More Muslim Mendacity

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Well, for reasons mentioned at the end of the last post at my other blog, I wasn’t planning on posting at this blog anytime soon, but another case of Muslim mendacity has moved me.  I mentioned two other cases in earlier posts in this blog, here and here.  The background for the present case is the following.

Earlier this week, I read a long article in the 20 March 2011 magazine section of The New York Times about the American Muslim Yasir Qadhi.  Qadhi was educated in Saudi Arabia and America, is now working on his doctorate in Islamic studies at Yale University, teaches in the Religious Studies Department of Rhodes College in Memphis, and is Dean of Academic Affairs of the AlMaghrib Institute, where he claims he has taught his interpretations of “Orthodox” (Sunni) Islam to “close to 16,000 [American] students.”

Somewhat intrigued about Qadhi, I went to his website (referenced in the Times article), read a fair amount, and eventually at his website, found his post entitled “Reflection on the New York Times Article”.  As you can determine if you look about 1/3 the way down through the Comment Section for Qadhi’s post (specifically, at the “time stamp” of “March 22 at 9:39 AM”), I added the following comment:

Nick McConnell
March 22, 2011 • 9:39 AM

Yasir: Of course I’m not a Muslim, and although I, too, don’t like labels, yet when pushed, I usually say I’m a Humanist or a scientific humanist. I found the referenced NYT article interesting and followed its links to your website, where I’ve been reading for the past many hours.

What I find stunning is this: you are obviously an intelligent person and very competent at conveying your ideas, but what astounding errors you have made! Yet, what you are displaying (and living!) certainly isn’t unique. I have given several examples at my website in a chapter entitled “Reason vs. Reality”, here I’ll just mention two examples.

1. It can be argued that Aristotle was the most brilliant person who ever lived, but surely we can at least agree that he was brilliant. Yet, if you’ll read his (logical) argument “justifying” slavery, surely you’ll also agree that his conclusion was totally wrong.

2. Many people argue that Augustine was brilliant; I would at least agree (and expect that you, too, would agree) that he had an enormous influence on a huge number of people. But again, if you’ll read his (logical) argument “justifying” slavery, surely you’ll also agree that his conclusion was totally wrong.

For both, their arguments were logically sound (although Aristotle’s argument by analogy weakened his argument); their errors were in their premises. I find your arguments to be similarly logically sound (as are most arguments I’ve read by various Muslims “scholars”), but your (and their) conclusions are astoundingly weak, again because of premises.

In particular, your basic premise (similar to Aristotle’s and Augustine’s) is that a creator god exists. Do you know nothing about the past few hundred years of scientific advances? The idea that some god created the universe and people has been totally debunked: the universe almost certainly was initiated by a symmetry-breaking quantum-like fluctuation in a total void, and after the Big Bang, the formation of elementary particles, stars, etc., auto-catalytic chemical reactions led to life, which eventually evolved to humans. If you will study science, you’ll realize that your premises should be abandoned, and with your brilliant mind, I hope you’ll then join us Humanists in trying to reduce violence and bring more peace and prosperity to all humans.

Unsurprisingly, Yasir (Qadhi) didn’t respond, but as readers can check by reading the first set of responses that followed, my comment obviously stimulated a number of his followers.  I responded to them through most of the rest of the morning (see the comments through to the one from “Anum” on March 22 at 2:05 PM), but then, the moderator blocked my response to Anum!  Finally, after getting through to Anum via the second set of comments (which I’ll get to, shortly), the moderator let me respond to Anum (see my response at March 23 at 4:56 AM).  The punch-counterpunch continued – although another block by the moderator occurred (cf. my comments on March 22 at 6:31 PM and then on March 23 at 6:26 AM).  Then, however, the moderator “called the match”, by closing all comments!

To verify that last statement, you need to scroll to near the end of the comments, to the post by Siraaj (on March 23 at 2:12 PM), where Siraaj states not only that, “I’m locking discussion on this thread”, but adds:

PS – discussion not directly relevant to the discussion at hand will likely be removed soon, so don’t be surprised posts on handshaking, humanism, and other unrelated tangents are removed. 

For the reader’s information, I should add that mine were the only comments dealing with “humanism”; therefore, to me, the moderator’s statement really meant:  “Your comments will likely be removed.”

Well, okay, it’s their website, they can post what they want.  Such censorship, however, isn’t consistent with Qadhi’s stated desire (contained in his “closing comments” at the end of the Comments Section, posted on March 25 at 9:33 AM):

I believe that we need to allow people to express their opinions.

Anyway, I decided to proceed with the current post, not to call attention to Muslims who are afraid of opposing ideas, but to mention the mendacity of (as a minimum) the Muslim moderator(s) at MuslimMatters.org.

Thus, returning to the earlier comments, notice that, after my response on March 23 at 6:26 AM and after the comments were allegedly closed by Siraaj on the same day (March 23 at 2:12 PM), yet “out of the blue”, the following comment appeared, 3 (three!) days later!

Saad

March 26, 2011 • 3:15 AM

Peace Nick,

As a physicist myself at Cornell (yes, we produced both Hans Bethe and Feynman), I find that your arguments lack merit.

Before the development of QM, most physicists were at least deists. That is because pre-QM physics was heavily built on two main paradigms namely those of determinism and causality. After QM, only causality has remained. Incidentally, these physicists believed that God did not interfere with the universe because everything was pre-determined. Nowadays, they don’t know how to account for a non-determinist, causal universe.

The funny thing abt having a causal universe is that it necessarily implies some element of noncausality. Either there is some noncausal interference, read the universe pops out of nothing, or the universe has to exist forever. It really is that simple. Btw, noncausal means outside of the boundary of time and space.

Either way, you run into a problem of infinites. Either the universe exists for infinite or you have a creator who is infinite, etc. Your choice. 

Talk about dirty dealings!  I expect that Muslims at MuslimMatters.org went searching for “an expert”, to try to find someone to deal me a “knockout punch”.  But be that as it may be, ‘lo and behold, with the above post-closure addition, the Comment Section was open again (complete with “Reply Buttons”)!  So, I composed the following response to Saad:

Hello, Saad, and peace to you – and to everyone!

Yes, I know Cornell well:  I got my Ph.D. there, more than 40 years ago, met both Bethe and Feynman, and studied under other famous physicists, including Tom Gold, Ed Salpeter, Philip Morrison, and Dick Sibly – although, it was such a long time ago, I might have forgotten how to spell Dick's surname… 

As for your "finding" that my "arguments lack merit", I trust that you won't be surprised that I come to a similar conclusion about the arguments that you present in your comment!  Possibly the cause is simply the (understandable) brevity of your note, but possibly it's because you haven't given my arguments sufficient consideration.  For example, I wonder if you at least glanced at the first chapter and the chapters in Part 4 of my book, especially the chapter dealing with uncertainties.

With respect to your first assessment, that "before the development of QM, most physicists were at least deists", several responses seem appropriate:  1) I made a similar comment in one of my earlier responses, and included the names of theists such as Newton, Maxwell, and Planck, 2) Let's not fall into the logical fallacy (argumentum ad populum) of judging the "truth" of a statement by how many people accept it, since by that criterion, it would have been "true" that the Earth was flat, and 3) Also, let's not fall into the logical fallacy of appealing to inappropriate authorities (argumentum ad verecundiam), since as I already mentioned in an earlier comment, most physicists don't spend time considering "the god idea".

Turning now to your more relevant points, you first state: "That [to wit:  that most pre-QM physicists were at least deists] is because pre-QM physics was heavily built on two main paradigms, namely, those of determinism and causality."  Of course I agree with your statement that pre-QM was based on those two paradigms, and I agree with your further point that one of their reasons for rejecting the idea of an anthropomorphic god was their commitment to causality.  Einstein said it well in his book The World As I See It:

We thus arrive at a conception of the relation of science to religion very different from the usual one.  When one views the matter historically one is inclined to look upon science and religion as irreconcilable antagonists, and for a very obvious reason.  The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events – that is, if he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously.  He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion.  A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man's actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it goes through.  Hence science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust.  A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary.  Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear and punishment and hope of reward after death.

But now, turning to your next point, "After QM, only causality has remained", I find that statement to be doubly troubling.

