F Rosa Rubicondior

Friday 13 July 2012

What The Ten Commandments Really Tell Us

In this blog I'll look at the story of the so-called 'Ten Commandments' to see how well or badly the Bible's authors managed to connect them with their god and so give them the weight of divine authority. It supposedly took place during the mythical escape from Egypt of a tribe of slaves. What we find is perhaps not what the authors intended us to find and certainly not what today's priesthood would like us to see. What we see is just how radically history was re-written, by whom and why.

There is no extra-biblical historical or archaeological evidence for this Israeli origin myth but that's another matter. Leaving that aside, let's look at what the Bible has to say and see what sense can be made of it, if any.

Firstly, there are strong clues about the beliefs of the person or people who were writing this stuff, and they go some way to explain some of the 'Commandments'. Before we get to the tale proper, we have this interesting little snippet:

And Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness which the Lord had done to Israel, whom he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians. And Jethro said, Blessed be the Lord, who hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh, who hath delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them.

Exodus 18:9-11

This is said by Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, 'the priest of Midian' (Exodus 18:1) who was presumably wise in these matters, so we can be fairly sure that the Hebrews were polytheistic and just saw Yahweh as maybe the greatest god, but certainly not the only one on offer. It's rather touching that Moses has to be reassured by his father-in-law that he has chosen his god wisely.

Jethro had happened along to offer Moses some advice, which Moses took. Basically, Jethro told Moses he was doing too much and was going to wear himself out if he didn't take things a bit easier. What he needed was a set of rules, and people to enforce these rules then he wouldn't have to make all the decisions, so why not ask Yahweh for some ideas.

And Moses' father in law said unto him, The thing that thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.

Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee: Be thou for the people to God-ward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto God: And thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt shew them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do.

Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens: And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.

If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this people shall also go to their place in peace. So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father in law, and did all that he had said.

Exodus 18:17-24

Moses had a direct line to Yahweh and talked to him on almost a daily basis, yet turned to his father-in-law for advice... Hmmm...

Moving swiftly on...

All this supposedly took place in the three months since the Israelites had escaped from Egypt during which all of them had lived through the plagues, seen the 'destruction of the first-born' at Passover and been saved by a streak of lamb's blood over their door. Then they has seen Moses open up the Red Sea to allow them all to walk across on dry land, and the destruction of the Egyptian army when they tried to follow. Then they had been fed by miraculous food and watered by springs which welled up from nowhere on demand. And the reason they had been 'different' to the Egyptians in the first place was because they were devoted followers of Yahweh.

Anyway, after three months they were camped near Mount Sinai so Moses decided to go visit Yahweh atop this mountain, as you do. First of all, Yahweh tells Moses to go back down the mountain and tell the Israelites that they've seen what he can do when he puts his mind to it, so they'd better watch out, yeah?!

And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.

Exodus 19:3-6

"It's mine I tell you! All mine! You lot need to remember who's in charge around here and which side your bread is buttered!"

So Moses went back down the mountain and told the Israelites that Yahweh had promised them the earth if they obeyed him and kept his rules. (I wonder if that's where right-wing politicians got their usual campaign tactic from.)

So, all the people agreed and Moses went back up the mountain again to tell Yahweh that the deal was on. "Okay!", said Yahweh, "Give me three days and I'll pop back down and tell them the rules, but they'll have to wash their cloths, right!". Even in a desert Yahweh can't be expected to look at dirty cloths. (Exodus 19:10)

Now it begins to get very strange.

Yahweh tell Moses that he has to set bounds around the mountain to prevent people creeping up for a quick peek and says anyone who looks at him will die. Also, anyone who crosses the 'border' of the mountain or lays a hand on it must be stoned to death and 'shot through', even animals. Luckily there probably weren't many wild animals in the desert or it would have been the devil's own job enforcing that one!

And be ready against the third day: for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death: There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount.

Exodus 19:11-13

But why the secrecy? Yahweh is going to stage a spectacular appearance to tell the people the new rules, but they mustn't look at him even though he's going to 'come down in the sight of all the people' and they have to keep well clear of the mountain he's standing on!

Can anyone else see the problem here? Where exactly is the border of a mountain? Where does the surrounding land end and the mountain start? Had these people ever actually seen a mountain? Something is beginning to smell a bit ratty here. Must be that desert heat and all those unwashed clothes.

But, a deal is a deal, and Moses tells the people to wash their cloths (no mention of where the water is to come from). "Oh! And no sex either! That'll keep your minds clear!"

And Moses went down from the mount unto the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed their clothes. And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives.

Exodus 19:14-15

Okay! Nobody look at the god!
Anyway, to cut a long story short, amidst lots of thunder, smoke and trumpets when the only things missing were the mirrors, and when Mount Sinai must have resembled a volcano, Moses brought the people to come and meet Yahweh, at which point he discovers that Yahweh may be having a bout of amnesia.

And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.

Exodus 19:18

Yahweh tells him to go back down the mountain and remind the people that they mustn't look at him, and he tells Moses to bring all the priest back with him and has to be reminded that he had said they're to be stoned and shot through if they come too close.

And the Lord said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish. And let the priests also, which come near to the Lord, sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break forth upon them. And Moses said unto the Lord, The people cannot come up to mount Sinai: for thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it.

