HYDERABAD, India, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- About 6,000 Muslim clerics from around India approved a fatwa against terrorism Saturday at a conference in Hyderabad.
The Muslim world has not been eager to hate America. For many Muslims, America with its religious freedom represented for decades a refuge against what all were pleased to call "godless Communism" and the USSR persecution of its Islamic republics. After the 9/11 attacks, there was a candlelight march in the streets of Tehran in mourning for the victims.
American flags were waved. No flags are waving now. I visited Tehran once, in 1972, for the film festival. My Iranian guide took me home for tea with her parents. There was a point that her family members wanted to make. "We are not Arabs," her mother said. "We are Persians. We speak a different language. We are Muslims, but we are modern Muslims. You do not see our women covered up in the streets or locked up in their houses. America is our ideal, where all are left to worship in peace." Then the Shah was overthrown, and the fundamentalists took over. Moderate candidates have been elected to national office in recent years, but the ayatollahs have veto power over moderation.
That was an Iran I hope still exists beneath the hostile stance they are taking against us. When we sent an army to Kuwait to throw back Saddam, Iran rejoiced, because Iraq was their ancient enemy. It was after we invaded Iraq after 9/11 that feelings began to sour. The sight of our occupation of a Muslim country disturbed the entire region. If we would invade its neighbor of our own volition, was Iran next? Until very recent months it seemed as if Iran was next. The White House reportedly ordered a military plan to be drawn up.
Now we see the first light before a distant dawn. Although India has world's second-largest Muslim population, I am not naive enough to think the clerics in Hyderabad will bring a sudden change of feelings in the Middle East. But listen to a statement by the conference president. UPI reports: "He blamed Islamic radicals for their actions and the news media for failing to distinguish between the radicals and the majority of Muslims. 'We have no love for offenders whichever religion they might belong to,' he said. 'Our concern is that innocents should not be targeted and the careers of educated youth not ruined'."
University of Cape Town: Not for whites only
This is a moral statement from the core of Islam. Now journey with me to South Africa, where I spent the year of 1965 studying English at the University of Cape Town. Because of historical guarantees, UCT admitted African, Coloured and Asian students. But it was a liberal island in the sea of apartheid. Every day I saw signs saying "Whites Only." "Nonwhites" rode in the back of the bus. They called me "boss." They made long trips to and from their segregated townships, by rail tracks that could be instantly blown up. Nelson Mandela and his fellows were imprisoned on Robben Island, which could be seen from the slopes of Table Mountain. Remember that 1964 was the year Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, and famously said the Democrats had with that stroke of the pen lost the "Solid South" to the Republicans. There were more "Whites Only" signs in America than in South Africa.
I spoke to no one of any race in South Africa who did not fully believe there would be a bloody race war. I had a Rotary Fellowship, and spoke to 30 Rotary clubs. In South Africa, the largely English-speaking Rotary was viewed in some circles as vaguely ominous. I traveled to Bloemfontein and Knysna, Windhoek and East London. Most of the nice, friendly, civic-minded Rotarians regretted the necessity of apartheid. But "you foreigners simply do not understand the situation on the ground here."
If that was how the English-speakers felt, the Afrikaners felt more strongly. Originally religious exiles from Holland, they considered themselves the first settlers (the blacks, they explained, migrated from the north much later). Only the so-called Cape Coloureds had been on board almost as long--because their race, the joke went, came into existence nine months after the first white man met the first Bushman woman.
Then something happened that no one could have expected. Apartheid stood on a theological foundation laid down by the Dutch Reformed Church, which virtually all Afrikaaners were born into. The church and the Afrikaner secret society, the Broderbund, were the great supporters of apartheid, not because it was racist, you understand, but because it was the will of God. Other Christian faiths (such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu's Anglicans) did not agree theologically, although many of their white followers went along with argument. But Afrikaners believed deeply in their Christian church's teachings. How truly deeply became apparent in the 1980s, when the church's theologians, after long debate, concluded that apartheid was morally wrong. The Broderbund listened to the theologians, and after much soul-searching, agreed. They didn't have to. The white state held the cards, and controlled the armed services. They did it because they became convinced it was the right thing.
Nelson and Winnie Mandela and the long march to freedom
Then began a process by which President Frederik Willem de Klerk invited Nelson Mandela, convicted of terrorism and treason, to the first in a series of secret meetings, and requested him to join in an orderly transfer of power. The sight of Mandela marching to freedom at the head of thousands of his followers, who were weeping with joy and disbelief, was one of the most inspiring sights of the century. There was a democratic election, and Mandela won as the ruling whites fully knew he would. For once God's followers decided they had been mistaken about his Will.
In the early 1990s, Chaz and I traveled to Cape Town. It was arranged by our friend Anant Singh that we were met one morning by Amhed Kathrada, one of Mandela's fellow prisoners during the long Robben Island years. Soon after dawn, before the tourists-- tourists!-- arrived, he guided us through his old prison.
Amhed Kathrada: "Oh, we enjoyed being slapped!"
When we returned to Table Bay, "Kathy" took us to the Robben Island gift shop. "I want you to meet the shop manager," he told us. It was a white man. "He was one of our guards on the island." We greeted this man, a little puzzled.
"He was the meanest, most racist guard of the whole prison. He would slap us and spit at us." I started to frame some lame words about forgiving them for they know not what they do. "He had to be mean," Mr. Kathrada said. "He got such a good reputation that they allowed him to stay on long-term. The other guards were rotated out if they grew to like us."
"And now...he's the shop manager...?" Chaz began.
"Oh, we enjoyed being slapped!" Kathrada said, and now he was smiling along with the manager. "This was the man who brought us our letters and took new ones away. He took out Nelson's book. He slipped us newspapers. And he smuggled in Nelson's new grandbaby for him to kiss and love. Slapping us was an excellent cover."
After apartheid ended, decades of old wounds were open and bleeding. Still unpunished were whites who had engaged in the Sharpeville Massacre, the torture and murder of political prisoners, and the loosing of attack dogs against school children. And Africans who had engaged in terror bombings, assassinations, and the "necklacing" of fellow Africans suspected of cooperating with the whites. (A necklacing consists of chaining a tire around a victim's neck and setting it afire.)
There were very few violent reprisals, even though both sides had a very good idea of exactly who to target. Under the leadership of the heroic Archbishop Tutu, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed. It held hearings throughout the beloved country, and its rules were firm: Confess fully what you did, who your victims where, and where their bodies might be found, in detail that the Commission members believed.
Then walk away. Your crimes and your sins are now between you and heaven. Think about that. It was successful. The stature of Tutu, de Clerk and Mandela helped make it so. South Africans of all races, weary onto death of decades of violence, greeted the Commission almost thankfully. It is one of the most extraordinary stories in human history.
Now it is 2008 and the clerics in Hyderabad have issued their statement. I am sure it will be taken up everywhere by Muslims and their leaders who have deplored Islamic terrorism, for it has no place in the theology of Islam. The Muslims I know are more afraid of terrorism than we are. Fatwa is their form of necklacing. They were watching TV when angry crowds shouted out that Obama was a Muslim. As if being a Muslim automatically made you guilty of something. Would those same angry people have once been willing to strike out against Jews, Methodists, Baptists, or Catholics? Many of our ancestors fled to America because so many in Europe were doing so.
Now we open a new chapter in America, with a new President who looks just a little like everybody. Did you see Doonesbury the other day?
Auth (c) 2005 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Doonesbury (c) 2008 G.B. Trudeau. Used by permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.
Forgiveness, Reconciliation and the Archbishop:
Dear Roger,
If you stop writing your blog and go to bed, I’ll stop reading it and do likewise! I had been playing catch up with you--Dolly Parton, Bond, Charlie Kaufman (and the Blooms). I walked my dog, brushed my teeth and was just about to shut down my laptop, pick up a book and climb into bed. And then you post another blog. I do have other things to read, you understand. I’m almost through a Houdini biography (mentioned by one of your readers) and guess what, when I finish I’m diving right into “Suttree” on your own recommendation. So seriously, stop writing for the night. I mean it.
Still, I’ve got to say that I really appreciated this last blog. I’ve been reading the LA Times rather obsessively in the months preceding the election and from time to time I’m left wondering if we’ll make it. People, I mean. I think about the Terminator’s line, “It’s in your nature to destroy yourselves.” About a week ago I read a story of a young girl who was raped and then publicly stoned to death for having sex out of wedlock. I actually read the story to a coworker and then quickly apologized for sharing something so disturbing. Do you remember the father’s litany in “the Road” that his son should beware of what he allows into his head because it stays there? Somehow this blog of yours, I don’t know... It’s like you lit a candle and I lit my candle off of it. I’ll do what I can to pass it on. There is hope for us. We can do it. Thanks for sharing.
Now go to bed. Please.
Your constant reader, and man, I do mean constant,
Shane
Dear Roger,
although I share the guiding idea of your blog, I think that you are simplifying the issues too much, particularly with regard to Iran. Anti-American feelings in Iran are certainly not the result of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but go back to the 1950ies, when the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mossadeq, was overthrown with the assistance of the CIA and the British Secret Service, because his government had nationalised Iran's oil reserves to which BP had a claim, I think. Following the coup d'état, the Shah (Emperor) of Iran established a pro-Western dictatorship, which modernised Iran but also violently persecuted all political opposition. The clerics of Iran, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, resisted the regime and led the 1979 Islamic Revolution, after which the current theocratic regime was installed.
For some years now I have gotten into the habit of adopting what I like to call an ‘evolutionary perspective’, an approach that, no doubt, I got from hours of reading Carl Sagan.
Case in point: Whenever I think of the apartheid that plagued South Africa and much of the world before that, I laugh. Its laughter mixed with melancholy. Africa was the continent where man evolved from ape. It was the continent where we made our first experiments of civilization. And yet..
I am all for religious freedom. I truly am. But I don’t know if the irony is apparent here. We often like to say that religion at its core is harmless. Is it really?
Isn’t a body of belief set in stone dangerous? Forever vulnerable to decay?
Is tolerance for a vastly different religion intrinsic to human nature? I don’t think it is. When we have a world with conflicting belief systems, I am not sure that I am surprised that we have conflict.
It is perhaps a property of religion itself to produce both moderates and fundamentalists.
Coming back to ‘evolutionary perspective’, I think without a fundamental worldwide and scientific change in how we look at human civilization and human evolution, religion will continue to breed intolerance. Because it just can’t help it.
PS : Bill Maher’s Religulous was good. I also saw an interview on his show, of a woman from Somalia who fled to the Netherlands to escape ‘an arranged marriage’ (A concept that seems harmless at first glance, but which isn’t really.) It represents to me how religion intrudes in all those simple rights a human being should have on this planet.
Here is the link :
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=EKOw7VoRiog
As you said about Truth and Reconciliation Commission being a momentous occasion in history, hopefully this profound statement by Islamic clerics achieves the same reverence. I am a school teacher at a Catholic school and it always amazes me how negative people's attitudes towards Islam are. They automatically believe that Islam promotes misogyny and terrorism. If anyone has ever looked at the fundamental beliefs, they are quite similar to Judaism or Catholicism (except for Jesus being the Messiah, of course) They all pray to the same deity - God, Yahweh, I AM, and Allah are all synonyms.
I really enjoyed the part of your piece Mr Ebert when you pointed out and reminded people that migrants fled to America in search of religious freedom. It is sad that the American media has now portrayed Islam as an automatically a sub-category of belief system, something that is well below Christianity or Judaism.
This is a corny, cliched point but I have met many Muslims in my travels and every time, I am pleasantly greeted by someone who is caring, considerate and often a person with a great sense of humour.
People need to seperate the beliefs of a religion and the actions of a extremists. After all, Christianity has had a fair share of negative moments in history, ie Timothy McVeigh, Spanish Iquisition and Adolf Hitler. I am sure that we would never denounce any of Jesus' wonderful teachings on loving thy neighbour because a few 'mad' men picked up a bible.
ps. I love every word you write Mr. Ebert. You are truly a 21st century genius, writing in this modern age. I love reading all you write. (I even read your reviews on movies I have no intention of watching, just because I might gain something)
Thank you for giving moderate Muslims a voice. This is an important story - the majority of Muslims do not condone the horrific acts of the few. Terrorists and radicals are not following Islamic teachings when committing acts against the innocent. Peaceful Muslims do not support the radical agenda of a very small minority. As a moderate Muslim, I am confident Obama will bring about change in how America interacts with and views the Muslim world. I believe Colin Powell has already gotten us off to an excellent start.
It really feels like history basically repeats itself over and over again, and each time a few special people give us all the ability to do a little better than the last. But it also feels like the higher we go the more dangerous a slip back down will be. That's not necessarily a bad thing in itself, it just means that we need the few special people to keep coming through, because I believe that once they do, there's enough good in the rest of us to follow them up. Now seems to be a time when the next special ones are stepping into the light. And it certainly feels like we're eager to follow them to better places.
Thanks for this Roger.
Underlying it all is the myth of redemptive violence, which has pervaded our culture and our world for a long, long time. And unfortuntately, movies usually contribute to this. It may make for a better story when a hero kicks down a door and shoots all the bad guys, but when tried in real life, it just continues the cycle of violence, until someone finally says, no, I'm not going to participate anymore.
I think the best movie I seen this year to explore violence and question its redemptivenes is Shotgun Stories, which you brought to EbertFest and I would have never seen otherwise.
Thanks for doing your part to advocate for (and move culture towards) restorative justice rather than retributive justice.
The irony of the situation in South Africa is that religion (in the guise of the Dutch Reformed Church) helped to keep apartheid alive, but it was religion (Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others) that led to the reconciliation that healed the country. Both of these religions claimed to be Christian. How outrageous is that?
In the United States, the term 'Christian' represents so many different kinds of people that it has become largely meaningless. I suspect that in the rest of the world the 'Muslim' label doesn't represent one coherent point of view either. Maybe we need to look beyond the religious labels and be more concerned by how someone's religious beliefs are manifested in their actions.
Today is the last day I'll be teaching First-Year Preceptorial, a course here at Knox College for all, well, first-year students. One of the books we read was Kwame Anthony Appiah's Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, in which he asserts that his brand of cosmopolitan not only values other cultures (like any good tourist) but also recognizes an obligation to them. To do this, one must first internalize two -isms: pluralism and fallibilism--that is, there are lots of ways to solve problems/interact with others/look at things--and any one of them might be wrong. The challenge is to keep trying. Also, he recognizes--and asks us to hold dear--our "local ties," while at the same time reminding us to "do unto others as they would have us do unto them"--a variation on the Golden Rule that helps us cross the boundary between "us" and "them."
Your discussion of India and South Africa reminded me of Appiah's assertion that change is gradual but inevitable, that we first tolerate each other, then get used to each other, then fulfill our obligations to each other. The gains are always partial, always tenuous. It's our ethical duty, though, to do what we can to maintain and advance those gains.
Let me add to the slavish praise of Ebert's Journal: Your blog has once more done its cosmopolitan job.
This one belongs in the paper - and not buried on the op-ed page. I'm talking big feature treatment, with pictures and sidebars and perhaps a few of the comments. You'll probably have to redo the ending, though...
This is exactly why I've bookmarked your blog. This isn't a headline that I've seen anywhere, because who in our current state of fear wants us to know about the majority of the Islamic population's feelings? It's amazing, though, how quickly things can change in a week. From drawing attack plans that would likely have turned some of the world's largest countries against us, to meetings like the one in Hyderabad. These types of events, wherein hope and love and good feelings are fostered, grown and spread are what makes true change possible. Your story about the Afrikaaner prison guard is one of the most beautiful tales of humanity I have ever heard. And the way that the South African people chose to deal with their decades of strife, through confession and true forgiveness is a model by which many could learn. A movement has been taking shape, with global implications. It has been conceived to take events like the Hyderabad meeting, and spread the message of peace and unity throughout the entire world, through its one universal medium: water. When we can get all of the spiritual leaders of the world to come together and recognize the similarities of their faiths, and realize that, in the end, everyone is praying to the same God, and wants the same things for their families, the world will indeed be a wondrous place to live.
liveh2o.org
Hyderabad! ! City of Biryani(??)! !.....which you visited and where I spent my twenties in the seventies !
Its good news which,non news consumer that I am, I had to learn from you ! 6000 is a big number even for our populated corner,specially for people to gather in a courageously wholely good defiant act--normalcy seems to be to gang up for mayhem ! The second we know,what is the first,if it isn't too obvious to answer ?
Good moves by the inch,evil by the yard--I think it was the modern apostle of amity,forged in India ,SA and everyman's (oh! Beautious Lingo English!)old country ,who said so.
The bard,who invents humanity and ends up becoming a dungeon....so dazzling in the range of human behaviour misses out on the muscular-good,he has sympathy but lacks resolute compassion,more anti heros than heros---and the anti-heroic tradition continues.....in his birth country to admire Gandhi is to invite derision if not contempt,by and large...
But life and history,like good art are like.....nothing!...as your own Herr Professor observed while interpreting that mixed up melancholy movie.....it always repeats and it never ever repeats.....
I have elected to belong to the Optimistic Party,and to do my mite for it's victory...
