This is an Internet adaptation of a
chapter of an as-yet unpublished book.
Curiosities
a compilation of the author's impressions of
assorted attitudes and events
Though many
atheists are inclined to dismiss religion as
irredeemable rot and an unending procession of
atrocities against humanity and nature, there are
some who find that it has remarkable value—as
entertainment. For indeed, one of the most
fascinating features of religious scripture, belief,
and practice is that they satirize themselves. Perhaps this is not immediately obvious to the devout
believer, but it becomes evident when we consider
that even most religious people indulge from time to
time in the ridicule of religion—as long as it
is someone else's religion, not their own. To
the atheist, of course, all religions are someone
else's, so he is uniquely able to appreciate the
absurdities of any religion, be it Hindu, Islamic,
Christian, or whatever. Not all absurdities, to
be sure, are the sort which inspire laughter; they
may arouse a wide range of responses, ranging from
mild incredulity and puzzlement to intense disgust
and profound despair. In the following
anecdotes, however, we will focus upon those which
tickle more than they pinch.
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Conversant Critters
We have all heard (or have at least heard of)
certain birds with an amusing talent for mimicking
human speech. However, the birds' comprehension of
the actual meaning of such utterances—from a
simple "hello" to assorted bits of
profundity or profanity—is virtually nil. At
most, the bird typically learns to associate the
repetition of a specific sound sequence with a
reward, usually in the form of food, or perhaps a few
minutes of liberty from its cage. True, parrots and
mynahs are exceptionally intelligent, as birds go. But even though they can be trained, for example, to
repeat the phrase "Jesus loves me," they
haven't the foggiest idea what a Jesus is. A bird, no
matter how smart it is, understands only that
repeating specific sounds gets specific results. Whether those sounds constitute, to human ears, a
crude remark about someone's mother-in-law, or a
recitation of "Now I lay me down to sleep,"
all they mean to the bird is, "I want
attention," or perhaps, "Feed me, you
jerk!"
Even so, science nowadays recognizes that many
animals are capable of some degree of genuine
communication, in one form or another, with members
of their own species. And rudimentary inter-species
communication, via sounds, scents, body postures,
etc., regarding such simple matters as territory,
defense, or feeding privileges, is now acknowledged
to be quite common. In addition, many domesticated
animals can be trained to respond in certain ways to
the vocal commands of humans. And in a few cases,
animals have actually been taught to communicate with
humans by various means.
However, while a few animals, most notably apes,
have learned to interact with humans using sign
language or specially prepared computers, it is
widely accepted that only the human species has
developed a spoken language with the
complexity necessary to express abstract ideas. This
is not because animals are not up to the task
intellectually—some, particularly among the
primates and cetaceans, being recognized as at least
as intelligent as human children—but simply
because animals lack the physiological apparatus to
form the consonantal sounds necessary to speech as we
humans know it.
Nevertheless, the Bible asserts that on two
occasions animals did indeed speak to humans, the two
animals in question being a serpent and an ass. Now,
unless one is inclined to believe in fairy tales, it
is extremely doubtful that such events actually
transpired as literally described, given that neither
serpents nor asses are equipped with the
physiological mechanism necessary for the production
of any sound even remotely resembling human speech. However, even though the factual truth of these myths
is questionable at best, they may well be considered
as valid in an allegorical sense. For indeed, talking
serpents and talking asses exist even today. The
serpents take the form of unscrupulous politicians
and religion mongers, from mainstream leaders to cult
gurus, who prey upon human ignorance and gullibility,
and who make their living by spreading the venom of
greed, prejudice, fear, hate, and superstition. And
the asses? They are the ones who listen to the
serpents.
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Bible Babble
As everyone knows, religious fundamentalism is the
doctrine that all religious scripture (at least that
of one's own faith) must be regarded as literally
true. Fundamentalists contend that holy writ must be
considered as literally true, not as allegory or
myth, even when it is directly refuted by factual
evidence. On this issue they are outwardly steadfast
and unwavering. Yet in practice, even staunch
fundamentalists are not above putting a little
fanciful spin on a biblical passage whenever it suits
their purpose.
