, and prove to me that it is impossible that the being to whom he attributes these qualities does not exist. A thing is impossible when it is composed of two ideas so antagonistic, that we can not think of them at the same time. Evidence can be relied on only when confirmed by the constant testimony of our senses, which alone give birth to ideas, and enable us to judge of their conformity or of their incompatibility. That which exists necessarily, is that of which the non-existence would imply contradiction. These principles, universally recognized, are at fault when the question of the existence of God is considered ; what has been said of Him is either unintelligible or perfectly contradictory; and for this reason must appear impossible to every man of common sense.

XIX. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IS NOT PROVED.

All human intelligences are more or less enlightened and cultivated. By what fatality is it that the science of God has never been explained? The most civilized nations and the most profound thinkers are of the same opinion in regard to the matter as the most barbarous nations and the most ignorant and rustic people. As we examine the subject more closely, we will find that the science of divinity by means of reveries and subtleties has but obscured it more and more. Thus far, all religion has been founded on what is called in logic, a “begging of the question;” it supposes freely, and then proves, finally, by the suppositions it has made.

XX. TO SAY THAT GOD IS A SPIRIT, IS TO SPEAK WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING AT ALL.

By metaphysics, God is made a pure spirit, but has modern theology advanced one step further than the theology of the barbarians? They recognized a grand spirit as master of the world. The barbarians, like all ignorant men, attribute to spirits all the effects of which their inexperience prevents them from discovering the true causes. Ask a barbarian what causes your watch to move, he will answer, ‘ ‘ a spirit ! ‘ ‘ Ask our philosophers what moves the universe, they will tell you ” it is a spirit. ‘ ‘

Jean Meslier – Superstition in All Ages – Part one of twenty

I was looking around the web for the full text of Jean Messlier’s book: Superstition in all ages.  There is precisely one web link to it’s full English text on-line.  That’s a shame.  His book was one of my inspirations.  Up there with the first 600 or so pages of Atlas Shrugged.

Here’s Meslier from Wikipedia:

Jean Meslier was born January 15, 1664, in Mazerny in the Ardennes. He began learning Latin from a neighborhood priest in 1678 and eventually joined the seminary; he later claimed, in the Author’s Preface to his Testament, this was done to please his parents. At the end of his studies, he took Holy Orders and, on January 7, 1689, became priest at Étrépigny, in Champagne. One public disagreement with a local nobleman aside, Meslier was to all appearances generally unremarkable, and he performed his office without complaint or problem for 40 years.

When Meslier died, there were found in his house three copies of a 633-page octavo manuscript in which the village curate denounces religion as “but a castle in the air”, and theology as “but ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system”.

I’ve decided to post his book, his final testament, on the blog and hopefully get it better known.  One bit at a time.  Here’s part one of the atheist bible.

SUPERSTITION IN ALL AGES: A DYING CONFESSION

BY JEAN MESLIER

A Roman Catholic Priest, who at his death left as his “Last Will and Testament” this now famous manuscript as contained herein, entitled COMMON SENSE

WHEN we wish to examine in a cool, calm way the opinions of men, we are very much surprised to find that in those which we consider the most essential, nothing is more rare than to find them using common sense; that is to say, the portion of judgment sufficient to know the most simple truths, to reject the most striking absurdities, and to be shocked by palpable contradictions. We have an example of this in Theology, a science revered in all times, in all countries, by the greatest number of mortals; an object considered the most important, the most useful, and the most indispensable to the happiness of society. If they would but take the trouble to sound the principles upon which this pretended science rests itself, they would be compelled to admit that the principles which were considered incontestable, are but hazardous suppositions, conceived in ignorance, propagated by enthusiasm or bad intention, adopted by timid credulity, preserved by habit, which never reasons, and revered solely because it is not comprehended. Some, says Montaigne, make the world believe that which they do not themselves believe, a greater number of others make themselves believe, not comprehending what is to believe. In a word, whoever will consult common sense upon religious opinions, and will carry into the examination the attention given to objects of ordinary interest, will easily perceive that the opinions have no solid foundation ; that all religion is but a castle in the air ; that Theology is but ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system ; that it is but a long tissue of chimeras and contradictions; that it presents to all the different nations of the earth only romances devoid of probability, of which the hero himself is made up of qualities impossible to reconcile, his name having the power to excite in all hearts respect and fear, is found to be but a vague word, which men continually utter, being able to attach to it only such ideas or qualities as are belied by the facts, or which evidently contradict each other. The notion of this imaginary being, or rather the word by which we designate him, would be of no consequence did it not cause ravages without number upon the earth. Born into the opinion that this phantom is for them a very interesting reality, men, instead of wisely concluding from its incomprehensibility that they are exempt from thinking of it, on the contrary, conclude that they can not occupy themselves enough about it, that they must meditate upon it without ceasing, reason without end, and never lost sight of it. The invincible ignorance in which they are kept in this respect, far from discouraging them, does but excite their curiosity ; instead of putting them on guard against their imagination, this ignorance makes them positive, dogmatic, imperious, and causes them to quarrel with all those who oppose doubts to the reveries which their brains have brought forth. What perplexity, when we attempt to solve an unsolvable problem! Anxious meditations upon an object impossible to grasp, and which, however, is supposed to be very important to him, can but put a man into bad humor, and produce in his brain dangerous transports. When interest, vanity, and ambition are joined to such a morose disposition, society necessarily becomes troubled. This is why so many nations have often become the theaters of extravagances caused by nonsensical visionists, who, publishing their shallow speculations for the eternal truth, have kindled the enthusiasm of princes and of people, and have prepared them for opinions which they represented as essential to the glory of divinity and to the happiness of empires. We have seen, a thousand times, in all parts of our globe, infuriated fanatics slaughtering each other, lighting the funeral piles, committing without scruple, as a matter of duty, the greatest crimes. Why? To maintain or to propagate the impertinent conjectures of enthusiasts, or to sanction the knaveries of impostors on account of a being who exists only in their imagination, and who is known only by the ravages, the disputes, and the follies which he has caused upon the earth.

