לאן נעלמתי? לרליינס!

לא נגמרו לי הטיעונים, כמובן. אולי להיפך.

לא כתבתי פה כבר זמן רב מסיבה אחת בלבד, אני מנהל עסק כבר שנתיים. עכשיו הוא כבר כמעט גמור ואנחנו מתכוונים לעלות לאוויר בקרוב.

רליינס היא פלטפורמה אינטרנטית שמנהלת את מערכת היחסים בין בעלי דירות לדיירים שלהם. אנחנו מייצרים מערכת שתשים את כל הפתרונות במקום אחד. רליינס תעביר תשלומי שכר דירה, תעזור לניהול חשבונות, הזמנת תיקונים ואנשי מקצוע, תשלום ועד בית, מעקב אחרי דיירים, תקשורת אמינה ועוד ועוד.

אנחנו לא רחוקים מסיום. עוד חודשיים פלוס מינוס. עכשיו נשאר רק להגיע לשם. 

כך או כך, אנחנו נמצאים כאן:

www.reliancerent.com

Long Time no Wright

So, Yes. It has been a while since I updated this blog. It is not just because no one reads it, though that is sadly true. It is mostly because I have started another blog.

I've been working on a start up company over the past year with my business partner Ishai. Lately we decided to create a blog about our experiences in this crazy start up world. Here is a link to a great post and the main page:

http://thereliancejourney.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey/

http://thereliancejourney.wordpress.com/

See you on the other side.

The Banana

Today's topic is a little unusual. So much so, that I find it difficult to summarize in a single paragraph. Today’s topic will have to introduce itself.

OK. I know what you’re thinking. We’ve covered this issue in a previous post when talking about design. Well, yes. You’re right. But in this case the argument is so specific that I felt the need to address it on it’s own.

My first step in addressing this argument would have to be to agree with its claim. The banana does seem perfectly fitted for human consumption. It looks designed. I would even concede a further step. Not only does the banana look designed. It is designed. The question is: By whom?

The modern banana, sadly, did not occur naturally. In fact, neither did most of the things we eat. It was cultivated by man over thousands of years of selective breeding. And we’re still doing it. Every year new and exciting vegetables appear on the market ranging from baby carrots to yellow cherry tomatoes. The modern banana in fact looks almost nothing like a wild banana. Wild bananas are small, bitter and full of seeds. The modern banana was bred so well, that if left to its own devices, would go extinct almost instantly.

There is an argument to be made that the world looks designed. However, the more one studies the biological world (and few study this world more extensively than biologists and geneticists) the more it seems evolved, rather than designed. The human eye, another commonly used example, is not perfectly designed but demonstrably evolved. As are wild bananas.

The chair I am sitting on is well designed to fit my buttocks (though I bet a better fit could be devised). It does not only seem that way. It is that way. It was undoubtedly designed by someone in Sweden. A human being. It has that in common with cabbages, corn, cherry tomatoes, regular tomatoes, watermelons, wheat, chickens, cows, sheep, goats, and many many more.

And even if we allow ourselves to imagine a grand designer. A powerful being who put us all together. Hoping worriedly that his intentions for us are kinder than our intentions are toward bananas. We would have to pick our healthy curiosity up off the floor at take it one more step forward - to ask: Who designed the designer? And how did he design seedless watermelons to reproduce?

The Big Bang

In the bible it is said that the universe had a beginning and that beginning was God (let’s forget the specifics of the order of creation for a moment). And then, thousands of years after the bible was written, scientists come along and say the same thing. The universe began with a big bang. This bang was what created space and time. Just like the bible says. Proof of God, right?

This argument is an over simplification of an extremely complex issue. I, for one, have very little knowledge about the big bang. Cosmological evidence is notoriously hard to grasp and tends to pass too far over peoples heads for them to make any informed decision. This argument from evidence will have to be passed on to Stephen Hawking and his astrophysicist friends. Though he seems to think its silly.

And so we move from an argument from evidence to an argument from lack of evidence. Just about every religion in the world speaks of creation. They differ over the question of which God was doing the creating and how this creation came about. Some believe the universe was created from an egg, others from a dream and yet others from a handkerchief. And they’re right. But people who claim their God created the world are only taking the first step. They still have most of their work ahead of them. The next step is explaining how this was done.

Luckily enough religious people are in no way shy about making physical claims. The Abrahamic religions doubly so. God created the world in six days. First he created the Earth, then the sea and the sky. He created land and plants, and only then made the sun, moon and stars.