Exodus 19:21-23

Oops! That was a close one. Good thing Moses was on the ball or that would have been the priesthood done for! But who is this Lord who might 'break forth upon them' anyway? Is it another god or is Yahweh warning Moses that he can't control himself?

Then Yahweh announces his rules by which the people are supposed now to try to build a nation, but, for some reason, the first few are all concerned with Yahweh and his insecurities and the rest just deal with having a day off work every week and list a few social rules which are more or less common to all societies and so would have been observed already.

But one stands out as rather odd:

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Exodus 20:4-6

And this follows right on Yahweh telling the Hebrews that they are to have no other gods (plural) but him! Not that there aren't any other gods, mind you; just that the Israelites could only have Yahweh.

Someone is very twitchy about other gods, aren't they. In fact, it is that problem which gets the most attention, with the stuff about the Sabbath being strictly observed because it's Yahweh's special day also being at the top of the list.

Someone here is feeling the competition, not from other gods, but from other priests - the priests of the other gods. In the struggle for power in a polytheist society, the struggle isn't with other gods, it's with the priesthoods of other gods. This was a polytheistic culture where tribes had their own special god.

What we are seeing here is history written by the winners. The fact that they grafted it on to another origin myth is neither here nor there. In fact, the volcano similarity (Mount Sinai isn't volcanic) probably shows this myth originated at some time around the Sodom and Gomorrah period when Yahweh used to destroy places with 'fire and brimstone' and he was very much a capricious, and far from omniscient little god, about as angry and unpredictable as any other volcano and which people could only hope to mollify with spells, incantations and sacrifices.

Mount Sinai's rocks were formed in the late stage of the Arabian-Nubian Shield's (ANS) evolution. Mount Sinai displays a ring complex that consists of alkaline granites intruded into diverse rock types, including volcanics. The granites range in composition from syenogranite to alkali feldspar granite. The volcanic rocks are alkaline to peralkaline and they are represented by subaerial flows and eruptions and subvolcanic porphyry. Generally, the nature of the exposed rocks in Mount Sinai indicates that they originated from different depths.


Of course no one was allowed to see Yahweh. The last thing a high priest wants is for people to see the god he represents - can you work out why?

Of course, Moses had to explain away why he couldn't take the other priests to meet god - yep! same reason.

And of course all the real rules, other than those which normal people obey anyway because they are normal human beings, were about Yahweh! That was the power base of the priesthood which won the struggle.

And that explains also the peculiar little tale told later on when Moses is away for a while, chatting to Yahweh again. When he gets back he discovers that, despite all the things the Israelites are supposed to have witnessed, even hearing the voice of Yahweh himself, some upstart priest has made a golden calf for the people to worship and Moses is losing his grip.

And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.

Exodus 32:1-6

So now we see the obsession with not making graven images. A rival priesthood did it. How wicked were they?

Incidentally, did anyone else notice how the 'Ten Commandments' were not cast on tablets of stone, they were announced to the people from a mountain top? We aren't told at this point what was on the tablets of stone - which were produced later, only that there were two of them written on both sides.

And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.

Exodus 31:18

And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written. And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.

Exodus 32:5-6

We have to wait till later for that, then we find they were different ones!

Power struggle
It was all nonsense, of course. It's just too implausible to have happened the way the winners wrote it up. Even when the Yahwehists thought they had won the day and imposed their draconian rules, backed by death threats and enforced through fear, ignorance, superstition and essentially arbitrary yet rigidly enforced rituals, dress codes and dietary laws, the people were so unconvinced that they would change their allegiances at the drop of a hat and follow another god whose priesthood had taken advantage of a temporary absence to reasserted their control.

The Old Testament is not a book about God. It's a book about a priesthood and their struggle to retain their power against their deadly rivals - the priesthoods of other gods. It's a thinly disguised re-write of history by the eventual winners. As such it formed a useful platform for the emerging Christian sects to graft their re-write of history onto as they struggled for power against the priesthoods of other gods and other sects.





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What Is It With The Ten Commandments?

To hear Christians talking about the 'Ten Commandments' you would think they imagine they form some sort of framework for morality and law and the foundations of Western civilisation. Of course, apart from a few basic rules which are common to just about all societies, and general ideas of good neighbourliness which no urbanised society could succeed without, there is almost nothing in them.

They read more like the diktat of some insecure, petulant little despot who feels he needs to reinforce his authority.

The full lists (there are two slightly different ones in the Bible - God seems to have had a rethink on one of them later) are:


No.VerseExodus 20:2-17VerseDeuteronomy 5:7-21
13Thou shalt have no other gods before me.7Thou shalt have none other gods before me.
24-6Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.8-10Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.
37Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.11Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
48-11Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.12-15Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou. And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.
512Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.16Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
613Thou shalt not kill.17Thou shalt not kill.
714Thou shalt not commit adultery.18Neither shalt thou commit adultery.
815Thou shalt not steal.19Neither shalt thou steal.
916Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.20Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour.
1017Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.21Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour's wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbour's.

The first three have nothing whatever to do with human interactions, which is the proper domain of morality, but are all about this god's insecurities and fears that it may be losing its influence, probably reflecting the insecurities and fears of the priest who came up with list and dictated it to the hapless scribe charged with putting his ranting into words. Indeed, the first, with it's talk of plural gods, looks like someone wasn't even sure if there was just one or whether this was merely some sort of tribal god they were writing about.