Originally, savage nations, ferocious, perpetually at war, adored, under various names, some God con-formed to their ideas; that is to say, cruel, carnivorous, selfish, greedy of blood. We find in all the religions of the earth a God of armies, a jealous God, an avenging God, an exterminating God, a God who enjoys carnage and whose worshipers make it a duty to serve him to his taste. Lambs, bulls, children, men, heretics, infidels, kings, whole nations, are sacrificed to him. The zealous servants of this barbarous God go so far as to believe that they are obliged to offer themselves as a sacrifice to him. Everywhere we see zealots who, after having sadly meditated upon their terrible God, imagine that, in order to please him, they must do themselves all the harm possible, and inflict upon themselves, in his honor, all imaginable torments. In a word, everywhere the baneful ideas of Divinity, far from consoling men for misfortunes incident to their existence, have filled the heart with trouble, and given birth to follies destructive to them. How could the human mind, filled with frightful phantoms and guided by men interested in perpetuating its ignorance and its fear, make progress ? Man was compelled to vegetate in his primitive stupidity; he was preserved only by invisible powers, upon whom his fate was supposed to depend. Solely occupied with his alarms and his unintelligible reveries, he was always at the mercy of his priests, who reserved for themselves the right of thinking for him and of regulating his conduct. Thus man was, and always remained, a child without experience, a slave without courage, a loggerhead who feared to reason, and who could never escape from the labyrinth into which his ancestors had misled him ; he felt compelled to groan under the yoke of his Gods, of whom he knew nothing except the fabulous accounts of their ministers. These, after having fettered him by the ties of opinion, have remained his masters or delivered him up defenseless to the absolute power of tyrants, no less terrible than the Gods, of whom they were the representatives upon the earth. Oppressed by the double yoke of spiritual and temporal power, it was impossible for the people to instruct themselves and to work for their own welfare. Thus, religion, politics, and morals became sanctuaries, into which the profane were not permitted to enter. Men had no other morality than that which their legislators and their priests claimed as descended from unknown empyrean regions. The human mind, perplexed by these theological opinions, misunderstood itself, doubted its own powers, mistrusted experience, feared truth, disdained its reason, and left it to blindly follow authority. Man was a pure machine in the hands of his tyrants and his priests, who alone had the right to regulate his movements. Always treated as a slave, he had at all times and in all places the vices and dispositions of a slave.

