The real centre of the earth

One religion teaches us that Jerusalem is the centre of the earth, while another teaches that Mecca is the centre.

What about the notion that the earth is an oblate spheroid and its real centre is in the middle, not on the surface somewhere in the middle-east?  The fact that they don't know this tells us quite a lot about their all-knowing little bronze-age gods.

Both Judeo-Christian texts and Islamic texts mention that the earth has four corners, so it is futile to claim that its writers knew that the earth was not flat.

Of course Christians claim that, for example, the Isaiah (40:23) includes a phrase 'in the circle of the earth'.  Every school child who has had a 'proper' education (which presumably excludes most Christian and indeed Islamic scholars) is fully aware that a circle and a sphere are different in the fundamentals of their geometry - 2D vs 3D. 

Some supposed scholars of Islam claim that the Koran tells us that the earth is the shape of an ostrich egg - which of course is wrong, even if it was translated correctly.  Others claim the passage to describe the action of an ostrich to flatten the sand after it has hidden its egg, confirming the metaphor of the flat earth.  This is the only apparent 'evidence' that it was known that the earth is broadly spherical.  Little do they know that they are also showing their own ignorance (and probably using deliberate taqiyya) by making this claim.

But their ignorance is confirmed beyond doubt by the claim that Mecca is the centre.  This makes it completely and unambiguously obvious that they, like Judeo-Christians are indulging in two-dimensional thinking, shooting themselves in the foot with their claim about the three-dimensional revelation that Allah/YHWH/God is supposed to have imparted.

Black and white miracles

There is a legend that the black rock at the centre of the Kaaba in Mecca was white when it descended to earth.

Apparently the sins of the sons of Adam made it turn black!

It is also said that it floats on water.  At least this bit is plausible!

Questioning believers - an oxymoron?

One of the big differences between believers and non-believers is the way that we look at things that are mysterious or unanswered.

Would it be true to say that non-believers look at things with a question, not with an answer?

Opium of the people?

How often do we hear a 'quotation' from Karl Marx

"Religion is the opium of the people"

In actual fact he didn't exactly say that.  He said:

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower.

Rainbow over La Bastille

Paris - a rainbow over the Bastille monument
(in fact a double rainbow if you look askance)

You might also like to look at Ever thought about rainbows?, a post describing some of the interesting and surprising features of the rainbows that most of us see from time to time.

Things Christians say, part 39: God doesn't believe in atheists

A weekly series of responses to the things Christians say to atheists, based on the video reproduced here on 30th January 2012.  The aim is to tackle one every weekend, to give both a moderate, polite response to each question ('Piano'), followed by a more forceful rebuttal of the same question ('Forte'). 

God doesn't believe in atheists!

Piano

Trying (very hard) not to chuckle openly at this one.  Apologies for failing to come up with anything better than that.

***

Forte

How do you know that?  You can't.


Last episode:   Aw - that's sad.
Next week: Eventually God (or Jesus) will touch your heart 

The Satanic Verses

Do you know where the title of Salman Rushdie's most notorious book comes from?

Surah 53:19-20 tells muslims to worship the daughters of Allah, and names them as al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat.

How odd.  It seems hardly surprising that these verses are now abrogated, and that they are called 'The Satanic Verses'.

Two-headed puzzle

Following advice from French friends, this week has given the opportunity to visit a few more new places in Paris.

One asked me "Why would an Englishman want to see Napoleon's tomb?  To spit on it?" and I replied that the past is a foreign country and that I didn't need to go there to gloat any more than I boast that I went to the same school as William Wilberforce (who was instrumental in the abolition of slavery).

Two-headed

You can find photos of the tomb anywhere, but this carved head provided a moment of surprise walking back out of the Hotel des Invalides.

What is the point of representing two heads in one like this?

Any ideas?  It must mean something.

Surprisingly embarrassed by a name

Naming our daughter 18 years ago, it never crossed my mind that she would go to university in Paris, or that that chance event would give me a chance to get to know the city so well.  This is my fourth (and longest) visit this year.

More than that I would never have realised that the French have terrible difficulty in pronouncing her name.

Further still, it has taken over a month for her to discover that the French word for deer mating (like the English word 'rut') sounds very similar to their attempts to pronounce 'Ruth'.