And who in the West takes any notice of the second commandment anyway? (Contrast Western art, and the output of the advertising industry, with that of the Islamic world, where the second commandment is normally fairly strictly observed). Even Catholic and Orthodox churches are packed with 'graven' images and Christians routinely bow down before images of saints and gods.

Christian graven images.

Top left: Russian Orthodox icon
Above: Stained glass church window
left: Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Vatican
What sort of moral message is it giving to say it's right to punishes our great great grandchildren for something we do? Unless there has been a marriage between close relatives, we all have sixteen great great grandparents. Are we really to be punished for them drawing a picture or making a worm out of Playdough?

Really? And this is morality?

For that matter, what sort of morality is it that says, "do what I say because you've seen what I can do if you don't"? This is the 'morality' of the playground bully, the protection racketeer and the mobster.

Then we get to number four. Well, at least your slaves get a day off, but no one seems quite sure why. In Exodus it was because God had a day off after working for six, allegedly. By the time someone decided they needed revising, this had changed to something to do with Egypt. Or did some later scribe realise that if you were going to impose these rules on other people the reason had to be more general and not one which applied exclusively to the Hebrews? Maybe at the time they just needed something new to celebrate. Some sort of group identity thing.

Then we get to a few rules which no one would seriously question as good things, though the honouring of your father and mothers is a bit strange. It is reinforced with some OTT threats a bit later on with:
And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.

Exodus 21:5

And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.

Exodus 21:7
which seems curiously at odd with this statement some years later, supposedly by Jesus:
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Matthew 10:34-37
Numbers six and eight are pretty obvious really. Can you imagine how successful as a nation the Hebrews would have been, or any human group for that matter, if killing and stealing had been considered okay?

Number seven, forbidding 'adultery', is rather vague. It's quite obvious from the later events in the Bible where sex with concubines and 'maidservants' (slaves) was fine, that adultery meant something different then than it does today. Now, of course, many people see absolutely nothing wrong with pre-marital sex. Indeed, in the West, this is now the norm and for most of history, probably always was. No one would expect a woman to be a virgin when married and it would be astonishing for a couple not to have had a sexual relationship before marriage.

All this rule is, is meddling in people's private lives. It has nothing to do with morality, which is about whether inter-personal relationships are consensual and non-coercive. As people's fear of God has lessened, this has been one of the first rules to be ditched as unwanted, unneeded and unnecessary, if it was ever given more than a passing nod by sanctimonious hypocrites in the first place.

So to number nine - bearing false witness. Why the clause 'against thy neighbour'? Is this meant to limit this rule? Is it okay to bear false witness against anyone who isn't thy neighbour, or is bearing false witness always wrong? What use is a rule which is so ambiguous and ill defined? Of course, telling lies to deceive for personal gain against another, or to falsely incriminate an innocent person is unequivocally wrong, so why not spell it out?

And yet what do we find when we try to debate religion with all fundamentalists, no less so with Christians, and especially creationists who purport to believe in a literal interpretation of genesis, especially? We find them making:
  • False implicit claims of expertise which they manifestly don't have.
  • Unsubstantiated claims to have evidence to support false arguments.
  • Denial of presented evidence and false claims to have provided supporting evidence.
  • Unverifiable claims to have had personal contact with a god.
  • False claims to be able to heal the sick with prayer.
  • False claims to have disproved inconvenient science.
  • Arguments clearly designed to deceive people, especially for money.
  • Deliberate attempts to control through guilt, fear and ignorance.
  • Styles of preaching and proselytising designed to appeal to the credulous, gullible and vulnerable, almost always accompanied by an open hand.
And this list is not exhaustive, as a brief spell following the #TeamJesus, #Atheist or #Evolution hash tags on Twitter will show and where honest Christians are as rare as hen's teeth.

So we come to number ten, observance of which would close down the advertising industry, the TV stations and Internet sites which rely on it, the consumer society on which western capitalism is entirely dependent and indeed the entire motivation for social advancement.

So much for the utter irrelevance of most of this list, but what is more significant is what it doesn't contain. If it were indeed any basis for a just and moral society and a system of laws designed to produce one, where are the rules concerning:
  • Equal opportunities?
  • Human rights?
  • Democracy and political freedom?
  • Freedom of speech and conscience?
  • Child abuse?
  • Rape?
  • Respect for other religions or none?
  • Slavery? (Two of the Ten Commandments actually seem to endorse slavery!)
  • Taxation?
  • Entitlement to education?
  • Right to fair trial and habeus corpus?
  • Right to free association and assembly?
  • Freedom from hunger?
  • Health care?
  • Redistribution of wealth?
  • Employee rights and employer responsibilities?
  • Environment and animal rights?
  • Peace?
  • Limits of state power?
And so on...

Quite simply, they are not there because the people who wrote the Bible saw no value in these things because they are for ordinary people and protect ordinary people against abuse of power, and yet these things are the things which separate a civilised society from an uncivilised one.

The Ten Commandments were about maintaining the power and privilege of the priesthood and the rulers, property rights rather than human rights and keeping the people under control rather than liberating them from it.







