Category Archives: Atheism

In a sleepy Kerala village, three hot-headed atheists play a prank to mock superstition by installing Nireeswaran, literally anti-god. But beyond their wildest imagination, the mutilated idol is soon anointed as a god by the public, attracting hordes of devotees to the spot. It does not take long for miracles to be attributed to Nireeswaran. A lisping boy starts talking, a man wakes up from a coma after24 years, a jobless youth bags a government job after a prolonged wait, and a prostitute turns ascetic. In a fix, the trio turn against their own creation.

This, in a nutshell, is the plot of Nireeswaran, penned by V J James, the celebrated Malayalam novelist. First published in 2014, the novel, which has won many awards, including the Kerala Sahitya Akademi award and the Vayalar award, has seen 13 editions. The work raises questions about blind faith and gives an insight into what spirituality is.

Known for innovative themes, unique characters and a distinctive style, James novels take readers into realms that are often unreal where reality and fantasy merge. No two novels of his are alike.

Anti-Clock is a novel depicting the quest for timelessness. Dathapaharam (a rumination on solitude), is about mans bonding with nature, and the links that attach us to this world. In Nireeswaran, James makes copious use of science and philosophy. Antony, Bhaskaran and Sahir draw up an elaborate plan to create a false deity to prove that belief in God is just a superstition. They have chosen the abode of Nireeswaran carefully. First, they rename the gods street Abhasa (debauched) street. The spot for consecration has been picked below a peepal and mango tree standing intertwined. They call the tree Athmavu. The trio manages to get Eswaran Embrandiri, a dejected priest, to do the consecration on a new moon night. The idol faces westwards unlike east-facing deities in temples.

A different trajectory

From then on, events take a different trajectory transforming Nireeswaran into an established god. As the number of devotees swells, a prayer group Niprasa emerges as an intermediary to help those seeking Nireeswarans blessing. Word spreads that Nireeswaran has miraculous powers. A protection force for Nireeswarans safety also emerges. The village witnesses unexpected prosperity. The creators are not amused. The villainous character has acquired a life beyond the control of its creators. Their efforts to destroy the idol boomerang.

Lively characters draw the reader to the novel. The transformation of the boisterous trio with a messianic zeal into objects of derision struggling to survive is depicted deftly. Roberto is a scientist researching smell. He also explores immense possibilities of the mind. He is determined to find a unit for measuring smell. The person who is enlisted to assist him is Janaki, the fallen woman, who has experienced the scent of many men. Villagers find their friendship hard to stomach.

Indrajit who wakes up from a coma after 24 years without ageing finds himself trapped between two worlds. When he emerges from the Rip Van Winklelike sleep, he develops the skill to read others minds. For his self-effacing wife Sudha, the husband becomes a stranger. She wants him back in his old form, asleep. Sumitran, whogets back his speech, turns intoa foremost devotee of Nireeswaran. Barber Maniyan, who has prospereddue to his proximity toNireeswaran, Khoshayatra Annamma and her four daughters, Damu, all impress.

Belief and disbelief

The novel is not about atheism but about ritualistic religion. A passage from the work says that seemingly illogical traditions are often the moral foundations that an individual relies on during difficulties.

Our society is certainly not ready for irreligion. Can atheism be treated as a religion in itself? Belief and disbelief are fundamentally the same, Embrandiri tells the rebellious atheists. The commercialisation of religion also comes into sharp focus.

A lot of philosophy and science have crept into Nireeswaran. Engineer-writer James says: I needed to travel to the interfaces where philosophical depths met the microscopic realms of science. But he doesnt take science as the last word.

It is humanity that ultimately triumphs. Some readers are bound to treat the heavy dose of philosophy and science as irrelevant to the story; however,the author succeeds in making it readable by the use of simple language.

Ministhys translation keeps the spirit of the original work largely intact. But it is doubtful whether it can match the simplicity of the narrative in Malayalam.

An incisive sense of humour permeates the novel. Satire is a powerful weapon in the hands of the novelist to attack a decadent system. An undercurrent of social satire is all-pervasivein this work and it forces the reader to reflect.

The maxim that literature holds a mirror up to life holds good for Nireeswaran.

What we are witnessing in recent times in the name of faith and religion is unnerving enough to numb our conscience, which makes this novel all the more necessary and readworthy.

Read more:
Head of gold and feet of clay - Deccan Herald

Id like to offer a rebuttal to the hypocritical letter submitted by Meredith Driscoll and signed by a cohort of other residents (LGBTQ+ students deserve same representation in Mt. Lebanon, June 19, TribLIVE). Ive lived in Mt. Lebanon for 30 years, and my children were educated in the schools.