By the way hier (3 minutes) are somethings gute (5 minutes)
Ebert: Smrana, meet Krishna (below, I think; it not, above). If two people posting here are from Hyderabad, neither one posting for the first time,how many lurkers do we have there? Isn't Hyderabad a big computing center? Do readers know that any poster with a clickable name connects to his or her website or blog? Yours is a stupendous one. Whoops, there went all our readers, joining Krishna and smrana in Hyderabad!
I hope SA's Truth and Reconciliation Commissions serve as a template for how Obama's administration deals with our devolution into a torturing nation. Even though the victims of torture are, by and large, not American (Jose Padilla of Chicago being a notable exception), they are still human beings who suffered at our government's hands. Torture is morally indefensible, no matter what kind of varnish you put on it, and its adoption and acceptance has put a dark and spreading stain on our culture.
Roger, do you support a Truth and Reconciliation Commission model as a healing approach to this horror, which needs to be pulled out of our national life before the roots go deeper?
Thank you for this news! I haven't heard about it today, and I watched a morning network program, and since then I've had NPR on. Puzzling.
I have no doubt that it is dangerous for these clerics to say these much needed words. It's scary to stick your neck out to say what is right. Only in these great numbers can they begin to turn the tide.
This is indeed a turning point.
As an agnostic who would like to be an atheist, I few religion as a sociological and cultural phenomenon. If we look at the history of Islam and see that it got its start around 600 AD.
So if we look at what Christianity was like in 1400 AD, we'll have a pretty good idea of some of the changes that Islam has been through recently, and what changes it might go through in the near future.
There are differences, to be sure. Christianity in 1400 AD didn't have a world-dominating culture to deal with; it didn't have a powerful relgion that is 600 years older than it to deal with, etc. Islam hasn't had to deal with being originated in what is now a dead language (Aramaic), translated to Greek, then Latin; adopting Latin as its liturgical language, and then getting translated into dozens of vernacular languages. And so on and so forth.
But, Roger, thank you for this article. I'll cheerfully provide a link to it, to everyone who sends me one of those "You scare me" emails that are ostensibly addressed to Muslims but are really just racist re-affirmations that circulate among North American whites.
Roger,
It's great that the muslim clerics are denouncing terrorism, but how exactly do they define terrorism?
You talk about "moderate" muslims. What does that term mean? We think of a country like Jordan, for example, as being a moderate country, but men are allowed to kill their wives there, in cold blood, with no punishment. They stone women too, and "Osama" is one of the most popular names given to newborn babies.
They're moderate muslims. What about the large majority of American muslims who believe that 9/11 was created either by either a)the United States goverment, or b)the Zionist power structure? As for the whole argument that we shouldn't be profiling Arab-Americans in the war on terror, because we need them to provide help in catching terrorists, how much cooperation has the Arab-American community provided in terms of exposing the radical elements in their community?
I'm so tired of this lame "blame America for all of the problems in the world" slogan. Are we responsible for creating suicide bombers? Really? Why did black Americans not blown themselves do, and why do Islamic Radicals use this tactic repeatedly? Are we to blame for the fact that the President of Iran has an apocalyptic vision of the end of the world? Where does this come from?
The answer is one that no one talk about: ideology.
Roger, I wish you could ask those muslim clerics(and India does happen to be a very moderate country in many ways)if they a)believe that stoning women is acceptable, and b)believe in martyrdom in the form of suicide bombing is a path to heaven, and c)that Osama bin Laden was responsible for 9/11? I don't think we would like the answers.
One thing for sure, political correctness isn't the answer.
Thank you.
David.
EVery time I read about America being admired for Religious Freedom, I wonder about the proper role of government.
The proper role of government is to educate people that religion is nonsense. Islam is nonsense. Christianity is nonsense.
Why do I say this? Read the New Testament. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus enters a synagogue in Capernaum where a man has an unclean pneuma (presumably a close relative of the one in "The Exorcist." The pneuma identifies Jesus as "Holy One of God."
Is it too much to ask, for a grade school teachter to tell her students that a supernatural demon claiming that his Exorcist is a "Holy One of God"... is complete nonsense?
Religion dumbs people down. When I was at Michigan State, there was a tiny Department of Religion. They had their own library, and many years later, it dawned on me: every single book in their library was wrong. Why? Because the authors were dishonest. Every single one of them started from the premise: "If we assume that the New Testament is credible and reliable..." Josh McDowell used to say, "The 5,000 surviving copies of the New Testament give it documentary reliability." Right. Since there are 529,999 copies of "Goldfinger," does that mean James Bond was a real person?
Children have been taught to assume that the New Testament is a credible document, and it simply isn't. Same for Islam. The guarantee of Religious Freedom in America is only part of the answer. What's missing is the simple statement, "Don't believe anyone who claims to know what God wants." When I turn on my TV and hear a preacher saying, "We know God wants..." I turn it off. Because I know he's forgotten the important part, "Anyone can pretend they know what God wants."
The problem with Islam.... is Islam.
I find it curious that there were more comments from readers about your rice-pot blog than there are after this detailed deconstruction of religion and racism. I'm no scholar, but I found it well-thought-out and easy to read, unlike the diatribe I received from well-meaning family members who still try to convince me that somehow our rights are in jeopardy now that Obama will be President. (I say "received", because I had to ask them not to send it to me anymore. In addition to being propaganda, it wasn't written very well...make of that what you will.)
Absolutely surprised to see you referring to my city(Hyderabad) on your blog.
Good One!
While movies and movie history is your forte it is obvious from some of your recent blogs that neither world history nor political science is in the same league.
As a longtime reader I must say: if it wasn't already apparent that your writing has improved exponentially of late, this article would make it so. This is wonderful.
Dear Mr. Ebert,
Thank you for giving this important story the attention it deserves. There is an overwhelming yearning for engagement, understanding, and peace in the Islamic world; a yearning that is often met with stereotypes, finger-pointing, and suspicion. There is an extraordinary opportunity for diplomacy and engagement, and I hope that, as promised, such diplomacy will be a hallmark of the incoming administration.
You mentioned Iran. I think it would surprise most Americans to discover the great affinity that Persians have for American democratic values. We add insult to historic injury when we criticize Iran as undemocratic. "We had a democratically-elected, secular leader," they remind us. He was overthrown by the intrepid nerdy-ness of Kermit Roosevelt and his ilk.
One of the great diplomats of our time, George Mitchell, once characterized circumstances in the Middle East as a zero-sum conflict, which he believed would be resolved by the parties involved acting in their own best interests. Ultimately, the emptiness or hollowness of the conflict will be the greatest impetus for its resolution.
Afterall, "no man needs nothing."
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has to be one of the primary examples of human grace that I can think of. To me it borders on transhumanist in the way it puts truth ahead of crimes that cannot be erased through punishment.
Truth to tell,I have the same problem like Shane right on top of this thread.I'm in the middle of L'Atalante ,have been for a few days and anyway have to down it to reduce one more skittle from the notorious LIST--unregretfully,I seem to have lost all appetite for films. I think I had enough.Everything seems a repetition of something.But the Blog,as accused,is an insomniac.Honest,Ebert,can you suggest a pill?
What a great parallel. I was teaching on the morning of September 11, 2001. The teachers on our team came up with an impromptu game plan should any of our Middle-eastern students be targeted. We didn't need it. The kids (seventh and eighth graders) were able to differentiate between their Muslim friends and terrorists.
So why can't Ann Coulter and her ilk do the same?
Vinay Nair - Had to point out that arranged marriage isn't all bad. I was not part of an arranged marriage (I am Canadian - Indian origin) but if unsuccessful for until a certain age I wouldn't have been as resistant to it. Some points to consider -
1. I have several American friends who constantly wish arranged marriage was on the table for them since it is becoming increasingly difficult to find people worth dating, forget marrying in this electronic age. It baffles me but interesting perspective from people who don't have the option.
2. Think of arranged marriage as setting up someone on a date. It only becomes a problem when parents don't allow the two adults the opportunity to get to know each other and check for compatibility. This one drawback is less prevalent nowadays in India. I have seen cousins etc. go on several dates and get to know each other before saying yes or no in India.
3. You can't ignore the long-term success of arranged marriages vs. "love" marriages - maybe this has to do with the family giving an independent perspective on compatibility, one that would be lacking when in love. Or it could be that people in arranged marriages try harder so as to not disappoint the family. Hard to tell but you can't make a sweeping generalization as you have in your comment above.
There is a lot more I could type but just a glimpse into this complex issue that you shouldn't minimize to a generalization. I see what point you are trying to make but extreme forms of any cultural/religious system are bad. It doesn't mean a moderate view should be eradicated - this coming from a agnostic bordering on atheism.
You move me to tears. These are the things that so need to be said, and I am so pleased that one of the finest voices in the land is doing the talking.
Roger,
Thanks for sharing your experiences with the family in Iran. Your anecdote about the shopkeeper in S. Africa gave me goose bumps; as always a very insightful column.
I'm glad that you are optimistic and hopeful now that 6,000 Muslim clerics have issued a statement denouncing terrorism. I wish I shared your view.
Remember the final scene of Quiz Show, when Van Doren has been called before Congress for lying and conning the entire country. Van Doren delivers an erudite and eloquent statement apologizing for what he did. The Congressmen assembled actually start to congratulate Van Doren for his beautiful and sincere words. Finally one ballsy congressman from NY tells him: “I'm happy that you've made the statement. But I cannot agree with most of my colleagues. See, I don't think an adult of your intelligence should be commended for simply, at long last, telling the truth.”
Let's hope and pray you are right to be optimistic Roger. Islam needs a reformation.
Bishop Desmond Tutu spoke at the basketball arena of UC Santa Barbara. It was the 1980s I attended his convocation. I went by myself.
It was an energized moment, the kind of atmosphere common to large student gatherings. Students with a heighten sense of justice under girded with the sinews of passion and a will to change – 20-somethings with purpose that unfortunately tends to recede upon absorption into the nebula of America popular culture and ideals of success and first-world living.
The Bishop was not a popular man among most people I knew. Everywhere he went, he called for an end to apartheid; he criticized the Reagan administration; he was on fire. He won the Noble Peace Prize in 1984 and for several years after that acknowledgment of his vigilance he spoke across the US and Europe. It was a time of attempted boycotts of South African diamonds and other products and services brought cheaply to the world market on the backs of woefully under-compensated and oppressed native Africans.
In 1987 I purchased Joseph Lelyveld’s 1985 “MOVE YOUR SHADOW South Africa, Black and White.” I think he won a Pulitizer for it. Anyway, the phrase “move your shadow” is what white golfer's said to black caddys. Reader can see a NY Times’ blurb on the book at http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/lelyveld-shadow.html?_r=1&oref=login
Coincidentally, shortly after those experiences – which, of course, I observed as a white person and in light of my growing up among bigots and racists in the era immediately trailing the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act – I met and became friends with a white South African who had immigrated to the United States.
It was around then I became a little warmed, but not completely surprised – like Kipling’s elephant’s child when spanked for his insatiable curiosity – to realize there existed a segment of white society in South Africa, just as there was in the US, that was ambivalent to injustice and prejudice of blacks. In California, I witnessed the same attitudes toward Mexican-Americans as there were toward African-Americans.
There was in the white society at the southern tip of Africa and all across the USA that didn’t think about the injustice and hatred expressed in heart, mind and policy, didn’t care about it when they bumped into it, and if per chance any thought or feeling arose on the subject, prevailing antipathy help sway and usually unspoken prejudice would emerge.
Has it ever been thus?
I’m not sure if what has been for me in the past merely anecdotal evidence that Indian nationality trumps even Muslim devotion and solidarity to their spiritual kindred in the Middle East is true or not, but I can hope that it is nonetheless possible that the Muslim clerics’ fatwa against terrorism will have reception among influential clerics’ and other Muslim leaders in the Middle East.
Problem is, the Muslim world no longer has a Caliphate who had a bully pulpit to effectively direct all Muslims. In fact, thinking such a Caliphate had such power just before WWI ended up as one of the roots of a series of British political and military errors in the region, including Turkey. (Sorry Winston Churchill.)
Action and movement and change are preferred to symbols. But symbolic acts can sometimes stir enough sentiment of change out of the sediment of traditions of hatred. But symbolic acts can sometimes stir enough sentiment of change out of the sediment of traditions of hatred. So, for now, I’ll take the symbolic fatwa against Islamic terrorism.
Dear Roger,
This was a really amazing post. I am so thankful for it. If I was teaching Religion and Violence instead of Religion and Film next semester I would make it a required reading. What makes you such a beloved film critic would have made you a peerless journalist and editorialist of any stripe. We need more unafraid humanists in this world. There may not be an "essential" human nature, and yet, your work proves to me again and again that there is something fundamentally realistic in assuming that your enemies are more like you than they are different. The myth of the other, the moral monster, the deviant, the alien that dominates our art, literature, and politics is corrosive and dangerous. In your reviews you seem to constantly seek to understand what theologians meant when they said "there, but by the grace of God go I." It once was the staple of execution day sermons to assert that the condemned was "just like us;" now we continue to make criminals into moral monsters. The scary thing is that the more we cast them in that persona, that mask, that role--the more they live into it. I just think that there is something truly redemptive about the way you write and think.
Peace,
Jo
Ebert: See adjacent post. A great book. Also Nadine Gordimer, e.g. "A Guest of Honour," although not set in SA but in an unnamed East African nation.
I was growing up in the 1980s and apartheid was a distant thing that was wrong and incomprehensible, much like gladiators and wars over land. How sad that in growing up, these things become commonplace and somehow more comprehensible.
Thank you for bringing the details of the fall of apartheid to light for me. How amazing. And hopeful. So often, I believe the only real change that can happen is between individuals. That large-scale change is impossible. Why didn't I know about this? I was told an anecdote that may or may not be factually correct, but is true and so I will hold onto it regardless. The sub 4-minute mile was a record that no one thought could be beat. And then it was. And then it was again, and again, and again....
I would love if anyone has recommendations for books chronicling apartheid and its fall.
OK, I thought something was a bit strange. Take the black and white Doonesbury you posted, and compare it to the color version:
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20081105
I think the color one is funnier :)
Ebert: Damn! It is. I got my high-res b&w version straight from the syndicate.
I recall reading your piece, oh it must have been 2003 or '04, on President (G.W.) Bush's lack of intellectual curiosity and how it had shaped him as a man and was influencing his decision-making. I remember at the time asking myself how is it that a mere film critic managed to write the most insightful and meaningful article I had ever read about our current president. Or as I like to call him, "T-minus 66". Note: this nickname changes daily.
Now you have composed the most sensible essay ever regarding the existence, and abrupt ending, of apartheid. Reading world news, it seems that we humans always take one step forward and two steps back. I am growing ever optimistic that we will one day inhabit a world where we will only take ONE step back for every step forward. That will be an improvement.
Roger,
A child at the grade school where I volunteer as their theater teacher once announced to me and others in her class, "What we are, is God's gift to us. What we become, is our gift to God."
I have been thinking about it ever since.
I wish you Peace,
Kerry
Mr. Ebert, what a wonderful blog post you have written. as a liberal Muslim secularist, I am often so ashamed and embarrassed with the Muslim world.
While I don't give a toss that a bunch of Muslim imams passed a fatwa against terrorism (who cares what those imams have to say? I sure don't!), it is the right step for the Muslim world to take away from such a hateful, right-wing Islamic attitude so prevalent in the Muslim world.
Anyway, as for the dark, long, bloody chapter in South African history, apartheid must never be forgotten. Human beings can be so cruel and hateful, and we cannot afford to let history repeat itself.
Whilst it is true that a lot of Muslims do not condone violence, Islam itself is a pretty horrific religion. Intolerance, misogyny and violence are present by the barrel load. I would not want to live in a universe crafted by the god of the Quran.
This is by no means a condoning of restricting rights of individuals to believe whatever they want, but we must be unafraid when we consider religions by their own merit. Islam is the worst of the lot, a group of men who use some unverifiable received knowledge as an excuse to subjugate and murder. The very worst part of human nature.
Part of the appeal of the United States to Muslims is that the United States does uphold many, many of Islam's core values, like freedom, non-racism, and all religions together worshipping in peace. Islam does not condone locking up women in their homes, although there is a set of rules to be followed when it comes to clothing (for both sexes). This was the Islamic nation up until 700 years ago, when it all went downhill.
Anyways, "fatwa" is an Arabic word, not an Islamic one, which basically means a rift, as in a rift in the middle of an Arabic/Islamic society (like Civil Wars).
And yes, Islam is completely against terrorism. This article shows that terrorists are only that because they're loners, not because of what they believe in.
I should add that the "Whites Only" signs are still in some parts of Africa. I almost got arrested once, maybe three years ago, because I wouldn't let a black man, almost faint from the hot sun, just walk away and made him sit under the cool shade (that's where the bench was). Lucky for me I was a minor and my dad's pretty influential. (And the man I was helping rested!)
Apologies if I completely missed the point of your post, Mr. Ebert.