Just about everything in this order of creation has long been shown to be false. Plants could not have been formed before the sun or stars. The sky has nothing to do with the sea. The only resemblance between the biblical account of our beginnings and the scientific one is that there actually were beginnings. Everything coming after that is wrong. The religious score one point. Only one point.

But of course there was a beginning. As I’ve said in earlier posts, there is no such thing as infinity in the real world. We may not know how the universe began. It was a very long time ago after all. But we know it did. And it will one day end. At least in its present form.

Despite this, as we have done before, we will take a moment to assume we are wrong. Let’s imagine God did create the universe as we know it. We then have to again ask the question: Who created God?

This puts us in a bit of a pickle. We’ve gone all the way toward assuming the world was created by a higher being and now we’re stuck where we started. And even accepting everything written in the bible as true, we have no solution to this important question.

After all is said and done, I must conclude that a creature so complex as to create the universe must have himself have evolved. Probably as a product of natural selection.

The Court of the Gospel

“The court is in session!” Yells the judge as he pounds his gavel, “Christianity may call their first witness”. A chill of anticipation fills the room.

“Christianity calls to the stand the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”

Objection! Hearsay!

The unequivocal foundations of Christianity are the gospels, telling of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. As a foundation, however, they do extremely poorly. First and foremost, not one of the gospels was written during the days of the son of God. Moreover, the writers never knew their lord savior. Not one. Even Josephus, a Roman historian of the time, had written of the events long after they occurred. We would never accept such evidence in court, how could we accept it as the basis for our lives?

Just for fun though, let us put them on the stand anyway. The gospels are the basis for Christianity and we want to hear their story. “I’m sorry” we hear from the prosecution “We cannot provide the original testimony of those who wrote about Jesus decades after his death. But we do have copies.

Not only are the gospels inadmissible for being hearsay, there is no guarantee they are the original testimony of those who wrote them. In fact much of the text was edited over and over for hundreds of years. Parts were added, parts were removed. The story of the Resurrection, for example, was added to the gospel of Mark hundreds of years after it was written.

But let’s be fair. We want to hear what these people have to say, despite having long lost any credibility. And as they tell their stories we notice a contradiction. Not one, but thousands of contradictions. And these are not slight discrepancies either. From the heredity of Jesus, through miracles performed to the virgin birth itself - contradictions are bountiful. Even if one were inclined to believe in a heavenly watchful eye, making sure the gospels remained true, we still must face these contradictions. If it contradicts itself, it cannot be absolutely true. can it?

I’m sure we can find other supernatural claims with much better evidence than this. Throw a stone in the crazy pond and you will hit a man claiming he was abducted by aliens. We dismiss the man off hand, but this is first hand testimony. Far better than that of the gospel. And he is not alone. The abducted are many, with often corroborating testimonies. But still crazy.

The religion of Christianity is predicated on the gospels. Stories written long after what they are depicting. Surprisingly contradictory considering the amount of editing each had to go through for hundreds of years after they were written. And so:

“The gospels are inadmissible.” says the judge reluctantly. Turning to Christianity he asks “Do you have anything else that is not based on these testimonies?” silence. “Anything?”

Card Tricks and Miracles

How would one be able to distinguish between a messenger from God and a false prophet? Both would obviously say they were sent by the divine. Both would probably make predictions. If one is vague enough or lucky enough some may even come true. The only way the meek could possibly tell the difference were if one could perform miracles.

This is mentioned in the bible quite often. False and real prophets would have public miracle castings all the time. Even Jesus would come to use them for vindication. During the ages depicted in the bible, miracles seemed almost commonplace. every generation had its prophet. Each prophet made sure to keep his believers on the edge of their seats with amazement.

Oddly enough, all of these magical events ended with the bible. It seems every religious text talks of miracles performed in a distant time, but none can be replicated today. Ever since biblical times people have been calling themselves messengers from God. Most with contradicting prophecies. But since the beginning of the age of properly recorded history, none could rise to carry the burden of proof required in the bible. How are the meek supposed to tell the difference?

When we search our times for miracle like events, however, something does come up. Magic is being performed all the time. From Penn & Teller to Siegfried & Roy amazement is delivered on mass. We are enthrolled as they turn water into wine and make animals disappear. What is their message? we ask, Who do they worship?

And so we reach a moment of inner reflection. Let’s imagine a person were to appear before us claiming a moral truth. To support his claim, he turns water into wine and parts a sea. Proving absolutely that he had magnificent abilities. Would these feats make his moral truth correct? Would we forgo reason and proper judgment of his moral claims simply because he has these powers? Any individual today, if taken back in time, could easily wow a biblical audience. No God needed. Would that make him morally absolute?