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Wednesday 11 July 2012

The Darwin Creationist Twit Award 2012


The coveted Darwin Creationist Twit Award is awarded annually for the Twitter tweet by a creationist which, by it's utter ignorant stupidity, is judged to have done most to reduce the incidence of the creationist meme in the human meme pool, so improving the overall fitness of human culture.

Judging will be by popular vote early in October 2012. If no clear winner, there will be a vote off of the top two or three contenders.

Add your candidate tweets in the comment section. They'll go into the body of the blog in due course.

Please supply
  • Your name or Twitter user name
  • User name of creationist tweeter
  • Date and time of tweet
  • The tweet
  • A sentence or two in support of your submission (optional).
Self-promotion will not be accepted (well, it IS about creationists so some of them might think nomination is an achievement).

Closing date: 10th October 2012

Last year's worthy candidates may be enjoyed here: Darwin Creationist Award 2011

2012 Growing candidate list:
EntryDetailsCandidate Tweet
1 Candidate: @BassimaAlamii

11 July 2012 23:39
RT @MsGrumpy: RT@BassimaAlami: @MsGrumpy @rnistuk u guys are proving YOUR uneducated. I'm gaining the best education. Thanks to God.

Sumitted by: @RosaRibicondior

This candidate has blocked me. If anyone can supply an image of the original, please tweet me a copy @RosaRibicondior
2 Candidate: @fxmikey

28 June 2012 1238
Why is woman the weaker sex (physically) than men? Why should it be like this? Refutes Evolution!! #atheist #atheism #atheists

Submitted by: @logicalnarwhal

Supporting statement: This was the icing on the cake of one of the more ludicrous twitter accounts. It resulted in a very educational, as i'm sure you can imagine, chat with fxmikey and yecistruescience (or whatever he calls himself these days)... Joy.
3 Candidate: @SolasCpc

7 July 2012 20:18
@anarchic_teapot @CV4UK @drpaulmorgan Try reading the BIble.Which says that God is eternal, outwith time etc.Read before you assert.

Submitted by: @drpaulmorgan
4 Candidate: @SolasCpc

7 July 2012 09:31
@drpaulmorgan @KeesEngels @CV4UK @anarchic_teapot Try again.He is self-existent. Not dependent on universe.

Submitted by: @drpaulmorgan
5 Candidate: @SolasCpc

7 July 2012 09:08
@drpaulmorgan @Crumbsm8 @anarchic_teapot @CV4UKSomething is eternal.We say God - you say matter or nothing.God is more rational.

Submitted by: @drpaulmorgan
6Candidate: @Absird

14 July 2012 10:33
@RosaRubicondior Incorrect. Many interpret the fact that the universe is shaped like an atom as (cont) tl.gd/iapb9r

(@RosaRubicondior Incorrect. Many interpret the fact that the universe is shaped like an atom as evidence of God. You see it as mere probability. I can't prove something to you that you don't want to believe)

Submtted by: @RosaRubicondior
7 Candidate: @Absird

14 July 2012 22:50
@VorianK @RosaRubicondior which? A galaxy or Boron? twitter.com/Absird/status/…

Submitted by: @RosaRubicondior

8 Candidate: @Absird

15 July 2012 01:05
@RosaRubicondior You sir male yourself appear foolish


Submitted by: @RosaRubicondior
9 Candidate: @ConversionRadio

17 July 2012 19:07

Darwin earned his living by oppressing black people. @RosaRubicondior


Submitted by: @RosaRubicondior
10 Candidate: @loadsofducks

17 July 2012 11:11

I find it strange how people give evolution an intelligence as if it decides to grow wings because it decided to fly


Submitted by: 'Wayne'

(@loadsofducks may be a troll account. Seems to have re-surfaced after deleting an earlier account.)

11 Candidate: @loadsofducks

17 July 2012 11:06

@scouse_dot but how do you grow an ear if you don't know there is anything to hear?


Submitted by: 'Wayne'

(@loadsofducks may be a troll account. Seems to have re-surfaced after deleting an earlier account.)

12 Candidate: @JesusEbook

20 July 2012 19:34

@GoldenGoonaz @rosarubicondior There is a universal dating system. #JESUS is so unique that time is reckoned BEFORE and AFTER Him 20-07-2012


Submitted by: @rosarubicondior
13Candidate: @txlnghrns80

21 July 2012 15:58

@RosaRubicondior @lavoisier_gthu so did you "evolve" from a monkey?And if so why didn't all monkeys evolve into people? #NoLiesNeeded


Submitted by: @RosaRubicondior
14 Candidate: @AndrewRNixon

22 July 2012 20:18

@RosaRubicondior You are a temporary cosmic accident, your life is valueless, you have no future - what are you afraid of? #atheism #Honesty


Submitted by:@RosaRubicondior

15Candidate: @MMMikeA

02 August 2012

@rosarubicondior Ark of the Covenant and the Commandment tablets, for two. And show me some respect and answer my Q: Science or religion?


Submitted by: @RosaRubicondior

Tweeted after repetitive requests to provide evidence for his god which he claimed to have. Apparently this may be seen in Ethiopia. It almost goes without saying that he could not explain how this evidence was authenticated and by whom, and found an excuse to break of the conversation shortly afterwards.
16Candidate: @Yiosue (Joshua Mattocks)

06 August 2012 22:05

@stooshie @j_mills116 Physical evidence of Noah's ark has been found in Turkey. Great vacation spot.