On the one hand, although the implication that QM has eliminated determinism is of course correct in the sense that only probabilities can be predicted, yet consistent with Popper's idea (which goes all the way back to Xenophanes and which is the basis of all science) that, in open systems, only the probability that some claim is true can be ascertained, then one could easily argue that determinism is still "alive and well" – it's just that we now have a better idea of what "determinism" means!  In that regard, and as a challenge to Feynman's familiar line "if you think you understand QM, you don't understand QM", I'd encourage you to Google John Cramer's "Transactional Interpretation" of QM:  generalizing the Feynman-Wheeler description of EM, it appears that he's resolved quantum entanglement by keeping the advanced-wave solution to the Schrödinger equation – and by assuming it deterministically describes what simultaneously evolves in the negative-energy background of space, where time runs in the opposite direction! 

And on the other hand, your explicit claim that "only causality has remained" can be challenged, even for classical systems.  That is, even for most macroscopic nonlinear systems (i.e., most systems!), causality has been lost.  I have heard Ilya Prigogine argue this point well – and talked to him about it.  As you no doubt know, it's based on Ed Lorenz's discovery that uncertainties in initial conditions (no matter how small – even if they are only quantum mechanical!) will overwhelmingly dominate a nonlinear system's evolution:  a butterfly in Brazil can indeed cause a tornado in Texas.  Thus, you should reconsider your claim that "causality has remained."    

You further state:  "Nowadays, they [physicists] don't know how to account for a non-deterministic, causal universe."  If you are saying that we haven't yet merged QM and General Relativity, then perhaps you're correct (i.e., if String Theory isn't correct), but more generally, I expect that (for example) Alan Guth, Roger Penrose, and Victor Stenger would disagree with you that we "don't know how to account for a non-deterministic, casual universe."

I'll illustrate my meaning by responding to the choice you offer re. infinities.  My first response is, "Thanks anyway, but no thanks!"  Second, I'd say that, in reality, I reject all infinities, since never has any infinity been examined experimentally, only theoretically.  Now, to illustrate an alternative to your options, consider the following.

I trust that we can agree with Emmy Noether that 'time' has no meaning in the absence of energy; therefore, there was no 'before', "before" the Big Bang.  Further, let's suppose that Einstein was correct when he said that "the universe [is] matter expanding into nothing that is something", and let's imagine an original "total nothingness", for which 'time' has no meaning.  If such a nothing "explored" fluctuations (i.e., if it adopted some "generalized" quantum mechanical behavior), then after some 10^10^10^10... fluctuations (in no time, since there was no energy – and further, fluctuations that occurred "nowhere", since again relying on Noether's theorem, there was no momentum), one such fluctuation (otherwise always in perfect balance, e.g., "positive" and "negative" amounts of energy, fenergy, henergy, genergy or whatever) presumably broke a symmetry, leading to the Big Bang.

Such a scenario has no need for the choice of infinities that you offer; in other words, what appears most reasonable to me is that the universe did indeed "pop out of nothing".  That's totally consistent with the well-known result (e.g., see Krauss' video, "A Universe from Nothing", already referenced) that still in our universe the total electrical charge, momentum, and energy (including the negative energy of space) all sum to zero.

By the way, I wonder if you see that the concept of "total nothingness" appears to be amenable to experimental exploration:  given that an anti-particle is a hole in space, then upon looking at that hole, one is actually looking at total nothingness!  And since anti-particles behave quantum mechanically, it suggests to me that "total nothingness" does obey quantum mechanics (or some more-generalized form of QM, yet to be discovered).

Upon submitting the above, the automated response appeared:  “Your comment is awaiting moderation.” Well, I waited and waited (and am still waiting!); the result:  zip!  Not only was my comment not approved, but now, all comments are once-again closed.  So, all good-little-Muslims who read the comments can rest assured that the nasty Humanist, who attempted to tell the Emperor he has no clothes, has been “bested” by a good Muslim physicist at Cornell.  Not only is it censorship (inconsistent with Qhadi’s, “I believe that we need to allow people to express their opinions”); it’s intellectually dishonest:  they're not interested in considering new concepts; instead, they desperately intend to defend their delusions.

Similar happened with the second half of the thread, which the reader can find immediately below the comment from Saad.  Notice, first, that the next comment (from Asiah) was on March 22 (four days earlier) at 12:27 PM.  As you can see, I went through a similar set of sparring matches (after getting through a moderator’s interference!) until March 23 at 9:37 AM.  Then, Umar planted what he no doubt considered to be a knockout blow:

Umar

March 23, 2011 • 10:19 AM

Nick said: “Well, if you’re going to assume that your creator god always existed, then why not, instead, assume that the universe always existed. Then, you have no need of your assumption that some god created the universe.”

If the universe was eternal (always existed), then it would take an infinite amount of time to get to where we are now, and so we would never actually get here. If you keep going back in time forever, you would never reach the end, according to that viewpoint. Therefore, if you go back forever and then try to come forward in time forever, you would never actually reach the point in time we are now. But we are at this point!

Therefore the universe had a beginning. According to you, some quantum events may have taken place and bubble theory etc, but if nothing was there to begin with. I mean nothing, no matter, or no antimatter whatever, then nothing would come out of it. If something was there to begin with, that something would have been there for an “infinite” amount of time, and if it this is the case:

a. it would never get to where we are now, because an infinite amount of time exists between then and now like I explained above

b. how would that something get there in the first place

c. what would cause that state to spontaneously change with absolutely no intervention.

You cite the nuclear reactors in Japan, exploding despite no overall momentum to begin with, but if you look at it more deeply, this change in state is caused by uncontrolled nuclear fission, due to the non functioning of the control rod. i.e. sub atomic particles interacting in a certain way. And even these were heated under extremely high temperatures, in the presence of certain elements: cause and effect!

I ask you, why do you assume the universe always existed, just as you assume that God didn’t create the universe? Did it create itself? Then what gave it the ability to create something from nothing?

In conclusion, it seems to me that you have placed yourself in a self-defeating position, because to claim something comes from nothing and that causality is not true at the quantum level would be tantamount to saying that your post was not written by you, rather it spontaneously appeared into existence without any cause, and came into being from nothing!

But we all know out of nothing, nothing comes. This is why you seem to have contradicted yourself by saying it was all possible because of “symmetry-breaking quantum-like fluctuation.” Then I would like to kindly ask you, where did a “symmetry-breaking quantum-like fluctuation” come from? If you respond “from nothing”, well, I would kindly like to reply, “so did your post. It came from nothing. Perhaps there is no Nick on the other side”…. that is the logic you are trying to preach!! Please re-evaluate your stance.

Sorry guys for responding going off topic by responding to Nick. I was actually much more interested in Sh. Yasir Qadhi’s posts, and responses to questions (getting emails for each post), and reading them with silent interest. Lol ha, exactly like he said above: “from the silent majority.”….but the illogical statement of Nick provoked me to answer back.

Salam 

Of course I attempted to respond to Umar's mistakes and his misrepresentations of what I had written, but before I could, Siraaj posted (on March 23 at 2:12 PM) his statement:  “I’m locking discussion on this thread.”  How convenient for him and Qadhi’s deluded followers!

But then, three days later, when the thread was apparently re-opened to slip in the Cornell fellow’s (student’s?) comment, all the “Reply Buttons” were again active!  So, I took the opportunity to submit the following response to Umar:

Umar, now that the moderator has finally permitted me to respond to your comment (subject to "moderation"), I'll try to do so.

In response and in general, I'll say that, before attempting to ridicule other people and before claiming that they're illogical, you'd be well advised to get their positions clear in your own mind.  That way, you have a better chance to avoid looking ridiculous and being illogical, yourself.  As cases in point:

1.  I didn't (and don't) assume that the universe as we know it (i.e., the separation of energy into positive and negative components, the latter contained in space or "the vacuum") always existed.  If you'll re-read my post that you quoted, you'll see that I was simply responding to the claim that god always existed.  What I was doing was trying to demonstrate how such an idea could easily be shaved with Occam's razor.  Instead, as you apparently later realized, I accept the evidence that our universe had a beginning.

2.  Your old argument dealing with infinite time ignores modern ideas about time.  If you will check out the ideas developed, e.g., by Feynman, Wheeler, and Cramer (e.g., see the PPT presentation entitled "The Quantum Handshake" that you can find here) perhaps you'll see how, as Einstein said, time is just an illusion:  the only existence is "now".  Certainly, we're familiar with time proceeding in a positive direction from "now", but in the negative energy of space, time seems to proceed in the opposite direction.  Meanwhile, at the boundary of "positive and negative existences", light experiences no time:  for light, it's always "now".  This interpretation of time seems to resolve long-standing dilemmas of quantum mechanics, such as "quantum entanglement".