These are the true sources of the corruption of habits, to which religion never opposes anything but ideal and ineffectual obstacles; ignorance and servitude have a tendency to make men wicked and unhappy. Science, reason, liberty, alone can reform them and render them more happy; but everything conspires to blind them and to conform them in their blindness. The priests deceive them, ty- rants corrupt them in order to subjugate them more easily. Tyranny has been, and will always be, the chief source of the depraved morals and habitual calamities of the people. These, almost always fascinated by their religious notions or by metaphysical fictions, instead of looking upon the natural and visible causes of their miseries, attribute their vices to the imperfections of their nature, and their misfortunes to the anger of their Gods ; they offer to Heaven vows, sacrifices, and presents, in order to put an end to their misfortunes, which are really due only to the negligence, the ignorance, and to the perversity of their guides, to the folly of their institutions, to their foolish customs, to their false opinions, to their unreasonable laws, and especially to their want of enlightenment. Let the mind be filled early with true ideas; let man’s reason be cultivated; let justice govern him; and there will be no need of opposing to his passions the powerless barrier of the fear of Gods. Men will be good when they are well taught, well governed, chastised or censured for the evil, and justly rewarded for the good which they have done to their fellow-citizens. It is idle to pretend to cure mortals of their vices if we do not begin by curing them of their prejudices. It is only by showing them the truth that they can know their best interests and the real motives which will lead them to happiness. Long enough have the instructors of the people fixed their eyes on heaven ; let them at last bring them back to the earth. Tired of an incomprehensible theology, of ridiculous fables, of impenetrable mysteries, of puerile ceremonies, let the hu- man mind occupy itself with natural things, intelligible objects, sensible truths, and useful knowledge. Let the vain chimeras which beset the people be dissipated, and very soon rational opinions will fill the minds of those who were believed fated to be always in error. To annihilate religious prejudices it would be sufficient to show that what is inconceivable to man can not be of any use to him. Does it need, then, anything but simple common sense to perceive that a being most clearly irreconcilable with the notions of mankind, that a cause continually opposed to the effects attributed to him ; that a being of whom not a word can be said without falling into contradictions; that a being who, far from explaining the mysteries of the universe, only renders them more inexplicable ; that a being to whom for so many centuries men ad- dressed themselves so vainly to obtain their happiness and deliverance from their sufferings; does it need, I say, more than simple common sense to understand that the idea of such a being is an idea without model, and that he is himself evidently not a reasonable being? Does it require more than common sense to feel that there is at least delirium and frenzy in hating and tormenting each other for unintelligible opinions of a being of this kind? Finally, does it not all prove that morality and virtue are totally incompatible with the idea of a God, whose ministers and interpreters have painted him in all countries as the most fantastic, the most unjust, and the most cruel of tyrants, whose pre- tended wishes are to serve as rules and laws for the inhabitants of the earth? To discover the true principles of morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of Gods; they need but common sense ; they have only to look within themselves, to reflect upon their own nature, to consult their obvious interests, to consider the object of society and of each of the members who compose it, and they will easily understand that virtue is an advantage, and that vice is an injury to beings of their species. Let us teach men to be just, benevolent, moderate, and sociable, not because their Gods exact it, but to please men; let us tell them to abstain from vice and from crime, not because they will be punished in another world, but because they will suffer in the present world. There are, says Montesquieu, means to prevent crime, they are sufferings; to change the manners, these are good examples. Truth is simple, error is complicated, uncertain in its gait, full of byways; the voice of nature is intelligible, that of falsehood is ambiguous, enigmatical, and mysterious ; the road of truth is straight, that of imposture is oblique and dark ; this truth, always necessary to man, is felt by all just minds ; the lessons of reason are followed by all honest souls ; men are unhappy only because they are ignorant; they are ignorant only because everything conspires to prevent them from being enlightened, and they are wicked only because their reason is not sufficiently developed.

COMMON SENSE

Detexit quo dolose Vaticinandi furore sacerdotes mysteria, illis saepe ignota, audactur publicant. PETRON. SATYR.

I. APOLOGUE.

THERE is a vast empire governed by a monarch, whose conduct does but confound the minds of his subjects. He desires to be known, loved, respected, and obeyed, but he never shows himself; everything tends to make uncertain the notions which we are able to form about him. The people subjected to his power have only such ideas of the character and the laws of their invisible sovereign as his ministers give them ; these suit, however, because they themselves have no idea of their master, for his ways are impenetrable, and his views and his qualities are totally incomprehensible; moreover, his ministers disagree among themselves in regard to the orders which they pretend emanated from the sovereign whose organs they claim to be; they announce them diversely in each province of the empire; they discredit and treat each other as impostors and liars ; the decrees and ordinances which they promulgate are obscure ; they are enigmas, made not to be understood or divined by the subjects for whose instruction they were intended. The laws of the invisible monarch need interpreters, but those who explain them are always quarreling among themselves about the true way of understanding them; more than this, they do not agree among themselves; all which they relate of their hidden prince is but a tissue of contradictions, scarcely a single word that is not contradicted at once. He is called supremely good, nevertheless not a person but complains of his decrees. He is supposed to be infinitely wise, and in his administration everything seems contrary to reason and good sense. They boast of his justice, and the best of his subjects are generally the least favored. We are assured that he sees everything, yet his presence remedies nothing. It is said that he is the friend of order, and everything in his universe is in a state of confusion and disorder ; all is created by him, yet events rarely happen according to his projects. He foresees everything, but his foresight prevents nothing. He is impatient if any offend him; at the same time he puts every one in the way of offending him. His knowledge is admired in the perfection of his works, but his works are full of imperfections, and of little permanence. He is continually occupied in creating and destroying, then repairing what he has done, never appearing to be satisfied with his work. In all his enterprises he seeks but his own glory, but he does not succeed in being glorified. He works but for the good of his subjects, and most of them lack the necessities of life. Those whom he seems to favor, are generally those who are the least satisfied with their fate; we see them all continually revolting against a master whose greatness they admire, whose wisdom they extol, whose goodness they worship, and whose justice they fear, revering orders which they never follow. This empire is the world; its monarch is God ; His ministers are the priests ; their subjects are men.