The first time I noticed this phenomenon was
during a sermon in which the preacher was getting all
worked up about the approaching new millennium. Suddenly he switched from an ecstatic raving format
into what might best be described as an astounded
"Golly, look what I just found in the
Bible" mode (characterized by a widening of the
eyes, and a dramatic lowering of the voice to a
hushed tone in which one might impart a deep
confidence). What tremendous secret, hidden from all
other scholars down through the centuries, had this
great holy man discovered in the Bible? To this day I
am not certain, for his explanation was far from
coherent—at least to the ear of this ignorant
outsider. But from a passage in the book of Isaiah he
managed to confuse—quite intentionally, for he
made a point of it—the term
"Babylon" with "babble on," so
artfully and to such great effect that he apparently
quite convinced a fair portion his audience that the
end of the world was nigh at hand in the closing
years of the twentieth century.
So although fundamentalists pay abundant lip
service to the literal interpretation of scripture,
apparently if one is sufficiently learned in the
mysterious ways of God (and perhaps sufficiently
ignorant otherwise), one is entitled to find anything
one wants in the scripture. No, it isn't allegory,
and it isn't myth. Nevertheless, this "hidden
message" required a highly imaginative and liberal
(fundamentalists seem to hate that word!)
interpretation of scripture. It is evidently
permissible for the fundamentalists' hard and fast
rule about "the literal truth of the scripture
as it is written" to be broken, but only if the
fundamentalists themselves are the ones who break it.
Fundy-watchers should be on the lookout for this
practice; I suspect it is much more common than our
literalist friends would care to admit.
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Madness in Their Methodism
In the late 1980's the United Methodist Church
undertook the task of revising its hymnal, in order
to exorcise any overtly racist, sexist, or otherwise
inappropriate material which might have crept in over
the years. One of the hymns whose appropriateness was
questioned was the very popular "Onward
Christian Soldiers." The problem with
"Onward" was not that it was particularly
offensive, but that its lyrics contained some
blatantly warlike implications. The reviewing council
reasoned that phrases such as "marching as to
war" and "forward into battle" were
obviously inappropriate to the worship of Jesus,
"The Prince of Peace." After all, the
notion of "fighting for peace" is plainly
as senseless as, say, "lying for truth" or
"copulating for chastity."
However, once word got out that "Onward"
was on the council's list of hymns to be expunged, a
tremendous outcry arose from lay and clergy alike. The hymn had been a favorite for generations. Laymen
loved the song because it was exciting, caused the
blood to surge, and gave an emotional lift. And the
clergy loved it because of its oft demonstrated
effectiveness in waking up sleepy congregations and
increasing contributions to the offering plate.
The review council was clearly in a predicament. The hymn's overt militancy was plainly out of place
in a house of worship, yet "Onward" was
dearly beloved by the church membership, some of whom
even threatened to change religious denominations if
it were removed from the Methodist hymnal.
Now, helpful fellow that I am, I conceived an idea
which might have permitted the use of the hymn in a
slightly modified form, by acknowledging the
incongruity of its bellicose references. True, in
centuries past the Christian Church had not been shy
about launching bloody wars, either foreign or
domestic, against infidels and heretics. But church
doctrines have been reshaped since the days of the
Crusades and the Inquisition. And because those
troublesome lines of text had placed the Church in
such an embarrassing position in light of its more
modern, less militant stance, it seemed reasonable to
me simply to change the title of the hymn to
something suited to the current situation.
In the end, though, I did not mail my idea to the
council. Somehow, I had a strong hunch that my
suggestion for changing the title of the hymn to
"Awkward Christian Soldiers" would never be
approved.
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Mystery Unshrouded
The Shroud of Turin has long been venerated as the
cloth in which the body of Jesus was wrapped in the
sepulcher, and it is even alleged that the image of
the Lord is imprinted in its fabric. The Shroud is
purported to have been found in the Holy Land during
the Crusades and taken to Europe. There it eventually
passed into the possession of the House of Savoy, the
Italian royal family, and was taken to Turin in 1578.
