Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
The death of a criminal guru.
This Indian guru called Sai Baba was a sexual exploiter of innocent believers, like so many prophets and messiahs of the past. Let no one cry for him. Tell the fools in the world of cricket and Bollywood and elsewhere who are mourning him to go home and rejoice instead. The world has rid itself of yet another fraud and a scum.
Difficulty swallowing sweet drinks.
Do you find it difficult to swallow sweet liquids? Well, you might be suffering from an inability to digest carbohydrates. It happened to me and after some experimenting on myself I pointed to excessive sugar consumption as the culprit. A search in Google confirmed my finding.
Difficulty in swallowing food in general can also be the result of an iron deficiency, so make sure your diet includes a lot of iron-rich foods such as raisins, leafy green vegetables (like spinach and broccoli), red meat (liver is the highest source), fish, poultry, eggs (yolk), legumes (green peas and beans), chick peas, almonds, apricots, beet root, pomegranate, dates, figs, and whole grain bread. It is important to note that absorption of iron is disrupted by phytin, tea, coffee, milk and other calcium-rich foods.
Several oral iron supplements are also available over the counter. The best absorption of iron is on an empty stomach. Vitamin C helps increase iron absorption
Is there a doctor in the house? Tell him to get lost.
Difficulty in swallowing food in general can also be the result of an iron deficiency, so make sure your diet includes a lot of iron-rich foods such as raisins, leafy green vegetables (like spinach and broccoli), red meat (liver is the highest source), fish, poultry, eggs (yolk), legumes (green peas and beans), chick peas, almonds, apricots, beet root, pomegranate, dates, figs, and whole grain bread. It is important to note that absorption of iron is disrupted by phytin, tea, coffee, milk and other calcium-rich foods.
Several oral iron supplements are also available over the counter. The best absorption of iron is on an empty stomach. Vitamin C helps increase iron absorption
Is there a doctor in the house? Tell him to get lost.
Friday, April 22, 2011
What's with Goodluck Jonathan?
Why does this newly elected President of Nigeria go around wearing a hat? Does he wear it at home, perhaps even while having sex or doing his business in the bathroom? He is probably hiding something. Perhaps he is bald and doesn't want to appear old and ugly. Not that all bald people appear old or ugly. Just look at William Haig, the foreign minister of Britain. Doesn't that man look good, despite exposing his hairless head? Anyway I think one should not trust a man who is hiding the truth from the public. He will in all likelihood turn out to be as devious and fraudulent as Barack Obama. Nigerians should watch out.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Sexual behaviour of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam.
I once mentioned to a Muslim that Muhammad, their "prophet" had sex with a nine year old girl and he became angry, asking me for proof. So for his benefit and for the benefit of all other Muslims out there I offer the following from the religionofpeace.com: Muhammad, it seems, had many more sexual adventures than just violating an innocent child. So, you believers, prepare for the unpleasant truth -- and don't spring up from your prayer rugs in a fit of rage, shouting 'lies, lies!'.
"Muhammad had sex with just about anyone he pleased, thanks to Allah's extraordinary interest in his personal sex life, as immortalized in the Qur'an.
Although the Qur'an didn't appear to have enough space for topics like universal love and brotherhood (which Muslims sometimes insist are there, but aren't), the list of sexual partners that Muhammad was entitled to is detailed more than once, sometimes in categories and sometimes in reference to specific persons (Zaynab & Mary).
Muhammad was married to thirteen women, including eleven at one time. He relegated them to either consecutive days or (according to some accounts) all in one night. He married a 9-year-old girl and even his adopted son's wife. On top of that, Muhammad had a multitude of slave girls and concubines with whom he had sex - sometimes on the very days in which they had watched their husbands and fathers die at the hands of his army.
So, by any realistic measure, the creator of the world's most sexually restrictive religion was also one of the most sexually indulgent characters in history.
Allah managed to hand down quite a few "revelations" that sanctioned Muhammad's personal pursuit of sex to the doubters around him. Interestingly they have become part of the the eternal, infallible word of the Qur'an, to be memorized by generations of Muslims for whom they have no possible relevance.
Qur'an (33:37) - "But when Zaid had accomplished his want of her, We gave her to you as a wife, so that there should be no difficulty for the believers in respect of the wives of their adopted sons, when they have accomplished their want of them; and Allah's command shall be performed." No doubt millions of young Muslims, trying to outdo one another at memorizing the Qur'an, have wondered about what this verse means and why it is there. In fact, this is a "revelation" of convenience that Allah just happened to hand down at a time when Muhammad lusted after his daughter-in-law, Zaynab, - a state of affairs that disturbed local customs. The verse "commands" Muhammad to marry the woman (following her husband's gracious divorce). As for why this should be part of the eternal word of God...?
Qur'an (33:50) - "O Prophet! surely We have made lawful to you your wives whom you have given their dowries, and those whom your right hand possesses out of those whom Allah has given to you as prisoners of war, and the daughters of your paternal uncles and the daughters of your paternal aunts, and the daughters of your maternal uncles and the daughters of your maternal aunts who fled with you; and a believing woman if she gave herself to the Prophet, if the Prophet desired to marry her-- specially for you, not for the (rest of) believers; We know what We have ordained for them concerning their wives and those whom their right hands possess in order that no blame may attach to you; " This is another special command that Muhammad handed down to himself that allows virtually unlimited sex, divinely sanctioned by Allah. One assumes that this "revelation" was meant to assuage some sort of disgruntlement in the community over Muhammad's hedonism.
Qur'an (33:51) - "You may put off whom you please of them, and you may take to you whom you please, and whom you desire of those whom you had separated provisionally; no blame attaches to you; this is most proper, so that their eyes may be cool and they may not grieve, and that they should be pleased" This is in reference to a situation in which Muhammad's wives were grumbling about his preference for sleeping with a slave girl (Mary the Copt) instead of them. Accordingly, Muhammad may sleep with whichever wife (or slave) he wishes without having to hear the others complain... as revealed in Allah's literal and perfect words to more than a billion Muslims.
Qur'an (66:1-5) - "O Prophet! Why ban thou that which Allah hath made lawful for thee, seeking to please thy wives?..." Another remarkable verse of sexual convenience concerns an episode in which Muhammad's wives were jealous of the attention that he was giving to a Christian slave girl. But, as he pointed out to them, to neglect the sexual availability of his slaves was against Allah's will for him!
Qur'an (4:24) - "And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess." Allah even permitted Muhammad and his men to have sex with married slaves, such as those captured in battle.
FROM THE HADITH:
Muslim (8:3309) - Muhammad consummated his marriage to Aisha when she was only nine. (See also Bukhari 58:234)
Bukhari (62:18) - Aisha's father, Abu Bakr, wasn't on board at first, but Muhammad explained how the rules of their religion made it possible. This is similar to the way that present-day cult leaders manipulate their followers into similar concessions.
Muslim (8:3311) - The girl took her dolls with her to Muhammad's house (something to play with when the "prophet" was not having sex with her).
Bukhari (6:298) - Muhammad would take a bath with the little girl and fondle her.
Muslim (8:3460) - "Why didn't you marry a young girl so that you could sport with her and she could sport with you, or you could amuse with her and she could amuse with you?" Muhammad posed this question to one of his followers who had married an "older woman" instead.
Bukhari (4:232) - Muhammad's wives would wash semen stains out of his clothes, which were still wet from the spot-cleaning even when he went to the mosque for prayers. Between copulation and prayer, it's a wonder he found the time to slay pagans.
Bukhari (6:300) - Muhammad's wives had to be available for the prophet's fondling even when they were having their menstrual period.