I've got a good friend who spend two years as a psychology student in South Africa, learning of its history and culture. When she returned, she presented me several films addressing the social and political culture in the beloved country - Gavin Hood's "Tsotsi," Darrell Roodt's "Yesterday," even Jean-Pierre Roux's "The Piano Player", among many others. I was deeply moved by most of them, and it was encouraging to me that after years of oppression and violence, filmmakers were now emerging from the country's dark past and giving the rest of the world wonderful films that revealed the endurance of the country's human spirit. After oppression, artists often emerge in cultures and societies... Siddiq Barmak's "Osama" from Afghanistan comes to mind as well. If there's any consolation to what's happening now in Iran, it's that someday, we'll have some magnificent films about its painful past, made by filmmakers who are now no longer living under oppression against expressionism. It's a hopeful thought, I think.
What a great story! It makes me think of something a bit different in a book called "Hagakuri", which is a non-fiction book which took the 10s of thousands of pages of writings of the samurai and contracted them into a little 200 page book of stories or forms of thought all of which are averaging only about half a page in length. Anyway, they had a judge there who was a little more militant. For instance, if someone stole from you, it was the law for you to kill them. If you didn't, you had to see a judge and he would hear your story and decide if you, the victim of the crime, should be executed for not killing the thief.
Since, star wars is based kind of the samurai, I like to picture Luke Skywalker as someone who goes into court for not killing the thief. Then the judge decides to kill Luke, but, of course, him being Luke Skywalker, uses his superior use of the force and jedi skills to manage his way out of the situation without killing anyone and becoming a fugitive or blah blah etc. Sounds like more of the older better Star Wars movies to me, and also could be potentially be a darker or more grim Star Wars.
Vinay Nair/Nov 14,3.25 am:"....... think without a fundamental worldwide and scientific change in how we look at human civilization and human evolution, religion will continue to breed intolerance."
Change!!! Yes! Who ? Not them...us ! Not us! Me !Violence,hatred,intolerance,love,heroism,compasston,Hitler and Christ......as Jung glimpsed,each person's soul encompasses all possibilities ,all of humankind ,he called it the collective unconscious....."know thyself"....we watch movies,we read literature because art is a mirror,in everything I behold myself....I am Hamlet,Macbeth,Othello,Falstaff,the crook Iago,even unto "Imitation of Christ",Sartre wrote an aeticle Ididn't read headed The Desire to be God",nothing to do with paranoid schizophrenia....we are all driven by a nameless urging........you are right ,Vinay,we do need a change,and it's a change in the way we think,and that too a fundamental one,in US and ME,because we ourselves are the perpetrators and the vitims....when I saw the cheering crowds in "triumph of the will",it's so clear they could so easily have been me,so does something in me respond,less easily,to the likes of Dr.King and Gandhi....the Buddhists call it "mutual posession of the ten worlds"(thats googleable).....a revolution!! in our thinking.....most spiritual revolutionaries of the past seem to have hit an impasse...what can poor Obama,nice guy that he sure is,do alone....the power is in the people...
Roger, as you may be aware, I don't have ANY respect for religion. Why?
It's a con game. And con men rely on "confidence." On gaining your respect so they can gain more power for themselves.
EBERRT: The church and the Afrikaner secret society, the Broderbund, were the great supporters of apartheid, not because it was racist, you understand, but because it was the will of God. Afrikaners believed deeply in their church. How truly deeply became apparent in the 1980s, when the church's theologians, after long debate, concluded... (end)
Obviously, I couldn't care less what theologians conclude. Theologians scare me. Why? Under Islam, you can be arrested or even killed for saying "Mohammed was not a prophet, but only wrote a book pretending to be a conduit from God in order to gain power for himself." And every time I hear that a theologian wants me to stop me from saying that, I wonder, "Why?"
Becaue it's the Truth. Because if you spend too much time in the realm of "truth," you lose all respect for the Christian belief that the ONLY way to obtain a second life after you die is to accept Jesus, and none other, as your Savior. There is no TRUTH to the statement that Jesus is able to save anybody, and not just because he was executed in a fashion designed to convince anyone who saw it that Jesus had no power whatsoever.
I know there's a bit of PC that says, "We should RESPECT religious beliefs." Nonsense. I can't respect anyone who is dishonest enough to claim the authority to convey the "word of God" to me. Words belong to humans. Gods don't need words to get their point across. Gods use things like global floods and making clay dolls that morph into carbon-based lifeforms through magic.
Has our society reached a point where we can talk honestly about religion? Where Christians can talk about facts instead of gloating over how wonderful their silly BELIEFS are. And that includes the belief that after they die, they'll magically come back to life, and everyone who rejected Jesus as Savior will be condemned to a fiery pit created... get this... to punish the angels who rebelled against God in heaven. How much nonsense does it take to make you mad enough to say "Enough!" I offically reached my limit on the day Pat Robertson won the Republican Presidential primary in Michigan.
Ebert: I hope this doesn't turn into an argument about religion. I wrote the entry hoping to move on from politics, which at least involved fact checking. I wish the religious understood their religions. Don't the Islam-haters realize their Baptist ancestors fled England because of people much like some of today's Baptists?
Why I can't respect Islam, and I can't respect Christianity: some background.
Roger, don't post this part, but I just saw this story on AOL. I don't think you get the full impact if I edit it to pithy phrases:
A priest in Greenville, S.C., says that Catholics who voted for Barack Obama should not receive Holy Communion because the president-elect supports abortion rights. "Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil," the Rev. Jay Scott Newman writes in a letter to parishioners at St. Mary's Catholic Church.
"Our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president," Newman wrote, referring to Obama by his full name, including his middle name of Hussein.
"Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation."
During the 2008 presidential campaign, many bishops spoke out on abortion more boldly than four years earlier, telling Catholic politicians and voters that the issue should be the most important consideration in setting policy and deciding which candidate to back. A few church leaders said parishioners risked their immortal soul by voting for candidates who support abortion rights.
But bishops differ on whether Catholic lawmakers — and voters — should refrain from receiving Communion if they diverge from church teaching on abortion. Each bishop sets policy in his own diocese. In their annual fall meeting, the nation's Catholic bishops vowed Tuesday to forcefully confront the Obama administration over its support for abortion rights.
According to national exit polls, 54 percent of Catholics chose Obama, who is Protestant. In South Carolina, which McCain carried, voters in Greenville County — traditionally seen as among the state's most conservative areas — went 61 percent for the Republican, and 37 percent for Obama.
"It was not an attempt to make a partisan point," Newman said in a telephone interview Thursday. "In fact, in this election, for the sake of argument, if the Republican candidate had been pro-abortion, and the Democratic candidate had been pro-life, everything that I wrote would have been exactly the same."
Conservative Catholics criticized Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004 for supporting abortion rights, with a few Catholic bishops saying Kerry should refrain from receiving Holy Communion because his views were contrary to church teachings.
Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said she had not heard of other churches taking this position in reaction to Obama's win. A Boston-based group that supports Catholic Democrats questioned the move, saying it was too extreme.
"Father Newman is off base," said Steve Krueger, national director of Catholic Democrats. "He is acting beyond the authority of a parish priest to say what he did. ... Unfortunately, he is doing so in a manner that will be of great cost to those parishioners who did vote for Sens. Obama and Biden. There will be a spiritual cost to them for his words."
A man who has attended St. Mary's for 18 years said he welcomed Newman's message and anticipated it would inspire further discussion at the church.
"I don't understand anyone who would call themselves a Christian, let alone a Catholic, and could vote for someone who's a pro-abortion candidate," said Ted Kelly, 64, who volunteers his time as lector for the church. "You're talking about the murder of innocent beings."
_________
this is my point.
By becoming a Catholic priest, you enter the delusion that you are able to speak for God.
He said voting for ANY pro-choice candidate "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil..."
Catholics are brainwashed, to the point where they don't realize they exist in a semi-delusional state.
There is no God. Abortion is not evil. A human being may choose to define abortion as "evil," but that it no way supports the possibility that a God thinks abortion is evil.
Catholics don't speak for a God. They don't quote the word of a God. How do I know this? Because God does not exist. God is a fictional creation, used to shore up a Church that likes their power and their delusions.
Anybody can pretend there's a God, or their book is the Word of a God, or they have been given authority to warn voters about evil. And we should never respect such nonsense.
>b> Ebert: One priest. You say, "God does not exist." Others say, "God exists!"
If I was a more religious man, I would believe that the turnaround in South Africa was a miracle. Much in the same way that Franco's Spain giving way to a democracy was a miracle in it's way. That there was no war or massacre still astounds me today.
I certainly hope that our Muslim cousins find peace of mind equal to that of South Africans. They haven't had it in a long time and have struggled to find their way in this modern age. The Middle-East has always been a place of conflict between modernity and tradition, but part of me refuses to believe that our peoples have nothing in common. After all, they love Rock n' Roll, fast cars and going to the movies. So how can we not reconcile somewhere down the road of history? I think that in a thousand years or so we'll have a good laugh about this. Until then though, we can only hope that men and women of good character push us a little bit closer together.
Ebert: South Africa has a lot of Muslims. I met some aboard the Lloyd Tristino Europa sailing from Cape Town to Venice. They were going to Mecca.
Crabbèd Age And Youth
Anonymous
Crabbèd Age and Youth
Cannot live together:
Youth is full of pleasance,
Age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn,
Age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave,
Age like winter bare.
Youth is full of sport,
Age’s breath is short;
Youth is nimble, Age is lame;
Youth is hot and bold,
Age is weak and cold;
Youth is wild, and Age is tame.
Age, I do abhor thee;
Youth, I do adore thee;
O, my Love, my Love is young!
Age, I do defy thee:
O, sweet shepherd, hie thee!
For methinks thou stay’st too long
Sorry for slighting L'Atalante:it,s the sweetest,innocentest rhapsody to life by a man facing the setting sun....I rarely see even the best a second time but this,I'm almost ashamed brings a kind of lump......I'm on the 48th minute.....it's a movie as quiet and gentle like the Cummings poem you "plagiarised" in the previous post......this is life but so are the hates.....oh!Possibilities!
Roger,
The trouble is, radicalism does have a place in the theology of Islam, just so long as they're basing their beliefs on an "indisputable" holy book that's fairly militant in it's content. Islamic terrorists or radical Muslims can just as easily justify their actions through the Koran as any Christian TV preacher can when he asks you to send him your life savings as a "vow of faith" or a snake handler can justify his method of worship (they're all interpreting different bible passages to suit their goals and ideals). The 3 Abrahamic faiths have justified their every action through their holy books going back 4000 years.
Just because one group of clerics in India declares a fatwa on terrorism probably wont make much of a difference, as a whole, though It's nice to see some progressive Muslims speaking out against radicals for a change. And anyway it's a nice gesture. But, it is in India, and there Islam has had to compete with thousands of other beliefs and gods and traditions, so Muslims there have been forced to grow more tolerant as a result (with some exceptions). I would guess you probably won't see a similar gesture in Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or Palestine, or Indonesia. Not unless there's a drastic Islamic reform movement.
Marx, Nietzsche, Feurbach... they were brilliant philosophers, and brilliant readers of texts. Their atheism remained a protest against wealth, pretension, cultural power. When I read them I am challenged on a profoundly human level. Especially with Marx I see that we wish for the same world but that we just have a wholly different understanding of how such a world might be achieved. This new atheism--reads text in a wooden, dead, fundamentalist manner, doesn't seem to be concerned at all with the kind of world that Shakespeare or Faulkner evoked, and seems to take a rather ironic--they wouldn't be in such a mire if they weren't so stupid--take on most of the human race. I have No time for it. I will continue to bump heads with Feurbach!
J
Reply to: Ebert: One priest. You say, "God does not exist." Others say, "God exists!"
_________
And I couldn't care less what "others say."
That's how a con game works. You go into a third-grade classroom and ask, "Everyone who thinks there's a God raise your right hand. Now, everyone who thinks there isn't a God raise your back foot."
Christianity is a con game.... where the people who don't believe in a God aren't counted. ie, you can't become an Eagle Scout unless you are willing to take a pledge that you believe.
And what I'm saying is, Look at the evidence. I just took an unbiased look at the Gospel of Mark. The fact that an unclean pneuma is scared that Jesus can make them leave the body they've taken over... renders the Gospel of Mark NOT CREDIBLE. Why? Because demons don't exist.
Right now, I'm watching the fire in Montecito. People work their entire lives, become successful, but beautiful homes near Santa Barbara with a view of the ocean... and then sit in a high school gym and watch it all burn to the ground.
Where is the evidence of a God? It's NOT there. That is what the argument is about. In the absence of evidence, should we respect the BELIEFS of Muslims? And I say, NO. Don't respect belief. Demand they PROVE that a God exists, if they can. And if they can't PROVE it, then don't respect them when they put people in jail who have a different opinion.
I'm just telling you the Correct Answer. In order to create political power and for personal reasons, the Catholic Church insists that you believe there's a God. Because it gives their words more weight when they say, "According to the word of God..." as if they have actually studied such a document.
It's a con game. It's a House of Cards built on asking children what they believe, and none of them have any real opinions other than what their parents taught them.
The problem with Islam... is that the Con Men have taken it to the next level, and want to prohibit newspapers from printing cartoons of their Prophet Mohammed. They love the idea that they can put anyone in jail who disagrees with them.
Of course, some Christian will complain, "You're trying to take away our right to believe." And my response is, "That's how they want you to THINK, but read my words again. Don't give me the WRONG answer. That's how they've trained you to think. Put the brain in gear and give me the CORRECT answer."
There is no reason to believe a God exists. Christianity is false, and so is Islam. What we should do is, Ask for PROOF. If you can't PROVE that a person needs Jesus as Savior before they can have eternal life, put that silly idea into the "Attempt to Scam Us" file and mark "Shame On You" across the cover.
And quit thinking that "People say there is a God" means anything. It doesn't. That's how Con Games stay in business. Belief and faith are the tools of the con men. Learn to demand PROOF that your mother has been taken to the hospital before you get in the back of the nice man's car.
Ebert: "Others say, 'God exists!' I couldn't care less what others say." And they couldn't care less what you say. Are we getting anywhere?
Roger,
Your patience with Bill Hays is Herculean/Job/Buddha-like (take your pick). I especially liked the there-is-no-God-because-of-a-fire argument. Poor God; if S/He/They were ever to start taking care of our every need, we'd complain we're being treated like children or puppets. Freedom is a tricky proposition--and compassion (especially for one's "enemies") is even more so, since it asks one to give up some of that freedom for others, no return on investment required.
Bill, let's get back to the point: "What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?"
Paul
p.s. As Paul Reiser put it, "I'm just sayin'." I hope this doesn't get Bill going again.
Ebert: "Others say, 'God exists!' I couldn't care less what others say." And they couldn't care less what you say. Are we getting anywhere?
________
Of course we are.
You've just been challenged to produce PROOF that God exists.
I'm not going to let you get away with BELIEF.
If you go back and read my post, I offered PROOF. The fires in Montecito conclusively prove that PRAYING for your house not to burn down... doesn't work.
How do you explain that? How do you deal with FACTS instead of just your own beliefs?
I'm always frustrated when a Catholic says, "I couldn't care less about what you say." That's the problem. That's the crisis. the fact that Catholics live in a delusional state where they were never encouraged to TEST REALITY.
Try looking at some FACTS. Gospel of Mark, Chapter 2. Jesus goes into a synagogue where a man is possessed by an unclean pneuma.
Does this STORY... require you to believe that demons actually exist?
For an intelligent person, that's all it would take to throw the New Testament in the trash.
NOT MY WORDS.... BUT THE WORDS IN THE GOSPEL OF MARK.
I know you can't see that... but if you can get past the Catholic brainwashing, you would realize how obvious the TRUTH is.
There's no need to respect Muslims who reject their leaders.... but I might be willing to respect someone who stops being a Muslim and runs, screaming, out into the sunlight. And then turns around and says, "Forget Islam. Forget belief. Look at Reality and stop letting those fools use you."
Ebert: I don't think Catholics need to look at "some facts" in the Bible, because although the Church conveyed that book into modern times (picking up the baton of the Old Testament from the Jews), the church has not promoted the literal interpretation of the Bible, and indeed a group of UK Bishops in 2005 published a letter warning against that very thing, in which they "condemn fundamentalism for its 'intransigent intolerance' and to warn of 'significant dangers' involved in a fundamentalist approach." Indeed, even in the third grade the nuns were teaching us not to believe everything we read in the Bible as literal truth. That is when I was first exposed to the notion of symbolism: "Write two pages on whether you think Jonah was really in the belly of the whale, and why you think the story is in the Bible if he wasn't." A pause, and then the ding! of the bell on her desk. "And class! Penmanship! Spelling! Punctuation!"
"I wish the religious understood their religions. Don't the Islam-haters realize their Baptist ancestors fled England because of people exactly like the-- only then the Baptists were the Muslims."
I've noticed that most people of faith don't know the history of their sect, or religion, or other religions. They only know what's told to them from the pulpit. Many don't even know their own holy books all that well, or if they do the gloss over the more questionable stuff, like that part where god sends a couple of bears to kill 42 kids cause they made fun of a bald guy.
"2:24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them."
Wow... God doesn't play around, does he?
Seriously though, It would be nice if the faithful would take the time to learn more about their faith, and others. I personally think a comparative religion class in school should be mandatory, thought that'll probably never happen. But at the very least it would force people to be more honest about their beliefs, once they realize that they're belief set is just one of dozens of others within their own religion.