Most of the magicians of today have enough integrity to reveal that it’s all an illusion. No one is turning water into wine but making you think they are. Maybe they know they could never get away with it. Maybe they have no religious ambition. Whatever the case, these magicians have raised the bar for miracle work. In order for a prophet to convince a modern audience of his Gods power he must accomplish an even greater feat. Something spectacular. Perhaps the parting of a sea.

When boiled down, biblical miracles are as credible a source of evidence as the bible itself. All of them, of course, unverifiable. And from an age filled with miracles to one entirely devoid, we must ask: why? The cut off point seemed to coincide with the last chapter of the book. Today there are large cash prizes offered to anyone who can have their supernatural powers survive scientific scrutiny. Yet no one has claimed them.

Personal Revelations

Let us begin this argument by stating the obvious. Many people claim to literally hear the voice of God. He often tells them to do things. Usually crazy things. Every one of those who assert this is either psychotic or dishonest. That should be clear. Many other people, on the other hand, feel God speaks to them through events in their lives. Others just feel in their heart that God is there. How could anyone argue with that?

Sadly we can’t. When all of the facts involved are feelings within someones head, It makes it hard to present counter evidence. What should we say? No, you don’t feel that way? No, that feeling is probably just chemicals pouring around in your brain? Such feelings are an unfortunate argument stopper, plain and simple.

But personal feelings are notoriously difficult to rely on. We misinterpret signs all the time. We may be sure our spouse is mad at us, while they are just having a bad day. We sometimes get unjustly angry, sad or lonely. We hold an irrational fear of clowns. We believe that if we wear a lucky shirt our team will win. Completely ignoring the fact that our opponents fans have their lucky shirt on as well. We’re going to win this time, we say to ourselves at the blackjack table, we can feel it.

And on that third date, after the moonlit walk and fancy dinner, we run to our best friend to try and understand ourselves. Is it love we are feeling?

We humans tend to be unsure about our emotions. Constantly checking ourselves against our friends. Are we really angry or just disappointed? Are we in love or just lonely? Why is it that the personal feeling of God is spoken of with such certainty?

Let’s imagine a different sort of society. One where parents tell their children that anger is the feeling of God. Every time someone does something evil, God enters their bodies to give them power. Could such people tell the difference? Anger is an extremely powerful emotion. Asking people from this society about God, we would get a definitive answer. Of course God exists, they would say, I feel him all the time. Especially in the line at the DMV.

As children we are told God exists and that certain feeling embody him. And as children we accept that claim without question. When we grow up, we begin to see the inconsistencies of what we were told. Some of us stop believing. Others try and rationalize them away, still attributing certain feelings to God. Maybe the feeling of awe. Maybe reverence.

Whatever these feelings are, they are not unique to one faith. In fact, they are not unique to any faith. One can feel inspired without believing in the supernatural. One can feel awe without it being directed at a supreme being. These are experiences that every human being gets to feel. Even atheists.

The Stories of the Bible

The many books of the bible are full of stories. Some of these claim to depict the history of the creation of the world. Others the history of the Hebrew people. Parts of these stories are supported by evidence. Others are not. Are any of them true?

There is no doubt that the bible has some history to it. But it is not a historical text. The old Testament tells the story of the Hebrew people as they travel the ancient world. On occasion, places are depicted and people are named. Some of these names and places did really exist. Jerusalem is a real place. So is Egypt. The land of Israel was indeed occupied by Babylon, Greece, Rome and many more. But does this make the rest of it true?

To answer that question we must look at the way the book was written. The old testament was edited during the Roman occupation. At that time many Hebrews would have known the history of their people. They would have certainly known to call each place by location and each leader by name. Even today, in fine bookshops everywhere, we find books depicting fictional stories written into real historical events.

But let’s be honest. The majority of people do not accept these stories because they have studied the evidence. Most accept the bible as true because that is what they were told. We grew up with it. The faith comes later. If some archaeological evidence pops up to support the bible, great. If it refutes it, who cares? None of us are born with an innate knowledge that the bible is true. That is something we must be taught.

The belief that the bible depicts events that actually happened is instilled in us as children. We grow up viewing King David and Jesus Christ as historical figures. We are told the stories of the bible are true while other stories are fairy tales. But what if that were not the case?

Let us imagine for a moment that we grew up differently. Our parents told us of the fairy tale of Jonah and the whale, and then took us to learn the true story of Pinokio and his father who survived in a whale until rescued. Could we tell the difference? If the miracles of Jesus walking on water were just a story and snow whites evil step mothers and her magic mirror were true., would we just laugh away the bible as fiction? I think we might.