Bukhari (93:639) - The Prophet of Islam would recite the 'Holy Qur'an' with his head in Aisha's lap, when she was menstruating.
Bukhari (62:6) - "The Prophet used to go round (have sexual relations with) all his wives in one night, and he had nine wives." Muhammad also said that it was impossible to treat all wives equally - and it isn't hard to guess why.
Bukhari (5:268) - "The Prophet used to visit all his wives in a round, during the day and night and they were eleven in number." I asked Anas, 'Had the Prophet the strength for it?' Anas replied, 'We used to say that the Prophet was given the strength of thirty men.' "
Bukhari (60:311) - "I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires." These words were spoken by Aisha within the context of her husband having been given 'Allah's permission' to fulfill his sexual desires with a large number of women in whatever order he chooses. (It has been suggested that Aisha may have been speaking somewhat wryly).
Tabari IX:137 - "Allah granted Rayhana of the Qurayza to Muhammad as booty." Muhammad considered the women that he captured and enslaved to be God's gift to him.
Tabari VIII:117 - "Dihyah had asked the Messenger for Safiyah when the Prophet chose her for himself... the Apostle traded for Safiyah by giving Dihyah her two cousins. The women of Khaybar were distributed among the Muslims." He sometimes pulled rank to reserve the most beautiful captured women for himself.
Tubari IX:139 - "You are a self-respecting girl, but the prophet is a womanizer." Words spoken by the disappointed parents of a girl who had 'offered' herself to Muhammad.
Additional Notes:
Muhammad's sexual antics are an embarrassment to those Muslims who are aware of them. This is particularly so for their prophet's marriage to Aisha when she was 9-years-old. The thought of a 52-year-old man sleeping and bathing with a young girl is intensely unpleasant and it reflects the disgusting character of a sexual glutton rather than a holy man. Critics even allege that Muhammad was a pedophile.
Some Muslims respond by denying the hadith itself, which is a mistake. The accounts of Muhammad sleeping with a 9-year-old are no less reliable than those on which the five pillars of Islam are based. They have been an accepted part of tradition and did not become controversial until social mores began to change with the modern age.
The charge of pedophilia may or may not be true, depending on how it is defined. Technically, Muhammad did have a sexual relationship with a child, but Aisha was also the youngest of his twelve wives. Zaynab was in her 30's when she attracted the unquenchable lust of the prophet. We don't know the age of Muhammad's sex slaves. They may or may not have been as young as Aisha, but there is no point in speculating.
Prior to the medical advances of the last century, marriage occurred at a much younger age across all societies. When life expectancy was in the mid 20's (or lower), it made no sense to wait until 19 before having children. Otherwise, one ran the risk of not being around to raise them. In short, childhood as we know it was abbreviated by the reality of the times.
Another strong piece of evidence against Muhammad being a pedophile is that, according to the same Hadith, he waited from the time Aisha was six (when the marriage ceremony took place) until she turned nine to consummate the relationship. Although the text doesn't say why, in all probability it was because he was waiting for her to begin menstrual cycles - thus entering into "womanhood." It is unlikely that a pedophile would be concerned about this.
On the other hand, Muhammad passed down revelations from Allah that clearly condoned sleeping with underage girls, even by the standard of puberty. Qur'an (65:4) lays down rules for divorce, one of them being that a waiting period of three months is established to determine that the woman is not pregnant. But the same rule applies to "those too who have not had their courses," meaning girls who have not begun to menstruate. (In our opinion, this would have been a great time for Allah to have said something else instead like, "a real man is one who marries a real woman"... but that's just us).
Thanks to Muhammad's extremely poor judgment (at best) and explicit approval of pedophilia, sex with children became deeply ingrained in the Islamic tradition. For many centuries, Muslim armies would purge Christian and Hindu peasant villages of their menfolk and send the women and children to harems and the thriving child sex slave markets deep in the Islamic world. The Ayatollah Khomeini, who married a 12-year-old girl, even gave his consent to using infants for sexual pleasure (although warning against full penetration until the baby is a few years older). In April, 2010, a 13-year-old Yemeni girl died from injuries suffered to her womb during intercourse.
Muhammad's penchant for girls so much younger than him was such that at least two of his father-in-laws (Abu Bakr and Omar, the first two Caliphs) were actually younger than him as well. This disappointing pattern is very much at odds with the sort of sexual discipline that one might expect of a true "prophet of God."
Muhammad's pursuit of Zaynab, the wife of his adopted son is almost as tough for Muslims to explain. This is because it not only raises a similar question of moral character, but also casts suspicion on whether his so-called prophecies were really divine revelation or dictates of personal convenience. According to one biographer, even Aisha appears to be somewhat doubtful of Muhammad's claim that Allah commanded him to marry Zaynab, wryly remarking, "Truly Allah seems to be very quick in fulfilling your prayers."
So controversial was Muhammad's desire to marry his adopted son's wife that he had to justify it with a stern pronouncement from Allah on the very institution of adoption, which has had tragic consequences to this day. Verses 33:4-5 are widely interpreted to imply that Islam is against adoption, meaning that an untold number of children in the Islamic world have been needlessly orphaned - all because Muhammad's lustful desires for a married woman went beyond even what the other six wives that he possessed at the time and a multitude of slaves could satisfy.
Some Muslims deny that Muhammad was married to more than four women at a time, merely on the basis that the Qur'an only gives permission for marrying four. Unfortunately, Muslims historians disagree. Only one of Muhammad's last eleven wives died before him (Zaynab bint Khuzayma). The rest outlived him by many years.
Muhammad forbade his ten widows from remarrying, even making sure that this "divine" order was forever preserved in the eternal word of Allah - Qur'an (33:53). To add insult to injury, they were all summarily disinherited from Muhammad's estate by his successor (courtesy of another divine order "given" to Abu Bakr from Allah).
In summary, Islam's holiest texts portray Muhammad not as a perfect man, but as a sexual hedonist. Not only did he become fat from indulging in food, but his pursuit of sex was no less gluttonous. On top of it all, he used personal "revelations" from Allah to justify his debauchery to the gullible masses which, to this day, continue to be venerated and memorized as if they are the holiest of utterances."
"Muhammad had sex with just about anyone he pleased, thanks to Allah's extraordinary interest in his personal sex life, as immortalized in the Qur'an.
Although the Qur'an didn't appear to have enough space for topics like universal love and brotherhood (which Muslims sometimes insist are there, but aren't), the list of sexual partners that Muhammad was entitled to is detailed more than once, sometimes in categories and sometimes in reference to specific persons (Zaynab & Mary).
Muhammad was married to thirteen women, including eleven at one time. He relegated them to either consecutive days or (according to some accounts) all in one night. He married a 9-year-old girl and even his adopted son's wife. On top of that, Muhammad had a multitude of slave girls and concubines with whom he had sex - sometimes on the very days in which they had watched their husbands and fathers die at the hands of his army.
So, by any realistic measure, the creator of the world's most sexually restrictive religion was also one of the most sexually indulgent characters in history.
Allah managed to hand down quite a few "revelations" that sanctioned Muhammad's personal pursuit of sex to the doubters around him. Interestingly they have become part of the the eternal, infallible word of the Qur'an, to be memorized by generations of Muslims for whom they have no possible relevance.