Driscoll makes a few inane observations. LGBTQ+ students arent denied representation. They have the same representation and right to the same education that every other student has. There is no discrimination.

This lawsuit stems from the fact that a rogue teacher, with an agenda (that she admitted) decided to use materials that were not on the approved curriculum set by our school board.

This writer doesnt seem to understand her hypocrisy. How would she and her fellow letter signees feel if a teacher decided to come in and teach from the Bible? Or perhaps another teacher would come in and teach from Mein Kampf? Or is it only this writer and her pro-LGBTQ+ letter signees who want their views to be taught? I should add that this is for elementary children.

Driscoll says religious schools that actually do indoctrinate and discriminate. I realize that faith is an easy target these days, and everyone wants to point a finger at it and blame it for the worlds problems. However, it is actually the lack of faith, or atheism, that has led to the worlds largest genocides, such as the Bolshevik revolution, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.

Brian Foster

Mt. Lebanon

See more here:
Letter to the editor: LGBTQ+ students represented in Mt. Lebanon - TribLIVE

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled that Maine cannot exclude religious schools from a state tuition program in the case Carson v. Makin.

In a 6-3 ruling, this decision sets a precedent for other states, that schools who choose to subsidize private schools cannot discriminate against religious ones.

As the decision was released to the public, several people took to Twitter expressing how displeased they were with the final ruling. Many felt that it could impact the separation of church and state, something founders of the United States expressed concern over when declaring independence from England.

People channeled their angry feelings into the form of comedy where many made the same joke about how under the new rule schools affiliated with non-traditional religions like the Church of Satan would benefit.

Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

"The best version of this story is if [Church of Satan] opens a high school in Maine and names its team mascot the Angels," Erin wrote on Twitter.

"What ever happened to the separation of church & state? On the other hand does this now pave the way for the [Church of Satan] to finally launch a federally funded kindergarten class?" Ted tweeted.

u201c@SenatorTimScott I cannot wait for the government to fund @ChurchofSatan schools!u201d

u201cThe Church of Satan definitely needs to open a High School in Maineu201d

In response to the jokes about it, the Church of Satan wrote "Satanism does not condone the indoctrination of children" as per one of the rules they adhere to is "do not harm little children."

Despite its name, the organization does not worship Satan or promote evil rather it believes in human autonomy, self-determination, atheism, and more in a mostly peaceful way.

u201cSatanism does not condone the indoctrination of children.u201d

In a separate tweet the group added "Our positions do not change with press cycles. We are not here to be your political punchline."

Chief John Roberts delivered the majority opinion of Carson v. Makin and noted that "a State need not subsidize private education but once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious."

Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote the dissenting opinion in which she highlighted the concerns that others expressed.

"This Court continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the Framers fought to build," Sotomayor wrote. "If a State cannot offer subsidies to its citizens without being required to fund religious exercise, any State that values its historic antiestablishment interests more than this Court does will have to curtail the support it offers to its citizens."

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Read more from the original source:
Supreme Court ruling leads to jokes about the Church of Satan - indy100

American actor Johnny Depps defamation case against his ex-wife Amber Heard concluded on 27th May after six long weeks of testifying, cross-examination and various witnessesbeing called to the stand.

During the trial that took place in Virginias Fairfax County Court, Heard recalled her early childhood along with details of her first interactions with the Depp on the set of 2011s movie The Rum Diary.

Lets take a look inside Amber Heards childhood, journey to atheism and early acting career. Where is the Hollywood star from and how did she gain onscreen success?

Long before Amber Heards marriage disagreements were making headlines, the actress was described as a shy girl from her hometown.

On 22 April 1986, Heard was born inAustin, Texas to an internet researcher named Patricia Paige (formerly Parsons) and business owner David Clinton Heard.

Her father owned a small construction company and she has a younger sister named Whitney Henriquez who is now aged 34.

Independent reports that the Heard sisters were raised in a conservative Catholic household with modest finances. The 36-year-old now resides in Los Angeles.

Heard competed in beauty pageants in her younger years. In 2018, she told Glamour that her family made her responsible for raising the funds that she needed, so shed often ask businesses in her area to sponsor her ahead of the competitions.

However, the former beauty queen expressed her mixed feelings when asked how she feels about the industry now as she admitted: Pageants are weird, and I cant support the objectification.

Aside from her time spent on stage, Amber Heard had a few hobbies with her dad, who worked construction and broke horses in his free time. She told Glamour: I was his hunting and fishing buddy.

Prior to becoming a Hollywood star with a private life now the trending subject of a media frenzy, Heard was seen as an introverted schoolgirl.