The bible seems to be a piece of historical fiction. Some fantastical events written into a real place and time. To fully appreciate this fact we must adorn a veil of ignorance. We must look at this book through the eyes of someone who has never heard of religious worship. A new comer to our literary world. Through those eyes we would not hesitate when asked about the truth of the book. Under such a veil of ignorance, everyone is a sceptic.

The Non-Literalists Bible

The overwhelming majority of those who believe in the truth of the bible split into two groups: Those who believe it is literally true - which I have remarked upon in my previous post; and those who see it as metaphorically true. The later believe it is a good guide to an absolute moral truth. The events mentioned in the bible are designed to pass along that moral truth, rather than a historical one.

There are many arguments to be made about the morality of the bible, but those will not be presented in this case. At the moment I wish to keep the discussion within the realm of the truth of the bible. And so the first point to be made is that of the last chapter: The bible tends not only to be factually inacurate, but also contradicts itself within its own rules.

Now back to the metaphors. The story of the flood was evidently designed to demonstrate Gods fury, while the parting of the sea was designed to demonstrate his mercy. Sound logical enough. But then what of the order of creation? What moral truth can be found in the fact the the sun was created after the plants? How does the direct blood line between Jesus and king David teach us anything (A blood line that is different in each of the gospels. Another example of biblical contradictions).

Another possible view is that the bible was written by man. It may contain moral truth and a message from God, but was written within the context of the people it was given to. A bronze age people.

This sort of reasoning raises even more questions. How can someone discern the moral truth from the tribal barbarism? In many places in the bible, God explicitly expects his people to commit genocide, or oppress women. Under which category should we place such commands? Are they a metaphor? or were they intended to be taken in context?

If the answer is context then the conclusion is unavoidable: The book was not intended for us to begin with. It is a bronze age book with a bronze age mentality depicting a bronze age God. This God acts and reacts consistently with the morality of that time. If we are to read it within that context and then intemperate our findings through the filter of our own morality, then it is not the book that’s in charge of the moral truth, but the filter. Us.

When we hear of those who believe in a literal acceptance of the bible, we may laugh. But there seems to be a rational element at play. If one has made the decision to believe in the God of the bible, it makes perfect sense to believe that his Gods text is literally true. It is the basis for his faith. On it’s face, it makes more sense to view the bible as non-literal. A non-literal interpretation fits perfectly with a non-belief in God. But it does not fit as well with religion. It feels strange to base ones life on the belief of a biblical God while viewing the bible as open to interpretation and human error.

But when it comes to the bible, everything is strange.

The Literalist’s Bible

This argument claims one simple thing: The bible is the perfect word of God (not necessarily relevant in this case is which bible or which God). Therefor everything written in it is literally true, floods, miracles, resurrections and all. Simple.

Most non-believers would shrug this all off with a laugh. As it happens, the book does contain a fair amount of claims about the natural world, many of which are, to a rational person, physically impossible.

The bible, however, cares nothing of this. It took the time to establish its own set of rules. Rules by which seas can part, suns can stop in their place, and people can be resurrected after death. For us to argue with these biblical stories would be a waste of time. Telling someone the parting of the sea is ridiculous and therefor they should stop believing in a literal bible will simply not work.

And so we must forgo virgin births and Egyptian plagues and find another argument. Such an argument would need to demonstrate that the bible cannot be literally true, within the confines of its own rules. It would need to identify a contradiction within the books own internal logic.

Turns out that’s not so hard to do. The bible, it seems, contradicts itself quite often. One example of this could be found in the book of Genesis. The bible returns to the story of creation several times. Each of those recounts a different order of events. The first story (Genesis 1:11 - 13, 27 - 31) tells us that plants were created before Adam and Eve. The second story (Genesis 2:4 - 7) tells the opposite. It could not have happened both ways. Which came first?

As we can see, and this is only a single example out of many, the bible is known to contradict itself. These contradictions are not reflections of the bibles own rules. This is a completely different kind of mistake. Here we are not complaining that the story does not fit with everything we know about the natural world. Here we argue that it does not fit with itself.

It is at this point that I must ask the obvious question: How can a book which contradicts itself be literally true? And if it still is, is there any evidence that could possibly be brought forward that would change that way of thinking? The bible is the source of the three Abrahamic faiths. If it is not literally true, where do they get their absolutes from?

Truth be told, it is easy to find contradictions in the bible. It was, after all, written and edited very often by many people. That’s the problem with ancient bibles. The Harry Potter novels would never make such mistakes.