Qur'an (33:37) - "But when Zaid had accomplished his want of her, We gave her to you as a wife, so that there should be no difficulty for the believers in respect of the wives of their adopted sons, when they have accomplished their want of them; and Allah's command shall be performed." No doubt millions of young Muslims, trying to outdo one another at memorizing the Qur'an, have wondered about what this verse means and why it is there. In fact, this is a "revelation" of convenience that Allah just happened to hand down at a time when Muhammad lusted after his daughter-in-law, Zaynab, - a state of affairs that disturbed local customs. The verse "commands" Muhammad to marry the woman (following her husband's gracious divorce). As for why this should be part of the eternal word of God...?
Qur'an (33:50) - "O Prophet! surely We have made lawful to you your wives whom you have given their dowries, and those whom your right hand possesses out of those whom Allah has given to you as prisoners of war, and the daughters of your paternal uncles and the daughters of your paternal aunts, and the daughters of your maternal uncles and the daughters of your maternal aunts who fled with you; and a believing woman if she gave herself to the Prophet, if the Prophet desired to marry her-- specially for you, not for the (rest of) believers; We know what We have ordained for them concerning their wives and those whom their right hands possess in order that no blame may attach to you; " This is another special command that Muhammad handed down to himself that allows virtually unlimited sex, divinely sanctioned by Allah. One assumes that this "revelation" was meant to assuage some sort of disgruntlement in the community over Muhammad's hedonism.
Qur'an (33:51) - "You may put off whom you please of them, and you may take to you whom you please, and whom you desire of those whom you had separated provisionally; no blame attaches to you; this is most proper, so that their eyes may be cool and they may not grieve, and that they should be pleased" This is in reference to a situation in which Muhammad's wives were grumbling about his preference for sleeping with a slave girl (Mary the Copt) instead of them. Accordingly, Muhammad may sleep with whichever wife (or slave) he wishes without having to hear the others complain... as revealed in Allah's literal and perfect words to more than a billion Muslims.
Qur'an (66:1-5) - "O Prophet! Why ban thou that which Allah hath made lawful for thee, seeking to please thy wives?..." Another remarkable verse of sexual convenience concerns an episode in which Muhammad's wives were jealous of the attention that he was giving to a Christian slave girl. But, as he pointed out to them, to neglect the sexual availability of his slaves was against Allah's will for him!
Qur'an (4:24) - "And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess." Allah even permitted Muhammad and his men to have sex with married slaves, such as those captured in battle.
FROM THE HADITH:
Muslim (8:3309) - Muhammad consummated his marriage to Aisha when she was only nine. (See also Bukhari 58:234)
Bukhari (62:18) - Aisha's father, Abu Bakr, wasn't on board at first, but Muhammad explained how the rules of their religion made it possible. This is similar to the way that present-day cult leaders manipulate their followers into similar concessions.
Muslim (8:3311) - The girl took her dolls with her to Muhammad's house (something to play with when the "prophet" was not having sex with her).
Bukhari (6:298) - Muhammad would take a bath with the little girl and fondle her.
Muslim (8:3460) - "Why didn't you marry a young girl so that you could sport with her and she could sport with you, or you could amuse with her and she could amuse with you?" Muhammad posed this question to one of his followers who had married an "older woman" instead.
Bukhari (4:232) - Muhammad's wives would wash semen stains out of his clothes, which were still wet from the spot-cleaning even when he went to the mosque for prayers. Between copulation and prayer, it's a wonder he found the time to slay pagans.
Bukhari (6:300) - Muhammad's wives had to be available for the prophet's fondling even when they were having their menstrual period.
Bukhari (93:639) - The Prophet of Islam would recite the 'Holy Qur'an' with his head in Aisha's lap, when she was menstruating.
Bukhari (62:6) - "The Prophet used to go round (have sexual relations with) all his wives in one night, and he had nine wives." Muhammad also said that it was impossible to treat all wives equally - and it isn't hard to guess why.
Bukhari (5:268) - "The Prophet used to visit all his wives in a round, during the day and night and they were eleven in number." I asked Anas, 'Had the Prophet the strength for it?' Anas replied, 'We used to say that the Prophet was given the strength of thirty men.' "
Bukhari (60:311) - "I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires." These words were spoken by Aisha within the context of her husband having been given 'Allah's permission' to fulfill his sexual desires with a large number of women in whatever order he chooses. (It has been suggested that Aisha may have been speaking somewhat wryly).
Tabari IX:137 - "Allah granted Rayhana of the Qurayza to Muhammad as booty." Muhammad considered the women that he captured and enslaved to be God's gift to him.
Tabari VIII:117 - "Dihyah had asked the Messenger for Safiyah when the Prophet chose her for himself... the Apostle traded for Safiyah by giving Dihyah her two cousins. The women of Khaybar were distributed among the Muslims." He sometimes pulled rank to reserve the most beautiful captured women for himself.
Tubari IX:139 - "You are a self-respecting girl, but the prophet is a womanizer." Words spoken by the disappointed parents of a girl who had 'offered' herself to Muhammad.
Additional Notes:
Muhammad's sexual antics are an embarrassment to those Muslims who are aware of them. This is particularly so for their prophet's marriage to Aisha when she was 9-years-old. The thought of a 52-year-old man sleeping and bathing with a young girl is intensely unpleasant and it reflects the disgusting character of a sexual glutton rather than a holy man. Critics even allege that Muhammad was a pedophile.
Some Muslims respond by denying the hadith itself, which is a mistake. The accounts of Muhammad sleeping with a 9-year-old are no less reliable than those on which the five pillars of Islam are based. They have been an accepted part of tradition and did not become controversial until social mores began to change with the modern age.
The charge of pedophilia may or may not be true, depending on how it is defined. Technically, Muhammad did have a sexual relationship with a child, but Aisha was also the youngest of his twelve wives. Zaynab was in her 30's when she attracted the unquenchable lust of the prophet. We don't know the age of Muhammad's sex slaves. They may or may not have been as young as Aisha, but there is no point in speculating.
Prior to the medical advances of the last century, marriage occurred at a much younger age across all societies. When life expectancy was in the mid 20's (or lower), it made no sense to wait until 19 before having children. Otherwise, one ran the risk of not being around to raise them. In short, childhood as we know it was abbreviated by the reality of the times.
Another strong piece of evidence against Muhammad being a pedophile is that, according to the same Hadith, he waited from the time Aisha was six (when the marriage ceremony took place) until she turned nine to consummate the relationship. Although the text doesn't say why, in all probability it was because he was waiting for her to begin menstrual cycles - thus entering into "womanhood." It is unlikely that a pedophile would be concerned about this.
On the other hand, Muhammad passed down revelations from Allah that clearly condoned sleeping with underage girls, even by the standard of puberty. Qur'an (65:4) lays down rules for divorce, one of them being that a waiting period of three months is established to determine that the woman is not pregnant. But the same rule applies to "those too who have not had their courses," meaning girls who have not begun to menstruate. (In our opinion, this would have been a great time for Allah to have said something else instead like, "a real man is one who marries a real woman"... but that's just us).
Thanks to Muhammad's extremely poor judgment (at best) and explicit approval of pedophilia, sex with children became deeply ingrained in the Islamic tradition. For many centuries, Muslim armies would purge Christian and Hindu peasant villages of their menfolk and send the women and children to harems and the thriving child sex slave markets deep in the Islamic world. The Ayatollah Khomeini, who married a 12-year-old girl, even gave his consent to using infants for sexual pleasure (although warning against full penetration until the baby is a few years older). In April, 2010, a 13-year-old Yemeni girl died from injuries suffered to her womb during intercourse.
Muhammad's penchant for girls so much younger than him was such that at least two of his father-in-laws (Abu Bakr and Omar, the first two Caliphs) were actually younger than him as well. This disappointing pattern is very much at odds with the sort of sexual discipline that one might expect of a true "prophet of God."