Recalling the actress old school days, a former classmate told the Daily Mail that she was very quiet, and even earned herself the nickname Amber seen and not Heard because she was so timid.

However, the classmate said that Amber was always ambitious: She always seemed almost like her mind was just off somewhere else and she always said, Im going to go and be an actress and that is what I want to do.

When Heard was only 16, her best friend tragically died in a car accident. Independent states that as a result, she became an atheist. Amber previously told USA Today: That was the hardest blow emotionally that I have ever had to endure. Suddenly, you realize tomorrow might not come. Now I live by the motto, Today is what I have.

After her best friends death, Heard reportedly met her first serious boyfriend who introduced her to the writings of Russian-born atheist Ayn Rand. Nicki Swift reports that after reading all of her books, Heard stated: Ever since then, I have been obsessed with her ideals. All Ive ever needed is myself.

In an interview with Rob Brink for Misbehave, as per Friendly Athiest, the subject of religion came up and Heard was asked about her Catholic upbringing.

She said: Id like to thank the way I was raised for giving me enough knowledge about organized religion to make the adult decision to live the rest of my life without it. I dont think you can believe or not believe in anything unless you know a lot about it. I know Christianity, especially Catholicism, like the back of my hand. And my education has given me the freedom to know that it is completely absurd for me to believe it.

Amber later dropped out of school to pursue a modelling career in New York until switching gears to try acting in Los Angeles.

Heard began by sending her pictures to NYC agencies and doing modelling gigs, as she told The Independent.

While the young teenager apparently had no interest in being a model, she loved how different the big city was from her home in conservative Texas: I thought I had died and gone to heaven, she stated: From that moment on I was different.

The stars father previously told the Daily Mail that his daughter always had her heart set on becoming an actor. He added that she had dropped out of her private Catholic school at age 16 to pursue fame:

She wanted this for her career since she was 12-years-old, from the time she was a little girl.

Although Heards family eventually convinced her to return to Texas, she left again once she was aged 18.

According to USA Today, she later earned her diploma by going through a home-study program.

As an actor, she relived her competition days by playing Miss San Antonio in the action film Machete Kills.

Heard received her first leading role in the unconventional slasher filmAll the Boys Love Mandy Lane. The production premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival but was not released in Europe until 2008 and in the US until 2013 due to distribution problems, Wikipedia states.

During the defamation case that concluded on 27th May, Heard shared details of her first interactions with Johnny Depp on the set of 2011s movie The Rum Diary in Puerto Rico.

On 18th December 2018, Amber Heard wrote an op-ed forThe Washington Post, which was titled Amber Heard: I spoke up against sexual violence and faced our cultures wrath. That has to change.

In the article, theAquamanactress detailed her exposure to abuse from a very young age and her experience of sexual harassment in college.

Johnny Depp is suing Amber Heard for defamation because of an op-ed she published in the Washington Post in 2018. Heard is countersuing Depp. The case is set to continue.

BridTV

10224

Wildhood | Official Trailer | Hulu

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bpq5vqx70nY/hqdefault.jpg

1020760

1020760

center

13872

In other news, A look at Jana Kramer and Gleb Savchenko's relationship amidst affair rumours

View post:
Inside Amber Heards childhood, journey to atheism and early acting career - HITC - Football, Gaming, Movies, TV, Music

Over on the atheist website OnlySky, Dr. Will Gervais has a very good article titled The treasured atheist idea that reason undercuts faith just doesnt hold up. Dr. Gervais is a Senior Lecturer of psychology at the Centre for Culture and Evolution at Brunel University London hes a social scientist and he knows what hes talking about. The summary of this article says:

In 2012, a paper co-authored by Will Gervais and Ara Norenzayan in the journal Science claimed that confronting religious beliefs with rationality tends to lead people toward atheism. But when more rigorous subsequent studies found zero effect of rationality on religious beliefs, he and Norenzayan publicly disavowed their findings.

The data shows that rationality and atheism have a weak and fickle correlation.

To an individual person who left religion, rationality can seem like the most important factor. But in aggregate looking across the entire population of everyone who was raised in a religious home and who tries to apply rationality in their life theres nogeneraltrend whereby rationality leads people to atheism. Peoples individual narratives arent invalid, they just cant speak to broader trends.

Ive always considered myself a reasonable and rational person. I was able to leave the religion of my childhood because it wasnt reasonable I was told I had to believe things I couldnt honestly believe. But I never seriously considered atheism.