3. With respect to your attempt to ridicule the "something from nothing" concept, I recommend that you first read especially pp. 4-14 of the reference already provided.  In particular, with N = Nothing = zero and S = Something, then Something can easily be created from Nothing via the reaction  N → S + (-S), i.e., the creation of something and its negative.

4.  With respect to your quandary about what "nothing" is, I'd recommend that you read my blog post entitled "God is Total Nothingness!" and then re-read the referenced pp. 4-14 to see that, in fact, we do have some experience with "total nothingness", namely, whereas antiparticles are holes in space, and space is otherwise totally filled with negative energy; therefore, a hole in space (i.e., an antiparticle) is "total nothingness".

This time what happened?  Same thing:  first “your comments are awaiting moderation”, and then, nothing – except, once again, all “Reply Buttons” went dead.

In summary, then, as far as the invitation from Qadhi for “dialogue” and his statement “I believe that we need to allow people to express their opinions”, they and the MuslimMatters.org website are shams.  Arrangements were obviously made for the two sets of comments to end with one Muslim saying that my physics was wrong and another ridiculing my logic.  And since I wasn’t permitted to respond, no doubt all Qadhi’s good-little-Muslim followers can now take comfort with the thought (just as they undoubtedly thought all along) that they were right and the interloper is wrong.  It’s still another case of deceitful, clerical shepherds leading fearful, ignorant sheep to be fleeced (in clerical con games) or slaughtered (in clerical “holy wars”).

Of course, in the overall scheme of things, the experiences described above are insignificant.  Evidence can be gathered, however, to support the assessment that, although it was only a couple of snowflakes, they fell on a mountainous glacier of Muslim mendacity.

To begin to assess that claim, I encourage readers to go to websites such as JihadWatch.org, FaithFreedom.org, and the webpage with the sarcastic title “The Religion of Peace”.  At such sites, peruse the literally tens of thousands of other examples.  From such examples, maybe you’ll agree that the term “Muslim mendacity” is highly appropriate, given the list of synonyms for the adjective ‘mendacious’ given in the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus:

lying, untruthful, dishonest, deceitful, false, dissembling, insincere, disingenuous, hypocritical, fraudulent, double-dealing, two-faced, two-timing, duplicitous, perjured…

In Arabic, such mendacity is called taqiyya, and as I described in another post, it’s sanctioned (even promoted!) in the Qur’an and Islam’s “traditional literature” (the Hadiths).

From this experience, from my other experiences described in earlier posts in this blog, and from the three-part analysis that I posted at my other blog (entitled “The Pathetic Muhammad”, “Five Structural Errors in Islam”, and “Five Foundational Evils of Islam”), I find myself in substantial agreement with the following comment on the original article in The New York Times posted by Mohammed Guggen of Seattle on 19 March 2011 at 8:10 PM:

I found Mr. Qadhi very wishy-washy in his philosophy on jihad. Between the lines, I found Mr. Qadhi counseling fellow moslems to engage in low jihad in the US ... lie low for now, make incremental gains like getting sharia laws enacted state by state, work for the caliphate to be established and then go all-out on a major jihad/terror in the US.

Sad thing is that if you go to [the] website www.muslimmatters.org most of the comments by his former and current students vehemently disagree with him calling him opportunistic, traitor to the islamic cause, etc. BTW, the website is heavily censored.  [Italics added]

As a non-practicing moslem for couple of years now, I believe that the free nations of the world must organize a United Front of Victims of Jihad against the Axis of Jihad: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan.

The Axis of Jihad nations must be expelled from the community of nations and all international organizations until they are demilitarized, secularized, and democratized.

The United States, and all free nations, must strictly control immigration from the Islamic world. United State Code Title 8, Chapter 12, Subchapter II, Part II, § 1182, “Inadmissible Aliens,” forbids “any immigrant who is or has been a member of or affiliated with the Communist or any other totalitarian party (or subdivision or affiliate thereof), domestic or foreign.”

A “totalitarian party” is defined in the code:

“An organization which advocates the establishment in the United States of a totalitarian dictatorship or totalitarianism. The terms ‘totalitarian dictatorship’ and ‘totalitarianism’ mean and refer to systems of government not representative in fact, characterized by…  the existence of a single political party, organized on a dictatorial basis, with so close an identity between such party and its policies and the governmental policies of the country in which it exists, that the party and the government constitute an indistinguishable unit.”

As the section above on Islamic constitutions proves beyond any doubt, Islam inarguably is a totalitarian political party at its core. Everywhere it gains power, its “policies and governmental policies” are exclusively and only Islamic dogma, and “the party” – Islam – “and the government constitute an indistinguishable unit,” because Islam commands that Islam and government be one and the same.

Only liberal, pluralistic, and secular democracies are the hope for the Middle East and for all of humanity. No government with the supremacist totalitarianism of Islam and Sharia as its overarching constitutional law can be admitted to the community of nations or to any organization of nations that honors the freedoms and rights of Man.

Free nations must officially declare Islam to be a de jure state, and treat it as such, and treat every one of adherents as citizens of the transnational Islamic state.

Saudi Arabia must pay for exporting imperialist Wahhabi doctrine and terror. Nations of the United Front of Victims of Jihad must bill Saudi Arabia for all of the damage, destruction, and deaths caused by Saudi machinations and money.

Nations of the United Front of Victims of Jihad must support democratic movements and current revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and everywhere in the Islamic world. The hope is that Man’s longing for freedom will triumph in those countries, and that their people will get up off their knees and throw off the archaic yokes of slavery that Islam has put on the necks of their ancestors and on their own necks. If Islamic fundamentalists come to power instead, those Islamic countries must be isolated from the rest of humanity by permanent embargoes.

If and when secularist governments come to power, and expunge Islamic doctrine from their constitutions and laws, then, and only then, should those nations be selectively supported by progressive and free governments worldwide and invited back into the community of nations – on probation.

And notice who wrote the above:  a (courageous) ex-Muslim.  Welcome to freedom, Mohammed Guggen of Seattle:  “Live long and prosper”.

www.zenofzero.net

All Clerics are Terrorists

••••
I’ve been aware for a long time that all clerics are terrorists; this month, I saw it again.

A decade-or-so ago, I saw that my then daughter-in-law had been terrorized – by her parents, under the direction of their clerics.  Ever since she was a baby, she had been thoroughly indoctrinated in Mormonism (as have my grandchildren), but otherwise, she was (and probably still is) a wonderful woman and mother.

My wife and I were attempting to convince her not to proceed with divorcing our son, if for no other reason than for the sake of our grandchildren.  After being entrapped in Mormonism for more than a decade, our son had finally broken free, apparently after realizing that the Mormon’s Book of Abraham is a complete fake (and therefore, so is the Book of Mormon).

Addressing our son’s rejection of Mormonism, my wife said to our then daughter-in-law (something close to) “it doesn’t really matter”, to which she responded (something close to):  “It matters for the fate of our immortal souls!”  In particular, with respect to her own “immortal soul”, we later learned that her mother had told her that our son “was no longer of any use” to her, because no longer being a Mormon, he’d be unable to “whisper her secret name to her” (i.e., the password that she’d need to enter heaven).

Of course, I then tried to convince her that all talk about gods, devils, immortal souls, heaven, hell, etc. was nonsense, but you can imagine how far I got with that.  The final communication relayed to me was:  “She hates you.”  Well, I certainly don’t hate her.  I am, however, extremely sorry for her (and for our grandchildren) that she’s been terrorized.

Similar is apparently true for the majority of Americans.  A 2007 survey of 35,000 Americans by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 74% of the surveyed Americans believe in heaven [84% of all Protestants, 82% of all Catholics, 95% of all Mormons, and 85% of all (American) Muslims – but probably close to 100% of all Muslims living in Islamic countries].  The survey also found that 59% of all Americans believe in hell [73% of Protestants, 60% of all Catholics, 59% of all Mormons, and 80% of all (American) Muslims, although again, probably close to 100% of all Muslims living in Islamic countries].  And though one should question the accuracy of the survey results (because the report also states that 12% of all atheists believe in heaven and 10% of them believe in hell!), yet the survey does suggest the horrible extent to which clerics have mentally corrupted – and terrorized – so many Americans.