Muhammad's pursuit of Zaynab, the wife of his adopted son is almost as tough for Muslims to explain. This is because it not only raises a similar question of moral character, but also casts suspicion on whether his so-called prophecies were really divine revelation or dictates of personal convenience. According to one biographer, even Aisha appears to be somewhat doubtful of Muhammad's claim that Allah commanded him to marry Zaynab, wryly remarking, "Truly Allah seems to be very quick in fulfilling your prayers."
So controversial was Muhammad's desire to marry his adopted son's wife that he had to justify it with a stern pronouncement from Allah on the very institution of adoption, which has had tragic consequences to this day. Verses 33:4-5 are widely interpreted to imply that Islam is against adoption, meaning that an untold number of children in the Islamic world have been needlessly orphaned - all because Muhammad's lustful desires for a married woman went beyond even what the other six wives that he possessed at the time and a multitude of slaves could satisfy.
Some Muslims deny that Muhammad was married to more than four women at a time, merely on the basis that the Qur'an only gives permission for marrying four. Unfortunately, Muslims historians disagree. Only one of Muhammad's last eleven wives died before him (Zaynab bint Khuzayma). The rest outlived him by many years.
Muhammad forbade his ten widows from remarrying, even making sure that this "divine" order was forever preserved in the eternal word of Allah - Qur'an (33:53). To add insult to injury, they were all summarily disinherited from Muhammad's estate by his successor (courtesy of another divine order "given" to Abu Bakr from Allah).
In summary, Islam's holiest texts portray Muhammad not as a perfect man, but as a sexual hedonist. Not only did he become fat from indulging in food, but his pursuit of sex was no less gluttonous. On top of it all, he used personal "revelations" from Allah to justify his debauchery to the gullible masses which, to this day, continue to be venerated and memorized as if they are the holiest of utterances."
Monday, April 18, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Can the Egyptians trust their military?
Apparently not! The military government has just sentenced a blogger to 3 years in prison for "insulting the army" The case against Sanad was based on a blog post titled "The People and the Army Were Never Hand in Hand," questioning the military's continued allegiance to Mubarak; as well as Facebook postings reporting allegations of abuse. Soldiers have also stormed a protest camp to break up a sit-in, killing at least one demonstrator and wounding dozens. The protesters had been critical of the military.
I suppose one should not be surprised by all this. These thugs in uniform, who are really Mubarak's men, cannot be expected to change their spots overnight. 79-year-old Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, is described in one 2008 US diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks as an opponent of both economic and political reform.
I predict more blood shedding before Egypt is completely free.
I suppose one should not be surprised by all this. These thugs in uniform, who are really Mubarak's men, cannot be expected to change their spots overnight. 79-year-old Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, is described in one 2008 US diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks as an opponent of both economic and political reform.
I predict more blood shedding before Egypt is completely free.
Monday, April 11, 2011
What is an Agnostic?
The following is by Bertrand Russell.
What is an agnostic?
An agnostic thinks it impossible to know the truth in matters such as God and the future life with which Christianity and other religions are concerned. Or, if not impossible, at least impossible at the present time.
Are agnostics atheists?
No. An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice. In that case, he is not far removed from atheism. His attitude may be that which a careful philosopher would have towards the gods of ancient Greece. If I were asked to prove that Zeus and Poseidon and Hera and the rest of the Olympians do not exist, I should be at a loss to find conclusive arguments. An Agnostic may think the Christian God as improbable as the Olympians; in that case, he is, for practical purposes, at one with the atheists.
Since you deny "God's Law", what authority do you accept as a guide to conduct?
An Agnostic does not accept any `authority' in the sense in which religious people do. He holds that a man should think out questions of conduct for himself. Of course, he will seek to profit by the wisdom of others, but he will have to select for himself the people he is to consider wise, and he will not regard even what they say as unquestionable. He will observe that what passes as `God's law' varies from time to time. The Bible says both that a woman must not marry her deceased husband's brother, and that, in certain circumstances, she must do so. If you have the misfortune to be a childless widow with an unmarried brother-in-law, it is logically impossible for you to avoid disobeying `God's law'.
How do you know what is good and what is evil? What does an agnostic consider a sin?
The Agnostic is not quite so certain as some Christians are as to what is good and what is evil. He does not hold, as most Christians in the past held, that people who disagree with the government on abstruse points of theology ought to suffer a painful death. He is against persecution, and rather chary of moral condemnation.
As for `sin', he thinks it not a useful notion. He admits, of course, that some kinds of conduct are desirable and some undesirable, but he holds that the punishment of undesirable kinds is only to be commended when it is deterrent or reformatory, not when it is inflicted because it is thought a good thing on its own account that the wicked should suffer. It was this belief in vindictive punishment that made men accept Hell. This is part of the harm done by the notion of `sin'.
Does an agnostic do whatever he pleases?
In one sense, no; in another sense, everyone does whatever he pleases. Suppose, for example, you hate someone so much that you would like to murder him. Why do you not do so? You may reply: "Because religion tells me that murder is a sin." But as a statistical fact, agnostics are not more prone to murder than other people, in fact, rather less so. They have the same motives for abstaining from murder as other people have. Far and away the most powerful of these motives is the fear of punishment. In lawless conditions, such as a gold rush, all sorts of people will commit crimes, although in ordinary circumstances they would have been law-abiding. There is not only actual legal punishment; there is the discomfort of dreading discovery, and the loneliness of knowing that, to avoid being hated, you must wear a mask with even your closest intimates. And there is also what may be called "conscience": If you ever contemplated a murder, you would dread the horrible memory of your victim's last moments or lifeless corpse. All this, it is true, depends upon your living in a law-abiding community, but there are abundant secular reasons for creating and preserving such a community.
I said that there is another sense in which every man does as he pleases. No one but a fool indulges every impulse, but what holds a desire in check is always some other desire. A man's anti-social wishes may be restrained by a wish to please God, but they may also be restrained by a wish to please his friends, or to win the respect of his community, or to be able to contemplate himself without disgust. But if he has no such wishes, the mere abstract concepts of morality will not keep him straight.
How does an agnostic regard the Bible?
An agnostic regards the Bible exactly as enlightened clerics regard it. He does not think that it is divinely inspired; he thinks its early history legendary, and no more exactly true than that in Homer; he thinks its moral teaching sometimes good, but sometimes very bad. For example: Samuel ordered Saul, in a war, to kill not only every man, woman, and child of the enemy, but also all the sheep and cattle. Saul, however, let the sheep and the cattle live, and for this we are told to condemn him. I have never been able to admire Elisha for cursing the children who laughed at him, or to believe (what the Bible asserts) that a benevolent Deity would send two she-bears to kill the children.
How does an agnostic regard Jesus, the Virgin Birth, and the Holy Trinity?
Since an agnostic does not believe in God, he cannot think that Jesus was God. Most agnostics admire the life and moral teachings of Jesus as told in the Gospels, but not necessarily more than those of certain other men. Some would place him on a level with Buddha, some with Socrates and some with Abraham Lincoln. Nor do they think that what He said is not open to question, since they do not accept any authority as absolute.
They regard the Virgin Birth as a doctrine taken over from pagan mythology, where such births were not uncommon. (Zoroaster was said to have been born of a virgin; Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess, is called the Holy Virgin.) They cannot give credence to it, or to the doctrine of the Trinity, since neither is possible without belief in God.
Can an agnostic be a Christian?