Many believers speculate that the image on the
cloth (a faint discoloration, only relatively
recently recognized as having the form of a human
figure when it was first photographed in 1898) must
have been produced by a mysterious "flash"
of energy at the moment of Resurrection. This would
suggest, either that the linen had chemical
properties similar to photographic film, or that it
was oxidized—scorched—by a heat
sufficient to sear flesh. Although some
experimentation has been conducted to show the
theoretical possibility of forming photographic
images on cloth, neither of these conjectures has yet
been borne out by chemical testing of the Shroud
itself. Moreover, the pattern on the cloth is clearly
a projection, as if the linen had been either draped
loosely over a body (possibly, but not necessarily, a
dead one), or spread flat and the image of a body
projected onto it through a lens. Had the Shroud been
bound about a corpse at the time the image was
produced, the appearance would have been quite
different, a wrap-around view of the entire body,
instead of the paired front and rear projections
actually exhibited on the cloth.
In the 1970s biological testing performed by
professor Alan Whanger of Duke University lent
scientific credence to the Shroud's supposed place of
origin. Whanger's analysis of surface particles
collected from the cloth revealed evidence of about
twenty species of plants known to grow in the
vicinity of Jerusalem. (Unfortunately it is not clear
from the brief report of that analysis, whether these
species are unique to that specific area, or whether
they may also be found elsewhere in the Mediterranean
region.)
In 1979 several sections of the Shroud were
examined microscopically by Chicago scientist Walter
McCrone. McCrone believed that he had detected a red
ocher pigment in the fabric, and deduced that the
image had been painted. Later examinations, though,
failed to show any trace of pigment or dye,
indicating instead that the image was a result of the
topical discoloration of the fibers of the Shroud
itself, although the cause of the discoloration
remained a matter of speculation.
Church officials agreed in 1988 to have the age of
the Shroud verified by radiocarbon dating, with
several cloth samples being analyzed by three
independent laboratories. To the surprise and chagrin
of many, radiometric analysis revealed the Shroud's
date of origin to have been between the years 1260
and 1390 AD (with a possible error of from 1000 to
1500 AD at the outside). Alas, the Shroud of Turin
was about thirteen centuries "too new," only
one third the age it would have to be, in order
to have been around at the time of the crucifixion of
the Christ. Consequently, regardless of where, how,
or why a man's image appeared in the fibers of the
Shroud, it became clear that that image, though
apparently of a crucifixion victim (or at least of a
tortured man upon whom crucifixion-style wounds had
been inflicted), could not have been formed by the
body of Jesus. (Whose image might it be, then, if not
that of Jesus? Possibilities abound, one notable
candidate being Jacques de Molay, last grand master
of the Knights Templar, who was imprisoned, tortured,
and executed in 1314—smack in the middle of
the time frame indicated by the Shroud's radiometric
tests.)
Though it is still classified as a holy relic, the
Shroud of Turin is no longer officially claimed by
the Roman Catholic Church to be the funeral wrapping
of its Messiah. Nevertheless, it has been fairly
plausibly argued by some die-hard Shroud enthusiasts
that the results of the radiocarbon dating could have
been skewed by the presence of smoke residue (from a
fire in 1532), bacteria, or fingerprints on the
fabric. Certainly it is conceivable, even with the
standard preparation designed to remove most such
extraneous matter from a sample prior to testing,
that an error of perhaps as much as five or ten
percent might be attributed to foreign organic
material. However, to account for an error of the
magnitude in question, the amount of contaminating
material would have to weigh more than the cloth
itself, and the Shroud crowd has yet to show how this
might be even remotely possible. The notion, that
trace contaminants constituting (at most) two percent
of the analyzed sample could have resulted in a
measurement error of well over sixty percent, strains
credibility far beyond the breaking point.
It would appear, then, that whoever first passed
the Shroud off as the burial wrapping of the body of
Jesus literally pulled the wool (or in this case the
linen) over everyone's eyes. Yet the fuss over the
Shroud of Turin is not an assault upon the Christian
faith, for the truly faithful do not worship a mere
piece of cloth, no matter what mysteries it might
contain. The Shroud fiasco is simply another example
of the foolishness which even intelligent and learned
people can be happily led to believe, without a hint
of skepticism, simply because they want so
much to believe it.
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A Humming Business
A few kilometers from my home and adjacent to an
interstate highway there is a farmer's silo. It is
painted white, and near the top there is red
lettering, which says simply, "JOHN 3:3." Now, for quite a while I thought this was perhaps the
Department of Highways' cryptic way of informing
motorists that there was a public comfort facility a
short distance ahead. But as it turns out, I was
mistaken.