Anyway, polls and ancient personal history aside, this month I encountered another example of clerical terrorism.  At an Islamic Forum (a different forum from the one mentioned in the previous post), I was reading posts in a thread entitled “Atheism – A Religion which Denies Being a Religion”.  In this thread, a tirade by a Muslim writing under the name “Orthodox” reminded me of what Robert Ingersoll wrote:

Only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know.  To the common man the great problems are easy.  He has no trouble in accounting for the universe.  He can tell you the origin and destiny of man and the why and wherefore of things.  As a rule, he is a believer in special providence, and is egotistic enough to suppose that everything that happens in the universe happens in reference to him… 

After “Orthodox” had finished (with copious quotes from Islamic “sacred literature”, apparently thinking that they bolstered her arguments), a seemingly more knowledgeable Muslim posting under the name “Rahimi” made some errors, so I decided to try to correct him as follows (post #54):

Rahimi, I noticed two of your fundamental statements in Post #44 that are at least misleading.  Your statement that goes beyond ‘misleading’ to ‘incorrect’, is:

…we don’t find systems, laws, precision, order etc arise from chaos and disorder.

To see that your claim (that order can’t be derived from chaos) is incorrect, I suggest that you read Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine’s book “Order out of Chaos” or his book “From Being to Becoming”.  The essence is that entropy of a particular system can decrease if the system can “feed” on some gradient (e.g., in chemical or gravitational potential).  Such is almost certainly how life began on Earth.

Your statement that’s misleading was stated in conjunction with your claim that our universe couldn’t have come from nothing:

It is an established scientific fact that something cannot arise from nothing.

In contrast to your claim, there are two major reasons to assume that our universe did, in fact, come from nothing.

One reason is because, consistent with Coulomb’s first principle of electrostatics, Newton’s principle of momentum (modified by Einstein), and the first principle of thermodynamics, the total electrical charge, momentum, and energy now in our universe sum to exactly zero.  That is, what appears to have happened is that the pre-Big Bang “nothingness” split into positive and negative “somethings” (e.g., the positive energy that congealed into mass and its motion is exactly balanced by the negative energy that fills what we call “space” or “the vacuum”).  Stated mathematically, it’s easy to get Something (S) from Nothing ( N = 0 ):

 N = 0 = S + ( – S) . 

And the second reason that we can conclude that our universe came from separating “nothing” into positive and negative “somethings” is that the concept is also consistent with available data, as reviewed by Lawrence Krauss in his video that you can find on YouTube entitled “A Universe from Nothing”…

Well, as the interested reader can verify and as even I expected, my post caused Rahimi quite a few problems.  In particular, though, in direct response to my comment,

…if you can follow everything [Lawrence] Krauss says, then immediately you’ll say goodbye to Zarathustra’s model of the universe and all the silly religions that have followed from it…

he responded (Post #66), with the following comment, containing ideas completely unrelated to the discussion, but nonetheless, very revealing:

And of course there are murderers and killers who try to justify their crimes by subscribing to falsehood such as ‘the survival of the fittest’, ‘war on terror’ and other craps.  These are the people who wronged themselves and their final abode and destination is the fire of jahanam (Hell)..

Amazing!  Up to this point in the thread, the focus was on science.  All of sudden, he jumped to morality and “the final adobe… Hell.”  Startled, I responded (Post #69):

Ah, maybe now I understand:  the real terrorists got to you – those who capture people’s imaginations with the horrors of a fictitious hell.  They control people with fear, and not just fear of dying (which is instinctive) but with fear of eternal torture.  Succumbing to such fears, people can no longer think for themselves.  They become mental slaves.

That is, just when it appeared that Rahimi might be understanding at-least-a-little of what scientific investigations are suggesting about the origin of the universe (I assume he at least started to look at Krauss’ video “A Universe from Nothing”), he retreated back into his shell, apparently “shell shocked” by his religion’s warnings about hell – which then led me to this post.

As I already mentioned, I’ve known about clerical terrorism for a long time, but it impresses (and saddens) me when I encounter it again.  Further, as “Catherine” said in the comments section of the New York Times report of the debate between Rabbi David Wolpe and Christopher Hitchens, I’ve learned through sad experiences:

It’s hopeless to argue against religion because the religious don’t have to stick to reason which should rule a civil debate.  They can always defer to blind, senseless faith.  It’s like trying to play Chess against someone who insists on playing Dungeons and Dragons.

In fact, it’s even worse:  religious people are trapped in those mental dungeons – and they truly fear those imaginary dragons!

Maybe to see better what moved me to write this post, suppose the leader of a street gang said to you:

Look:  my two big brothers used to be in the Mafia.  My friends are their friends; my enemies are their enemies.

You treat me right, you do what I say, and you’ll be okay.  One of my brothers is like God:  I got money; he’ll make sure you get money.  I got things; you’ll get things.  I got friends; you’ll get friends.

Otherwise – well, let me put it this way.  My other brother is a real devil:  he gets a kick out of digging people’s eyes out with his knife.  I dunno why.  Maybe he likes to hear people beg to be killed.

So anyway, there you go.  It’s your choice.  You got free will.  Choose.

Or suppose a member of an organized crime syndicate said to you (as owner of a small business):

Nice little business you got here, but what you need is insurance, so nobody will come in and rob the place, smash the joint, rough-up your customers, and maybe even kill somebody.  Lucky for you, me and my boys are in the insurance business.  You just give us 10% of your take, and we’ll make sure that you and your business come to no harm.  Otherwise, well, ya never can tell what might happen.  But it’s your choice.  You got free will.  Choose.  

If such happened to you or to someone you cared about, then in free countries, you should inform the police and expect the perpetrators to be prosecuted under laws such as the U.S.’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which includes fines and punishments for “extortion, blackmail, and terrorism.”

In the same way, I suggest that, in a sane world, all clerics of all the Abrahamic religions should be similarly charged with extortion, blackmail, and terrorism.  As Joseph Lewis said:

Let me tell you that religion is the cruelest fraud ever perpetrated upon the human race.  It is the last of the great scheme of thievery that man must legally prohibit so as to protect himself from the charlatans who prey upon the ignorance and fears of the people.  The penalty for this type of extortion should be as severe as it is of other forms of dishonesty.

But it’s unlikely that we can make much progress in such an approach (e.g., using the RICO Act), because with their extortion and blackmail, the damnable clerics have terrorized people, police, prosecutors, and politicians so badly that they can’t think straight.  Examples include “Rahimi”, “Orthodox”, “Yahya” (mentioned in the previous post), and my former daughter-in-law.  And the damndest thing is that clerics (with the help of previously indoctrinated parents) don’t stimulate people’s fear and greed using real threats and bribes (as do leaders of street gangs, protection rackets, and other organized crime syndicates):  they terrorize people using only imaginary bribes and threats!  What a racket.

Look at it still another way.  After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President G.W. Bush declared a “War on Terror”.  Of course he “miss-spoke” again:  war can’t be waged against terrorism; terrorism is a tactic.  What he meant to declare (I assume) was a war against terrorists.  Much more significantly, however, is that he misidentified the terrorists.

The terrorists aren’t the would-be bin Ladens of the world:  they’re the terrorized.  Terrorized by thoughts of eternal torture in hell, they greedily grab empty promises of eternal paradise in heaven, provided they become martyrs in some jihad.  Thereby, the bin Ladens of the world are just automatons and drones that the real terrorists use to wage war.

The real terrorists are the clerics of the world.  Their terrorist manuals are ridiculously called “holy books” and “sacred literature”.  They terrorize people with data-less, idiotic ideas about gods, devils, immortal souls, heaven, hell, and so on.  The worst (especially now in Islam) is their concoction and promotion of the terrors of hell.  As Ingersoll wrote more than a century ago:

If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant.  I make my choice now.  I despise that doctrine.  It has covered the cheeks of this world with tears.  It has polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned the imaginations of men.  It has been a constant pain, a perpetual terror to every good man and woman and child.  It has filled the good with horror and with fear; but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base.  It has wrung the hearts of the tender; it has furrowed the cheeks of the good.  This doctrine never should be preached again.  What right have you, sir, Mr. clergyman, you, minister of the gospel to stand at the portals of the tomb, at the vestibule of eternity, and fill the future with horror and with fear?  I do not believe this doctrine, neither do you.  If you did, you could not sleep one moment.  Any man who believes it, and has within his breast a decent, throbbing heart, will go insane.  A man who believes that doctrine and does not go insane has the heart of a snake and the conscience of a hyena…

To stop such terrorism, to help people break free from clerical enslavement of their thoughts, to help them think for themselves and, therefore, to hold beliefs only as strongly as evidence warrants, education is key.