You can't blame her for considering using her middle name for the next three years.

Small note:  I'm not laughing at her, but 'sympatising' with her.

Surprising Parisienne souvenirs

A six-day trip to Paris got off to a bad start, while trying to negotiate the ticket barrier at the station with luggage.  The advice is to push your luggage ahead of you.  The gates close immediately behind you, trapping the luggage very effectively - almost irredeemably!

What they don't warn you about (and I should have thought about) is that if the luggage that you are pushing hits something and stops, you end up tumbling to the floor, and in my case putting out my right hand to arrest my fall.

Net result - a visit to hospital and a souvenir from Paris that I didn't expect.

An X-ray of the author's right hand, from two angles!

Nothing was broken, just bruised and somewhat 'pénible' - or at least that is what I think they told me, and they were right and still are.

Only one word was spoken in English during the visit to the hospital, and that one didn't help.  The experience tested my French language skills to close to the limit. 

I can even claim to have enjoyed it!

Typing was a bit slower than usual for a day or two.  Over the next few days a few more Parisienne delights will appear . . . probably interspersed between other things.

Small note:  Now waiting for the bill to arrive in the post!

To Mr Romney . . .

From Twitter:

@BigBigBen: Mitt, I just don't think you were fully prepared. Yours, London 2012

(Not that I'm supporting the 'Nolympics', you understand!)

Small note:  With thanks to one of my Facebook friends who probably prefers not to be named.

The world breathes a sigh of relief!

To my American readers, I hope you realise that you have made the world feel happier and safer by re-electing Obama.  Well done.

If the rest of us had had a chance to vote then it would not have been close-run, but a landslide.  After all, we are all affected by the outcome of your elections, so why shouldn't we have a say?

Romney's politics were one matter, his beliefs in an obviously-made-up religion (as opposed to the normal kind of made-up religion) were also significant.  But to cap it all, his running mate just frightened everyone.  How could the Republicans have made such poor choices in their candidates?  Couldn't they see that a less frightening pair would have got them a victory?  Everyone else could!

All in all, today we can celebrate.

And now Obama has no excuse for failing to deliver the promised improvements to the world economy that we all hope for.

Malala for Nobel Prize again!

Following the successful Canadian campaign which had a positive influence on politicians, here is a message from a UK version. 

I just signed the petition "UK Party Leaders and Foreign Secretary: Nominate #Malala for the Nobel Peace Prize #Nobel4Malala" on Change.org.

It's important. Will you sign it too? Here's the link:

http://www.change.org/petitions/uk-party-leaders-and-foreign-secretary-nominate-malala-for-the-nobel-peace-prize-nobel4malala-2

Thanks!

Follow this link for my previous post on the subject.

Wherever you are, please sign it if you have a minute or two to spare.  It might make our risible Prime Minister realise that there are important things to do in the world!  It might even make the compliant quisling take an interest too. 

That might mean that he has disagreed with his boss twice!

As free as the wind

In the news this week, I saw an item about the world's largest offshore wind farm having produced its first power. The London Array Offshore Wind Farm is a 630MW scheme, located in the Thames Estuary.

This has got to be good news hasn't it?  Well . . .  OK . . .  I know that not everyone will agree with that statement, but when the lights start to go out (which seems not to be wholly unlikely over the next few years) I think even the most ardent critic of wind farms might start to see the advantage of diversity.

But this brings me to another point.  Diversity is only achieved by . . . yes . . . diversifying!  One other new and promising source of power is nuclear fusion, and the international ITER project is now under construction.

Critics in Europe continue to question the cost of the project.  People always object to anything new, and the fusion seems to be a little pricey compared with most people's personal expenditure.  But in the context of energy expenditure, are the numbers really all that high?

Rumours are beginning to emerge that the sheer cost of offshore wind might be a threat to the UK's renewables commitment.  A budget of £30 billion had been earmarked for the construction phase, up to 2020.  But now it is clear that this has been a serious underestimate because the price of concrete is rising.  In a kind of spiral, the cost of concrete depends mainly on the cost of the energy needed to produce it, and that energy needs to be made by the machines that consume the concrete.  The net result is that the offshore wind costs for the UK alone might reach £90 billion by 2020.