The word "Christian" has had various different meanings at different times. Throughout most of the centuries since the time of Christ, it has meant a person who believed God and immortality and held that Christ was God. But Unitarians call themselves Christians, although they do not believe in the divinity of Christ, and many people nowadays use the word "God" in a much less precise sense than that which it used to bear. Many people who say they believe in God no longer mean a person, or a trinity of persons, but only a vague tendency or power or purpose immanent in evolution. Others, going still further, mean by "Christianity" merely a system of ethics which, since they are ignorant of history, they imagine to be characteristic of Christians only.
When, in a recent book, I said that what the world needs is "love, Christian love, or compassion," many people thought this showed some changes in my views, although in fact, I might have said the same thing at any time. If you mean by a "Christian" a man who loves his neighbor, who has wide sympathy with suffering, and who ardently desires a world freed from the cruelties and abominations which at present disfigure it, then, certainly, you will be justified in calling me a Christian. And, in this sense, I think you will find more "Christians" among agnostics than among the orthodox. But, for my part, I cannot accept such a definition. Apart from other objections to it, it seems rude to Jews, Buddhists, Mohammedans, and other non-Christians, who, so far as history shows, have been at least as apt as Christians to practice the virtues which some modern Christians arrogantly claim as distinctive of their own religion.
I think also that all who called themselves Christians in an earlier time, and a great majority of those who do so at the present day, would consider that belief in God and immortality is essential to a Christian. On these grounds, I should not call myself a Christian, and I should say that an agnostic cannot be a Christian. But, if the word "Christianity" comes to be generally used to mean merely a kind of morality, then it will certainly be possible for an agnostic to be a Christian.
Does an agnostic deny that man has a soul?
This question has no precise meaning unless we are given a definition of the word "soul." I suppose what is meant is, roughly, something nonmaterial which persists throughout a person's life and even, for those who believe in immortality, throughout all future time. If this is what is meant, an agnostic is not likely to believe that man has a soul. But I must hasten to add that this does not mean that an agnostic must be a materialist. Many agnostics (including myself) are quite as doubtful of the body as they are of the soul, but this is a long story taking one into difficult metaphysics. Mind and matter alike, I should say, are only convenient symbols in discourse, not actually existing things.
Does an agnostic believe in a hereafter, in Heaven or Hell?
The question whether people survive death is one as to which evidence is possible. Psychical research and spiritualism are thought by many to supply such evidence. An agnostic, as such, does not take a view about survival unless he thinks that there is evidence one way or the other. For my part, I do not think there is any good reason to believe that we survive death, but I am open to conviction if adequate evidence should appear.
Heaven and hell are a different matter. Belief in hell is bound up with the belief that the vindictive punishment of sin is a good thing, quite independently of any reformative or deterrent effect that it may have. Hardly an agnostic believes this. As for heaven, there might conceivably someday be evidence of its existence through spiritualism, but most agnostics do not think that there is such evidence, and therefore do not believe in heaven.
Are you never afraid of God's judgment in denying Him?
Most certainly not. I also deny Zeus and Jupiter and Odin and Brahma, but this causes me no qualms. I observe that a very large portion of the human race does not believe in God and suffers no visible punishment in consequence. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence.
How do agnostics explain the beauty and harmony of nature?
I do not understand where this "beauty" and "harmony" are supposed to be found. Throughout the animal kingdom, animals ruthlessly prey upon each other. Most of them are either cruelly killed by other animals or slowly die of hunger. For my part, I am unable to see any great beauty or harmony in the tapeworm. Let it not be said that this creature is sent as a punishment for our sins, for it is more prevalent among animals than among humans. I suppose the questioner is thinking of such things as the beauty of the starry heavens. But one should remember that stars every now and again explode and reduce everything in their neighborhood to a vague mist. Beauty, in any case, is subjective and exists only in the eye of the beholder.
How do agnostics explain miracles and other revelations of God's omnipotence?
Agnostics do not think that there is any evidence of "miracles" in the sense of happenings contrary to natural law. We know that faith healing occurs and is in no sense miraculous. At Lourdes, certain diseases can be cured and others cannot. Those that can be cured at Lourdes can probably be cured by any doctor in whom the patient has faith. As for the records of other miracles, such as Joshua commanding the sun to stand still, the agnostic dismisses them as legends and points to the fact that all religions are plentifully supplied with such legends. There is just as much miraculous evidence for the Greek gods in Homer as for the Christian God in the Bible.
There have been base and cruel passions, which religion opposes. If you abandon religious principles, could mankind exist?
The existence of base and cruel passions is undeniable, but I find no evidence in history that religion has opposed these passions. On the contrary, it has sanctified them, and enabled people to indulge them without remorse. Cruel persecutions have been commoner in Christendom than anywhere else. What appears to justify persecution is dogmatic belief. Kindliness and tolerance only prevail in proportion as dogmatic belief decays. In our day, a new dogmatic religion, namely, communism, has arisen. To this, as to other systems of dogma, the agnostic is opposed. The persecuting character of present day communism is exactly like the persecuting character of Christianity in earlier centuries. In so far as Christianity has become less persecuting, this is mainly due to the work of freethinkers who have made dogmatists rather less dogmatic. If they were as dogmatic now as in former times, they would still think it right to burn heretics at the stake. The spirit of tolerance which some modern Christians regard as essentially Christian is, in fact, a product of the temper which allows doubt and is suspicious of absolute certainties. I think that anybody who surveys past history in an impartial manner will be driven to the conclusion that religion has caused more suffering than it has prevented.
What is the meaning of life to the agnostic?
I feel inclined to answer by another question: What is the meaning of `the meaning of life'? I suppose what is intended is some general purpose. I do not think that life in general has any purpose. It just happened. But individual human beings have purposes, and there is nothing in agnosticism to cause them to abandon these purposes. They cannot, of course, be certain of achieving the results at which they aim; but you would think ill of a soldier who refused to fight unless victory was certain. The person who needs religion to bolster up his own purposes is a timorous person, and I cannot think as well of him as of the man who takes his chances, while admitting that defeat is not impossible.
Does not the denial of religion mean the denial of marriage and chastity?
Here again, one must reply by another question: Does the man who asks this question believe that marriage and chastity contribute to earthly happiness here below, or does he think that, while they cause misery here below, they are to be advocated as means of getting to heaven? The man who takes the latter view will no doubt expect agnosticism to lead to a decay of what he calls virtue, but he will have to admit that what he calls virtue is not what ministers to the happiness of the human race while on earth. If, on the other hand, he takes the former view, namely, that there are terrestrial arguments in favor of marriage and chastity, he must also hold that these arguments are such as should appeal to the agnostic. Agnostics, as such, have no distinctive views about sexual morality. But most of them would admit that there are valid arguments against the unbridled indulgence of sexual desires. They would derive these arguments, however, from terrestrial sources and not from supposed divine commands.
Is not faith in reason alone a dangerous creed? Is not reason imperfect and inadequate without spiritual and moral law?
No sensible man, however agnostic, has "faith in reason alone." Reason is concerned with matters of fact, some observed, some inferred. The question whether there is a future life and the question whether there is a God concern matters of fact, and the agnostic will hold that they should be investigated in the same way as the question, "Will there be an eclipse of the moon tomorrow?" But matters of fact alone are not sufficient to determine action, since they do not tell us what ends we ought to pursue. In the realm of ends, we need something other than reason. The agnostic will find his ends in his own heart and not in an external command. Let us take an illustration: Suppose you wish to travel by train from New York to Chicago; you will use reason to discover when the trains run, and a person who though that there was some faculty of insight or intuition enabling him to dispense with the timetable would be thought rather silly. But no timetable will tell him that it is wise, he will have to take account of further matters of fact; but behind all the matters of fact, there will be the ends that he thinks fitting to pursue, and these, for an agnostic as for other men, belong to a realm which is not that of reason, though it should be in no degree contrary to it. The realm I mean is that of emotion and feeling and desire.