Roger,
While reading your article, I was reminded how I have been lucky to witness two very historical things: Mandela's release from prison and his presidential victory (I think I was 19 or 20 at the time) and now the Obama presidency. Neither thing I thought would happen in my life time and it has never felt so nice to be wrong.
The question of how morality changes is of great interest to me and religion is just one aspect in that. I think you and your readers may be interested in some of the podcasts from http://pointofinquiry.org/
They have interviews with some of the leading scientists and thinkers who have been studying the what, whys and hows of morality. I should add, that these are interviews not philosophical meanderings impossible to understand except for a "select few" specialists. I bring it up because sometimes we are so eager to blame the "other" and entertain ideas of "superiority" over those different from us. Some of this may be hardwired into our being as well as nourished by social forces around us. This comes from both religious and atheist / scientific sides.
While I contemplate who can give a better moral set for a better humanity, I often think of slavery, right here in the US. Our great political forefathers got it wrong (at the time, but created a governing system that could allow for change); our religious leaders of the time got it wrong (the Bible OT and NT are full of support for slavery) but were finally able to apply the golden rule against the slave system; even the scientists got it wrong (the theory of racial superiority, IQ tests etc.) but they were able to change and show that there is no natural superiority.
If we as a people can be so wrong and change we should treat others with the respect that they also can self correct and change for the better. The fact is, from what religious leaders and scientists can tell us, is that there are no facts to morality.
Roger, I thought your views on Islam and Iran most interesting. I was watching a review of the movie Not With Out My Daughter you and Gene gave back in 1991 http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/buenavista/atm/reviews.html?sec=6&subsec=Not+Without+My+Daughter. Your current views in this blog seems to reflect your stand back then. I found your last statement in that show most profound!
Mr. Ebert, thanks for your thought provoking post. I have studies the Isalmic religion in depth, and I think you have missed a major point. There is no assurance of salvation in the Islamic faith, and most muslims would agree that they cannot even know for certain if Muhammed is in heaven. As a result, the only cetain path to salvation is through martydom. This, I believe, is what drives many terorrists.
Just a thought.
Billy Hays:
I have a few questions for you.
1)You make an absolute claim that there in no God based on a lack of evidence. How did you come to know this absolute truth? If it was on the basis of your own reasoning, how do you know your reasoning can be trusted. If its only a bi-product of evolution, and therefore only necessary for survival, can reasoning and logic be trusted?
Ebert: As you know, the Theory of Evolution has, and requires, no opinion on the possibility of God, although Richard Dawkins certainly has one.
Roger Ebert: I don't think Catholics need to look at "some facts" in the Bible, because although the Church conveyed that book into modern times (picking up the baton of the Old Testament from the Jews), the church has not promoted the literal interpretation of the Bible, and indeed a group of UK Bishops in 2005 published a letter warning against that very thing,
Roger, I've read that the posters here are "intelligent." So, that's the standard I'm going to aim for.
First, I used the Gospel of Mark as MY example. You're switching it to the Old Testament in your answer. There are lots of places in the OT where a "literal interpretation" of the poems.... would lead you to the conclusion that the text is not the Word of God. Therefore, the Catholic Church does not "promote the literal interpretation."
Guess what? I'm talking about the Gospel of Mark, and the New Testament, and I'm going to DEMAND a LITERAL INTERPRETATION of all the words. Every single one. And I'm going to ask all Catholics to use the same standard.
Of course you need to look at the Bible again. Not just Catholics, but everyone. The New Testament is a piece of propaganda for an End of the World cult that wanted their victims to sell their property and give the proceeds to the apostles and their successors. You need to read the Gospel of Mark from the perspective of a forensic detective and a scientist. You need to read it, make notes, and stop pretending that the silly parts aren't silly.
Reply to: skip: have a few questions for you.
1)You make an absolute claim that there in no God based on a lack of evidence. How did you come to know this absolute truth? If it was on the basis of your own reasoning, how do you know your reasoning can be trusted. If its only a bi-product of evolution, and therefore only necessary for survival, can reasoning and logic be trusted?
Skip, years ago, I went to Law School. I'm a retired member of the California Bar, and when I went into court, there were many different standards of proof in use. There's proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which has been used to sentence many defendants to life in prison. There's proof by a preponderance of evidence.
The standard I'm using is, there has never been a single piece of evidence that supports the possibility of a supernatural God. Never. Not one. There have been so many con games, you can't take statements at face value. You need to allow for the fact that people lie. I find this an adequate definition of "Proof." All of the witness statements are accounted for.
If there was even a single piece of substantial evidence of a supernatural God who answers prayers, performs miracles, or meets any of the promises I hear in sermons, I would admit it. Honestly, I would. And just as honestly, Catholics have to admit there is no proof that Jesus rose from the dead, had the authority to command demons, had the authority to forgive sins, or that the ONLY way you can have eternal life is to accept Jesus as your Savior.
Show me the proof and we'll talk. You have the Internet. For most questions, you can look up the answers. And the only exception is Christianity, where you can go to hundreds of Internet sites and never find the Correct Answer.
Demonic spirits do NOT exist. Do a google search of Christian sites, and see if you can find any that explain how we know demonic spirits don't exist. That's the problem. Children expect adults to tell them the truth, and when they go into a church, all they get are lies.
As far as the rest of your question, you're not looking for the Correct Answer. And that's my point. Start by looking for the Correct Answer. Instead of praising Muslims, tell them that respect has to be earned. Show me some proof that Mohammed was a Prophet and I'll listen, but until then, no respect for silly beliefs. None. I've wasted far too much of my life looking for evidence of a God, or trying to disprove lies.
Reply to: Roger Ebert: Indeed, even in the third grade the nuns were teaching us not to believe everything we read in the Bible as literal truth.
How about the resurrection of Jesus? How about needing Jesus as your Savior to obtain eternal life? Did the nuns make it clear NOT to believe that? Did the nuns explain that a group of Jews had been trying to add a belief in Resurrection to the list of official beliefs for two centuries, and finally had to invent a story about a man who was seen by 500 people? After the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, the End of the World movement took off. Did the nuns explain that? I think those nuns were talking about OT poetry, NOT the Gospel of Mark.
@Skip
If a religion has to flourish,it need to have human values,salvation etc... If you observe the oldest religions in the world like Hinduism, Christianity,Islam,etc.. are flourished for thousands of years because they preach Peace,Harmony,brotherhood,etc...
In Hinduism Salvation can be reached in many ways and mostly by serving others,serving Nature etc...
Salvation is far beyond our normal comprehension.To understand Salvation itself takes many years and to attain salvation its something which we cant say.
Thank You Roger,I am glad that you liked it.Thinking of writing an article about you for the past 2 months,i think i will be writing it in a week.
Oops, the book I was talking about is called "Hagakure", not
"Hagakuri". It says here that it was also something that Yokio Mishima from Paul Schrader's movie "Mishima" read, which influenced him. http://www.amazon.com/Hagakure-Book-Samurai-Yamamoto-Tsunetomo/dp/4770029160/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226801625&sr=8-2
I have been going over your running argument with Bill Hays on the existence or non-existence of God, and it strikes me that Mr. Hays is using the very same argument that fundamentalists use when trying to ram their religious beliefs down skeptics' throats: i.e. "Anyone who disagrees with me about the divinity of Christ/literality of the Bible/submission of women/racial supremacy/holiness of the Prophet Muhammed/etc. is either evil or deluded."
Ironically, it is mostly the evil and deluded who make that kind of argument.
I'm not a fan of Bill Maher, and I didn't care for "Religulous", but I will give him credit that when promoting his show on either The Daily Show or Letterman (I forget which), he refused to categorize himself as an atheist, and admitted that religion does have it's place in society (he used prison as an example).
Roger, movies transcend boundaries and I grew up reading your reviews; you've got quite a bit of following in the Hyderabad film club.
Ebert: Three from Hyderabad, and counting. Who can name this actual location near Hyderabad?
God is a word that some people use to name their source for inspiration. Inspiration exists... But admittedly, many religious followers become more interested in manipulating others into joining them, than in their search for inspiration. The problem is they see their religion as incontrovertible historical fact, rather than stories about culture.
The Christian story is embedded into the fabric of our culture; God's chosen tribe, the ten commandments, the Christ figure, the message of non-violence, "love thy neighbor", and "turn the other cheek"; as long as Western civilization itself continues, these stories will continue to inspire.
Did Christ really rise from the dead in a factual, historical sense? I don't think so any more than I believe that Elvis or Tupac are still alive. But in a metaphorical sense? He (and Elvis and Tupac, for a little longer at least) continues very much to live on through the lives of his followers. I believe the authors of the Gospel intended the story to be taken primarily in the metaphorical sense.
Personally, I find enough inspiration in the story of Christ to shape how I interact within our society, and for that reason I call myself a Christian. If I find a more inspiring story, I'd like to think my mind is open enough for me to change, but as the Christian story is so embedded within our society, and our society is still relatively strong, I don't really expect it... (There are very few stories that tell people everything they want to know about how to live their lives; that's why even ones like Scientology can make an impact.)
(don't mean to start a debate about religion, but all this ^^ has been on my mind lately, and just wanted to get it in)
There are many followers and devotees of islam in my area. I know many; most are freindly and generous, and easy to pass the time with. As are others, who are devout catholics or Jehovahs. But, I am agnostic. I am GOING to Hell!
Religious is still religious; as long as people actually believe in and accept eternal torture for anyone who simply disagrees with them, we will have to accept the previously suggested one step forward, one step back. The saddest thing is that it's more about our neighbourhoods than radical leaders overseas. This edict was passed because there has been a hunger for thinking outside our own immediate needs being voiced and heard the world over, and no little people is no power.
Reply to: Bruce Burns: it strikes me that Mr. Hays is using i.e. "Anyone who disagrees with me about the divinity of Christ/literality of the Bible/submission of women/racial supremacy/holiness of the Prophet Muhammed/etc. is either evil or deluded."
_________
Bruce, I'll attribute your mistake to the fact that I'm posting on a message board, but you've misread my intent. I told Roger to go back and read the New Testament. This time, instead of saying "Oh, that part isn't meant to be taken literally," read it from the POV of a District Attorney preparing a case for fraud against an End of the World cult.
Obviously, I need to give better examples. Let's look at the finances of the cult:
Acts 4:34 .. for all who owned lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid at the apostles' feet...
Now, let's admit some eyewitness testimony about the leader of the cult, a man named Peter
Acts 5:3 Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and hold back the price of the land for yourself? ... You have not lied to men but to God." Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and breathed his last. So great fear came upon all who heard these things.
You're free to check the Rick Ross website for danger signs of cult behavior, but let's start with
(1) The leader says that lying to him about money is really lying to God.
(2) Ananias owned a piece of land before he joined the cult. Peter is upset when Ananias does not voluntarily give him all the proceeds.
(3) Peter accuses Ananias of being a victim of Satan.
Out here in the Real World, any one of those three would be grounds for declaring the cult dangerous.
And that's where you start. Peter was not a fine, upstanding Saint. Peter ran a cult where people who lied to him about THEIR OWN MONEY wound up DEAD.
My request was, go back and read the Gospel of Mark again, knowing that the source was... an unbalanced cult leader, trying to convince people in 60 AD that they were living in the Last Days. What did Peter predict would happen at the End of the World?
Mark 12:18 Then Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, asked Jesus… “In the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be?’
Jesus answered, when they rise from the dead, they neither marry but are like angels in heaven….
Is this a prediction of an End of the World? Yes. Obviously. Was there a general resurrection? No. Therefore, if you call yourself a Christian, you're a victim of a fairly common religious scam. But many, many Christians live in a Delusional World.
Acts 26 Paul said, “According to the strict sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee (ie, separated one) And I am being judged by the promise God made to our fathers. Why should you think it incredible that God raises the dead?”
Why would anyone "think it incredible" that dead people will come back to life? Because it doesn't happen. Not in the Real World.
A better question is, why would you inflict this nonsense on children who trust you? The dead don't come back to life... but if you can convince people the world is about to end, you can use this nonsense to steal their money.
I suppose we talk about Jesus being the son of God next, but that's just a title somebody borrowed from Augustus Caesar. I doubt the real Jesus ever heard it.
That's what I asked Roger to do. Read the Gospel of Mark again, but with a bit of additional knowledge, and without ignoring the ridiculous parts.
Ebert: It would never occur to me to read Mark literally. I knew that even before I read it the first time. My mother explained, "Jack didn't have a real beanstalk, but this is a story about what if he did." I believe that Shakespeare and the King James Version are the two noblest exercises in the English language.
@ Julius Seizure
For starters, my parents’ marriage was arranged too:) They seem happy to me.
An arranged marriage can’t be thought of as a date. You are not made to marry a person after the first date are you? Not even three perhaps.
You wrote – “It only becomes a problem when parents don't allow the two adults the opportunity to get to know each other and check for compatibility. This one drawback is less prevalent nowadays in India.”
It isn’t. It’s rampant. Probably not in the cities. We do have ‘progressive’ young people in our cities. But get out into the country and you would know. And we have all been told that the real India lives in its villages. Yes, that’s another generalization. But there is a lot of scope for generalization in a country with a billion people:)
I think arranged marriage exists throughout the world, under different guises. It can be passive in nature too. Isn’t the insistence by parents or society on what an ‘agreeable and desirable’ person should be like, also ‘arranging’ a marriage? Isn’t it an undermining of the ability of the individual to judge for himself?
Do I care about the relative long term success of arranged marriages? I think a lot of times, arranged marriages decay into a mere acceptance of the person in your life. A compromise that the individual itself is probably not aware of.
And really, would a thoughtful individual ever tolerate such an important decision being made for him/her? What does that say about the individual itself? Isn’t the argument of the long term success of arranged marriages itself a sweeping generalization? What worth is that statistic to the individual?
I am an agnostic bordering on atheism too.
@ Smrana
Perhaps all of us do have a ‘nameless urging that has nothing to do with paranoid schizophrenia.’ My hope would be that nameless urge to be uncompromised Reason.
I don’t think a collective unconscious can exist, just as a collective conscious can’t either. How can the collective love for art or literature or music be a collective unconscious? Individuals make art. Individuals make literature. Individuals make music. Their experiences or their imaginations drive them to make the kind of art they do. They don’t have the collective unconscious in mind while being creative.
Or do you mean that a majority of human beings have more or less equal taste? But can’t the same piece of music mean different things to different people?
“…when I saw the cheering crowds in "triumph of the will",it's so clear they could so easily have been me,so does something in me respond,less easily,to the likes of Dr.King and Gandhi…”
Why? I don’t think it could easily have been me. Why do you think it could easily have been you?
@ Mr. Ebert.
I think the Theory of Evolution does have an opinion on God. Let us be clear what we mean by evolution. Evolution is the painfully gradual process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage by wholly accidental events or circumstance. Now, we cannot have this if we have an almighty being pulling the strings according to his fancy. The results wouldn’t then be ‘accidental’ or even the finite number of possibilities a specific environment can produce.
For those who would argue that God made the universe, but then let it go (thereby ‘creating’ evolution), what meaning do you have to a God who can have no influence anymore? That strikes to me nothing more than a clever yet cowardly juggling of words.
Raising my hand for Hyd count !!!
Ebert: Why do most of my Indian readers seem to be from Hyderabad?
I don't want to distract moreso from the original topic into this religious debate, so maybe this is wrong of me to do -- I pray for absolution -- but...
I give freely that I am no big Bible reader so I am not equipped to answer to questions about it as well as some, but I must point out to Bill Hays that he continually refers to this Gospel of Mark and a demon as being proof of the fallacy of the religion because demons don't exist. Bill, was that the only thing in the New Testament that struck you as incredible? That one thing proves above all else that God isn't real? Some guy walking around performing miracles and claiming to be born of an immaculate conception wasn't as much an affront to logic as this one particular part of the book? And it's irrelevant to ask for proof of God's and heaven's existence anyway because, by their very nature, they cannot be proven. That's what faith is. Maybe you don't like that, but your argument and their argument comes to a standstill at that point and no one will win or even gain ground by shouting the same things at the same people again and again.
Recall that humorous incident in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy where God created the babblefish, that can translate any language, to prove to everyone that He existed. But, in doing so, He destroyed Himself because God is a faith-based entity. I would also like to call to attention that wonderful TV show Futurama, in the episode "Godfellas". I won't summarize the whole thing (I'm sure Wikipedia has one if you're interested), but suffice it to say that a character gets the opportunity to play deity with a civilization of tiny people living on his own body and whenever he tries to help them he makes things worse. After his dependants finally all kill each other he meets an entity who may be God who teaches him that "If you do things right, no one should be sure you've done anything at all."
With that, I humbly apologize again for my intrusion and fade back into lurking.
Holy Cow. (I'm not converting to Hinduism. Its just an expression.) There's an even better episode of The Simpsons (also by Matt Groening) in which Lisa creates her own universe inside a petri dish. The inhabitants of the dish begin to worship their creator, Lisa Simpson.
The people on this blog are intelligent, so most are probably familiar with Stephen Jay Gould's "Nonoverlapping Magisteria."
I refer to it when I get the same ridiculous questions about creationism. (I'm a science teacher.)