Im not going to go deeper into Dr. Gervais article. Read it for yourself I you like. Its not a quick read, but its written for a general audience. The comments section is amusing, in that it demonstrates how atheists like to hang onto their preconceived notions as much as everyone else.

Instead, I want to explore why religion in general and Paganism in particular are very reasonable things.

When most people atheists or otherwise complain about religion what theyre really complaining about is Christianity and conservative Christianity at that. But neither the Southern Baptist Convention nor the Roman Catholic Church are normative of all religions and all religious people.

As a non-Christian, I stay out of the arguments about who is or isnt a true Christian. But as an amateur religious scholar, I will say with confidence that the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, and UU Christians are as much a part of the Christian tradition as the more conservative denominations.

Further, if what you say about religion isnt true of Buddhism, Hinduism, and the worlds remaining indigenous religions, then you arent talking about religion youre talking about Christianity.

Fundamentalism is a bad thing and Im happy to ally with atheists and other people of good will to oppose it. But direct your arrows toward the real enemy, not against religion.

I say this frequently, but its worth repeating until it sinks in. The idea that religion is primarily about what you believe is a modern, Western, Protestant idea. For most people throughout most of history throughout most of the world, religion was and is about what you do, who you are, and whose you are.

Religion is about what you do in your daily practice. Its about what holy days you observe, and how you observe them. Its about what you eat and drink and wear and what you dont.

Mainly, religion is about what values you live by, and what virtues you prioritize over others. My Paganism isnt about rules to follow, its about virtues to embody. Hospitality and reciprocity are my most important virtues, but honesty, courage, and perseverance are also of great importance.

The English word religion comes to us in part from the Latin religare, meaning to bind together. Religion is what makes us a community and a family and not just a collection of individuals.

Belief isnt unimportant. But dont say religion when what you mean is belief religion is much more than belief.

Reason is the proper attribution of cause and effect. Its a process that examines available evidence and comes up with a conclusion supported by that evidence. Done right, it acknowledges the confidence we can have in those conclusions. Some conclusions are 100% certain (or very close to it) while others are likely but do not have enough evidence to be absolutely sure.

Many who call religion unreasonable are operating from a foundation of materialism the philosophical assumption that all that exists is matter and the products of its interactions. It assumes that Gods and spirits not only do not exist, they cannot exist.

Materialism is an assumption, not a conclusion based on evidence. Materialists simply dismiss all the evidence for the existence of Gods and spirits (which is largely experiential evidence). Meanwhile, most people around the world examine their experiences and come to the quite reasonable conclusion that they involved Gods and other spirits.

If all religions were to somehow disappear overnight, we would start building new religions almost immediately. Not because people have a need for belief (and certainly not because they just want to control everybody) but because people have religious experiences. People experience birth and death and they wonder about it. They have an encounter with something they cant explain, and a God spoke to me is the most reasonable explanation they can come up with.

Too many of us minimize our religious experiences, or we rationalize them away. We dont want to appear irrational in a society that often acts more atheist than Christian, or were afraid to talk to our Christian friends about something outside the limits of proper Calvinistic Protestantism.

My Pagan polytheist religion is grounded not in myth but in experience. Our religious experiences are always real. Our interpretations of those experiences may be more accurate or less accurate, more helpful or less helpful. But the experiences themselves are always real.

Science tells us with high confidence that life on Earth evolved once. All living things are related some more closely than others. Humans share 98% of our DNA with chimps and bonobos and 50% with bananas (and all other plants). We were not placed on the Earth as some religions claim. We grew out of the Earth.

Given that, what does it mean to say that the Earth is our mother? What does it mean to acknowledge our relations with every other living thing?

What does it mean that we must consume other living things or we will die?

Nature is not fallen and bad things dont happen because of sin. Bad things happen to us because were one part of Nature, not the head and not the center. We are no more and no less important than every other part.

Deep down, all religions arent the same. They have different assumptions, different goals, and different priorities. And some acknowledge the realities of Nature better than others.

None of us got here on our own. We all have parents, grandparents, and many-times-great grandparents, without whom we simply would not be. We go to schools we didnt build to learn knowledge discovered by those we dont know. We have received much, and the virtue of reciprocity teaches that as we have received, so should we give.

Certainly, we can and should pay it forward to the next generation. But what can we do for those who came before us?

We can remember them. We can call their names, tell their stories, offer them food and drink. That they do not physical consume it is not important. It is the offering that counts.

In remembering them, we learn a little about why we are the way we are.

And we are reminded that some day we will be the ancestors, so let us live so as to be worthy of the honor of those who come after us.

Spirits are the essence of a person, the core of their being. I dont have a spirit, I am a spirit who has a body for now. Gods are simply the mightiest of spirits.