Do you regard all religions as forms of superstition or dogma? Which of the existing religions do you most respect, and why?
All the great organized religions that have dominated large populations have involved a greater or less amount of dogma, but "religion" is a word of which the meaning is not very definite. Confucianism, for instance, might be called a religion, although it involves no dogma. And in some forms of liberal Christianity, the element of dogma is reduced to a minimum.
Of the great religions of history, I prefer Buddhism, especially in its earliest forms, because it has had the smallest element of persecution.
Communism like agnosticism opposes religion, are agnostics Communists?
Communism does not oppose religion. It merely opposes the Christian religion, just as Mohammedanism does. Communism, at least in the form advocated by the Soviet Government and the Communist Party, is a new system of dogma of a peculiarly virulent and persecuting sort. Every genuine Agnostic must therefore be opposed to it.
Do agnostics think that science and religion are impossible to reconcile?
The answer turns upon what is meant by `religion'. If it means merely a system of ethics, it can be reconciled with science. If it means a system of dogma, regarded as unquestionably true, it is incompatible with the scientific spirit, which refuses to accept matters of fact without evidence, and also holds that complete certainty is hardly ever impossible.
What kind of evidence could convince you that God exists?
I think that if I heard a voice from the sky predicting all that was going to happen to me during the next twenty-four hours, including events that would have seemed highly improbable, and if all these events then produced to happen, I might perhaps be convinced at least of the existence of some superhuman intelligence. I can imagine other evidence of the same sort which might convince me, but so far as I know, no such evidence exists.
What is an agnostic?
An agnostic thinks it impossible to know the truth in matters such as God and the future life with which Christianity and other religions are concerned. Or, if not impossible, at least impossible at the present time.
Are agnostics atheists?
No. An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice. In that case, he is not far removed from atheism. His attitude may be that which a careful philosopher would have towards the gods of ancient Greece. If I were asked to prove that Zeus and Poseidon and Hera and the rest of the Olympians do not exist, I should be at a loss to find conclusive arguments. An Agnostic may think the Christian God as improbable as the Olympians; in that case, he is, for practical purposes, at one with the atheists.
Since you deny "God's Law", what authority do you accept as a guide to conduct?
An Agnostic does not accept any `authority' in the sense in which religious people do. He holds that a man should think out questions of conduct for himself. Of course, he will seek to profit by the wisdom of others, but he will have to select for himself the people he is to consider wise, and he will not regard even what they say as unquestionable. He will observe that what passes as `God's law' varies from time to time. The Bible says both that a woman must not marry her deceased husband's brother, and that, in certain circumstances, she must do so. If you have the misfortune to be a childless widow with an unmarried brother-in-law, it is logically impossible for you to avoid disobeying `God's law'.
How do you know what is good and what is evil? What does an agnostic consider a sin?
The Agnostic is not quite so certain as some Christians are as to what is good and what is evil. He does not hold, as most Christians in the past held, that people who disagree with the government on abstruse points of theology ought to suffer a painful death. He is against persecution, and rather chary of moral condemnation.
As for `sin', he thinks it not a useful notion. He admits, of course, that some kinds of conduct are desirable and some undesirable, but he holds that the punishment of undesirable kinds is only to be commended when it is deterrent or reformatory, not when it is inflicted because it is thought a good thing on its own account that the wicked should suffer. It was this belief in vindictive punishment that made men accept Hell. This is part of the harm done by the notion of `sin'.
Does an agnostic do whatever he pleases?
In one sense, no; in another sense, everyone does whatever he pleases. Suppose, for example, you hate someone so much that you would like to murder him. Why do you not do so? You may reply: "Because religion tells me that murder is a sin." But as a statistical fact, agnostics are not more prone to murder than other people, in fact, rather less so. They have the same motives for abstaining from murder as other people have. Far and away the most powerful of these motives is the fear of punishment. In lawless conditions, such as a gold rush, all sorts of people will commit crimes, although in ordinary circumstances they would have been law-abiding. There is not only actual legal punishment; there is the discomfort of dreading discovery, and the loneliness of knowing that, to avoid being hated, you must wear a mask with even your closest intimates. And there is also what may be called "conscience": If you ever contemplated a murder, you would dread the horrible memory of your victim's last moments or lifeless corpse. All this, it is true, depends upon your living in a law-abiding community, but there are abundant secular reasons for creating and preserving such a community.
I said that there is another sense in which every man does as he pleases. No one but a fool indulges every impulse, but what holds a desire in check is always some other desire. A man's anti-social wishes may be restrained by a wish to please God, but they may also be restrained by a wish to please his friends, or to win the respect of his community, or to be able to contemplate himself without disgust. But if he has no such wishes, the mere abstract concepts of morality will not keep him straight.
How does an agnostic regard the Bible?
An agnostic regards the Bible exactly as enlightened clerics regard it. He does not think that it is divinely inspired; he thinks its early history legendary, and no more exactly true than that in Homer; he thinks its moral teaching sometimes good, but sometimes very bad. For example: Samuel ordered Saul, in a war, to kill not only every man, woman, and child of the enemy, but also all the sheep and cattle. Saul, however, let the sheep and the cattle live, and for this we are told to condemn him. I have never been able to admire Elisha for cursing the children who laughed at him, or to believe (what the Bible asserts) that a benevolent Deity would send two she-bears to kill the children.
How does an agnostic regard Jesus, the Virgin Birth, and the Holy Trinity?
Since an agnostic does not believe in God, he cannot think that Jesus was God. Most agnostics admire the life and moral teachings of Jesus as told in the Gospels, but not necessarily more than those of certain other men. Some would place him on a level with Buddha, some with Socrates and some with Abraham Lincoln. Nor do they think that what He said is not open to question, since they do not accept any authority as absolute.
They regard the Virgin Birth as a doctrine taken over from pagan mythology, where such births were not uncommon. (Zoroaster was said to have been born of a virgin; Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess, is called the Holy Virgin.) They cannot give credence to it, or to the doctrine of the Trinity, since neither is possible without belief in God.
Can an agnostic be a Christian?
The word "Christian" has had various different meanings at different times. Throughout most of the centuries since the time of Christ, it has meant a person who believed God and immortality and held that Christ was God. But Unitarians call themselves Christians, although they do not believe in the divinity of Christ, and many people nowadays use the word "God" in a much less precise sense than that which it used to bear. Many people who say they believe in God no longer mean a person, or a trinity of persons, but only a vague tendency or power or purpose immanent in evolution. Others, going still further, mean by "Christianity" merely a system of ethics which, since they are ignorant of history, they imagine to be characteristic of Christians only.
When, in a recent book, I said that what the world needs is "love, Christian love, or compassion," many people thought this showed some changes in my views, although in fact, I might have said the same thing at any time. If you mean by a "Christian" a man who loves his neighbor, who has wide sympathy with suffering, and who ardently desires a world freed from the cruelties and abominations which at present disfigure it, then, certainly, you will be justified in calling me a Christian. And, in this sense, I think you will find more "Christians" among agnostics than among the orthodox. But, for my part, I cannot accept such a definition. Apart from other objections to it, it seems rude to Jews, Buddhists, Mohammedans, and other non-Christians, who, so far as history shows, have been at least as apt as Christians to practice the virtues which some modern Christians arrogantly claim as distinctive of their own religion.