According to something I read in the local
newspaper, the silo inscription has to do with the
farmer's getting into the religion business. (It has
been a while since I read the article, so I will
admit my recollection of details might be a bit
hazy.) Anyway, it seems that honest work wasn't
lucrative enough; so the farmer and some of his
buddies, including a local building contractor, got
together and built an imposing, Spanish style edifice
within clear view of the highway. And just to be sure
there would be no doubt in travelers' minds as to the
purpose of this facility, they erected one of those
large computerized signs capable of displaying—in flashing and whirling arrays of lights guaranteed
to distract Interstate motorists, and almost bright
enough to blind them at night—a variety of
messages, most of which declare something to the
effect that all sinners ought to exit at the next
interchange and get themselves saved immediately.
The newspaper article indicated that the church
does a humming business, and that folks who go there
say the atmosphere is electric. People are drawn from
several states away by the magnetic reputation of the
place. Now, perhaps it is only a coincidence, but I
have noticed that there is a 440,000 volt electrical
transmission line which passes only a few meters away
on the north side of the building. And I figure that
just might have something to do with the glowing
reports. If the building has standard steel framing,
it must act as a huge vibrator whenever it is full of
steaming, conductive bodies. No wonder the place is
so popular!
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Christians for Satan
Have you ever noticed how fanatically evangelical
types, with their incessant sermonizing and
proselytizing, seem to generate a great deal of
negative reaction in others? It is their purpose,
they maintain, to convert as many of the unfaithful (i.e.,
anyone who does not believe as they do) as they can
to their own belief.
Yet, as any professional psychologist can affirm,
the tactics which these folks typically employ are
virtually certain to cause the average person to be
dismayed or even repulsed. It is likely that, in the
long term, such obnoxious proselytizers discourage
and drive off many more people who might otherwise
accept religion, than they win over. If there really
were a Satan scheming to drive people away from
religion, what shrewder move could he make than to
recruit these unwitting but most effective disciples
for the task? It is enough to make one wonder which
side these zealots are really on.
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Translation: "I Don't Know"
There were several reasons for the appearance of
religion in human society many thousands of years
ago. Probably the most important was that it provided
leaders with a very powerful tool (superstitious
fear) for imposing and enforcing structure in
society, especially in times when factual knowledge
was scant, critical thinking was unheard of, and
mysticism was the "science" of the day. Another reason was that religion lent a comforting
aura of personality to an otherwise uncaring and
impersonal universe, and furnished a way for
emotional humans to feel a sense of belonging and
personal interaction with an unemotional and
impersonal world.
As an extra benefit, religion also provided a
handy way to "explain" the unexplainable,
and in ancient times there was certainly a great deal
which fell into this category—wind, tides,
lightning, seasons, lights in the sky, fire,
volcanoes and earthquakes, flood and drought,
illness, pregnancy, life, death, and so on. Whenever
people couldn't figure out the real reasons things
happened (which was most of the time), religion
offered the comfort of "knowing" by
providing mythical "explanations" for
various phenomena. People fell ill (they believed)
because they were under the influence of evil
spirits; storms raged because the gods were angry;
harvests were bountiful because the gods were happy;
comets were omens of impending disaster; and the
stars were windows in the sky from which the gods and
spirits could look down upon the earth from their
celestial abode. Even today, when we know more about
the universe than ever before, there are many
questions unanswered. And so religion continues to
fulfill this ancient purpose of
"explaining" the unknown in terms of the
unknowable—without really explaining anything. Yet if we had the courage to be bluntly honest, we
would certainly express ourselves differently. Here
are a few examples.
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God created the heavens and the earth.
Translation: "I don't know why
we're here or how we got here."
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It is God's will.
Translation: "What a stroke of great /
terrible luck! I don't know why that
should have happened."
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The Lord works in mysterious ways.
Translation: "How strange! I don't
know why the world works like
that."
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God will punish you for that.
Translation: "I feel you shouldn't do
that, even though I don't know of a
valid reason you shouldn't."
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That's witchcraft.
Translation: "That invention frightens
me, because I don't know how it
works."
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It is the work of the devil.