(@yiosue @j_mills116 Totally debunked. Even if that were true there wouldn't be enough room for the food for the 14 pandas alone.)

@stooshie @j_mills116 Lost their appetite in awe.

Submitted by: @@stooshie

(A couple of tweets taken together make this an outstanding candidate)


17Candidate: @QahtaniAziz

18 August 2012 10:53

In order to sense #motion, you must be away from the moving object #Soul #Life #Death #People #Atheist


Submitted by: @RosaRubicondior

(This must explain why we know a vehicle we are in is accelerating/decelerating then)
18Candidate: @Women_Of_Jannah

01 September 2012 16:13

You believe that we evolved from fish/ape and you think I'm insane! Don't make me laugh!!! #Atheist


Submitted By: @RosaRubicondior

No comment could give any more support to this candidate that the tweet itself hasn't already provided.
19Candidate: @DebunkEvolution

08 October 2012 17:58

#Evolution is obviously nonsense. Does air make creatures invent wings? LOL! http://t.co/IbRS4psp #science #atheism #truth #Jesus #fact


Submitted by: @RosaRubicondior

Two things to note here:
  1. The total lack of any understanding of what evolution is or how it works, which, with the wealth of information available, can only be wilful or feigned.
  2. The lack of confidence necessitating the inclusion of the magic hashtag '#fact' which Creationists believe turns a doubtful claim into a real fact.
No link to the actual tweet as @DebunkEvolution is so confident in his/her claims that his/her account is protected. Instead we'll have to make do with a screen clip from my Tweetdeck.
20Candidate: @jtrubo

12 October 2012 15:39

athiest u are such idiots. u believe intellgent desine by monkys but notGod ??


Submitted by: @Omnisvalidus

Nice line in spelling for someone who feels confident to pronounce an entire body of well-established science wrong and scientists idiotic.

Tuesday 10 July 2012

Atheism - The Informed Choice.

How can belief be a choice?

Imagine you're crossing a road and a speeding car comes round the corner towards you. Do you have a choice whether to believe in it? Of course, you may believe you have some power over reality; that somehow it's obliged to conform to your requirements. It might be possible to persuade yourself that you can ignore it, but normally, such people wouldn't be out without responsible adult supervision. You might well have a choice whether to act on the belief or not, and to carry on as though there isn't a car hurtling towards you, but reality is likely to intervene in that delusion. Perhaps too you can choose to believe you're not really lying in the road with broken bones, if you still have the capability of consciously deluding yourself. But you're not disbelieving; you're simply refusing to accept a reality you know exists, otherwise how could you choose to ignore it?

Sunday 8 July 2012

Only A Theory

No one could ever accuse creation pseudo-scientists of not knowing their market or failing to follow the money.

"Evolution is only a theory" is one of their favourite slogans, aimed, as it invariably is, at a scientifically illiterate audience to whom they are selling their latest book or to whom they are pushing an extreme right-wing, anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian theocratic political agenda disguised as a moral crusade and intended to keep on side those whom they plan to keep at the bottom of the social peck-order.

It is intended to mislead by playing on the different meanings of the word 'theory' as used by science and by a lay person respectively. It is normally followed by ' - a guess with no supporting evidence', 'not a fact', or 'which has not been proved', all of which intentionally reinforce the misinformation with disinformation. In common parlance, lies.

The Theory of Evolution (which explains the fact of evolution) is of course, as has been repeatedly said, no less a scientific theory than is the Theory of Gravity which explains the fact of gravity. In fact, in the early part of the 20th century, Isaac Newton's Theory of Gravity was overthrown by Einsteinian Relativity. But never-the-less, the Theory of Gravity remains 'just' a theory with parts still waiting to be proven. No sane person would doubt gravity because the current theory has a few small gaps, yet the Theory of Evolution is actually more satisfactory than is the Theory of Gravity.

I came across this article on the superb Friends of Charles Darwin website. I'll let its intelligent designer, Richard Carter do the talking:
As with gravity, the effects of Darwinian evolution are all around us. We see them in the pigeons in our streets, the spiders in our bathtubs, and the opposable thumbs on our hands. Yet most of us hardly give them a second's thought. And, as with gravity, precocious young whippersnappers have amended and improved Darwin's original theory, but its original essence is still very recognisable in the latest thinking.

Nature red in beak and claw:
A sparrowhawk eating a sparrow
in my garden last April.
© Richard Carter
But here the comparison begins to break down. Where Darwinian evolution differs from Newtonian (and, indeed, Einsteinian) gravitation, for the time-being at least, is that we do not yet have an observable mechanism for gravity. What actually makes gravity work? Yes, physicists can hypothesise about gravitons and gravitational waves as much as they like, but they have not yet been able to detect either of them in the laboratory (and I will surely never be able to detect them in my bedroom).

Darwinian evolution, on the other hand, certainly does have observable mechanisms driving it: variations amongst the individuals of a species, heredity and—Darwin's big idea—Natural Selection (capital 'N', capital 'S'). We can see all of these mechanisms at work on a daily basis, if we take the trouble to look. We can see them in our streets and gardens, on our bird feeders, and in the cobwebs on our bedroom ceilings. Everywhere we care look, Nature is still red in tooth an claw.