Each of us must do what we can to educate people – especially children – about how knowledge of the world is gained (not by “revelation” but by the scientific method) and about at least some of the knowledge already so gained.  Once people learn that the most certain knowledge that humans have been able to gain, even more certain than the knowledge that we exist (for we may all be just simulations in a humongous computer game) is that there are no gods or devils (and never were any), then the extortion, blackmail, and terrorism of all clerical con games will be obvious to everyone – and the damn clerics of the world can be prosecuted for being the despicable parasites that they are.

www.zenofzero.net
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Some Experiences at the Islamic Board Forum

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Preface:  I wrote most of the following two or three years ago, intending to post it at my other blog.  [To be more precise, the date on the final save of the document (labeled here as “1. Potential Post”) was 2008/01/02.]  Subsequently, however and for reasons mentioned in the text, I decided not to post it.

This week, I had additional experiences at the same Islamic Board Forum (see “2. Update”, near the end of this post), which some readers might find entertaining – and maybe even educational.  Therefore, I decided to put the two pieces together and post them here.

1.  Potential Post
As readers can partially confirm by going to the Islamic Board Forum and searching for all posts by “zoro”, I have been posting at this particular Muslim forum for about a year.  I wrote that you could “partially confirm” that statement, because I submitted approximately twice as many as the ~100 posts revealed in the search.  The others were deleted (I assume by various “moderators” at the forum) – and all were deleted (save one post) without any explanation provided!

If you do conduct such a search, you can confirm that my current status is “Account Disabled”.  [Update:  that was two years ago; I was banned for some (forgotten) number of months.]  “Account Disabled” is the Board’s way of publicly advertising that I’ve received a personal notice that I’ve been “Banned”.  Again, I was given no reason for my expulsion; in fact, the notice that appears when I try to login [two years ago] explicitly states:  “Banned.  Reason:  No Reason Given.”  Perhaps some readers might be interested in explanations – maybe out of curiosity, maybe to learn, and maybe to save yourselves fruitless effort.

In general, my interactions at the forum were “interesting”.  I interacted with some people whom it would be easy to call friends, including the Muslim “Woodrow” [see, however, “2. Update”], “Trumble” (a very impressive Buddhist), “Grace Seeker” (a friendly Christian), and others, as well as several intelligent and well informed secular humanists.  The Muslim “Purest Ambrosia”, however, was something else.  If you should be inclined to join this forum, watch out for her:  it’s not ambrosia she’s peddling; it’s pure poison.  [See “2. Update”:  she’s now changed her moniker to “The vale’s lily”.]  In addition, there were (unfortunately) many Muslims with whom I interacted who are so ill informed that they left me stunned:  it was like trying to communicate with children in the midst of their “terrible twos”.

But preliminaries aside, let me show you a few examples of my posts that were deleted – and I wrote it that way, because typically the post would appear for a short duration (I’m not sure how long), but then, when I checked back at the forum (typically within a day), they were gone.  From these examples, you can gain some appreciation for what to expect Muslims won’t tolerate – at least the Muslims in charge of this forum, which Google reports to be one of the two most popular, English-language, Muslim internet forums.

If you’re interested in posting at the “Comparative Religion Section" at the forum, make sure that you never criticize Islam, the Qur’an, or Muhammad, and don’t proselytize for any other religion; then, your proposed posts will normally not be deleted.  But I’ve had some posts deleted even in the Comparative Religion Section [Also, see “2. Update”], one with the astounding criticism:  “We don’t need discussions of other philosophies here.” With that attitude, the Muslim world will never emerge from its clerically imposed Dark Ages.

Where I started getting into major troubles with what I call Muslim clerics was in the “Learn About Islam” Section of the forum.  For most of the year that I was posting on the forum, I ignored that section.  One day, however, I had a look at a thread started by “madeenahsh” entitled “The 3 Required Characteristics for Seeking Knowledge”.  If you look at the Original Post (OP) of the thread, you’ll see that “madeenahsh” quoted some Islamic article that describes a ludicrous way for youngsters to gain “knowledge” – by which Muslim typically mean (and “madeenahsh” and the original author of the article definitely meant) knowledge about Islam.  So, I responded to such nonsense with the following (subsequently-deleted) post, in which the quotations are from the article posted by “madeenahsh”.

madeenahsh:

I think that the article that you quote is inadequate, because (to begin) it inadequately addresses two fundamental questions, namely, 1) What knowledge is sought? and 2) What is meant by ‘knowledge’?

With respect to the first question, consider some examples.  Is ‘knowledge’ sought about:  How to start a fire without a match?  How to get a wheel to turn on an axle?  How to irrigate crops?  How to breed cattle?  How to read and write?  How to build an airplane?  How to build a computer?  How to…

In particular, if anyone seeks knowledge about how to write an article about “The 3 Required Characteristics for Seeking Knowledge”, then that person would be well advised to learn that the first step is to clearly describe the purpose of acquiring such knowledge – followed closely by what the author also failed to do, namely, define what’s meant by ‘knowledge’.

What’s commonly meant by ‘knowledge’ is that one possesses a succinct hypothesis about some process that summarizes a substantial quantity of reliable information, that has predictive capability and whose predictions have been validated in a substantial number of experimental tests, and that normally doesn’t conflict with other well-established hypotheses (or “principles”).  Such is the knowledge about how to start a fire without a match, how to get a wheel to turn on an axle, how to irrigate crops, and so on. 

If the author had addressed those first two questions (what knowledge is sought and what is knowledge), then many “required characteristics for seeking knowledge” would follow – and not necessarily those that the author listed:

1) In some cases the student should “adhere to the method of education that those people of knowledge before us adhered to” (insofar as they used the scientific method), but the variety of ways that people have made great discoveries (from Galileo in a church being so bored with a sermon that he started timing a swinging chandelier using his pulse rate, to Newton’s lying on the grass and seeing an apple fall, and from Schrödinger’s panic about what to present in a lecture, to Feynman’s playing his bongo drums) suggests that the student could be well advised to “follow her own fancy!”

2)  The suggestion that “he should be prepared to sacrifice all of his time to seeking knowledge” is extremely ill advised.  As the Seven Sages said:  “Moderation in all things.”  Thus, experience has shown that it’s much more productive if a student takes time for rest and relaxation – to let her right brain (synthesis capability) make sense of what her left-brain has analyzed.

As for “the correct way for seeking knowledge”, I disagree with the first two of the “characteristics” listed.  Instead, they should be replaced by:

1.  Make sure you know what problem it is that you’re trying to solve.

2.  Proceed to try to solve the problem at a rate that’s right for you.

I would agree, however, with the third point listed:

3.  Be persistent.

I doubt that many people in the free world would take offense to my post (above) – or even pay much attention to it, since it’s so obvious.  The Muslim moderator, however, quickly deleted it.

I then moved on to a second thread started by “madeenahsh”, this one entitled “About Knowledge – Beneficial Read!”  In this thread I posted the following – and it, too, was rather quickly deleted:

madeenahsh:

I’m disappointed that, in your post, you use so many words without defining them, including ‘knowledge’, ‘good’, ‘comprehension’, ‘religion’, ‘virtue’, ‘understanding’, ‘righteous’, ‘validity’, ‘learning’, ‘sciences’, ‘faith’, ‘certainty’, ‘evidence’, ‘wisdom’, ‘believe’, and ‘truth’.

Furthermore (and more significantly), the meanings that you appear to attribute to such words are inconsistent with their modern meanings.  Instead, they are meanings that were commonly used by theologians and “scholastics” of a thousand-and-more years ago, whose ideas have long since been thrown into the trashcan of human mistakes.

Almost 2500 years ago, Socrates said:  “There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”  Agreeing with him (although I’d prefer if he had said “There is only one good, willingness to learn, and one evil, refusal”), I would suggest that you are potentially promoting much evil by ignoring (or refusing to learn) at least a little of the vast increase in knowledge that has developed during the past thousand-or-so years, ever since Muslims further developed the scientific method, beyond what Hippocrates outlined.

As Hippocrates (one of Socrates’ contemporaries) said:  “There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former beget knowledge; the latter, ignorance.”

What you have posted displays just opinions.

I admit that the above post of mine was a bit more “testy”, but as you can check, the OP was sooooo stupid!

Next, I moved on to the thread started by “Al Habeshi” entitled “Students of Knowledge… Sites and Time Tables”.  You’ll need to look at the proposed “Sites and Time Tables” to get an appreciation for just how dumb they are.  But details aside, my now deleted post was the following:

Al Habeshi:

Your recommendations for gaining knowledge blatantly conflict with the recommendations of the Arab Human Development Report entitled “Building a Knowledge Society”, which was co-sponsored by the Regional Bureau for Arab States, the UN Development Program, and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and which was prepared by 40 distinguished Arab scholars, along with 30 advisers and peer reviewers. 