Now tell me again that ITER is expensive!  I suggest that you can't do that with any degree of intellectual honesty.  Even if ITER reaches a cost of £20 billion (which is way over the current expectation) this £20 billion is spread between most of the richest countries in the world, whereas the £90 billion for wind is from one small country alone.

Let's be reasonable.  Context is key.

Fusion is not all that expensive.

What else is in an Arabic name?

Following on from Saturday's post, Abu and Hamza - What's in a name, here is another interesting translation problem.

In Arabic names, both ibn and bin can be translated as "son of".

Osama bin Laden means "Osama, son of Laden." It's not uncommon for names to include references to three or four generations of ancestors, each offset with bin or ibn.

So, why do some names use bin while others use ibn?  The spelling of the word in Arabic changes depending on where it is in the sentence.  If it is at the beginning, it is written as alef-ba-nun, which we transliterate as 'ibn'. If the word appears in the middle of a name, the alef gets left off.  We write that as 'bin'.

Given this system, it's not entirely accurate to use "Bin Laden" when we refer to the man in shorthand. The Guardian's sentence "Bin Laden effusively praised the Jordanian-born militant." would more accurately be "Ibn Laden effusively praised the Jordanian-born militant" since in this case the "son of" is at the beginning of the name.

Bin and ibn are more likely to show up in places with strong connections to tribal culture, like Saudi Arabia. People who live in big cities tend to drop the connecting terms from their names—someone named Osama Bin Laden might end up just "Osama Laden." In North Africa, the bin tends to be spelt with an "e", as in the name of former Algerian president Ahmed Ben Bella.

Things Christians say, part 38: Aw - that's sad!

A weekly series of responses to the things Christians say to atheists, based on the video reproduced here on 30th January 2012.  The aim is to tackle one every weekend, to give both a moderate, polite response to each question ('Piano'), followed by a more forceful rebuttal of the same question ('Forte'). 

Aw - that's sad!

Piano

No its not sad at all. I feel quite the opposite now that I've escaped from Christianity.

***

Forte

Yes, I think it is sad that people are oppressed by religious clerics, that they find their lives controlled by people who know little about the scientific explanations of the world, and who make claims that they can't back up with any evidence.



Last episode: It doesn't make any sense - you're saying that something came from nothing?
Next week:  God doesn't believe in atheists

Abu and Hamza - What's in a name?

After the recent glorious extradition of 'Abu Hamza' to USA, I dared to ask a couple of Muslim colleagues for their views.

One of them surprised me and then even armed with the learning from that experience the other surprised me again.

The first didn't answer the question.  He thought I had not noticed that he had essentially changed the subject by telling me that Abu really means 'father'.  This is classic taqiyyah at work.

Now . . . having heard that, I thought I was ready for the second encounter.  But I was surprised to find a Muslim who would (albeit gently) criticise Abu Hamza.  Further than that, I found that Abu really means "father of" rather than "father".  Usually the name of the eldest son follows this title, and by that system I would be called Abu Chris.  (Before he was born I would have been called something else.)

But then we find that the name can be metaphorical.

The Arabic word "Hamza" is a masculine name properly pronounced as "Humzah",  which means "the one who is strong and steadfast".  The name clearly originates from the Prophet Mohammad's Uncle who was killed on a battlefield.

So the name Abu Hamza suggests that its bearer has great character.

Does he?  As Wikipedia tells us,

On 16 May 1980, Masri [aka Abu Hamaz] married Valerie Traverso, a Roman Catholic convert to Islam, and had a son, Mohammed Mustafa Kamel.  Masri later separated the boy from his mother when he was four years old. His son did not see his mother again for another twelve years.  Masri acquired British citizenship following three years of marriage [how convenient] and, according to the Sun newspaper, acquired a job as a bouncer for a peep show in Soho [high morals in action - not that I'm judging!].  In 1984, he divorced his wife and married Nadjet, with whom he has seven children [several of whom have been convicted of serious crimes related to terrorism]. 


Strong . . . and steadfast!  Or just a cheat who used his first wife to gain a privilege that he abused for nearly 20 years, and a father of a band of criminals?

You have to decide for yourself (just as I did).

Its confusing

It took me a while to tune into the Jesus and Mo meme, but this has got to be one of his best ever cartoons.