Atheist death poetry

There’s an article in this month’s Scientific American Mind that tries to show that people cannot properly conceive of death:

Consider the rather startling fact that you will never know you have died. You may feel yourself slipping away, but it isn’t as though there will be a “you” around who is capable of ascertaining that, once all is said and done, it has actually happened. Just to remind you, you need a working cerebral cortex to harbor propositional knowledge of any sort, including the fact that you’ve died—and once you’ve died your brain is about as phenomenally generative as a head of lettuce.

To be honest I hadn’t thought too much about that one fact – that you’ll never know that you’ve died. Some people have though.

There’s a very dark genre of literature called death poetry.  It’s made up of poems or haikus written by Japanese ritual suicides at the moment of death.  There are hundreds

A stupid proposal

I don’t fully understand the thought process of my opponents sometimes. Try as I might, I can’t see into Jason Cherniak’s head.

He has a post on his blog today calling for something that would in effect be a Tort of Group Libel, available no doubt only to officially sanctioned religious groups, and overseen by the Human Rights Commissions. He would be for creating a new speech code in which religious people enjoyed special protections not shared by other belief groups.

If you were found to have violated this new speech code, then the government as mediator could command you to give equal space in your publication to the group you had ‘wronged’. The government would be in a position to rule on whether a reply was sufficient and intelligent enough. If it weren’t then there would likely be further sanctions.

I can’t see how that would be a good thing.

Which religions are protected and which aren’t? Which of their beliefs are sacrosanct and worthy of speech code protections and which aren’t?

Some examples:

• Some Jews practice circumcision by sucking the ruined foreskin off of the baby’s penis.
• In Bountiful, BC the Mormon faith is practiced in a way so as to allow for polygamy.
• In southwest BC, believers in native religions sometimes use force to initiate new adherents.

Cherniak says: “I believe that you should not be allowed to attack people in writing on the basis of their religion.”

Say a Mr. X practices that particular form of the Jewish faith that commands him to suck an infant’s penis. Were I to write that Mr. X was a vile pedophile because of his religion, then would I be in violation of this speech code and forced by the state to give over my blog to the aforementioned pedophile?

Say a Mr. Y practices that particular native belief that allows for the use of force. Can I call him a thug and a brute for supporting it? Or again, have I violated a speech code and must submit to punishment?

I suspect that Cherniak would say that these are matters for the Human Rights Commissions – but really, are they? Is it safe to allow a government to decide which religious practices are appropriate and worthy and which are not? If I were Mr. X and found that a part of my faith was not deemed worthy of protection by the HRCs than I would rightly feel discriminated against.

And what of me and my fellow atheists? Do we enjoy protection for our non-belief? I am offended any time a publication says that God makes people good. It’s saying that I am a moral inferior and it is exposing me to contempt. Am I protected? My non-belief is no more or less a choice than Mr. X’s Judaism.

And if my non-belief is protected, what then of my political beliefs? If someone says Conservatives are bad people, aren’t they discriminating against me, heaping scorn on me? Why is a person’s chosen faith more deserving of protection than my non-belief or my political convictions?

To manage such a Tort, a government would necessarily need to involve itself in overseeing the beliefs and practices of Canada’s religious groups and their adherents. It would necessarily need to approve of some practices and abjure others. It would mean a commission composed of the believers of one faith would be deciding on the just practices of another faith.

Such a law doesn’t just endanger free speech, it knocks down the walls between church and state, endangers the free practice of religion, and exposes the believers in unprotected religions to state-sanctioned hatred and contempt.

It’s a monstrously stupid, discriminatory and dangerous idea.