In case you haven’t read the report, its English version is at 

http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/UNDP/EnglishVersion/Ar-Human-Dev-2003.pdf

and its Arabic version is at

http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/UNDP/ArabicVersion/Ar-Human-Dev-2003-ArabicVersion.pdf .

If you’ve already read the report, then I think that it’s incumbent upon you to explain why you are proposing to continue methods that have caused and continue to cause so much harm to the mental development of Muslim children.

2. Update
I’m not sure, now, why I didn’t finish the above and then post it on my other blog, but perhaps it was because I became too angry:  so many of my posts were deleted, and not only was I getting madder and madder at having wasted so much time (only to have the posts deleted at the forum), I then found that I was wasting even more of my time creating the post for my blog!

In any case, this week I decided to see what was going on at the Islamic Board Forum.  I saw that “Woodrow” was still there, as a moderator, but he seems to have become less friendly (see below).  Perhaps the cause was that, a year-or-so ago, I had seen how members of the Richard Dawkins (RD) Forum had raked him over the coals.  There, he had initiated a thread that basically stated:  “I don’t believe atheists exist”.  The rather amazing result of that encounter was that, even after his idea was thoroughly ridiculed, he wasn’t humiliated.  He was like a little child sassing back:  “I can believe whatever I want!”  (Which is correct, of course – at least in the free world – but people should expect to be ridiculed for holding ridiculous beliefs.)  Incidentally, after his ideas were ridiculed, he seemed to have withdrawn from the RD Forum.

Anyway, at the Islamic Board’s Forum a few days ago, I posted some comments in the thread Pascal’s Wager.  A seemingly intelligent Muslim by the name of Yahya Sulaiman had posted the following:

Pascal’s Wager is every bit as intellectually dishonest as people on the other side of the argument saying that they don’t believe in religion because of how it “inhibits your freedom” or exists for some sort of purported purpose, etc. – and for the very same reason:  the only consideration that should ever go into any decision whether or not to believe something is whether or not that something strikes you as true.  Period.  Truth trumps.  (That’s my motto, actually.)

To that post, I made the following comment:

Well, Yahya, I expect that most people maintain a similar motto, but for it to be valuable, an answer (or answers) is needed to the challenging question:  How do you determine if some claimed “truth” is true?  If you are interested in my (long) response to that challenging question, I’ve posted it (written as letters to my oldest grandchild) at http://zenofzero.net/docs/T1_Truth_&_Knowledge.pdf and at http://zenofzero.net/docs/T2_Truth_&_Understanding.pdf .

To my question “How do you determine if some claimed ‘truth’ is true?”, Yahya responded:

As best you can as a fallible creature, using your rational (and maybe your intuitive) faculties to your utmost.  Really, any way would be preferable to whether or not you think believing in something to be advantageous.  That’s just hideous.

To which I replied:

Oh, I agree: the proof-by-pleasure logical fallacy can lead to hideous consequences.  Yet, as I describe in detail in the references already given, it’s profitable to examine details about how to “[use] your rational (and maybe your intuitive) faculties to your utmost.”  One finds, for example, that it’s only in “closed systems” (such as games, mathematics, etc.) that “truth” can be determined; in “open systems”, in contrast (e.g., in reality), the most that can be determined (using the scientific method and Bayes’ theorem) is the probability that some claim is true.

Then came two posts by “the vale’s lily” (formerly “Purest Ambrosia”), the more complete of which is the following.   [And it might be interesting to notice that it’s her post number 7,034.  Can you imagine it:  over 7,000 posts in ~4.5 years, which means an average of more than 4 posts per day, every single day?!]

Please if I may give you a brief introduction – Zoro has in the past tried to indoctrinate folks here into his new cult appropriately entitled ‘Zen of Zero’ and I think outside of himself and his oldest daughter that is exactly how many cult members he has..  It is a sort of poetic ‘physics’ and I use the term physics loosely.  Once he starts indoctrinating err ‘‘challenging’’ you and per above with his religious pamphlet I believe he has already enclosed it for your perusal and you decide not to succumb to the powers of his miltonic mind he’ll unleash a barrage of his followers on you, since his granddaughter isn’t here, that will leave only his person – of course for which he was banned before..  I understand that by now you’d want to offer me one of your famous chill pills but I think I owe it at least to the new comers to what lies ahead..

A lovely lady – to whom, of course, I didn’t respond.  But I did continue to try to communicate with Yahya, who wrote:

What does any of it have to do with whether anything is an open or closed system??

My response was:

It’s an important distinction emphasized by Karl Popper.

For closed systems (such as all games), truth can be ascertained.  For example, in the game of baseball, it’s “true” that “three strikes and you’re out” (according to the rules of the game).  Similarly, in pure mathematics (according to the rules of the game), it’s “true” that 1 + 1 = 2.

For open systems, however (e.g., the human body, legal systems, and all natural systems), we can never be certain that we possess “the truth”; at best, we can determine only the probability that some claim is true (or, similarly, false).

Einstein made the distinction referring to mathematics as follows:

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

Thus, for example, if 1 molecule (or mole) of carbon dioxide (CO2) reacts with 1 molecule (or mole) of water (H2O), the result is one molecule (or mole) of carbonic acid (H2CO3), i.e., 1 + 1 = 1.  Similarly, if two pieces of putty or two black holes merge, then 1 + 1 = 1.

The philosophical consequences of such ideas to religion are significant:  insofar as they are closed systems (defined by their scriptures), then religious “truths” can be ascertained, but insofar as they are open systems, at best only the probability of the truths of their claims can be determined.  For example, if Christianity is treated as a closed system, then the “truth” that Jesus is the son of God can be determined from the New Testament.  But in reality, the best that we can do is examine the evidence and, from the evidence, estimate the probability that such a claim is true.

Similarly for the “truth claims” of all religions - thus returning to my original question:  How do you determine if some claimed “truth” is true?

After which, the moderator (Woodrow) quickly added:

I believe the topic has been covered the best it can be here.  THREAD CLOSED.

Well, with “thread closed” (but not “case closed”!), a day-or-so later I moved on to another thread; this one entitled “To Atheists”.  As interested readers can determine, the thread led to some intelligent comments from “titus”, “gator”, “lynx” and others (particularly about whether Allah was playing a game by testing us), plus some belligerent, ignorant comments by (the same) Yahya Sulaiman (and others).  So, silly me, I thought I’d enter the fray with a little fun, posting the following:

Well, I have some good news and some bad news.

Maybe better:  I have what some people will consider to be good news, but which others will consider to be bad news.

The good news (at least for some people) is this:  I can confirm that God exists!  Also, I’m able to confirm that God IS testing people:  God isn’t just playing games!  For some people, however – in fact, for literally billions of people – the bad news is that God’s test is not what they think it is.

The other day, God let me in on the skinny:

She said that it’s not all fun and games running the universe.  She asked if I had any idea how hard it was to keep all the physical constants in the universe sufficiently “fine tuned” to permit life to continue, to ensure that pesky old dark energy didn’t blow the universe apart, to ensure that Black Holes didn’t gobble up every galaxy and then merge, returning the universe to its original state of total nothingness, and so on.

I admitted that I didn’t fully appreciate the difficulties.

She said that She wanted some help, especially since the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing and dark energy is getting even darker.  So, She’s testing people.

She said She’s looking for a few diligent and intelligent people who hold beliefs only as strongly as relevant evidence warrants.  To that end, She sent down a bunch of confusing messages in various “holy books”.  The test is:  those who believe what’s in such books, basing their beliefs on their own wishful thinking, on what other people say, etc. (rather than basing their beliefs on evidence) fail the test.

That’s her way to winnow the wheat from the chaff.  The chaff, She discards (the elementary particles of which they were made, however, She reuses).  Those who pass the test become candidates to help Her.

By the way, She specifically warned me not to tell anyone about the details of Her test, but shucks, who’s afraid of

Then what?  My post appeared, but by the time I took a break for breakfast, it was gone – along with Woodrow’s:

This has gone a step to [sic] far.  THREAD CLOSED.

I also received a message from Woodrow “explaining” the reason for deleting my post:  “Not funny and very offensive to theists.”