Darwinian evolution does not rely on mysterious, unobservable particles or waves; its mechanisms are in action all around us in our everyday world. Which is why, although Newtonian gravitation has a certain attraction, it seems to me, Darwinian evolution is, in this way at least, a far more satisfactory theory.

Of course this was written before the recent announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN, which has gone some way to solving one of the mysteries in the Theory of Gravity by explaining where mass comes from, but the evidence for gravitons or gravity waves is still awaited. They remain 'just a theory'.

Strange then that creationist pseudo-scientists are never found trying to get away with casting doubt on the Theory of Gravity when they don't even need to tell lies; they could just point out the parts which are unproven and to the gaps in the theory which science has not yet closed and then rely on the parochial ignorance of their target audience to conclude that it must have been the locally popular god who did it.

Why don't they do so?

Because they would never get away with it. No sane person would dispute the existence of gravity, so casting doubt on the current scientific theory which explains it would do nothing to convince people that they can fly or jump off high buildings with impunity.

Besides, there is no claim from ancient mythology that gravity was magically created by a magic man who will cause unimaginably nasty things to happen to you if you don't do what the theologians tell you to do, believe what they tell you to believe, vote for those whom they tell you to vote for, make generous donations to those who promulgate these lies and misinformation, and buy their books.





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Saturday 7 July 2012

How Linnaeus Made A Monkey Of Creationists

Carl Nilsson Linnæus
One of the scientists whom I've always regarded as remarkably lucky was Carl Nilsson Linnæus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), known later as Carl von Linné. Linnæus single-handedly devised the Linnean or binomial nomenclature system of classification which is still used today, albeit slightly modified, to classify all living things and was rightly regarded as one of the greatest men of his time. He was probably also the first person to realise that human being were not only animals but apes and should be classified as such

He was born into a slightly eccentric Swedish Lutheran family in the village of Råshult in Småland and, from the outset, his parents spoke Latin to him so that, so it is said, he learned Latin before he could speak Swedish. He also developed an obsessive early interest in plants which he probably acquired from his father, himself an amateur botanist, and preferred looking at flowers to working at his education. The headmaster of his school, also a botanist, noticed his interest in plants and gave him the run of his garden, he also introduced him to the state doctor of Småland, Johann Rothman another botanist.

Rothman taught him about plant sexuality and introduced him to the Tournefort system of plant classification, a system with many flaws based on almost arbitrary groupings, and clearly in need of revision and rationalisation. But is was the sexuality of plants which seems to have intrigued Linnæus the most, to the point where he became almost obsessed with sex, at least as the basis for classification.

His first thesis was Praeludia Sponsaliorum Plantarum on plant sexuality. This choice as the basis for classification was a more or less arbitrary one in those times as there was no understanding of genetics or evolution, or the role of sexual reproduction as a selective factor in the evolution and divergence of species. In fact, when he came to classify the molluscs, finding no obvious genitalia, he based it on how closely the opening in the shell resembled the human female vulva, which he seems to have studied rather closely. In molluscs of course, that has absolutely nothing to do with reproduction.

So there were three stokes of luck here:
  1. Knowledge of Latin so he had a basis for nomenclature which had a pan-European understanding and which could be used descriptively as well as binomially to give a systematic naming convention.
  2. An interest in botany shared by some influential people.
  3. An obsessive interest in sex which had led him by chance to the most sensible basis for classification, given the intimate role played by sexual reproduction and diversification in most multicellular organisms (he did not know of single-celled organisms which had not then been discovered.

Perhaps the third in the above list needs to be explained a little more. For individuals to reproduce successfully, their genitalia need to match or else reproduction would be impossible. Hence the reproductive organs tend to vary only slightly between closely related species, more so between more distantly related species and more so still between even more distantly related species.

So, by doing what Linnæus did and classifying plants on the basis of their fundamental flower structure, such as the number of stamens and pistils, number of petals, form of the inflorescence, etc, he had unwittingly linked his classification to the evolution of the species before there was a general awareness of evolution and before it was the accepted principle under-pinning the whole of biology that it is today.

Linnæus didn't always get it right - indeed how could he with no knowledge of evolution and genetics - but it is a tribute to his system that it gave the first clues to people like Lamarck, Wallace and Darwin that there might be a reason why these varieties, subspecies and species, when arranged in orders, classes, phyla and kingdoms, looked like the branches of a tree. (Linnæus never included families; these were added later)
One of Linnæus' more subtle contributions to science was his insistence that not only should humans be classified as animals but that they should be included in a grouping which includes apes and monkeys.

Linnaeus classified humans among the primates (as they were later called) beginning with the first edition of Systema Naturae. During his time at Hartekamp, he had the opportunity to examine several monkeys and noted similarities between them and man. He pointed out both species basically have the same anatomy; except for speech, he found no other differences. Thus he placed man and monkeys under the same category, Anthropomorpha, meaning "manlike." This classification received criticism from other biologists such as Johan Gottschalk Wallerius, Jacob Theodor Klein and Johann Georg Gmelin on the ground that it is illogical to describe a human as 'like a man'. In a letter to Gmelin from 1747, Linnaeus replied:
"It does not please [you] that I've placed Man among the Anthropomorpha, perhaps because of the term 'with human form', but man learns to know himself. Let's not quibble over words. It will be the same to me whatever name we apply. But I seek from you and from the whole world a generic difference between man and simian that [follows] from the principles of Natural History. I absolutely know of none. If only someone might tell me a single one! If I would have called man a simian or vice versa, I would have brought together all the theologians against me. Perhaps I ought to have by virtue of the law of the discipline".
The theological concerns were twofold: first, putting man at the same level as monkeys or apes would lower the spiritually higher position that man was assumed to have in the great chain of being, and second, because the Bible says man was created in the image of God (theomorphism), if monkeys/apes and humans were not distinctly and separately designed, that would mean monkeys and apes were created in the image of God as well. This was something many could not accept....