Translation: "That discovery contradicts
my beliefs, and I don't know how to
resolve the conflict."
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Fight for God and country.
Translation: "I don't know of a
noble-sounding motive for attacking those
people. But we want their land, their goods,
and their money, so let's kill them
anyway."
People use such expressions every day, to explain
things or to justify their actions, without realizing
that these are essentially time-worn euphemisms for
"I don't know." So I propose this little
challenge: Next time you are tempted to
"explain" something in terms of God (or
Satan), why not stop and ask yourself what it is
that you are unable to explain otherwise. If you
find you do not know the answer, have the courage to
admit it; then resolve to find out, if possible, what
the reality of the matter is. This personal quest of
discovery might involve a trip to the local library,
perhaps an exchange by phone or mail with someone
knowledgeable in the field, and probably a little
personal effort in exploring, studying, and
evaluating a number of possibilities. And yes, you
could possibly find yourself stuck at a dead-end,
with no answer in sight, or perhaps more than one
equally plausible answer. Granted, honest inquiry is
not the quickest or easiest way to an answer, but it
is the surest way to truth and progress. After two or
three tries at this little exercise, you might be
surprised to discover how easily you can learn new
(and maybe even interesting) stuff.
A glib "God" answer offers a handy,
face-saving way for us to appear wise when we are
not. But it is both a moral short-cut and an
intellectual short-circuit. It lets us avoid having
to confess—especially to our children, who
most look to us for answers—that there are
many things which we do not know. We are conditioned
to feel dreadfully inadequate about not knowing
something, and religion gives us an easy way out of
admitting our ignorance. But if we love our kids so
much and want them to trust us, why can't we be
honest with them? I don't know. (Try saying it, it's
easy: "I don't know. I don't know. I don't
know ... but I'll try to find out!")
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Mary, Mary!
Every so often, according to one newspaper or
another, the virgin Mary, mother of God, puts in an
appearance. It would seem from reports that this is
not too uncommon an occurrence. The old girl pops up
in all sorts of places around the world from time to
time. However, for some reason she usually chooses to
appear clearly to just one person at a time. When she
is "seen" by several people at once, her
image is curiously vague, an indistinct blob or smear
of light. Perhaps she is shy in front of crowds. (It
is not clear how anyone can positively identify her
when she is in one of her blobby moods. Apparently
she is somehow able to make herself crystal clear to
one individual in the crowd, and the rest of the
multitude get caught up in the excitement.) Typically, some hubbub is generated in the local
newspaper, and perhaps a snippet gets circulated as a
curiosity by one of the national networks. A few days
later just about everyone forgets about it and things
get back to normal.
A few years ago Mary reportedly appeared in a
small town in Kentucky, and had a little chat with
one of the local ladies. The occurrence got the usual
round of attention, which then subsided. But
evidently the woman and the blessed virgin hit it off
well, because each year since then Mary has repeated
her visit. Perhaps because it occurs near Mothers'
Day, this event has drawn national attention, and
folks, not just from miles around, but from hundreds
of miles distant, crowd into the little Appalachian
town in their cars and trucks and campers. Because
spring is typically a fairly rainy season there, the
unpaved roads are quickly churned into nearly
impassable quagmires, and lawns are reduced to
pock-marked fields of mud by all the pedestrian
traffic. Needless to say, this has become quite a
headache for many of the locals, and especially the
law enforcement people. But because it brings in a
lot of trade for the local merchants they are
learning to cope with and accept the situation.
Now, it is perhaps noteworthy that, of all the
thousands of visitors who show up, Mary is usually
seen only by the woman whom she comes to visit. Occasionally one or two others claim to have gotten a
glimpse, but the rest seem to be just along for the
ride, so to speak—chanting, singing, praying,
eating, littering, queuing up at the Port-A-Johns,
falling down in the muck, and doing all the other
merry things people typically do at such an event.