What a sorry excuse for a forum moderator!  Moderators at other forums are normally assigned the tasks of keeping the discussion on topic and not too heated (e.g., prohibiting direct and explicit insults to other posters).  But in this case (in a thread entitled “To Atheists”, no less!), my post was claimed to be “offensive to theists”.  It seems not only that in a thread “To Atheists” are atheists not permitted to express opinions but also that it’s offensive for theists to think that atheists might be right – or offensive even for theists to think!

Meanwhile, it must be perplexing to all other posters in the thread to have the moderator state, “This has gone a step to [sic] far”, since now, there’s no indication of what was “to [sic] far” (i.e., my post).  Simultaneously, it’s hilarious and ridiculous!

Actually, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more to the whole affair – and it’s not so humorous.  Thus, I wouldn’t be surprised if moderators on this Islamic forum are charged with forbidding any ideas that might shake any Muslims’ (blind) faith in Allah, Muhammad, and the Qur’an.  And I expect that, if the moderators don’t adequately censor “offensive ideas”, then the sponsors (hosting the website), who are probably clerics in Saudi Arabia well funded with petro-dollars, will shut them down.

For me, the moral of this post is not to waste any more of my time trying to communicate with Muslims at the Islamic Board’s Forum.  I’ll leave it to readers to identify other possible morals, e.g., dealing with censorship, the thin skins of so many Muslims, their fear of new ideas, the evils of holding beliefs more strongly than is justified by relevant evidence, and so on.

Meanwhile, on a happier note, this Thanksgiving (tomorrow) I plan to give sincere thanks to those to whom we are indebted for our freedoms.  In that respect, I invite you to again read what Robert Ingersoll wrote (which I’ve quoted many times, but never enough):

When I became convinced that the Universe is natural – that all the ghosts and gods are myths – there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom.  The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust.  I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave.  There was for me no master in all the wide world – not even in infinite space.

I was free:  free to think, to express my thoughts – free to live to my own ideal – free to live for myself and those I loved – free to use all my faculties, all my senses – free to spread imagination’s wings – free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope – free to judge and determine for myself – free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past – free from popes and priests – free from all the “called” and “set apart” – free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies – free from the fear of eternal pain – free from the winged monsters of night – free from devils, ghosts, and gods.

For the first time I was free.  There were no prohibited places in all the realms of my thought – no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings – no chains for my limbs – no lashes for my back – no fires for my flesh – no master’s frown or threat – no following another’s steps – no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words.

I was free.  I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.  And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain, for the freedom of labor and thought – to those who fell on the fierce fields of war – to those who died in dungeons bound with chains – to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs – to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn – to those by fire consumed – to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men.  And I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.

www.zenofzero.net
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Stop Clerical Graft!

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Refuse to Pay

A wise man once said, a long time ago,
“All people by nature desire to know”;
Yet, more should be said, for progress to grow:
All claims to be knowledge – what tests say it’s so?

What truth in the claims of creationists
At odds with ideas from top scientists?
What rule proves the “truth” that God even exists?
Did unstable “nothing” yield all that persists?

And what of the claims about heaven and hell?
They seem to be stories that children would tell.
The stories of Gabriel, Emmanuel…
All play on emotions – like detrital smell!

Emotions are certainly helpful to use,
But who doesn’t know how emotions abuse?
A feeling can be a confusing sad ruse
And yet be adopted as trustworthy news!

Emotions can’t answer:  2 added to 2?
But logic can frequently show us what’s true;
Yet, logic is under some huge constraints too,
For logic can’t find information that’s new.

With logic you test what you might just assume;
But logic can’t even begin to illume
The premisses hidden in nothing but fume –
From which any “truth” can be forced to exhume!

Emotion and logic possess their own blight.
There’s only way to get truth in the light.
The method (by which science earned all its might):
Guess, test, and assess if predictions are right!

Please try it yourself:  you say there’s a god?
Predict what would happen.  I dare you.  I prod!
You’ll find as I did, something really quite odd:
That truth in such tests is ridden roughshod!

All clerical "truths" are nothing but lies:
The “proofs” that they claim are what logic denies;
They choose only “truths” that emotionalize;
In turn, each “truth’s” source is what fools fantasize.

No evidence backs any clerical claims,
But lots of it shows all clerics’ true aims:
Exactly reverse from what each one proclaims,
They run the world’s oldest and richest con games!

They tell you:  “Your role is only to serve
A powerful god who will always observe;
At death, he’ll pass judgment on what you deserve;
So, do what we say – and your soul we’ll preserve!”

Far better, know nothing, as Josh Billings said,
Than know what ain’t so.  But people so dread
The con artists’ claims about after they’re dead,
They give up their life and seek death now instead.

Enough with the clerics and games that they play;
We’ll never make progress by going that way.
The “truths” clerics claim just lead people astray;
Stop clerical graft by refusing to pay!

www.zenofzero.net
••••

On Where to Build the Ground-Zero, Multifaith Center

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In his 7 September 2010 op-ed article in The New York Times, the Islamic cleric who seeks to build a “community center in Lower Manhattan” (originally called the Cordoba House and commonly called “the Ground-Zero Mosque”), Feisal Abdul Rauf, states:

My life’s work has been focused on building bridges between religious groups and never has that been as important as it is now.

His description of the new “bridge” he proposes includes:

Above all, the project will amplify the multifaith approach that the Cordoba Initiative has deployed in concrete ways for years…  Our initiative is intended to cultivate understanding among all religions and cultures.

Our broader mission – to strengthen relations between the Western and Muslim worlds and to help counter radical ideology – lies not in skirting the margins of issues that have polarized relations within the Muslim world and between non-Muslims and Muslims.  It lies in confronting them as a joint multifaith, multinational effort.

In an 8 September 2010 interview with Soledad O’Brien, Rauf added:

You must remember, Soledad, and Americans must remember, that what we do is watched all over the world… If you don’t do this right, anger will explode in the Muslim world.  If this is not handled correctly, this crisis could become much bigger than the Danish cartoon crisis, which resulted in attacks on Danish embassies in various parts of the Muslim world.

So, thereby, Rauf threatens us with Muslim madness:  if we in the West don’t behave “correctly”, if Muslims don’t get what they want, then once again, psychologically immature Muslim maniacs will throw temper tantrums.

Well, Mr. Bridge Builder, I have a suggestion for you:

•  Whereas, in general, Western tolerance is already exemplary;

•  Whereas we in the West (who have freedoms of speech and of the press) are already able to learn as much about other cultures as we desire;

•  Whereas we in the West are beginning to understand, quite well, thank you very much, some of the errors and evils of Islam, including its blatant intolerance of unbelievers in Islamic balderdash (e.g., the Koran’s injunction for Muslims to “kill the infidels”);

•  Whereas you claim that your goal is to “cultivate understanding” in a “multifaith, multinational effort”, “to strengthen relations between the Western and Muslim worlds”; and

•  Whereas the King of Saudi Arabia, the “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques”, has been promoting “interfaith dialogue” and surely would provide you with financial support to build your “multifaith center” ($100 million being mere pocket-change for him);

Therefore, I strongly recommend that you don’t try to build your “interfaith center” anywhere near where Muslim maniacs murdered thousands of innocent civilians – including anywhere in New York City, in America, or in the West – but instead, build it where it’s obviously so sorely needed:  at the Ground Zero of Intolerance, Mecca.

Stated differently, if you truly want to “promote tolerance” and “counter radical ideology”, then I recommend that you stop “skirting the margins of issues that have polarized relations within the Muslim world and between non-Muslims and Muslims”, and instead, put all your efforts into trying to show Muslims how civilized people live.

www.zenofzero.net

September 11th: Discard a “holy book” Day

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In the U.S., we have ten legal Federal holidays (from New Year’s Day and Martin Luther King Day to Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving Day).  We call them ‘holidays’ (a word derived from Old English hāligdæg meaning “holy day”, in turn from Dutch and German heilig, meaning ‘holy’ or ‘sacred’), but the religious connotation for such days is generally gone – except insofar as the word ‘holy’ is derived from the Greek word meaning ‘separated’, and on such days, most of us separate ourselves from work!  Also, both officially and unofficially, we generally recognize many other special days – and even weeks and months (e.g., Groundhog Day, Children’s Book Week, and Native Heritage Month).

The purpose of this post is to recommend that September 11th (or 9/11) be adopted as Discard a “holy book” Day.  Here, by ‘discard’, I don’t necessarily mean burn, bury, or do similar to your “holy book”.  For example, you may want to recycle it or trade it in for a better book.  Yet, if you own a “holy book” and there’s no concern about air pollution, then if you’re so inclined, burning it would be good.