After such criticism, Linnaeus felt he needed to explain himself more clearly. The 10th edition of Systema Naturae introduced new terms, including Mammalia and Primates, the latter of which would replace Anthropomorpha as well as giving humans the full binomial Homo sapiens. The new classification received less criticism, but many natural historians still believed he had demoted humans from their former place to rule over nature, not be a part of it. Linnaeus believed that man biologically belongs to the animal kingdom and had to be included in it. In his book Dieta Naturalis, he said,
"One should not vent one's wrath on animals, Theology decree that man has a soul and that the animals are mere 'aoutomata mechanica,' but I believe they would be better advised that animals have a soul and that the difference is of nobility."

Even in those days it seems die-hard theologians were insisting that science conform to their theology and were complaining when it didn't, and scientists were having to contend with their arrogant bullying and cat-calling from the side-lines.

Now, of course, we know that theology is wrong because it doesn't conform to what science tells us is right. Science, not theology, has proved a far superior tool for determining truth to the extent that it is now accepted by normal people as a tool for validating theology, or not, and not vice versa.

You will even find fundamentalist creationists frantically trying to use science, albeit usually a bastardised parody version of it, to lend credence to their myths and superstitions, as science, paradoxically, closes more and more gaps into which they try to fit their diminishing little gods.

Partly in honour of his insistence on this classification for mankind, in 1959, Carl Linnaeus was designated as the lectotype for Homo sapiens, which means that following the nomenclatural rules, Homo sapiens was validly defined as the animal species to which Carl Nilsson Linnaeus belonged.

It is more than a little ironic that, when Darwin and Wallace presented their seminal papers on evolution, which did so much to explain why Linnean nomenclature works, to the Linnean Society of London, it went almost unnoticed.





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Christians - Try Not To Think About Matthew.

No Lusting!
What was it with Matthew, or whoever it was writing the stuff attributed to him in the Bible?

Later on in the Bible, Matthew seems to present Jesus as a foolish man and a false prophet, and seems to be trying to warn us about him (Foolish Jesus And The Ravening Wolves). He even goes on to refute the notion that the Gospels were written by eye-witnesses (Hey Christians! Is Matthew For Real?) but here he is making him look like a fool who knows nothing of human psychology, or even as someone cynically trying to trap people.

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Matthew 5:27-28

I wonder if it's okay for a woman to look on a man to lust after him. Maybe it hadn't occurred to the man who wrote that stuff that women have those sorts of thoughts too... But that's by the by.

Don't think about the elephants!
Try this little exercise. Close your eyes for ten minutes and try hard not to think about elephants. Remember, whatever you do you mustn't think about elephants otherwise something really bad might happen, so you'll need to concentrate. If you think of elephants even once, no matter how briefly, you'll lose and the game will be over so don't let your mind wander just in case.

How long did you last? Did you remember right at the start what you were supposed not to be thinking about?

So you lost right then.

You see, there is no way you can remember not to think about elephants without thinking about elephants, just as there is no way to remember not to lust after someone without thinking about lusting after them. Go on! Try it!

No sane, intelligent, compassionate, loving god would impose a ludicrously impossibly puritanical rule like that on humans and then condemn them if they broke it.

Mind you, a malignant god would. So would a writer who is trying to make this god out to be malignant.

And so, which is far more likely, would a writer who wants to make you feel trapped and riddled with guilt for merely being human and doing what humans can't avoid doing. He might just as well have condemned you for just being born.

Oh! He did that too, of course.



Other sections of Matthew that Christians might like to try not to think about are:

Matthew 1:23 where Matthew gives the game away about the 'Jesus' prophesy being made up.
Matthew 27: 51-53 Where Matthew makes the entire crucifixion story look like a bad scifi story.
Matthew 2 where Matthew makes the birth of Jesus look like another silly attempt to create myth on the hoof.





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Thursday 5 July 2012

Higgs And CERN Evict God From Yet Another Gap

Professor Peter Ware Higgs
BBC News - Higgs boson-like particle discovery claimed at LHC

It's been the worst kept secret for several days now that the team using the LHC at CERN have found something significant in their search for the Higgs boson - the so-called 'God particle'. In typical scientifically caution language they have found a 'bump' in their data which corresponds to a particle of 125.3 GeV, in other words, just where the Higgs boson was predicted to be, with a confidence "at the 5 sigma point" (that is, with a probability of less then 3.5 in a million of this being due to statistical variance or experimental error).

This is science-speak for saying they are 99.99965% sure they have seen a Higgs boson, which is just about as close as science ever gets to proving anything. Professor Stephen Hawking, who had disputed the existence of the Higgs boson, has conceded that he has lost a $100 bet that the particle would not be found at CERN.