When I have an experience of what I interpret as the God Cernunnos, I am a human spirit interacting with a divine spirit. As a polytheist, I believe Cernunnos is a real, distinct, individual being with His own sovereignty and agency. But perhaps Im overstating things. Perhaps Cernunnos is merely a metaphor and personification of Nature, of the wild, of the hunter and the hunted. Either way I can form a relationship with that spirit.

I can speak to Cernunnos and listen for His reply. I can practice good hospitality and make offerings. I can meditate on His values and virtues, embody them in my life, and in doing so become more like Him.

These are good things, regardless of whether my beliefs about Cernunnos are more accurate or less accurate.

And just as I can form and maintain relationships with my Gods, so can I form and maintain relationships with the spirits of land where I live, the spirits of the elements and directions, the spirits of virtues and values, and all the spirits present in our world and in our lives.

Fundamentalist Christians make the error of assuming that religion their religion, anyway has all the answers to all the questions. Fundamentalist atheists make the error of assuming religion has no answers to any questions.

I say we should use the right tool for the right job.1 What science does, it does very well. We are dishonest if we dismiss the findings of science and believe things that are clearly not true, such as Young Earth Creationism.

But science doesnt do a very good job of telling us what if anything comes after death. Its completely inadequate to tell us how we should live our lives and what it all means. It can tell us what will likely happen if we promote certain values over others, but it cannot tell us whether or not thats a good thing.

I cannot tell you that my Pagan and polytheist religion is true in some objective way and neither can anyone from any other religion, if theyre being honest. What I can tell you is that my life has been significantly better since I started this path. It has more meaning and less stress. I no longer fear what may come after death. Perhaps most importantly, Im part of something bigger than myself.

And that makes my religion a very reasonable thing.

1 Biologist Stephen Jay Gould argued for non-overlapping magisteria the idea that science and religion each represent different areas of inquiry, fact vs. values and the two domains do not overlap. This is not that. As this post explains, my religion is grounded in science and is informed by science, but it goes beyond the bounds of science. Some of the boundaries of science are artificial, because too many scientists are wedded to materialism. Other boundaries represent things science does not yet know, but someday will discover. And some boundaries represent things we will never know (at least not with certainty) because theyre beyond the capacity of our powerful but finite human brains to comprehend.

Continue reading here:
Reason and Religion Go Hand in Hand Especially Paganism - Patheos

I recently retired from Centralia College as a tenured professor of criminal justice on March 18 at age 63. I was privileged to instruct three generations of students over 22 years of unblemished academic service. I did not plan to retire early. Until recently, I had planned on teaching several more years. However, I found myself morally and ethically compelled to sever ties with Centralia College when I realized a clear majority of current administrators, faculty and staff now embrace and promote Marxism, critical race theory, transgenderism and atheism to students as young as age 16. Even more troubling is the fact these young and impressionable students are being indoctrinated into accepting and adopting these radical political beliefs and sexuality lifestyles as the new normal for our culture under the false pretense of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.

Anthropology students are required to view graphic and disturbing gender reassignment surgery videos in class. History and political science students are told, If you want to be more like Jesus youll become a communist. English composition students are assigned essays on topics like Who would you like to kill and why? A student I know failed an English composition essay he wrote about his Christian upbringing. When he asked his professor how to improve his grade, she told him, Go ask your God how you can get a better grade. Chemistry professors spend class time discussing witchcraft, sorcery and incest as depicted in the Game of Thrones television series with their students. The list of inappropriate conduct and classroom practices that routinely occurs at Centralia College is staggering.

In addition, the few remaining faculty members on campus who are moderately conservative now believe they are being targeted for elimination. Their belief is well founded by the fact that senior administrators continue hiring leftist vice presidents and deans from outside Lewis County when many well qualified individuals reside locally. The current board of trustees has done nothing to stem these inexplicable executive leadership and hiring decisions.

My purpose in writing this letter is to sound an alarm and call to action. I implore everyone with children or grandchildren enrolled at the Centralia College to talk with them about these issues. Ask probing questions. Discuss these concerns with your friends, coworkers, neighbors and clergy. Find out for yourself what your childs professors are actually teaching them. I am confident that once you discover the degree of political, sexual and atheistic brainwashing and grooming your children are subjected to daily, you will either withdraw your student from the college, demand new trustees and executive leadership, or both.

Gregory Gilbertson

Naples, Florida

Read more here:
Letter to the Editor: Find Out for Yourself What College Students Are Learning - Centralia Chronicle

Image credit:Gerd Altmann viaPixabay.