Gould writes:
"The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise—science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives. The attainment of wisdom in a full life requires extensive attention to both domains—for a great book tells us that the truth can make us free and that we will live in optimal harmony with our fellows when we learn to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly."
If, for nothing else, the belief in (and reliance upon) a higher power kept me going through hard times. I'll bet there are other people who can write this, too.
And now, India becomes a full-pledged member of the International Space Club, as she takes another step towards space-faring. Congratulations!
Why not do away with all the weapons and instead focus the resources to healing the earth, healing the nations and space-faring activities? Imagine what a world it would be. If I dared to think, it is only because of the audacity to hope.
Hi Roger,
Hmmm, the photo is that of....Biryani square???
Stop clubbing all of us into Hyderabad! thats bad! Just because someone mentioned Hyderabad in their comment does NOT mean they're from Hyderabad :)! It could just be someone who can not resist the temptation of sharing their adoration of Biryani (bet i've got you mighty curious about biryani by now). But jokes apart, you could take me as a psuedo Hyderabadi because i spent more than half a decade working there during my youth. And of course - I love biryani!! (who wouldnt). Your readership in India is much more dispersed. I for one, live in Chandigarh, which is in the North of India.
Ebert: Now I'm confused. Which photo?
Hi, Roger - thanks for your thoughts... been a longtime friend and reader! Just wanted to share that I think an apology was not a requirement of the TRC in South Africa, just a full confession. Here's some of Desmond Tutu's thoughts on why that was:
http://www.franciscans.org.uk/1999jan-tutu.html
Ebert: Thank you for the link. I have corrected my entry.
I think your blog is read in every part of India,but hyderbadi's are more active than others as they Comment and others dont.
Ebert: More of you seem to be visiting here than the residents oif some U.S. states!
Reply to: Stephen: I give freely that I am no big Bible reader so I am not equipped to answer to questions about it as well as some, but I must point out to Bill Hays that he continually refers to this Gospel of Mark and a demon as being proof of the fallacy of the religion because demons don't exist. Bill, was that the only thing in the New Testament that struck you as incredible? That one thing proves above all else that God isn't real?
Stephen, I started with demons and exorcisms because it's a clear example. Item #1 on a long, long list. But, yes, that ONE THING proves the Gospel of Mark cannot be taken seriously. All by itself, it is proof. It does NOT prove God isn't real. The sum total of our scientific knowledge over the last 2,000 is proof that God does not exist. All of it. Even things you've never heard of.
Christians are not equipped to answer questions about the Gospel of Mark because they don't read it. Or, they don't understand it. The apostles ran a cult. When new victims came to a meeting, the apostles needed something to read aloud, to convince them to join the cult. Some groups read aloud from the letters of Paul. After Peter visited a group in Rome, the group put together the "Gospel of Mark" based on Peter's recollection. They borrowed some "wisdom sayings" from other sources and pretended Jesus said them. About twenty years later, some footnotes were written into the text, to produce what we call the Gospel of Matthew. It's the same document. It's all based on the lies Peter told...
Mark 5:2 And when he exited the boat, immediately there came out of the tombs a man with a pneuma akarthatos
who ran up and worshiped Jesus, "What have I do to with you, Son of the Most High God?" Jesus said, "Come out of him, unclean spirit!" Tell me your name." "My name is Legion, for we are many."
Ebert: It would never occur to me to read Mark literally. I knew that even before I read it the first time. My mother explained, "Jack didn't have a real beanstalk, but this is a story about what if he did." I believe that Shakespeare and the King James Version are the two noblest exercises in the English language.
The early Church used the gospel to recruit victims. They read it aloud during services, and then gave an entire sermon about Jesus' power over the spirit world. They presented it as literal truth, a text as sacred as the Jewish scriptures.
During the recent election, McCain chose a VP (Sarah Palin) who attended a Pentecostal church, then left for a newer church closer to her home. McCain's advisors told him he needed the evangelical vote to win, and Palin was at the top of their short list. So, McCain sold out to a Special Interest Group. A belief in the nonsense of Christianity determined whether a politician was chosen as the Republican VP nominee. And, that's backwards. We should vote for politicians who say "I don't believe in Christianity because it's only a story. It was never meant to be taken literally." Instead, Palin said, "I believe that Jesus Christ will return to earth during my lifetime.' Presumably, a literal event.
Mark 16:9 The risen Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven demons. (14) Afterward he appeared to the eleven (apostles) as they sat at table, saying "Go into all the world and preach the gospel. These signs will follow those who believe: In my name they will cast out demons..."
Our two oldest texts, the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, end Mark at 16:8. So, possibly, verses 16:8-20 were late additions to the text, in order to justify a cult leader's claim to "cast out demons in the name of Christ." And this is only one example.
Christinity is nonsense. You can't believe a single word in the Gospel accounts. The early Church started as a cult within Judaism based on a belief in a general resurrection of the dead. Paul says that he is being judged on his belief in resurrection, on his belief in God's promise that the dead will come back to life. The idea of Jesus being God is a late, late change.
Romans 1:1 concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared the son of god by his resurrection from the dead...
Jesus, an ordinary human being, was declared son of god... in exactly the same way that Julius Caesar was declared a deity by proclamation of the Roman Senate. Instead of a written document, YHWH raised Jesus from the dead. That's what Paul preached... and no one should ever consider it a literal event.
Paul believed in resurrection before he ever heard the name Jesus. After the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, the resurrection cults gained instant credibility. "Now, we must believe God is about to end this Age, and start a new one where the Roman tyrants will be punished." That's how we know Christianity is false. It was a scam based on one group's interpretation of OT poetry where YHWH brings "his son" back to life, with "his son" being the nation of Israel.
And yes, I don't respect people who haven't figured that out. Why? Because any other course of action helps the cult recruit new members.
Ebert: Why do most of my Indian readers seem to be from Hyderabad?
Perhaps they just got a Google news alert on "Hyderabad"?
Ebert: True! But why don't I get more hits on "sex?"
I'm glad people I don't see people here that think radical islam and islam as the same thing.
But to me, I think of God as meaning truth. So, when someone says do you believe in God, that is like someone asking me, "do you believe in truth?" So, I'm thinking, sure, why not? 2 + 2 = 4! So, when someone asks, do you believe in God, or truth, to me, it is like a sign of ignorance almost because I assume that the conversation is going to start going into "what is the meaning of life?" or truth about truth or something. So, I don't like conversations that start off with "do you believe in god", because that is like asking someone how much money do they have in their pockets? Well, I have some, but I definitely do not have all of it...it's like talking to a bum who's trying to mooch off of you and they are hoping you are a trillionaire that has all the money in the world and thinking "oh, you have all the money in the world? cuz I got all the greed in the world and am looking to take all your money if you want to give it?" Of course, the answer is always, well, I don't have all of it.
But okay, back to believing in truth, or God. That may be another way of someone asking you if you are a real human being. If life were only that easy. If you can find out if someone is real, by asking them if they are real, it sounds like a trick question and that a con game is coming onto that person who is being asked. So, I would agree with some of the bloggers here, that there is an inherent con going on by asking someone if they believe in God, because that's like asking, "Hi, um, are you full of shit?...Oh, well, since you are not full of shit, (or do believe in God), then you must be prone to giving and doing favors or just plain being conned"
Now we see the first light before a distant dawn.
Let's hope the first light we see is not Iranian nukes exploding in upon some hapless enemy of the ayatollahs. Although to some misguided souls, that too would no doubt be our fault.
(An indirect reply to Bill Hays' post at 12:06 PM):
First off, let me just point out that people who fall victim to cults are people who do it out of blind faith. The funny thing is, people who claim there is no God have no valid evidence to back up their belief. Since they have no real evidence themselves, they are really basing their view of their eternal destiny on the same blind faith. When people ask me what evidence I have that there is a God, I find it hard to describe all of it. I don't want to sound like I am preaching here, so I'll summarize (the large amounts of historical and archaelogical evidence supporting the Bible, the fulfilled prophecies, and the simple fact that it claims to be written by God). Until someone can prove the Bible false to me, thus negating everything written in it, it remains the basis of truth, which means I do not in any way believe it blindly.
For those who simply deny the possibility of universal truth, I bequeth that you describe to me a situation where rape is perfectly acceptable. Unless you can do that, I can only assume that "rape is wrong" is something we can all agree on. So, if that one universal truth exists, you certainly can't say that others don't as well. Again, as a Christian, I believe that following Christ, ultimately, will keep me (and those I reach with His Word) out of hell. If Christains are right, unbelievers will go to hell - and that's a gamble I'm not willing to take. So, even if you're right and Christianity is a cult, who will it have hurt to live a life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and understanding? I hope my life (and worldview) never hurts anyone else. I do know many other cults that have hurt numerous people (Charles Manson, to name one).
As a final note, you have presented some interesting arguments that you feel are proof that the Bible cannot be taken seriously. Personally, I believe most of your scripture references are taken out of context and/or over-analyzed. Now, I'm no authority on scripture, and I probably can't argue against all of your points, but there are many who have made their cases. A few I'd suggest are "The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict" by Josh McDowell and "The Collapse of Evolution" by Dr. Scott Huse. Again, I can only add that I can say with 100% confidence I know what happens to me when I die, which is the most important thing to be gotten out of religion, in my humble opinion. I can only pray you can say the same with confidence. For your sake, and millions of others, I hope I am wrong in my beliefs. But if the Bible is true, then Romans 1:20 tells me with full confidence that those who guess incorrectly are without excuse.
Now, all that being said, let me just say that I liked this site a lot more when we talked less about politics and religion, and more about movies. Here are some ideas for future topics: Why is it better to sit through the end of the credits than to leave right when they start to roll; or, what is the effect of pirated movies escaping to Third World nations in relation to big hollywood companies? See? Movies can still be fun! ;-)
Dear Mrs. Chaz Ebert,
Roger complained, "But why don't I get more (Google) hits on "sex?"
Mrs. Chaz Ebert, please forgive my presumption, but I believe it's time to turn off Google's SafeSearch and let little Roger have his way.
Since my response may be a little confused I am going to put what I meant in plain english, of the question "do you believe in God?" coming from teh best dictionary there is, in my opinion, the oxford dictionary.
Let's start with the definition of believe
Believe, or in this case (believe in), which has its own definition: a. have faith in the existence of. b. have confidence in. c. have trust in the advisability of.
I suppose we agree that choice a. would be the one we are referring to.
So, lets go to this next:
God: 1a. (in many religions) superhuman being or spirit worshipped as having power over nature, human fortunes etc.; deity. b. image, idol, animal, or other object worshipped as divine or symbolizing a god. 2. (God) (in Christian and other monotheistic religions) creator and ruler of the universe; supreme being.
I'll stop the definitions there at 2, christian God.
So, in the God definition there is a creator and ruler. We know more now about the creator in terms of science than we did back when the bible was written. So, to me in the sense of a creator, we may never know everything, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try because we are the universe trying to know itself, and may be the only life on it with intelligence, we wouldn't be here if we didn't have a curiousity surplus, I dare say. As far as a ruler, that's more of a moral question. So, asking if I believe in God is a combination of exterior and interior, I lean overwhelmingly towards the interior question. Asking someone that one question does not encapsulate the entire interior workings of that person, even by a long shot. So, doesn't that mean to be true, when they are asking about the interior workings of your being?
Truth: a. quality of state of being true. b. what is true.
So, here is what I think when someone asks me if I believe in God:
"Do you have faith in the existence of what is true (interiorly)?"
In other words, are you full of shit?
Billy Hays,
I think you would do well to read some Soren Kierkegaard, as well as the responses to your posts from many people on this board.
Your understanding of the concept of God is woefully narrow, and your stubborn demanding of Christians to adopt--and then discard--a fundamentalist reading of the New Testament leads nowhere.
Dear Readers (and you too, Roger),
Holy Cow! Did I mention that I'm from Hyderabad? Well, I'm not really, but this being the Internet, I thought I’d mention it anyway. Did I mention that I think Chicago is a fine, fine city? Spent exactly one day there, but I had a great time at the metropolitan art museum, science center, aquariam (is it the Shed?) and a journey to the top of the Sears Tower. And that deep dish pizza is the shiznit. Anybody else catch Roger on one of those “Read Me First or Second” blogs tear some poor twit a new one in defense of Chicago? Talk about the Bears! You all just better watch out. I’m saying... Still, I’m a Blues fan, not Blackhawks.
I have no interest in theology debates with Bill Hays, especially noting Roger’s request that we stay on topic. This is nothing against Bill Hays, who I’m sure is a fine fellow, I'm just for some reason reminded of that line: "I never get into a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent." Thought the same thing about that guy a few blogs ago who thought petroleum was the work of the devil.
I did want to give a couple of shout outs:
Paul Marasa, the teacher: reminding us to "do unto others as they would have us do unto them"--a variation on the Golden Rule that helps us cross the boundary between "us" and "them." I just think that’s great. I’ve already mentioned it in conversation. Let’s call it the platinum rule. Or the diamond rule. I don’t know. I wonder if it would be worth mentioning to your student’s “the Prisoner’s Dilemma” from game theory. In essence, it proves that acting benevolently to those you don’t know has a slightly better advantage than acting malevolently, although it also suggests that if someone crosses you, “if you give ‘em a quick short, sharp shock they won’t do it again. Dig it?” Or something like that.
Vinay Nair: Carl Sagan/ "evolutionary perspective" Where is Carl when we need him? Somewhere out past the belt of Orion by now, I would imagine. I’ll never forget his section from “Cosmos” entitled “Who Speaks for the Earth.” We should all sit down as a planet some day and watch that episode together. I’ll make the popcorn.
The always reliable Dan Schreiber mentions Hollywood's culpability in perpetuating the idea of redemptive violence. I think "Kill Bill" was the second bloody revenge movie I ever enjoyed. The first was the original "Conan the Barbarian." In between were two decades of violence for violence’s sake. Sound and Fury signifying something or other. “Shotgun Stories” is a great, great film. Never would have checked it out if not for our friendly neighborhood film critic.
Smarana: Good moves by the inch,evil by the yard. I can only defer to the wisdom of Alfred E. Newman: “Down with metrics. We don't want any foreign rulers.”
And lastly, while in the habit of quoting and misquoting, here’s a line often attributed to the late great Maggie Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” Good line, no? I read that first at Burning Man 2000. 30,000 (mostly) beautiful people living in the desert with no money, only a barter system. No spectators, only participants. Utopia can happen if we want it. I just hope it isn't so dusty.
And now, back to my book. Got to the part where Suttree takes a bite of that grilled cheese and thought of you, Roger. Good call.
Ebert: "Do unto others as they would have us do unto them." This is a great, great quote. I'm stealing it. Did your dad like Westerns?
Roger, the Univ of Cape Town would love to have you back here again to get your ever-keen perceptions on life in South Africa in 2008. But if you can't come to the (Table) Mountain, the Mountain will come to you, in Chicago in May 2009 - or at least a UCT delegation will, led by our univ president. Can we meet? Jim Mc
My elder brothers watched "Shane" while my mom was pregnant with me. Until then, my parents had been thinking about naming me Duane. Never underestimate the power of movies. Although I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that. Now, once again, go to bed Roger. Isn’t it like one in the morning there?
Whoah! These postings took a right turn toward religion and never looked back. As a Christian, I agree that the foundation of this country was formed by people fleeing from the religious persecution of their government. The Founding Fathers had this firmly in mind when they wrote down separation of church and state. If the church becomes the government, one or both will most likely be corrupted. History's our testimony.
(Although let's please, oh, please, not forget while we adhere to the "no respecting an establishment of religion" section we also have "freedom of religion" in our first Amendment.)
Besides, Christ never pushed a religion or a political party. Remember the apostles? They kept wanting to set up Christ's earthly kingdom, but it was never Christ's intention to start a political movement. "Render to Ceaser what is Ceaser's. Render to God what is God's"
Christ wanted to give the world something that transcended our earthly structures. What Christ promoted was a love for God and fellow man and the transformation of heart, mind and spirit. And what a tender and beautiful experience that is!
Anyway, I apologize for dipping into this debate when it wasn't the intention of our benevolent host for us to do so.;)
P.S.
I noted some good resources posted above on this period of South African history. I'm interested in learning more on Mandela, Cape Town etc. Does anyone recommend any particular resources--documentaries, books, biographies, etc.?
Ref yr response to my comment on Nov 14 ,10.58 AM above.
I'm really feeling Tru Loved in your response to my response where you say mine (blog that is) is stupendous without readin' it because there is nothin' plain nothin' in my blog so I concludes you was funnin'.
Ebert: My bad! All you Indians write just alike! It was in the wee hours and I complimented you even though I was thinking of another site visitor. You are so passionate about literature I was temporarily carried away. But now we're at it, why don't you start a blog? The stupendous blog I was thinking of, and it really is excellent, is from New Dehli. Look at all the enticing entries linked down his right-hand column: http://jaiarjun.blogspot.com/2008/10/of-creationism-quotation-marks-and.html
Tyler D.:
I frustrates me to no end when people equate evolution with Christianity.
I find myself writing the same answers to the same questions ad nauseum.