This effectively completes the Standard Model of particle physics because the Higgs field, composed of Higgs bosons, explains why other particles have mass.

Technically, it is the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, and the non-zero value of the ground state of this field gives mass to the other elementary particles such as quarks and electrons through the Higgs mechanism. The Standard Model completely fixes the properties of the Higgs boson, except for its mass. It is expected to have no spin and no electric or color charge, and it interacts with other particles through the weak interaction and Yukawa-type interactions between the various fermions and the Higgs field.

Wikipedia - Higgs boson (written before the above announcement)

The Higgs particle is name after Peter Ware Higgs the British theoretical physicist and emeritus professor at Edinburgh University, who, in 1964, along with others, predicted the existence of this super-massive particle. Higgs is an atheist and dislikes the term "God particle" because "It might offend religious people". That term is attributed to Richard Lederman [correction: Leon M Lederman] from the title of his 1993 book The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?. However, this may have been at the insistence of his publishers, Dell Publishing, who objected to his original title "The Goddamn Particle". Higgs was a member of CND until they moved to campaign against nuclear power as well as nuclear weapons. He also resigned from Greenpeace because of their opposition to GM.

Professor Joseph Incandela addressing a special conference at CERN
4 July 2012
So, what does this mean for particle physics?

We're reaching into the fabric of the Universe at a level we've never done before. We've kind of completed one particle's story. ... Now we're way out on the edge of a new exploration. This could be the only part of the story that's left, or we could open a whole new realm of discovery.

Professor Joe Incandela, University of California at Santa Barbara

But, of course like every other piece of scientific 'knowledge' no serious scientist would claim ever to have proved the Higgs boson beyond any possible doubt. Note how the level of confidence was expressed as the probability of being wrong. Contrast this with religion, where any shadow of doubt is regarded as heresy and none can ever be admitted for fear that the entire edifice will collapse. People have been killed for expressing doubt. What Christian or Muslim would try to put a probability on there not being a god other than zero?

This is an important result and should earn Peter Higgs the Nobel prize.

Stephen Hawking
Note too how this discovery almost certainly validates a prediction of theoretical physics made 48 years ago. This illustrates the nature of science and how a theory is used to make predictions which are then experimentally tested or measurements and observations are made which either confirm or falsify the theory. And of course, either result would be equally good science. A falsified theory will need to be revised or scrapped. A validated theory can be used as a platform on which to stand and build new theories which can be tested in turn. And so science progresses, building on the discoveries of the past to investigate new areas or to understand better where our understanding is incomplete.

What Christian or Muslim would ever make a testable, and so falsifiable, prediction based on their god hypothesis? Indeed, how could such a hypothesis ever be falsified when it is so carefully constructed and hedged around with definitions intended to make it unfalsifiable?

As Joe Incandela said, "...we could open a whole new realm of discovery". For science, the end of one journey is just the beginning of another. Having broken through the Higgs boson barrier, We can now go on to explore the fabric of reality.

Another gap has been closed by science, and, once again, no god was found and none proved to be necessary. This is the great thing about knowing you could be wrong - you set out to find out if you are, or not, and so you find new things to discover and realise there is more you do not know. Religions, by claiming to know all the answers and by being too afraid to question even that assumption, have remained stuck in the Bronze Age, from a time before science invented the wheel, and they have never produced a single discovery which was of the slightest use to mankind.

But then, if religions had any evidence, like science there would only be one, and it would also be science.







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Wednesday 4 July 2012

Evolution - Making A Monkey

In this post I'm going to look again at 'speciation' and why it is usually only possible to identify that it has occurred often some considerable time after it has. This may come as a surprise to someone who sees the 'tree of life' as a something on which new branches arise in a single 'speciation' event, like buds giving rise to new branches.

Consider first a hypothetical situation in which no species, subspecies or variety had ever gone extinct, so every twig on every branch of the tree of life had living representatives. Apart from the mammoth task involved in catching and classifying the resultant billions of 'species', how could we possibly classify individuals and place them into a specific taxon?

It would of course be impossible because in reality we would have a mass of living things with no sharp delineation between groups of individuals having characteristics in common and distinct from all others. The dividing lines would be so blurred that we could not easily identify any boundaries. It is only because of regular extinctions and gradual evolution leading an archaic form to change into a modern form across the entire population range, that we can see living things as forming distinct taxa in the first place.

Sunday 1 July 2012

Creationist Nightmares - Abiogenesis.

Abiogenesis:
Noun: technical term for spontaneous generation.

Origin: late 19th century: from a 'not' + Greek bios 'life' + genesis
So, basically, 'abiogenesis' refers to the spontaneous generation of life from non life. I have previously blogged on the definition (or lack thereof) of 'life' in What Is Life? which, interestingly and maybe significantly, no creationist has yet been able to answer, nor to refute my biological definition of life as localised entropy reduction.

What creationists insist on trying to insert into the definition is some form or magic ingredient called 'life' which is always left intentionally vague and ill-defined. Of course, from a biologists perspective, all that is necessary is to define 'abiogenesis' as the origin of replicators since the process of evolution can take it from there. 'Life', for a biologist, is merely shorthand for metabolism, which is necessary in complex systems for reducing the local entropy by increasing it elsewhere.

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