I think also that all who called themselves Christians in an earlier time, and a great majority of those who do so at the present day, would consider that belief in God and immortality is essential to a Christian. On these grounds, I should not call myself a Christian, and I should say that an agnostic cannot be a Christian. But, if the word "Christianity" comes to be generally used to mean merely a kind of morality, then it will certainly be possible for an agnostic to be a Christian.
Does an agnostic deny that man has a soul?
This question has no precise meaning unless we are given a definition of the word "soul." I suppose what is meant is, roughly, something nonmaterial which persists throughout a person's life and even, for those who believe in immortality, throughout all future time. If this is what is meant, an agnostic is not likely to believe that man has a soul. But I must hasten to add that this does not mean that an agnostic must be a materialist. Many agnostics (including myself) are quite as doubtful of the body as they are of the soul, but this is a long story taking one into difficult metaphysics. Mind and matter alike, I should say, are only convenient symbols in discourse, not actually existing things.
Does an agnostic believe in a hereafter, in Heaven or Hell?
The question whether people survive death is one as to which evidence is possible. Psychical research and spiritualism are thought by many to supply such evidence. An agnostic, as such, does not take a view about survival unless he thinks that there is evidence one way or the other. For my part, I do not think there is any good reason to believe that we survive death, but I am open to conviction if adequate evidence should appear.
Heaven and hell are a different matter. Belief in hell is bound up with the belief that the vindictive punishment of sin is a good thing, quite independently of any reformative or deterrent effect that it may have. Hardly an agnostic believes this. As for heaven, there might conceivably someday be evidence of its existence through spiritualism, but most agnostics do not think that there is such evidence, and therefore do not believe in heaven.
Are you never afraid of God's judgment in denying Him?
Most certainly not. I also deny Zeus and Jupiter and Odin and Brahma, but this causes me no qualms. I observe that a very large portion of the human race does not believe in God and suffers no visible punishment in consequence. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence.
How do agnostics explain the beauty and harmony of nature?
I do not understand where this "beauty" and "harmony" are supposed to be found. Throughout the animal kingdom, animals ruthlessly prey upon each other. Most of them are either cruelly killed by other animals or slowly die of hunger. For my part, I am unable to see any great beauty or harmony in the tapeworm. Let it not be said that this creature is sent as a punishment for our sins, for it is more prevalent among animals than among humans. I suppose the questioner is thinking of such things as the beauty of the starry heavens. But one should remember that stars every now and again explode and reduce everything in their neighborhood to a vague mist. Beauty, in any case, is subjective and exists only in the eye of the beholder.
How do agnostics explain miracles and other revelations of God's omnipotence?
Agnostics do not think that there is any evidence of "miracles" in the sense of happenings contrary to natural law. We know that faith healing occurs and is in no sense miraculous. At Lourdes, certain diseases can be cured and others cannot. Those that can be cured at Lourdes can probably be cured by any doctor in whom the patient has faith. As for the records of other miracles, such as Joshua commanding the sun to stand still, the agnostic dismisses them as legends and points to the fact that all religions are plentifully supplied with such legends. There is just as much miraculous evidence for the Greek gods in Homer as for the Christian God in the Bible.
There have been base and cruel passions, which religion opposes. If you abandon religious principles, could mankind exist?
The existence of base and cruel passions is undeniable, but I find no evidence in history that religion has opposed these passions. On the contrary, it has sanctified them, and enabled people to indulge them without remorse. Cruel persecutions have been commoner in Christendom than anywhere else. What appears to justify persecution is dogmatic belief. Kindliness and tolerance only prevail in proportion as dogmatic belief decays. In our day, a new dogmatic religion, namely, communism, has arisen. To this, as to other systems of dogma, the agnostic is opposed. The persecuting character of present day communism is exactly like the persecuting character of Christianity in earlier centuries. In so far as Christianity has become less persecuting, this is mainly due to the work of freethinkers who have made dogmatists rather less dogmatic. If they were as dogmatic now as in former times, they would still think it right to burn heretics at the stake. The spirit of tolerance which some modern Christians regard as essentially Christian is, in fact, a product of the temper which allows doubt and is suspicious of absolute certainties. I think that anybody who surveys past history in an impartial manner will be driven to the conclusion that religion has caused more suffering than it has prevented.
What is the meaning of life to the agnostic?
I feel inclined to answer by another question: What is the meaning of `the meaning of life'? I suppose what is intended is some general purpose. I do not think that life in general has any purpose. It just happened. But individual human beings have purposes, and there is nothing in agnosticism to cause them to abandon these purposes. They cannot, of course, be certain of achieving the results at which they aim; but you would think ill of a soldier who refused to fight unless victory was certain. The person who needs religion to bolster up his own purposes is a timorous person, and I cannot think as well of him as of the man who takes his chances, while admitting that defeat is not impossible.
Does not the denial of religion mean the denial of marriage and chastity?
Here again, one must reply by another question: Does the man who asks this question believe that marriage and chastity contribute to earthly happiness here below, or does he think that, while they cause misery here below, they are to be advocated as means of getting to heaven? The man who takes the latter view will no doubt expect agnosticism to lead to a decay of what he calls virtue, but he will have to admit that what he calls virtue is not what ministers to the happiness of the human race while on earth. If, on the other hand, he takes the former view, namely, that there are terrestrial arguments in favor of marriage and chastity, he must also hold that these arguments are such as should appeal to the agnostic. Agnostics, as such, have no distinctive views about sexual morality. But most of them would admit that there are valid arguments against the unbridled indulgence of sexual desires. They would derive these arguments, however, from terrestrial sources and not from supposed divine commands.
Is not faith in reason alone a dangerous creed? Is not reason imperfect and inadequate without spiritual and moral law?
No sensible man, however agnostic, has "faith in reason alone." Reason is concerned with matters of fact, some observed, some inferred. The question whether there is a future life and the question whether there is a God concern matters of fact, and the agnostic will hold that they should be investigated in the same way as the question, "Will there be an eclipse of the moon tomorrow?" But matters of fact alone are not sufficient to determine action, since they do not tell us what ends we ought to pursue. In the realm of ends, we need something other than reason. The agnostic will find his ends in his own heart and not in an external command. Let us take an illustration: Suppose you wish to travel by train from New York to Chicago; you will use reason to discover when the trains run, and a person who though that there was some faculty of insight or intuition enabling him to dispense with the timetable would be thought rather silly. But no timetable will tell him that it is wise, he will have to take account of further matters of fact; but behind all the matters of fact, there will be the ends that he thinks fitting to pursue, and these, for an agnostic as for other men, belong to a realm which is not that of reason, though it should be in no degree contrary to it. The realm I mean is that of emotion and feeling and desire.
Do you regard all religions as forms of superstition or dogma? Which of the existing religions do you most respect, and why?
All the great organized religions that have dominated large populations have involved a greater or less amount of dogma, but "religion" is a word of which the meaning is not very definite. Confucianism, for instance, might be called a religion, although it involves no dogma. And in some forms of liberal Christianity, the element of dogma is reduced to a minimum.
Of the great religions of history, I prefer Buddhism, especially in its earliest forms, because it has had the smallest element of persecution.
Communism like agnosticism opposes religion, are agnostics Communists?
Communism does not oppose religion. It merely opposes the Christian religion, just as Mohammedanism does. Communism, at least in the form advocated by the Soviet Government and the Communist Party, is a new system of dogma of a peculiarly virulent and persecuting sort. Every genuine Agnostic must therefore be opposed to it.