The arguments by Dembski, Johnson, and Behe (and I'm assuming Huse as well) are all based in the same argument put forth by William Paley in his 1802 book "Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity." The problem with these arguments is universal: None have any scientific evidence to support them whatsoever.
Contrast this with evolution:
-Evolution is one the most well-founded theories in all of science.
-At least a third (or more) of all scientific articles dealing with biology address evolution.
-It is tenable, natural, and falsifiable.
-Evidence from scientific fields across the spectrum of geology, paleontology, biogeography, zoology, botany, comparative anatomy, molecular biology and embryology support evolution.
All evidence points to the fact that evolution happened.
No evidence points to special creation.
This is also why the Field Museum has a wing dedicated to Darwin's Theory. It's also why nearly every scientist on the planet believes evolution happened: Because it did.
Mr Ebert, thank you for this post. I must say that this is one of the best pieces to come out of your pen, and the one that has most touched me.
I am a young Afrikaner, and I was pleaseantly shocked to discover your history with my country, South Africa. The events you describe here was too big for me to process at the time, and understanding only came years later.
I was too young to understand the miraculous events when they happened in 1994; it took a good few years before I felt I had a handle on all the forces that shook the country at the time, though a personal change was already underway.
I remember on election day, 1994, our live-in African gardener standing in the backyard, staring at the sunset. I asked him what he was looking at, and he said :'This is the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen.'
His words shocked me to the core, since I have been told by family, teachers and spiritual leaders (Dutch reformed!) that black people are semi-human, hairless monkeys even, with only animalistic instincts at best. The concept of a black man being capable of appreciating beauty was the opposite of everything I had assumed about the world. The introspection that followed changed my life forever, turned me into an atheist, and made me turn my back on most of the values on which I had been raised.
Even today, I am still angry about the lies the church fed me and my people, though I find that I am beginning to forgive. Your statement that the Dutch Reformed Church was instrumental in the overthrow of Apartheid certainly soothes some old wounds, and made me think. It was not a point of view that I had ever before considered. Thank you for that.
Reply to Bill Hayes:
Bill, I don't disagree with you on any fundamental point you raise, but I think you're missing a major point.
Here's where we agree: organized religions are false. Individual priests are, consciously or not, deceiving ordinary people.
However, there's a fundamental disconnect in your argument that I think you've missed. You wish to disprove the existence of god by pointing to the falsity of the religions that claim to represent him/her/it/them. I believe Richard Dawkins makes the same error (which puts you in good company).
The logical chain you've constructed appears to be this: religions claim to represent god; one the one hand, there is no physical proof of the existence of god and on the other hand the rules and stories of these religions are such as to be non-sensical, contradictory, and illogical. Therefore they are false and as a result, god does not exist.
Your mistake is in assuming that any organized relgion actually correctly represents the will of any god that might exist. If, instead, you look at what is (imho) the more likely truth, that religions evolved (oh, how the fundamentalists are going to hate that concept!) over time based on the cultural rules of sociology, then we can see how contradictory concepts get introduced, how concepts that are repulsive to 21st century Western humanity are enshrined, etc., etc. With this perspective, there is no need for a god to exist to explain the evolution of religion, any more than there is a need for god to exist to explain the evolution of life, the universe and everything else.
Which (again, imho) neatly divorces the question of the existence of god from the mechanics of evolution (whether of life or religions) and makes it essentially a non sequitur. Believe if you choose to, or don't believe if you choose to. But ultimately the answer is irrelevant.
I don't disagree with you on the subject of god's non-existence; nor on the basic nature of organized religion. However, I take issue with the militancy with which you propound your views. In the words of Billy Joel's "Shades of Gray",
"Now with the wisdom of years, I try to reason things out
And the only people I fear are those who never have doubts
Save us all from arrogant men, and all the causes they're for
I won't be righteous again
I'm not that sure anymore"
Which could describe fundamentalist imams, bishops and rabbis...and you.
In the meantime, and I think this is the point about Roger's post, organized religion is a powerful force in this world in which we live, and any time that even part of an organized religion speaks out in favour of toleration, peace and compassion, and against anger, hatred and violence, it is a significant and hopeful sign for the future.
For Tyler D.
I understand if you have not found Bill Hays' arguments that convincing. Allow me to try, from the perspective of a philosopher--rather than a hardnosed ex-district attorney who's coming off more angry than rational.
You lament that those who demand proof from religion are guilty of that which they decry--they too lack proof that there is no God. I agree that this is so, but it is nevertheless a valid criticism. Occam's Razor, and it's logical by product, The Principle of Unnecessary Postulation, is a logical rule which has largely gained acceptance within the philosophical community. Basically, it states that where no proof for any position exists, the most logical position to take is the simplest. Since neither side can prove their point, one way to determine which position is the most logical is to decide which is simpler. Theists; religionists, postulate the existance of an anthropomorphic God, give him a name and a set of goals, desires, human-like traits, personality, and vast powers to explain how the world works. Atheists believe that postulating such a God is silly and unnecessary, and the universe can better and more simply be understood as having simply always existed. To this day I recall the dumbfounded looks of awe on the Jehovah's witnesses that knocked on my door and asked me where I thought the universe came from if God didn't create it. I replied, 'Where did God come from?'. The obvious answer 'God has always existed.' My obvious reply 'If you can accept that God has always existed, doesn't it make even more sense to just believe that the universe has always existed, and simply leave God out of the equation?' No further answer was forthcoming.
Or, consider this reductio ad absurdum: Anything which cannot be proven does not exist, can logically be believed to exist. Therefore, I believe there is an invisible dragon hovering behind you at this very moment. Although you cannot see him, he is there, I assure you. You can't prove he isn't! And if you do not send me $10,000 every year until you die, that invisible dragon will catch your soul as it floats to heaven and drag it down to hell, where you suffer forever. You'd better believe me, because the last guy who didn't believe me; yeah, he's down in hell right now regretting it. I'll email you my mailing information and expect your check within 2 weeks. Oh, don't believe me? I can write it down in a book if you like.. get some of my friends to write some stuff down too... Convinced yet? We can wait a few hundred years and then it'll be much more convincing, right? ... Right..?
A situation where Rape is perfectly acceptable: A man holds a gun to your head and tells you to rape an innocent woman, or he will rape and kill you, her, and 100 more woman besides. You believe him.
Your final argument is a version of 'Pascal's Wager'. The problem with this argument is that it assumes God's desires, if he exists, are knowable and known. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Since there have been hundreds and thousands of different religions, and each of them are no more provable or disprovable than the next, and many, if not the majority of them preach that some undesirable afterlife awaits the unbelievers, how do you choose which one to believe? If it is simply the fear of eternal punishment or the lure of eternal reward that convinced you, how do you sleep at night knowing that 10,000 Gods besides yours are equally likely to exist, and equally likely to condemn you to hell for not believing in them? The way I see it, you've got a 1/10,000 shot (give or take a few thousand) of being right, using your logic. I don't know how you can stand it! And then to accept responsibility for trying to convince other people. Your children even... what if you are wrong? You could be sending your own children to hell just because you decided Jesus was right, and not Muhammed.
For that reason alone Pascal's wager has not been taken seriously by philosophers for a hundred years or more.
A final note, in the same vein--you are almost as much an atheist as me. The only difference between us is that I don't believe in just 1 more religion than you do. If you want to understand how I feel, ask yourself why you, too, disbelieve in so many religions. And then ask yourself why you still believe in the one you do. Is it a crutch? If so, that's perfectly reasonable. Pragmatism, too, is rational. Just be very careful, because the consequences of the pleasant self-delusion can be very dangerous indeed. Pleasant, seemingly rational self-delusion has lead to almost all of the major atrocities in human history. The wars of religion are just the beginning, and are just one consequence of pleasant self-delusion. The same patterns of thought allowed the holocaust, allowed the atheist slaughters of Russia and China (clearly, I do not equate ALL atheism with rationality, on the contrary many atheists are reactive, anti-establishment types with little positive to contribute to any discussion or problem), allowed basically every atrocity in human history. Socrates was warning against it as far as back 420 BC when he proudly stated his role in society was to question everything, hold nothing sacred, and allow nobody the luxury of rational self-delusion if he could help. But it does take strength. More strength than most possess I suspect. And so I have come to accept the role of religion in society, even if I still dream of a society where religion is no longer necessary.
Mr. Ebert,
Thank you for all the great writing.
Given the generosity that winds its way through so much of your work, in style and content, I was wondering if you are familiar with Lewis Hyde's work on the cultural commons, and if you had read the recent article about him in the NY Times Magazine. I would love to hear your thoughts about Hyde or his work, and whether they have influenced you or not.
Hopefully this piques your curiosity! Otherwise, the take-home message is 'Thank you!'
J
@vinay nair :"The heart has its reasons which the mind doesn't know."Pascal,I think.The only thing that functions on pure logic is a computer,and I certainly ain't one.Faith does not contradict logic--it's only an extension thereof.As Hamlet said,there are more things in heaven and earth,Vinay ,than are dreamt of in thy logic.
Collective unconscious has nothing to do with group think,dress-alike,regimentation or cloning....it's closer to (but goes beyond) what John Donne lmplies when he says ,no man is an island,each is a part of the main....i dont know whether you misunderstood me or vice versa...to unnecessarily add, Jung did it..
Ebert doth murder sleep.....
This blog is the nearest I have been to the US ,which is near;as near as I am likely to or would wish to be.....mingling with your crowd which probably would be impossible in a physical visit....oh heart uniting internet!smasher of barriers,non respector of nationality,gender,status, creed and race....
Vinay Nair ,regarding sufficiency of reason:A little science I know (open to correction) tells me there's no way to tell whether an aeroplane moving steadily is moving or not--there just ain't no way to tell leaving beside looking out thru the window....there never will be....is that right?....there is a"conspiracy" of nature to that effect....there could be a similar one to prevent us knowing what lies beyond "the bourne whence no man returns"....perhaps science will never answer this most vital of questions...no less than the big bang....
To quote Daisaku Ikeda:
"Death is an issue of the greatest importance for all people without exception. No one can honestly say that death is of no concern.
At the same time, however, few important issues are given as little serious consideration as death. It is said that there are two things people cannot gaze at directly: the sun and death.
The French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-62) decried people's tendency to avoid thinking of their own mortality: "This negligence in a matter where they themselves, their eternity, their all are at stake, fills me more with irritation than pity; it astounds and appalls me." (2) His dismay at people's irrational indifference toward death drove him to use such strong words.
What is death? What becomes of us after we die? Failing to pursue these questions is like spending our student years without ever considering what to do after graduating. Without coming to terms with death, we cannot establish a strong direction in life. Pursuing this issue brings real stability and depth to our lives.
Many views of life and death have been articulated over the ages by religious leaders, philosophers and scientists. Without going into a detailed discussion, I think it's fair to say that human knowledge has not advanced sufficiently to either definitively affirm or deny the possibility of life after death. Science takes as its object of investigation phenomena discerned with the five senses; what happens after death is beyond its purview. Its basic stance disqualifies it from speaking on the matter one way or the other.
No view of the nature of existence can offer direct proof of what happens after death. It seems, therefore, that rather than trying to compare the relative merits of different views, it is far more fruitful to ask how a particular view influences people's lives in the present- whether it makes them strong or weak, happy or miserable.
Buddhism teaches that life is eternal."......
What is the Will of God?
And what is the will of man who uses the "Will of God" as a premise to excuse his actions?
This is a question that has plagued many people of, I would venture, all religions.
Was slavery and apartheid and the various holocausts the Will of God or the sins or trespasses of man?
I have had Persian friends, most of whom were or are not Muslim. I have had Muslim friends as well--some of them, like the majority of Muslims, are neither Persian or Arab.
I have also heard Caucasian Americans condemn Shinto because it supposedly led to imperialism in Japan, as if imperialism in Asia prior to World War II was not widespread. It was. However, it was imperialism practiced by European countries under the guise of what Kipling called the white man's burden.
Fanatics of any religion are dangerous. People who use religion to achieve the subjugation of any other race or religion are dangerous.
While I grew up in a Judeo-Christian society, I was not raised as a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim. I can say that this year, someone tried to intimidate me into not taking my religious holy days and I am sure that many people belonging to non-Christian or non-Jewish religions have had similar experiences.
I agree that like Donne wrote, no man is an island, but when one limits oneself to concern for the island of Christians or Catholics, one cannot expect peace in this world.
The election of Obama should be about how people crossed the color lines and will hopefully also cross the lines of religion to see people as people. If our media doesn't report when Islam and Muslims vote against terrorism but widely reports about how one nation made primarily of one sect (Shiite) has a fatwa against the US, that shows a bias in news reporting--harking back to stereotypes of fanatic Muslims (or Moors) who are Arab (although really Persian).
Then who hears the facts? Who knows that the majority of Muslims aren't in Iran, aren't Persian, aren't Shiite, aren't Arab?
Just as no one in the US media blamed Christianity for apartheid in South Africa or slavery in the US, we should consider Islam as more than what fanatics and fundamentalists present to the world and the US media unfortunately chooses to present to the American audience.
Reply to: JMW: You wish to disprove the existence of god by pointing to the falsity of the religions that claim to represent him/her/it/them. (end)
No, I clearly said those were separate arguments. I apologize for putting them into the same post, where people are determined to see a connection.
Reply to: Tyler D. You have presented some interesting arguments that you feel are proof that the Bible cannot be taken seriously. Personally, I believe most of your scripture references are taken out of context and/or over-analyzed. Now, I'm no authority on scripture, but..."The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict" by Josh McDowell... I hope I am wrong, bf the Bible is true, then Romans 1:20 tells me those who guess incorrectly are without excuse.
First, Romans 1:29 makes it clear that Paul is talking about Romans in 60 AD, not atheists in 2008 AD. I wish you had posted a specific statement from Josh's book regarding the early church being a "resurrection cult", so I could rip it apart. Let's look at Josh "I Never Met a Teenager I Couldn't Fool" McDowell's ridiculous bibliographic test for historical reliability:
http://www.christianstoriesonline.com/josh_mcdowell.html
JOSH: When I speak in a literature or a history class now I state that there's more evidence for the historical reliability of the New Testament than for any 10 pieces of classical literature put together... A manuscript is a handwritten copy rather than a printed one. One question this test asks is how many manuscripts you have. The more manuscripts you have the easier it is to reconstruct the original (referred to as the autograph) and check for errors or discrepancies.. When I wrote the book Evidence That Demands a Verdict in 1974, I was able to document 14,000 manuscripts of just the New Testament (that's not counting the Old Testament). In the revised edition I've been able to document 24,633 manuscripts of just the New Testament. The Number Two book in manuscript authority in all history is the Iliad by Homer, which has 643 manuscripts..."
Let's think about this for a moment. (After all, the posters on this blog have a reputation for intelligence.) If you have 24,633 copies of a Gospel, why does that make it more "historically reliable" than a different work with only 600 surviving copies? If there are 6 million copies of "Goldfinger,' does that mean that James Bond was a real person?
Josh is a con man. Peter was a con man. You can write a thousand stories about heroic exorcisms and it doesn't make demons real.
But, Josh raises an interesting question. WHY are there so many copies of the New Testament? Well, go back to Acts 4. Every new member of the Church had to sell any property he owned and give the proceeds to the apostles. Which means, the con men needed to write lots and lots of copies of their Sales Pitch. How many TV ads did you see for "Quantum of Solace"?
God made a pit to torment the angels who followed Satan? And atheists will be condemned to the same pit for eternity? Let's make 10,000 copies of THAT message and hand them out in the ampitheaters.
Reply to: Shane: I have no interest in theology debates with Bill Hays. I'm just for some reason reminded of that line: "I never get into a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent."
It's not a debate. It's just a new theory that you might consider. The Gospel of Mark was written for a purpose. It has no historical value apart from recruiting new victims to a cult. If there was an existing religion that believed in demonic possession, they added a story where Jesus had power over all such demons. If they believed stars were deities, they wrote a story where a star moved across the sky when Jesus was born. Once you understand WHY the Gospel of Mark exists, it all makes sense. They wanted to fool people. They thought it was hilarious, and profitable, to fool people.
Hi Roger -
Your post was an inspiration. In a national and international climate so often dominated by suspicion and intolerance, it's not often we hear (especially from prominent commentators) about people setting aside their fears of "the other" and looking beyond the hard feelings and painful details of their history to treat each other with forgiveness, understanding, and respect.
Unfortunately it seems that among your faithful readers, your good deed will not go unpunished. Does it strike you as odd that so many of the comments inspired by such a positive and affirming post should be so combative and intolerant?
We do not all look the same. We do not all think or act in the same way. We do not all share the same view of the universe, it's origins, purposes, or functions. We do not all speak the same language or come from the same country. We do not all share the same cultural, ethical, moral, or historical understandings of things like marriage, sex, birth, life, love, or death. This has always been the case, is universally the case at present, and seems vary unlikely to change in the future regardless of which faction "wins" in any given struggle. This variety is (and has always been) vast beyond our ability to catalog, and ubiquitous beyond our ability to ignore. How is it that we have not grown accustomed to each other by now? How is it that something so universal and obvious as the differences between us can still make us so uncomfortable, even fearful, that we'll so to such lengths to make each other's lives unpleasant?