Remember . . . the invisible character is the ever-wise bar maid.

'Made-up' festivals?

Earlier this year, an Australian bishop called Forsyth said:

"Halloween is a made up festival about death, Easter is a real world festival about life."

Hmm.  Really?  What is wrong with this statement?

Well when you think about it almost all of it is questionable.

One might argue that Halloween was made up, but when you think about it, that invention happened a very long time ago.  Halloween is based on the pagan festivals of Samhain and Beltaine if I remember correctly.  It far pre-dates Christianity.  If we are being pedantic, it isn't really about death.  It might be about the dead, but that is different.  One would expect a bishop to be less semantically challenged than that.

On the other hand, the only basis for evidence of the truth of Easter is the mutually contradictory evidence of the books of the bible (and arguably the way that present day Christians just know things to be true by revelation).

In other words, Easter is just a 'made up festival about death' too.  So what is the difference?

Should I go on about how Christianity's festivals are all coincident with earlier pagan festivals?  I could point out that their origins are all questionable.

Maybe I could ask whether the day after Halloween, All Saints Day, is also a made up festival about the dead (and perhaps even their deaths).

To cap it all, certain Polish bishops have been claiming that celebrating Halloween is actually dangerous.  Archbishop Andrzej Dziega warned that Halloween was behind a "culture of death".

"This kind of fun, tempting children like candy, also poses the real possibility of great spiritual damage, even destroying spiritual life," and that "irresponsible and anti-Christian fun" introduced young people to a "world of darkness, including devils, vampires and demons" in the name of "fun".

So . . . its time to make up your minds.  Is it a made-up festival or is it a real-life world of darkness?

It can't be both.

Determinism and chaos

I have been listening to a talk recorded at Portsmouth Skeptics in the Pub, and published via the Skepticule podcast.  It was Jonathan Pearce talking about free will and determinism.  He counted how many of the audience might be convinced that we do not have free will at the beginning and the answer was around two thirds.  This had changed by the end.  I'm not going to recount his talk, but just talk about the things that have always bothered me about determinism.

Determinists argue that the whole of the future is determined - albeit not necessary pre-determined by a specific entity.  As such they try to convince us that we don't really have free will.  They often use masses of 'evidence' to convince us - and it doesn't convince me.

The evidence comes from the interpretation of results of experiments which seem to show that (for example) our muscles prepare for movement before our minds decide to make the movement.  At first sight these ideas seem compelling, but then you realise that the results are open to interpretation in more ways than one.

Seemingly 'unconscious' actions only suggest that there is no central 'me' who acts like a CPU in a computer.  However, when you consider that our inner awareness is clearly highly distributed through the brain, and that the brain functions fast enough for delays not to be noticeable in everyday life, you realise that evolution did rather a good job.

Worse still, I can't believe that determinists have such a naive view about the predictability of the future state of the universe.  I see this on several levels:

• Even on the basis of a truly complete knowledge of the state of every particle and of all the energy in the universe, they miss an important point - namely chaos.  Chaos theory acknowledges that even the tiniest deviations from what can (in principle) be measured, will lead to a fundamental unpredictability.  It is unavoidable.  Increasing the power of your computer only delays the moment of unpredictability.
• Moving into the quantum physics regime (and in this case I am not using the quantum physics metaphor to prove anything, but to question something) they neglect (or deliberately misunderstand and ignore) Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.  You just can't know everything about the universe as it is just now.  Whether we really understand quantum mechanics or not, it has shown itself to be much better in the predictions business than the philosophy of determinism.  I know where I would put my money on this argument.
• This is not even to mention quantum fluctuations . . . particles and their anti-particles being created spontaneously from a quantum vacuum.

So let's face it.  The future is not actually determined by the present state of the universe except that it is like weather forecasting.  We can fairly reasonably predict trends for the near future, and we can see a final end to the universe as a huge expanse of cold darkness.  But the details get more hazy as the future unfolds.

My free will to publish this post - or not - can't seriously be questioned.

. . . and Pearce's talk was very interesting, even if (Note: IF) his own views are entirely fallacious! For a philosopher that is not an insult but a challenge.

Small note:  Listen to the podcast to see how the opinions had changed by the end of his talk.  I suspect that he was not expecting the reaction of an audience of skeptics!