One of the most peculiar pastimes which has
garnered a following during these vigils is that of
staring at the sun. Having had occasion to transport
more than a few people to the hospital for the
consequences of this dangerous practice, the local
police have prevailed upon the organizers of the
event to hand out printed warnings of the (one would
think obvious) hazards of sun-gazing. Oddly, this
seems only to have increased the incidents of
blindness. Since the warnings clearly state that one
should "never look directly at the sun,
especially through a lens of any sort," many
people, who would never have thought of doing so on
their own, have taken up staring at the sun through
binoculars and camera lenses. What do they see? From
what has been reported, the sun becomes blurry and
appears to "spin." The excitement about
this spectacular "mystery" is a little
misplaced, though, I think. After all, blurring of
vision is something one would normally expect when
one's retinas are being seared, isn't it? I suppose
the following year the victims return, hoping for
Mary to restore their sight. Such is the nature of
belief.
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Devils, Devils Everywhere!
Those who frequent fundamentalist gatherings,
church services, and web sites, or who enjoy some of
the more fanciful religious publications and
broadcasts, are bound to come away with the
impression that old Satan has his conniving hands
into just about every human enterprise imaginable,
hatching schemes to ensnare the unwary at every turn. According to some, Satan is responsible for just
about anything that is either new or strange, from
the latest technologies and modern art to the
enigmatic stone figures of Easter Island. As each new
discovery or invention has come to light, there have
been those who staunchly insisted that it was
demonically inspired. Without exception, such things
as space exploration, television, radio, antibiotics,
airplanes, contraception, the telephone, the
phonograph, the automobile, the telegraph,
electricity, and the steam engine have all been
attributed to the influence of Satan. As each new
invention is integrated into the everyday workings of
society, though, its supposedly diabolical origin is,
of course, conveniently forgotten. Yet the pattern
persists, even as we laugh about the superstitious
carryings on of "the old days" not so very
long ago. Among the "Satanic evils" of
today, we are warned, are computers, infrared bar
codes, genetic research, and wilderness conservation.
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Enough to Make an Atheist Believe (Almost)
The spectacular growth of religious fundamentalism
during the latter part of the Twentieth Century saw
the emergence of a number of colorful characters. Among these is evangelist and faith healer Oral
Roberts, a major figure of the fundamentalist
movement and founder of Oral Roberts University in
Tulsa, Oklahoma. His school includes an impressive
campus, radio and television broadcast facilities
with links to national networks, and a lofty
"prayer tower" to which the Reverend Doctor
Roberts regularly repairs to be at one with his God.
Now, it happened that contributions to the Roberts
religion factory during an annual fund-raising
campaign in the late 1980s gave early indications of
falling significantly short of the anticipated goal. So following one of his prayer tower chats with the
Almighty, Dr. Roberts sadly announced to the world
that the Lord would "call him home" if
contributions did not total so many millions of
dollars that year. (It has never been made clear to
me precisely what use an omnipotent being has for
United States currency. Perhaps the electricity bill
had just arrived at the Pearly Gates.)
As anticipated, increasing donations started
rolling in from the faithful flock, in the hope that
the Lord might be kind and allow their beloved
shepherd to remain with them yet for a time. But
there was also a dramatic response of a different
sort. Shortly after Roberts's "God is calling me
home" announcement, his prayer tower (unoccupied
at the time) was struck by lightning. Atheists, of
course, are loath to attribute this event to anything
other than natural causes. Yet it is tempting to
imagine, if there really were a God, the warning
words of The Great One ringing down that searing
thunderbolt to the quaking Reverend Doctor R.:
By making a
career of taking money from the poor and the sick
and the gullible hast thou already sealed thine
eternal fate. But shouldst thou endeavour to
enrich thyself and thy vassals further, by
proclaiming that I thy God hath directly
commanded thee to do so, then shall thy
pre-ordained residency in Hell commence, not in
due time, but forthwith. This be thy first and
thy last warning, Bub!
The official word from ORU was that the funding
goal was met—though I do not recall that any
figures were released to the public. The good news
is, neither good old Oral nor anyone else in that
business has (so far) dared to pull such a stunt
again.
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Afterthought
It would be unfair to portray such antics as
typical of all religious people. Yet, given the high
level of publicity often afforded such goings on, is
it any wonder that religious people—fundamentalists in particular—are often viewed
as perhaps more than a trifle gullible, even wacky? Such behavior inevitably invites speculation that a
person must have a few screws loose in order to be
religious. One wonders whether God would approve of
his followers' promoting such a negative image of
religious belief.
= SAJ =
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