Stephen Meyer writing atThe Daily Wireexamines the rise of the Multiverse in popular culture, inspired by the imaginings of scientists. From, The Madness of the Multiverse and the Strangeness of Atheism:

As millions of fans know, Marvel Studios recently released its latest superhero blockbusterDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Like earlier Marvel films, this offering unfolds within an interconnected network of parallel universes known as the Multiverse.

Scientists uneasy about the theistic implications of the cosmic fine-tuning at the inception of the universe have embraced the Multiverse as a remedy. As Meyer explains, there are a couple of issues with that. The first has to do with Ockhams razor. The second is the doozy.

Second and heres the twist all Multiverse proposals, whether based on inflationary cosmology or string theory, posit universe-generating mechanisms that themselves require prior, unexplained fine-tuning. This means that the ultimate origin of the fine-tuning remains a mystery which seems to take us right back to the need for an ultimate Fine-Tuner.

Ironically, the folks at Marvel and DC studios seem to recognize this. The Marvel Universe envisions a God-like figure called the One-Above-All as the creator of all the interconnected universes in the Multiverse. His DC equivalent is called The Presence.

Yet many modern scientists, wedded to atheism or materialism, fail to distinguish these ideologies from science itself. Consequently, they have recently advanced ever more strange and exotic hypotheses. In addition to the multiverse, some scientists posit a space alien designer to explain the digital code in DNA, while others suggest we may be nothing more than the simulation of a cosmic computer programmer.

These speculative hypotheses illustrate the growing strangeness of scientific atheism, as scientists reach for increasingly exotic ideas to explain evidence that seems otherwise to point straightforwardly to God.

As for the Multiverse, even sci-fi writers now recognize thatifsuch a thing exists, it would still require an ultimate Creator.

So, who will tell the scientific atheists?

Read the rest atThe Daily Wire(note that it is behind a paywall). Meyers latest book isReturn of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe.

Continued here:
Meyer: Theistic Implications of the Multiverse - Discovery Institute

Photo credit: NOAA, via NASA.

William Paley once quipped that observation of the complexity of the human eye (which, it will be recalled, was wont to give Darwin uncomfortable doubts about the efficacy of natural selection) supplied an assured cure for atheism. Extending Paleys quip, I would add that if the eye doesnt do it for you, the brain with itsquadrillionsofsynchronizedelectro-chemical operationsalmost certainly will. There seems to be little exaggeration in claiming that cytology, the microscopic study of cells enabled by the ultra-high magnifications of the electron microscope, has led to a wholly unexpected revival of the fortunes of Paleys once derided natural theology.

Recent advances in biological science, a subject formerly proclaimed to be corrosive of metaphysical beliefs1, have somewhat unexpectedly become a stimulus to the emergence of new advances which endorse many of the older observations of natural theology. As astronomer Paul Davies remarked some four decades ago, It may seem bizarre, but in my opinion science offers a surer path to God than religion.2Supporting this contention that science itself leads the charge toward a fresh theistic turn Michael Denton makes the firm observation in his new book,The Miracle of Man: The Fine Tuning of Nature for Human Existence, that recent studies of the way the terrestrial environment appears to be fine-tuned for humankind are not based on the Judeo-Christian scriptures or classical philosophy but on evidence derived from advances in our scientific understanding of nature. (p. 208)

Providing chapter and verse for his views, in convincing detail with an enviably multi-disciplinary command, Denton elaborates on ways in which the properties of light, carbon, water, and metals contribute to the fitness of nature for humankind, providing substantial circumstantial evidence that the world we in habit was pre-adapted for our use. Taking as an example the earths hydrological cycle, which provides our water, this reveals itself to be an autonomous phenomenon enabling and promoting human life which, unlike gasoline and other products, requires no human input to garner it for our use. It is, to use a proverbial clich, simply a gift from the gods. Comments Denton: If you were Platos demiurge starting from scratch, you would need to create water and configure it with precisely its present suite of thermal properties. (p. 134)

Turning to human physiology, Denton points out how such organs as the heart and lungs appear to have been optimized with extraordinary prescience and he does not hesitate to call them and other human organs miracles of bioengineering. Such fitness for human purpose, he emphasizes, cannot be ascribed to Darwinian natural selection since human-friendly features must have been built into nature long before natural selection could have had time to act. (p. 149) Fully embracing Darwins proscribed t word (teleology), Denton does not shrink from referencing the teleological details of natures shaping.