I should also admit that I’m generally opposed to destroying things.  In some cases, however, e.g., in the case of bedbugs, black-widow spiders, and bacteria causing diseases from botulism to bubonic plague, destruction seems desirable – and without doubt, the world is certainly plagued with “holy books”, witness:

•  Estimates are available that there are approximately 7.5 billion Bibles in the world.  Since 1908, the Gideons alone, have distributed “close to 1.5 billion” Bibles.  Last year, the Gideons distributed 26,000 Bibles in Chattanooga, TN, alone (population of ~ 500,000).

•  Approximately 800 million copies of the Koran have been sold; I couldn’t find an estimate for how many copies of the Koran have been given away, but last year, “about 18,000 to 20,000 copies” of the Koran were hung on doorknobs in Dearborn, MI, alone (population ~90,000), and “from July 2007 to May 2008, 70,000 [copies of the Koran]… were distributed in Chicago and 30,000 in Houston.”

•  Even the relatively minor Mormon cult (membership claimed to be about 10 million) has printed more than 100 million copies of their Book of Mormon and distributed them around the world.

Thus, even without inquiring of Google how many other “holy books” have been printed, it seems obvious that the world is infected with “holy books.”

Meanwhile, of course it’s silly to call any book ‘holy’ – in my dictionary’s sense of “dedicated or consecrated to God”, because the most certain knowledge that humans have been able to gain (even more certain than the knowledge that we exist!) is that no god exists or has ever existed.  More realistically, “holy books” are “dedicated and consecrated” to the clerics who peddle them in their con games for their own profit, in lieu of working for a living.

Further, the reasoning of one of the most influential founders of the American government, Thomas Paine (1737-1809), in his 1794 book The Age of Reason should have put the silliness to rest, once-and-for-all, that “holy books” are “revelations” from God.  An illustration of Paine’s reasoning is given in the following quotation – for which I’ve taken the liberty to update some of its punctuation and spelling and I’ve added a few consistent changes and comments in brackets [such as these].

Every… [organized, revealed] religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals:  the Jews have their Moses; the Christians [have] their Jesus Christ… the [Muslims] have their Muhammad [and, after Paine wrote this, the Mormons had the Rigdon-Smith conspiracy]…  Each of those [religions rely on]… certain books, which they call revelation, or the word of God:  the Jews say that their word of God was given by God to Moses, face to face; the Christians say that their word of God came by divine inspiration; and the [Muslims] say that their word of God was brought by an angel from Heaven [just as the Mormons claim, for their Book of Mormon].  Each of those [religions] accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.

As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some other observations on the word ‘revelation’.  Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man.  No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication, if He pleases [if he were to exist!].  But admitting, for the sake of [argument], that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that [first] person only.  When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons.  It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it.

It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing.  Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication – after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of the Commandments from the hands of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than some “historian” telling me so.  The commandments carry no internal evidence of divinity with them; they contain some good moral precepts, such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver, or a legislator, could produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural intervention.  [Paine adds the footnote:  “It is, however, necessary to except the declaration which says that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children; it is contrary to every principle of moral justice.”]

When I am told that the Quran was written in Heaven and brought to Muhammad by an angel, the account comes too near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second-hand authority as the former [and similarly for the Book of Mormon].  I did not see the angel myself, and, therefore, I have a right not to believe it.

When also I am told that a woman called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not.  Such a circumstance requires much stronger evidence than their bare word for it.  But we have not even this – for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves; it is only reported by others that they said so.  It is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not choose to rest my belief upon such evidence…

The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion.  It has been the most destructive to the peace of man since man began to exist.  Among the most detestable villains in history, you could not find one worse than Moses, who gave an order to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers and then rape the daughters.  One of the most horrible atrocities found in the literature of any nation.  I would not dishonor my Creator’s name by attaching it to this filthy book…

The study of theology… is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion…  All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit…

Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst; every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in; but this attempts to stride beyond the grave, and seeks to pursue us into eternity.

In reality, it’s been well known for more than a century that the “revelations” recorded in all “holy books” are just records of ignorant speculations by primitive people.  Some examples of such assessments are the following:

All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the “elect” have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it.  I brought away a copy from Salt Lake.  The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so “slow”, so sleepy, such an insipid mess of inspiration.  It is chloroform in print. [Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain; 1835–1910)]

I studied the Koran a great deal ... I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. [Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–59)]

Having thus given a cursory view of the Qur’an I lay it before the sensible persons, with the purpose that they should know what kind of book the Qur’an is.  If they ask me, I have no hesitation to say that it cannot be work either of God or of a learned man, nor can it be a book of knowledge.  The Qur’an is the result of ignorance, the source of animalization of humans… a fruitful cause of destroying peace, an incentive to war, a propagator of hostility amongst men and a promoter of suffering in society. [Dayananda Saraswati (1824–83)]

A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell – mouths mercy, and invented hell – mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him! [Mark Twain (1835–1910)]

This Bible bears every evidence of being a book like every other book, conceived by man, written by man, altered by man, translated by man, printed by man, but – and this is where it differs from every other book – the Bible is swallowed by man.  And it has disagreed with him; [but] man has not digested it properly through lack of sufficient dissection of its parts.  It has been taken with a spiritual sauce that has disguised its real flavor.  Anything in the Bible, no matter how raw, is taken as God’s food.  It is used to demonstrate problems of diet which do not provide a balanced ration; it is accepted by the gullible though contradicted by the revelations of Geology, Astronomy, Anthropology, Zoology, and Biology.  Taken as prescribed by the doctors of divinity, the Bible is a poisonous book. [William Floyd, 1871–1943]

The longer we live the more are we convinced that no adult person would accept the Bible as a divine work if he had not been taught the dogma of the Bible’s divinity when a child.  Let the matured mind come to the perusal of the Bible without the religious prejudice in favor of its divine character, and it would reject the book as unworthy the consideration of the intelligent, educated mind.  Let the refined sense, which all education in art, manners and social morals seeks to cultivate, begin to read the Bible, without the religious prejudice in favor of its sacred character, and before a dozen pages had been read, it would close the volume with disgust and hide it out of sight, or burn it as soon as possible.

The Bible’s divinity rests upon the mental and moral corruption of the young.  Were children not taught that this book was sacred, men and women would look upon it as unholy.  Do people realize what harm they are doing to the mind of the child when they teach it to accept the Bible as God’s word?  They are telling the child that falsehood is sacred; that ignorance is holy; that foul stories are pure; that vile words are clean, in the mouth of God.  Fathers and mothers would not tell their children what they, and what priests and ministers, tell them God wrote or inspired man to write.

What is needed today is to tell the truth about the Bible.  Tell men and women that ignorant, uncultured, unrefined men wrote it hundreds of years ago, and that it is unfit in its present shape to put into the hands of a child that a mother wishes to grow up honest, true and pure.  Liberals should not allow their children to touch the Bible.  They should keep it from them until they are old enough to know that no book was ever written by a god, and then, if they read the Bible, they would see its true character.  We must guard the minds of our children from Christian influences.  We pity the child that is taught that the Bible is the word of God, but we despise the man that teaches this falsehood.  [Lemuel K. Washburn (1846–1927)]

If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal.  If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane…

The real oppressor, enslaver, and corrupter of the people is the Bible.  That book is the chain that binds, the dungeon that holds the clergy.  That book spreads the pall of superstition over the colleges and schools.  That book puts out the eyes of science, and makes honest investigation a crime.  That book fills the world with bigotry, hypocrisy and fear.

The book, called the Bible, is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust and atrocious.  This is the book to be read in schools in order to make our children loving, kind and gentle!  This is the book they wish to be recognized in our Constitution as the source of all authority and justice!

How long, O how long will mankind worship a book?  How long will they grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past?  How long, O how long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than death? [Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899)]

In the subsequent century and more, even more damning assessments have been made of all “holy books”, but I’ll leave it to readers to explore such assessments on their own.  For reasons detailed elsewhere, my own summaries are:  as bad as the Bible is (and similarly, the Book of Mormon), the Koran is that much worse.

Here, I’ll end this post just with the serious recommendation that it would be good if everyone in the world would commemorate one of the innumerable hideous consequences of permitting “holy books” to pollute the world by denoting 9/11 as Discard a “holy book” Day – and do so!

Although, come to think of it, if you would prefer not to restrict yourself to discarding “holy books” only on September 11th, then I certainly wouldn’t try to deter you.  In my view, the more “holy books” trashed, the better.

www.zenofzero.net
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