At some point along the way, many of us (maybe even most of us)seem to have decided that the only way we can think, speak or act the way we want is if everyone else in the world can be compelled to think, speak and act likewise. We embrace pluralism, just so long as we never have to hear someone say something we don't like. Surely no decent person would ever differ from me on any important issue. If you don't like what I like, the only possible explanation is that you're ignorant, brainwashed, a charlatan, a bigot, or some combination of the four.
All of these rancorous debates claim to be "examining the issue in question from both sides", but what they rarely (if ever) include is the perspective your post provides. How we treat each other is not determined by race, religion, political ideology, economic status, or historic grievance. In fact our treatment of others is not "deterministic" at all. WE CHOOSE IT. When we choose to treat each other with respect, understanding, and tolerance, even as we think, say and do things we might disagree with, this is not a compromise of our own principles. This choice is the very act that creates the environment in which those principles can exist.
The stories you tell of how South Africa is becoming "Post Apartheid" demonstrate this dynamic very powerfully. I hope all of us Angry Americans - be we atheist, evangelical, jew, catholic, muslim, mormon, gay, straight, liberal, conservative, black, white, brown, red, yellow, Bears Fan, Packer Fan, NRA member, ACLU member, left-handed dentist, or model airplane enthusiast - can buy a similar clue. As long as we continue to view attacks on the proverbial "them" as the best way to support whatever "us" it is we're trying to prove our loyalty to, the environment will only continue to get more hostile for all parties.
Certainly film has been a great force in helping "us" get to know "them" on a more personal and sympathetic level. Your devotion to that concept over the years has been among the greatest sources of my enjoyment of your work. Forget sleeping - Give us more blog!
Ahh the well. So much for talking about movies...I tried, albeit in vain, Mr. Ebert. Still, I am pressed to defend my position, as I have now been called a cultist, delusional, an athiest, and confused...and, have been threatened with an invisible dragon waiting to steal my soul (now that sounds like a good movie)! I certainly hope I haven't called any names or accused anyone of anything myself. My desire was only to point out my position and the consequences of others' positions. My only request, Mr. Ebert, is that you let this reply go up, even if you don't read it yourself, as I have spent a great deal of time on it. Many thanks.
-----
First, a reply to Nic Hautamaki:
Your description of the Occam's Razor is interesting, but I feel its "logical" assumptions are flawed. Not everything in life - and certainly not science - is always explained by the simplest explanation. Defaulting to the simplest explanation can't always guarantee truth. I think you agree that two people can think two alternative possibilities can be simpler from their view, so I won't try to give a far-fetched example. Let me however answer the question you posed to the Jehovah's Witnesses. The Jehovah's Witnesses (I can only assume) and I (I can speak only for myself) have to believe that taking God out of the equation has to negate the possibility of the universe having always existed without God. I believe that God is eternal, but the universe had a specific beginning - and that is the simplest explanation. Now, since we can't say my opinion is greater than yours, we have to rely on something else than logic or opinions: truth. For many reasons, this is why science and religion will always be linked. I feel evolution is something keeping a number of people from admitting the existence of God. I'll get to that in a second.
Now, on to the invisible dragon. Again, I think relying on ones own logic is faulty. Instead, we have to consider the source. Even if you are the world's foremost authority on invisible dragons, I don't think you can prove something based on only one person's personal account of something that can't even be proven. Even if you wrote that book, 3,000 years from now it wouldn't be any more credible or convincing. The Bible, on the other hand, is a very credible source. There is no book that has more original documents remaining from as long ago as the Bible. Historians often consider the Bible to be the most accurate historical document. There is nothing in the Bible that contradicts anything in any historical document based on primary sources, which are perfectly acceptable in the eyes of historians. If a history book contains portions on evolution, which the Bible obviously contradicts, it is based on documents from the past few centuries, not primary documents from millions of years ago.
I apologize, that got a bit long-winded. What I am getting at is that the Bible is as historically accurate as any book in regards to that time perion. In addition, the Bible was written over thousands of years by hundreds of different authors in a number of different languages. Still, there is no discontinuity or contradiction. Lastly, not one prophesy in the Bible has not happened (though, certainly, there are still some that have yet to come true). If your book can predict that someone will be born, with specific parents, in a specific place that currently doesn't even exist, then I'll read your book. Now, you (and many others) can certainly do your best do say that I am mistaken in any of my previous points. In no way am I prepared to defend all of them, so I won't even try. Instead, I'll offer another resource, in addition to the ones I have already mentioned.
Answers in Genesis - This is a site dedicated to answering people's questions about the validity of the Bible and creation.
Now, I'd like to address your answer to my rape comment. In your example, there is no way in the universe that I would ever rape that innocent woman. Not a chance. Rape is wrong 100% of the time. It isn't my responsibility to judge the individual for raping her and killing other innocent people. True, I would die, as would 100 other people. In due time, he will face judgement. I am responsible only for my actions, and I would never stoop to that level. Period.
Your last few paragraphs are bringing up the idea of how Christianity is more valid than any other reason. Basically, I believe that the Bible says that if you don't accept Christ as your savior, you will go to hell. If you believe that, but are a muslim, taoist, or whatever, then more power to you. If you don't, I'm in no position to say your beliefs are not valid. Fortunately, that job belongs to my God. Where other religions end up for eternity is not up to me. If the Bible is true, however, and literal interpretation of the Bible (which I refer to as Christianity) is correct, then no other religion can be equally valid. The Bible originiated before any other religion (Judaism, technically, though they often don't agree with what happened in the New Testament), so all others are offspring. You claim I am taking a 1/10,000 shot, but in reality I am taking a 1/1 shot, if it is in fact true. If not, then I agree that no other religion can be valid. There is no almost in atheism. I believe in the one true God (again, my view), athiests do not. I disbelieve in other religions for the reasons I have already presented. You go on to say that if I am delusional, it could eventually hurt people. If not, then the opposite is true, and we are in trouble to not believe it, if it is in fact true. Again, I believe there is valid proof. I suppose you can save your energy in trying to stop me from being self-delusional, as I believe what I believe for as good a reason as any: truth. With your beliefs, despite all the logic, etc., there is still a leap of faith that needs to be taken. For you, it is that no god exists, that thing can be rationalized or made logical, maybe even defined. For me, it is that God created the universe and that we must trust Him. I'll touch a bit more on this in a moment.
Now, in reply to J. David van Dyke (which actually came first, sorry):
Basically, the bulk of your post is stating that the Theory of Evolution is fact and that creation has no scientific evidence. Secondly, it sounds like you want to separate religion and science, when in fact (I believe) they are one in the same. I will admit that evolution is an interesting theory, but it has too many holes for me. You can make all the museums you want or talk about it in as many papers as you want, but that doesn't make it fact.
As I said above, I am no authority on this subject, so I won't even attempt to prove creation or disprove evolution myself. However, there is lots of scientific proof in favor of creation over evolution. In fact, there is nothing in our school textbooks that is more rooted in lies than evolution. Despite the fact that it is still theory, it is taught as undisputable fact, something no credible textbook should do. In addition to Answers in Genesis, which I linked to above, I would suggest a site called Dr. Dino, which again discusses the science of creation. In my opinion, once people can accept that maybe, just maybe, evolution is not as true as they are told, and that creation is just as valid, they will be able to take that leap of faith. It is this leap of faith that I think we are all taking, whether we put our faith in evolution, God, or whatever you may have. My faith is too weak to believe in anything other than the one true God.
-----
Mr. Ebert, I must again offer you my deepest apologies. I tend to be very verbose when I write, which is why I often avoid writing on other people's blogs (for fear of something like this happening). I can only assume people don't care to hear my opinions, so I often keep them to myself. Is that healthy? I hope I haven't encroached upon your blog, or more importantly your time. Again, though, I feel like I owe it to myself, and to those who directed posts towards me, to reply thoughtfully. I feel like I have said all I can say on the subject, so any future posts will be short and sweet. Best wishes to all, and thanks for taking the time to read.
ALL RIGHT, ALREADY! ENOUGH WITH THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. WE ARE UNLIKELY TO ANSWER THE QUESTION HERE, AND IF WE SHOULD, NEWS WOULDN’T GET AROUND. DO IT ON DRUDGE. THIS BLOG ENTRY WAS NOT ABOUT THE EXISTENCE (OR NOT) OF GOD, BUT ABOUT THE BEHAVIOR OF THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN GOD. IF I HAD WRITTEN ABOUT LOVE OF A MOVIE, WOULD WE BE DEBATING THE EXISTENCE OF THE CINEMA?
FAIR WARNING: STARTING NOW (7:30 P.M. NOV 17) I WILL ***DELETE*** ALL FUTURE POSTS ABOUT THE QUESTION OF GOD. IN ***THREE DAYS,*** I WILL GO BACK AND DELETE ALL EXISTING POSTS ON THE SUBJECT, WHICH ARE FORMING SUCH UNBROKEN TYPOLOGICAL STRETCHES THAT VISITORS INTERESTED IN THE ACTUAL BLOG TOPIC GROW DISCOURAGED. SAINTS PRESERVE US! ROGER
ALL RIGHT, ALREADY! ENOUGH WITH THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. FAIR WARNING: STARTING NOW (7:30 P.M. NOV 17) I WILL ***DELETE*** ALL FUTURE POSTS ABOUT THE QUESTION OF GOD. IN ***THREE DAYS,*** I WILL GO BACK AND DELETE ALL EXISTING POSTS ON THE SUBJECT,
_______
A typical Catholic response.
Roger, I am deeply diappointed in you.
Ebert: I don't want to diappoint you again, so I will supply a Typical Catholic response: Go to h-e-double-hockeystick.
As a Catholic, you've been taught only to think in certain ways.
Every time a Catholic brags that he's intelligent, i get the same reaction. You're not. You're Catholics. You've lost the ability to recognize the Correct Answer, and all you can do is sit in a corner and tell yourself, "Oh, I'm so smart."
You have the ability to moderate. You don't have to post every comment... but some of them might be interesting. Some of them might be more intelligent than you deserve. But removing posts already on the blog? That's Catholic nonsense, pure and simple.
That's why I have no respect for Catholics. Any of you.
If this was a debate... Roger, you just lost. Big Time.
Dear Mr. Ebert,
Some time back I was sorely tempted to write a small message (not about the existence of God) which, upon reflexion, I feared might be presumptuous, and so I cravenly abstained. At this point I shall put it forward, trusting you will take it in the spirit in which it is intended.
It appears to me that you are in essence a relative newcomer to hands-on Internet communications of this forum-blog-chatroom what-not kind, and may still have a few things fully to encompass about the particulars of this medium, the people it attracts and the pitfalls it nurses in its bosom. Although I am your age, I have been at this slightly longer (about seven years or thereabouts), and so permit myself to plead longer experience in order to offer a bit of (I hope) helpful, and at the very least well-intended, advice, to wit:
Whatever else you may do - *never, ever, feed the trolls*.
You see, I believe your original slip, if I may so call it, was to grace a certain message with an answer. Some messages should never be answered. The mere fact of answering is like inviting a vampire into your bedroom, and, you know what - the part that neither Bram Stoker nor the movies ever told you is: when you invite just one, you open the door to them all.
Well, at least on the Internet it seems to work that way. Real vampires may be better behaved than that, for all I know. Wouldn't be surprised, actually. Standards of behaviour do seem to be going down fast, don't they?
I really feel sad that actual point is being ignored and the whole thing about the article got deviated
Dear Roger,
All this talk about India has me stomach growling. Here's a small offering for you from a favorite website. Just don't go into the "Love & Sex" section or you might get yourself into trouble.
Mr. Ebert,
You seem stressed on your last post.
Maybe this comment will change the course of things, calmer, I hope.
You noted a bit back about Paul Theroux and mentioned his (great!) Times of London piece on Simenon and hinted about a blog entry about Camus vs. Simenon. That would be sublime. As I’ve noticed through the years you’ve dotted Simenon references every now and again in your reviews, which were always impressive and on point in regards to the context you were using them.
Did you get to read the recently re-released The Widow by Simenon? Any thoughts?
Thank you for everything.
Sincerely,
Walter
Ebert: Good idea! Not so much stressed as shouting to be heard.
@ Roger
Please..please..let me reply to the post by Smrana. Last post about God or faith or President Bush I promise:)
@ Smrana
Regarding my comments on the ‘collective unconscious’, I probably did misunderstand you. And I agree with what you were saying on that. Maybe:)
I will tell you why faith does contradict logic. Faith by definition is putting your whole-hearted belief into something, justified or not. It is not based on intelligent inference or even later verification. It is purely concerned with your ‘hope.’
Logic requires a close study of pattern or the lack of it, then inference and then a conclusion subject to rigorous verification. If something fails that yardstick, it is not called logical.
We DO a way to have to tell whether an airplane moving steadily is moving or not. That is called the theory of relativity. The theory of relativity is not concerned with the difference in nature of people, but only in the difference in their perspective of position and speed alone. So there is no ‘conspiracy’ in nature. Either propositions for the movement or otherwise of the airplane are equally true – still if you are inside the plane (with respect to the plane), moving if you are outside it. But that does not mean that all other magical possibilities are true as well.
The person making a claim has the obligation to provide evidence supporting it. The person the claim is made to, is not obliged to provide evidence against what is claimed. And hence, regarding the question of life after death, I would like to see any kind of proof.
There being no proof to deny life after death (there is plenty if you ask me, but that would require a long essay on the biological impossibility of 'soul' and a little more than the little science you admit to know) is not proof for life after death itself. Since you are the one making the claim, without the merest hint of evidence, your proposition of life after death is sent to the recycle bin, where it will stay till further notice.
Carl Sagan : ‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.’
You wrote - “Science takes as its object of investigation phenomena discerned with the five senses; what happens after death is beyond its purview. Its basic stance disqualifies it from speaking on the matter one way or the other.”
Why? Have you perceived anything beyond your five senses? If you have, how are you sure you were not having a psychedelic experience? What makes your or any other person’s fantastic imagination any more valid than science?
At least science demands hard evidence. You demand nothing other than my mere acceptance.
Again, you wrote - “It seems, therefore, that rather than trying to compare the relative merits of different views, it is far more fruitful to ask how a particular view influences people's lives in the present- whether it makes them strong or weak, happy or miserable.”
How is it more fruitful? Some reader commented on this blog a few weeks ago that all opinions are not equal. That is why we value Roger’s movie reviews more than we would value .. umm .. mine.
What makes people ‘feel’ strong or weak, happy or miserable is not necessarily concerned with truth. We find happiness in our wild imaginations. Nothing is wrong with that. It is valid for the human condition. But it cannot be branded as ‘the truth.’
To quote Bernard Shaw : “The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.”
To find the truth, we need an objective method. And that method is science.
@ Roger
Apologies for ruining this blog entry:) But I guess the question of the behavior of the people who believe in God is closely linked to God itself, because too often the definition of God is limited to the definition of God of the people who believe in God. Too cyclic? I will let it go now...
For those who love an argument for the sake of argument ad infinitum then all anyone has to do is write the words religion, violence, Darwin, abortion somewhere on the internet. You had it coming. I would strongly advise against a long post on JUNO.
Well I originally intended to link my whole post back to the point of the article but it was late and I forgot =[ Heartfelt apologies.
What I wanted to say was that Mr Ebert's article is a wonderful example of the best parts of human nature struggling against the worst. Of course, that statement is useless without defining what is best and what is worst.
In my opinion, religion falls into the same general category as nationalism, ethnocentrism, tribalism, etc. Basically it evolved in human society as a way for the few to control the many. This turned out to be a very beneficial thing for the health of ancient societies for the same reason that no animal has ever evolved two or more seperate and competing consciousnesses. Societies function at peak efficiency when power is as centralised into as small a number of people as possible, and when those people can exercise control with as little effort as possible. Religion is a wonderful tool for doing this, and like all wondeful tools, can be used to do both great and terrible things. The article does an excellent job of providing examples of both. Ultimately, in human history, societies that lacked religion, or a strong enough equivalent cultural identifier and organiser were conquered and destroyed/assimilated by those that did. And so the temptation towards religion, nationalism, and all other ism's (even racism, sexism, and other present-day culturally unnacceptable notions) is extremely strong. We've evolved to organise ourselves this way, into categories of an 'us', and a 'them' which unites 'us' in our strenous competition against 'them' for limited land and resources.
My argument is that in the modern era, on an overpopulated or soon to be overpopulated world with diminishing natural resources and available living space, these wonderful tools; religion, nationalism, etc, are really really dangerous. I do believe it would be to everyone's advantage to abandon any pattern of thought that divides people into 'us' and 'them' and to begin to work together to solve the challenges facing humanity sanely.
As an elementary school teacher, what I see on the playground and in the classroom is the exact same as what I see in international relations. Every argument devolves into 'He hit me first!' 'But she took my eraser!' 'It's NOT your eraser it's MINE' 'NO IT ISN'T YOU GAVE IT TO ME!' 'NO I DIDN'T YOU'RE A POOPY HEAD' 'NO YOU ARE!'