Denton is particularly strong on what he terms the post-Copernican delusion of mankinds cosmic irrelevance. (p. 149) This is a fallacy which he traces back to Darwinisms having triggered a form of philosophical regression towards an unregenerate form of ancient materialism:

With the acceptance of Darwinism by the biological mainstream, western civilization took the final step back to the atomism, materialism and many-worlds doctrine of Democritus and other pre-Socratic philosophers of ancient Greece. (p. 21)

The notion that we are simply an epiphenomenon of mindless processes cast adrift in a cosmos configured by pure chance has in the last half century or so been challenged by a new scientific landscape, Denton argues with some understatement. For as Michael Behe comments in his advance praise of Dentons work, the philosopher Bertrand Russells notorious contention that Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving has turned out to be the most spectacularly wrong-headed pronouncement of the 20th century. (p. ii)

Questions about the nature and origin of mankind are clearly no respecters of traditional academic compartmentalization, and Darwinism has clear cosmological as well as biological implications.It is at this point of intersection that Dentons work makes common cause with the idea put forth by modern astronomers that planet Earth itself must have in some sense been, to use Dentons term, pre-planned. Before the beginning of the 1970s many people might have accepted that the universe was a jumble of material forces churning away mindlessly over the eons with the unaccountable exception of theunplannedanomaly of human life. Yet that idea was challenged once astrophysicists came to realize that planet Earth was being constantly ministered to by a group of forces dubbed the cosmological constants, all precisely calibrated to promote and sustain life.3Such factors give the Earth its uniquely privileged position and run counter to the older opinion that it arose through purely aleatory processes of cosmic vicissitude. These modern findings stand in implicit but conspicuous opposition to that de-centering of the Earth brought about by the Copernican Revolution, and Denton points to many points of contact linking modern cosmology and biology with the distinctly anthropocentric medieval view of the human estate as it has been articulated by the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Surrounded by an infinity of purposeless nullity on all sides, our Earth stands out as a cosmic beacon pulsating with life and purpose.4Cosmologists make no bones about the fact they can see no logical pathway to how we all came to be here on this planet. The cosmological constants which create conditions favorable to life are on any statistical reckoning improbable to an extreme, even prohibitive degree. The same goes for the genesis and proliferation of life forms: the whole phenomenon remains stubbornly unamenable to rational decipherment. There cannot even be any sensible talk of an inference to the best explanation when there are no helpful indices pointing inanydirection on the naturalistic continuum of understanding.

Planet Earth would therefore appear torepresent a cosmic exception so singular as to require a separate form of explanation altogether from the rest of a dead universe. In fact,the absolute disparity in existential status between our living cosmos and its surrounding chaos of jostling corpse planets prompts the inference thatsentient life could not have developed without a form of foresight and an accompanying instrumental power to realize some originary vision through a selective abrogation of the otherwise universal laws of chaos dominating the rest of the universe. Hence,despite the undeniable fact of the suns geometrically central position, Earth, as the single locus of habitability amidst the lifeless chaos of our extraterrestrial surroundings, can with some justice lay claim to a form of moral and symbolic centrality within the cosmic scheme of things.

Denton has gone further than this in earlier writings and argued that the new discoveries in astrophysics point to a form of providential dispensation. For that reasonhe has taken exception with modern liberal theologians who have apparently resigned themselves to seeing science and theology occupying discrete epistemological realms where science acts as the senior partner, so to speak. Support for Dentons position has also been amply hinted at in the work of Paul Davies who concludes that it would be a considerable stretch to suppose that the temperate zone cocooning the Earth might be the result of pure accident. He therefore feels himself unable to subscribe to the belief that the accumulated intricacies of our planet could have come about by pure chance.5

Even Denis Diderot, it will be recalled, one of the free-thinking Frenchphilosopheswho was speculating on evolutionary matters in the same century as Charless free-thinking grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was ready to accept the Argument from Design. It seemed self-evident to Diderot that the readily observable and palpable works of nature were more convincing of a divine hand then any amount of philosophizing or theologizing.6Diderots somewhat inchoate intuitions certainly receive weighty and scientifically corroborated support in Michael DentonsThe Miracle of Man.

Visit link:
Denton: How Science Leads the Charge to Theism - Discovery Institute

Spaceship of Vangelis's electronic imagination... PBS

Now, my boyhood had two life-changing experiences. First was watching Star Wars with my aunt (more specifically, maiguru) in 1977. This was the moment, which happened in Seattle (the summer city of my boyhood), I first saw that Christianity did not structure the whole universe. It wasn't fundamental. Evil could be Satan or Darth Vader, and good could be Jesus or Luke Skywalker. This discovery broke my boy-mind. No one had told me that Jesus might not be seen as all that is good on Jupiter, or Alpha Centauri, or a galaxy far, far away.