Do agnostics think that science and religion are impossible to reconcile?
The answer turns upon what is meant by `religion'. If it means merely a system of ethics, it can be reconciled with science. If it means a system of dogma, regarded as unquestionably true, it is incompatible with the scientific spirit, which refuses to accept matters of fact without evidence, and also holds that complete certainty is hardly ever impossible.
What kind of evidence could convince you that God exists?
I think that if I heard a voice from the sky predicting all that was going to happen to me during the next twenty-four hours, including events that would have seemed highly improbable, and if all these events then produced to happen, I might perhaps be convinced at least of the existence of some superhuman intelligence. I can imagine other evidence of the same sort which might convince me, but so far as I know, no such evidence exists.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
In praise of Aljazeera.
The following is an article by Panu Aree:
Even though the news about the air strikes on Libya by a coalition of Western allies may not be as big as the attack on Iraq 10 years ago, the most interesting aspects are the fact that France, not the US, has been the leader in the operation, and the participation of Qatar, a small, wealthy Gulf nation that has exerted its role in the world prominently.
Qatar stepped up the campaign to make its presence felt in the mid-1990s, with the establishment of Al Jazeera, the cable news network that has since grown to become a distinctive voice in global broadcasting. When it was announced, Al Jazeera was quickly sneered at as nothing more than a rich man's toy, a spare change distraction of oil billionaires who had too much money and time in their hands.
But less than two decades later, the detractors have been silenced. Al Jazeera is now one of the highest quality news channels in the world. It did a praiseworthy in-depth report on 9/11 _ providing an alternative perspective to the domination of US networks. Right now, when the Arab world finds itself in great turmoil, Al Jazeera has been the first on the ground, the first to zoom in on the nerve centre of the conflict and dispatch the latest updates, from Libya, Yemen and Bahrain.
Al Jazeera is often noted for its neutral coverage and its focus on the smaller voices. The Qatari channel has rarely been accused of biased reporting, or of being a mouthpiece of vested interests, a charge that even respected networks like the BBC or CNN sometimes face. The obvious example is the coverage of Thailand's political riots last May. While both sides clamoured to assert their versions of the story, while CNN, the BBC and local stations struggled to get the truth out, Al Jazeera was the only channel that was more or less accepted by all parties in the conflict for its fair and insightful coverage.
The Al Jazeera multimedia section, featuring short documentaries on a wide range of social and political issues, provides a very good example of how a news agency uses moving images to explore sensitive issues and explore their hidden implications. For instance, the network's coverage of Thailand's southern conflict has been eye-opening; take a look at the recent video reporting on the allegation ''from human rights groups that Thailand's military have been torturing prisoners.'' The title of the report is ''Thailand's Tropical Gulag.'' We haven't seen this from any other news agency, especially local ones.
Thus the current situation in the Arab world will continue to highlight the role of Al Jazeera _ and of Qatar as a serious player in global geopolitics. But the oil-rich country seems determined to be more than that. In the world of sports, Qatar showed its potential first by hosting the Asian Games in 2006, and recently, it scored one of the biggest surprises in the world of football when Doha has been picked by Fifa to stage the World Cup in 2020. On top of that, Mohammad Bin Hannam, now the president of the Asian Football Federation, is pushing for the top Fifa position. In the following years, it's possible that Al Jazeera will put more effort into sports, now that its headquarters have received one of the highest honours in the sports world.
When Qatar first rose to our attention, some observers credited that to its wealth and oil reserves that enabled this small nation to invest in risky projects, Al Jazeera included. But look closely and we can see that the main difference between this Bedouin state and the rest in the Gulf is Qatar's unique stance on the map of world's politics: While Saudi Arabia, Bahrain or the Emirates choose to follow the lead of the Western power, Qatar remains independent in terms of policy. That's perhaps one of the reasons it has gone far ahead of other bigger nations with Western allies.
When the bubble burst in Dubai, Qatar was selling its fanciful dream of building a massive air-con system that would turn its desert climate into European springtime for the comfort of players and fans in the World Cup 2020. When 2020 actually comes, Qatar might become a member of the UN Security Council. And we may all be watching Al Jazeera instead of CNN.
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Panu Aree is a documentary filmmaker.
Even though the news about the air strikes on Libya by a coalition of Western allies may not be as big as the attack on Iraq 10 years ago, the most interesting aspects are the fact that France, not the US, has been the leader in the operation, and the participation of Qatar, a small, wealthy Gulf nation that has exerted its role in the world prominently.
Qatar stepped up the campaign to make its presence felt in the mid-1990s, with the establishment of Al Jazeera, the cable news network that has since grown to become a distinctive voice in global broadcasting. When it was announced, Al Jazeera was quickly sneered at as nothing more than a rich man's toy, a spare change distraction of oil billionaires who had too much money and time in their hands.
But less than two decades later, the detractors have been silenced. Al Jazeera is now one of the highest quality news channels in the world. It did a praiseworthy in-depth report on 9/11 _ providing an alternative perspective to the domination of US networks. Right now, when the Arab world finds itself in great turmoil, Al Jazeera has been the first on the ground, the first to zoom in on the nerve centre of the conflict and dispatch the latest updates, from Libya, Yemen and Bahrain.
Al Jazeera is often noted for its neutral coverage and its focus on the smaller voices. The Qatari channel has rarely been accused of biased reporting, or of being a mouthpiece of vested interests, a charge that even respected networks like the BBC or CNN sometimes face. The obvious example is the coverage of Thailand's political riots last May. While both sides clamoured to assert their versions of the story, while CNN, the BBC and local stations struggled to get the truth out, Al Jazeera was the only channel that was more or less accepted by all parties in the conflict for its fair and insightful coverage.
The Al Jazeera multimedia section, featuring short documentaries on a wide range of social and political issues, provides a very good example of how a news agency uses moving images to explore sensitive issues and explore their hidden implications. For instance, the network's coverage of Thailand's southern conflict has been eye-opening; take a look at the recent video reporting on the allegation ''from human rights groups that Thailand's military have been torturing prisoners.'' The title of the report is ''Thailand's Tropical Gulag.'' We haven't seen this from any other news agency, especially local ones.
Thus the current situation in the Arab world will continue to highlight the role of Al Jazeera _ and of Qatar as a serious player in global geopolitics. But the oil-rich country seems determined to be more than that. In the world of sports, Qatar showed its potential first by hosting the Asian Games in 2006, and recently, it scored one of the biggest surprises in the world of football when Doha has been picked by Fifa to stage the World Cup in 2020. On top of that, Mohammad Bin Hannam, now the president of the Asian Football Federation, is pushing for the top Fifa position. In the following years, it's possible that Al Jazeera will put more effort into sports, now that its headquarters have received one of the highest honours in the sports world.
When Qatar first rose to our attention, some observers credited that to its wealth and oil reserves that enabled this small nation to invest in risky projects, Al Jazeera included. But look closely and we can see that the main difference between this Bedouin state and the rest in the Gulf is Qatar's unique stance on the map of world's politics: While Saudi Arabia, Bahrain or the Emirates choose to follow the lead of the Western power, Qatar remains independent in terms of policy. That's perhaps one of the reasons it has gone far ahead of other bigger nations with Western allies.
When the bubble burst in Dubai, Qatar was selling its fanciful dream of building a massive air-con system that would turn its desert climate into European springtime for the comfort of players and fans in the World Cup 2020. When 2020 actually comes, Qatar might become a member of the UN Security Council. And we may all be watching Al Jazeera instead of CNN.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Panu Aree is a documentary filmmaker.
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