My atheism was born in that theater that afternoon. (Star Wars was the first movie I watched.) But I needed something to replace the growing vacuum initiated by that experience. I still needed to believe in something. No-thing was not enough. I was spiritually adrift until I watched the first episode of Cosmos near the end of 1980.

Three things about this show moved me profoundly. One was Carl Sagan himself (so reasonable, so thoughtful, so human), another was the Spaceship of the Imagination (a "spacecraft/set Sagan used to travel through wonderful space and marvelous time... with translucent skin and a control panel of glittering crystals..."), and, finally, the show's theme song, "Heaven and Hell," by a Greek composer who died of COVID-19 on Tuesday, May 17, Vangelis.

I was sold. I believed in God, but a secular one. A God made of star-stuff, to use Sagan's language. But the transference of my religion from the church to the stars would not have been possible without Vangelis's transportive "Heaven and Hell." I made every effort not to miss the show's opening because this sorrowful and starry-full piece gave my feelings access to the essence of the show's defining images: planets, stellar gas clouds, pulsars, galaxies.

Near the end of the second episode of Cosmos, "One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue," Sagan said something that truly stunned me: "The molecules of life fill the universe." And as he speculated on life on other worlds, and transformed the Jesus I lost in the movie theater into universal matter and laws of physics from which life emerged, Vangelis provided a perfect piece of music: "Alpha".

Fifteen years later, the Canadian producers Dino & Terry boosted "Alpha" and transformed it into a deep trip-hop groove, "Gibby Disco":

Vangelis, who is mostly known for a soundtrack that did nothing for me (the "Chariots of Fire" theme), provided the revolutionary soundtrack for a film that first pictured cyberpunk on the screen, Blade Runner. My first encounter with this work happened in 1984, in Harare. I rented the movie from a video store at the Chisipite mall. I was with my friend Martin. After playing Asteroids at an arcade, we watched the movie at his place on Enterprise Road. When we overcame our speechlessness, we could not stop talking about and re-watching the science fiction film.

There is not enough time in my life to say nearly enough about the music/images in this work: Its opening (the fiery industrial blasts of an endless city whose pollution has made day into night and rain toxic); its peak (a police car landing on the top of a 300-story police station); its conclusion (a techno beat as the doomed androids flee to the Pacific Northwest). The way to feel this Los Angeles, which 1982 saw as the year 2019, was made so real by a genius who gave me the cosmos and the urban sublime, Vangelis.

Visit link:
The Musician Who Gave Me the City and Stars, Vangelis, Is Dead - TheStranger.com

Contempt of Hatred, by Ernest Joseph Bailly 1792 Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent / Alamy

Source: Christian Art

Gospel of 21 May 2022John 15:18-21

Jesus said to his disciples:

'If the world hates you, remember that it hated me before you.

If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you do not belong to the world, because my choice withdrew you from the world, therefore the world hates you.

Remember the words I said to you: A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too; if they kept my word, they will keep yours as well. But it will be on my account that they will do all this, because they do not know the one who sent me.'

Reflection on the portrait painting

Most of our Gospel readings this week talked about love, trust and friendship, but today's reading talks about hatred. Jesus says 'If the world hates you, remember that it hated me before you.' Jesus is very realistic in what he is asking us to do. He knew that Christians would be met with hostility and hatred. In the early Church this would sometimes take the form of persecutions (which sadly still happen in parts of the world now). In the 21st-century Church, the hostility towards Christianity is in the form of aggressive atheism or of deeply rooted secularist indifference.

The hostility towards Christians in our century is more subtle. We may not even be especially aware of it, but we know that rejection of faith is present in our societies. This leads us to being afraid to publicly witness our Christian beliefs. We'd rather keep our heads down and just quietly live out our faith. There is a lot to be said for that, but Jesus calls us to try to be lights in a darkened world by the way we live our lives.

In line with Paris and Lille, the Ghent Academy in Belgium organised its first Salon in 1792. It was a competition focusing on the theme of a character portrait. Ernest Joseph Bailly obtained first prize with this portrait. The face is contorted and grimacing, exuding nothing but contempt. The work is titled 'Contempt of Hatred', as the man is actually rejecting hatred he is seeing in someone else. So whilst this is a harsh, unusual and uncomfortable portrait, its aim is a noble one: to convey a dislike of hatred.

LINKS

Christian Art: http://www.christian.art

Today's image: https://christian.art/daily-gospel-reading/john-15-18-21-2022/

The rest is here:
Gospel in Art: If the world hates you, remember that it hated me before you | ICN - Independent Catholic News