And I'm asking myself; what seperates the thought processes of these children from the people arguing over the middle east, the balkans, Africa, etc? Nothing really that I can make out. The truth is that everything these people say, just like the children, is factually accurate. The reason nothing ever gets solved is that we are all waiting for some arbiter of truth to come along like a teacher and say who is really 'right'. But of course, when I come along I never try to sort out who is really 'right'. I just admonish both sides that they are acting like foolish children and they better remember what is really important: getting along and making friends and concentrating on studying--not whose damn land--er--eraser it really is.
If the teacher never comes along, what are the odds the children work it out peacefully vs start fighting? Not that good, in my experience, and not that good in human history either, sorry to say.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I wish that people would learn the right lessons from human history. The right lessons are:
There is no such thing as an entire society of bad people; just ordinary people with bad ideas. Bad ideas are the cause of the major problems that face humanity today, and pretty much every race, religion, culture, ethnicity, nation, you name it, are guilty of the same bad ideas that keep causing the same problems. At their core, these are the ideas that divide people into 'us' and 'them', and focus on past misdeeds rather than future solutions. Ideas like nationalism, racism, sexism, religion, tribalism, etc.
Historically speaking, the only way to ultimately resolve conflicts between rival religions, cultures, societies, nations, etc, has been total and complete obliteration. From this viewpoint, the historical viewpoint, the reason that ongoing conflicts still exist in Africa, the mideast, or wherever else, is simply that one side has not succeeded in committing genocide against the other. This is precisely the kind of thought process that Hitler used when he embarked upon his quest to annhilate the Jews. Thankfully, in recent history, a second solution has emerged. Great humanists like Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, Bishop Tutu, and some others have demonstrated that humanity may finally be ready to start moving beyond the paradigm of genocide as a necessary final solution to all human conflict.
Hopefully humanism will ultimately gain sway long enough to solve some of the problems humanity faces today. Happily, pockets of it are in evidence; the election of Obama, the decision of the clerics at Hyderabad, and so on.
By the way Roger, what ARE your first and second most important pieces of news of the year--I'm assuming Obama as president is one; the other?
Ebert: The global economic crisis.
Thread of Babel
Here is link of Archbishop Desmond Tutu being interviewed by Bill Moyers in 1999.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GPTB_enUS289US289&q=truth%20and%20reconciliation%20commission&um=1&sa=N&tab=wv#
Ebert: Another interesting one: "Forgiveness, Reconciliation and the Archbishop"
RE: Would it be possible to put my responses in italics or bold font? Tyler's statements are in quotes, but I don't want anyone to confuse us. Thanks,
David
I believe this post falls within the parameters of "the behavior of those who believe in God," as opposed to whether God exists. Its also prescient now, as a recent political candidate (and blog entry by Mr. Ebert) has demonstrated.
Tyler D:
I'll try to answer these. I'll put what you wrote in quotes and then try to answer them.
You write, "Basically, the bulk of your post is stating that the Theory of Evolution is fact and that creation has no scientific evidence.”
Yes. Evolution is a theory, like gravity. Here is a good definition for “theory,” as used in science: As used in science, a theory is an explanation or model based on observation, experimentation, and reasoning, especially one that has been tested and confirmed as a general principle helping to explain and predict natural phenomena (Definition of Scientific Theory, 2008).
There is no evidence whatsoever for special creation, while all evidence points to evolution.
"Secondly, it sounds like you want to separate religion and science, when in fact (I believe) they are one in the same."
I disagree. I don’t think these two worlds can exist under the same standards because, well, they have different standards. Science is tenable, natural, measurable and falsifiable. (Evolution falls under all these parameters, by the way.) A religion based upon faith is none of these things.
"I will admit that evolution is an interesting theory, but it has too many holes for me. You can make all the museums you want or talk about it in as many papers as you want, but that doesn't make it fact."
I think the story in Genesis is interesting. But there is no evidence that the history of the natural world occurred as it is written in this beautiful story. However, I’ll make you the same deal I make with my students: Falsify evolution happened. I’ll give you an A+ for the rest of the year. ☺ Others have falsified once-widely-held theories (like those of Aristotle) and gained a lot more than an A+ because of it. (Finding a hominid fossil in the Jurassic strata would be a good start.)
"As I said above, I am no authority on this subject, so I won't even attempt to prove creation or disprove evolution myself."
Well, I teach it for a living, so on that level I am kind of an authority. I’ve taught it for ten years, hold two degrees in science education, and a large portion of the literature review of my dissertation addresses it. You can believe anything you want to believe, but evolution happens and has happened whether you believe in it or not. But don't take my word for it: 99.99% of scientists around the world accept evolution.
"However, there is lots of scientific proof in favor of creation over evolution."
No, there is not. Creationism (like astrology and cryptozoology) is a pseudoscience. Pseudosciences use science-like words, but have no scientific basis whatsoever. This is why there are no peer-reviewed articles in any science journal advocating creationism. There was a pro-intelligent design article by Stephen Myers published for a very short period in the journal "Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington," but it was quickly removed.
"In fact, there is nothing in our school textbooks that is more rooted in lies than evolution."
Umm, no. It is one of the most well- founded theories in all biology. I’ve written in a previous post why this is so. I have no problem teaching Marguiles’ and Sagan’s theory of acquiring genomes, or Gould and Eldridge’s theory of punctuated equilibrium, but both of these are different from creation in that they both provide evidence in support of themselves.
"Despite the fact that it is still theory, it is taught as undisputable fact, something no credible textbook should do. In addition to Answers in Genesis, which I linked to above, I would suggest a site called Dr. Dino, which again discusses the science of creation."
I have seen both sites, thanks. I suggest talkorigins.org. Two of the best recent books on the subject are Massimo Pigliucci’s Denying Evolution and Michael Shermer’s Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design.
"In my opinion, once people can accept that maybe, just maybe, evolution is not as true as they are told, and that creation is just as valid, they will be able to take that leap of faith. It is this leap of faith that I think we are all taking, whether we put our faith in evolution, God, or whatever you may have. My faith is too weak to believe in anything other than the one true God."
I think you just made my argument for me. Science is based in evidence. Religion is based in faith. I’ll start teaching special creation as soon as creationists find some evidence in support of it.
As an aside (and this is specific as to how believers and nonbelievers behave), creationism is not synonymous with Christianity or a belief in a deity. The vast majority of creationists are fundamentalist Protestant Christians in America. While there are small pockets of believers in creationism in Great Britain and Australia, only in America would a Vice Presidential candidate who advocates teaching creationism alongside evolution not be a total laughingstock. By the way: If Sarah Palin’s father actually did teach creationism alongside evolution, he was a lousy science teacher.
Ebert: Set quotes apart with Return and surround them with this HTML: for italics, and for end italics.
Roger:
Don't be a revisionist. Leave the posts up. It's humorous to see what direction the most intelligent bloggers in the blogosphere go. As an aside, was it a blessing or a curse to have such an honor given to your readers?
I think the most appropriate response is to stop posting interesting topics. Here's an idea: tapioca recipes. Feel free to run with it, Roger.
p.s. I heart God.
Ebert: Okay, I will. But some of the God posts were longer than the original entry, and created long landscapes of words discouraging to readers only interested in the blog topic.
Roger,
I have to agree with Mickey that it's worth leaving the posts up, but I would propose moving them to another link so as to keep the flow of comments on this page relating to the topic at hand.
Also, Mr. Hays, if that was a debate then as a participant in said debate you are not able to declare victor nor vanquished. In that regard I hereby declare in my role as an impartial observer that you should be spending your retirement enjoying activities that don't raise your blood pressure to the point of writing in all capital letters.
One final note for Roger: As a fellow Illini I was curious to know if you had read the very interesting article in the current Alumni Magazine about actor Larry Parks. As the first to testify before HUAC he was promptly blacklisted and even dedicated cinephiles such as myself have never heard his story before. I am very interested to hear your thoughts on the subject, and I thought you may even wish to include an entry in your Journal on the matter. I know that I will be adding his films to my Netflix queue and I would hope that further attention to this tragic story may inspire others to revisit those films as well.
Never stop writing.
Your fan,
Brian Shields
class of 2006
PS. Here is the link to the Larry Parks article:
http://www.uiaa.org/Urbana/illinoisalumni/0811b.html
Ebert: Can't do a separate link. By the way, those were my CAPS. Here's my interview with Larry Parks: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19680825/PEOPLE/808250301/1023
I just reread the original entry the replies and got a little overwhelmed at the responses that veered so utterly off course. Heading back to the initial topic of religious tribalism as a cause for oppression, has anyone here read the works for retired Episcopalian bishop John Shelby Spong? His discussions on what faith could be and (hopefully) what it's becoming vs. the violent circumstances surrounding its tribalistic origins (of which we've seen unfortunate, ample evidence here) are very enlightening and encouraging. Men like Tutu and Mandella have praised his theology. Park specifically on his books "Why Christianity Must Change or Die" and "A New Christianity for New World." There's my two cents on this discussion. Wow. Just...wow.
I found myself checking Mr. Ebert's blog several times today. Wow. I read the original post by Mr. Ebert, but seeing the youtube video brought me to tears. This the second time in less than two weeks that I've been overcome with emotion to this point. (The first being at about 12:30 a.m. on November 5, 2008.) I'm not an outwardly emotional person, so this is saying something.
I am putting the following quote on the wall of my classroom tomorrow morning:
"There is no situation that is not transfigurable. There is no situation of which we can say this is absolutely, totally devoid of hope, because thats what people thought about South Africa."
-Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Roger,
I continue to find your blog fascinating and challenging at the same time. As a devout Christian ( and please do not apply any stereotypical image to me ) it is difficult to read some of your blogs and many of the posts, but I enjoy the candor so much. I respect this crowd as no other and encourage any readers who have managed to journey this far down and still calls themselves a conservative to stick with it. The search for truth is SO important,and I think you are doing an admirable job providing a platform for us all.
thanks, so many times over
Hi Roger. i love your blog, your posts, your eloquence, and the light that shines through you and your work.
Oh, and count another indian reader to your tally. I'm also from Hydera -- kidding. But I am indian. From London. Not England. Canada. =)
vikas
A person of pure reason will be a calculating machine and since no folks are that way,there is no one like that.I am a person of faith which does not cloud my reason,they complement and enliven mutually.Faith is my centre.I think,therefore am---believe,therefore more than exist ,live.To believe or not is a choice.a rational decision,and the most crucial one.It is what is responsible for my engagement.If you really want to know about what I am struggling to express click SGI President Daisaku Ikeda
I'm curious as to why you would think that the fatwa on terrorism would bring about a change of feeling in the Middle East? Surely the intended audience of the statement is the West.
I think for any change in the Middle East to occur it would be more appropriate for church leaders in the US to denounce American aggression. Now that would be a story.
Ebert: I believe a great many, even a majority, have. Also the Pope.
ALLRIGHT!!ALLREADY !! IT'S EBERT'S BLOG ! POOR EBERT MUST BE
FEELING LIKE THAT ARAB WHO GOT NUDGED OUT OF HIS TENT BY A CAMEL!
LETS BE FOCUSSED!LETS REMAIN TO A POINT, SPECIALLY ME!
Roger,
This message is wildly off topic, but movie related. I'm sending it to this blog entry, because I don't know how else or how best to contact you. So please bear with me.
With all this talk of bailing out GM, it got me thinking about the way in which Hollywood has depicted the auto sector over the years. The first film I thought of was Paul Schrader's directorial debut, "Blue Collar." It's been 30 years since it was made and yet it remains as powerful as ever, depicting the desperation of plant workers and the mafia-like power of union bosses. Watching it recently, I was struck by how weak and ruined the auto union is today in comparison to the organized beast that Schrader portrayed back in 1978. His union is not just organized labor; it is organized crime in almost every sense.
Out of curiosity, I looked up your review of "Blue Collar." In it, you note that the main message of the film is "that unions and management tacitly collaborate on trying to set the rich against the poor, the black against the white, the old against the young, to divide and conquer." Yaphet Koto's character makes this point repeatedly throughout the film. In fact, "Blue Collar" ends with a violent freeze frame and Koto's voice making this grim observation.
It's a very powerful message, but was it ever true? In your review, you suggest that Schrader described the union-management relationship correctly, saying that Schrader is a "courageous" filmmaker for producing such a "radical" movie. I don't know enough about the auto industry of the 1970s to say whether he got it right. But certainly, the pundits who call for GM's bankruptcy today depict an auto union which, over the years, battled so fiercely for bloated entitlements that it ruined the company in the process. Hardly a tacit relationship between union bosses and executives.
The other great film about the auto industry is, of course, "Roger & Me" -- Michael Moore's first and probably best documentary. "Roger & Me" came out a decade after "Blue Collar," and the difference between the two films is stunning. Moore's depiction of the Michigan manufacturing sector doesn't show any sort of agreement between labor leaders and management. Instead, he presents a slick, indifferent, country-club elite that cares little if most of Michigan is reduced to Third World conditions while corporate profits balloon. This film is angry, if not radical, in its complete rejection of Reagan-era, trickle-down economics and union busting.
Of course, Moore's film is as much propaganda as it is documentary, and soon after its release, in 1989, it came to be known that Moore had played around with the chronology of events depicted.
Thinking about these two highly entertaining and thought provoking films, I'm left feeling somewhat disappointed. My sense is that both "Blue Collar" and "Roger & Me" distorted the basic facts about the auto industry in order to present more dramatic, more enjoyable stories. That disappoints me, because it leaves me wondering if films can depict complex political and economic issues in ways that are even remotely accurate. Maybe the best serialized dramas on TV can. Certainly, season 2 of "The Wire" provides a vivid, detailed, and balanced account of union life in Baltimore. But David Simon and his team of writers had 720 minutes to get things right; movies, at best, get a little over two hours to tell a story.
I appreciate what Simon does, and I wish that more writers would scrupulously fact check their work, even if its fiction. Why? Because popular entertainment leaves lasting impressions, and sometimes even comes to define our views on key issues and events. Plus, it's more fun to watch something and know that that's more or less how it happened. Maybe, though, that two-hour time limit makes it impossible for films to be accurate. I'd be curious to see what you have to say about this.
Ebert: October's "Flash of Genius" was very pointed.
Yes, you're right. They did denounce the Iraq war. What was all the hullabaloo with Rev. Jeremiah Wright's comments then? Wasn't he just saying the same thing?
I must again offer my apologies to Mr. Ebert. I really hope it wasn't my post that set you off...I really didn't intend for it to be as long as it was. I do, however, much appreciate the opportunity to participate in the blog, as well as the fact that you are going to keep the posts up. As someone alluded to, the Internet is a place where emotion is readily apparent, and topics such as this are quite prone to being heated. To the individual who warned of trolls, I must just say that I hope that wasn't in reference to my post...I really was just posting to participate in the debate that appeared to already be going on by providing a viewpoint I didn't feel was adequately represented. If a may, a small rebuttal.
Reply to J. David Van Dyke:
"Yes. Evolution is a theory, like gravity. Here is a good definition for “theory,” as used in science: As used in science, a theory is an explanation or model based on observation, experimentation, and reasoning, especially one that has been tested and confirmed as a general principle helping to explain and predict natural phenomena (Definition of Scientific Theory, 2008). There is no evidence whatsoever for special creation, while all evidence points to evolution."
Oh, so you observed evolution? Wow, are you really a billion years old? Again, I say that the Bible is the most well-documented book ever written, and it was written by people with first-hand points of view of the early years of the world, something evolution could never have. The "observations" scientists talk about supporting evolution, I can only assume, are things like fossils, etc. True, in the last couple hundred years people have pieced things together quite convincingly - convincingly enough to indoctrinate the masses, no doubt - but saying that there is no evidence for creation is just silly. Really, only archaeology really needs to be explained for creation's sake, and everything there can be explained by a world-wide flood (which, oddly enough, before Darwin's time, every religion had a reference to in their holy texts). The eruption of Mount St. Helens also went a long way in proving that things previously only explained by evolution could in fact happen in the blink of an eye. All other aspects of science, most notably species evolution, are perfectly possible if God were to create them the way they are. There is no need for evolution if God created everything.
"However, I’ll make you the same deal I make with my students: Falsify evolution happened."
This always makes me laugh. It sounds like you're almost admitting you can't completely prove evolution. I don't have to prove I am innocent to a jury; rather, a jury has to prove I am guilty. Likewise, if you aren't confident you can prove evolution 100% right, you shouldn't expect me to prove it to be 100% implausible. Obviously some things claimed in evolution could have happened, but that doesn't mean they did.
"...This is why there are no peer-reviewed articles in any science journal advocating creationism."
The fact that no journal funded by evolutionists carries an article in favor of creationism is hardly an argument.
"But don't take my word for it: 99.99% of scientists around the world accept evolution."
I'd love to see some proof to back that statement up. I expect an essay on my desk Tuesday morning citing every scientist in the world and a summary of their beliefs on the subject.
"Science is based in evidence. Religion is based in faith."
I can agree with you that good, hard science is based in evidence. Also, religion does take a great deal of faith. However, evolution can't be 100% explained by hard science. Again, I'm no expert, and I certainly can't argue all the points with you, so I won't even try. My only other question is in regards to the beginning of the universe. How exactly do you explain the Big Bang? How did nothing all of the sudden explode into something? Where did that nothing come from? If it was in fact something, how long had it been there? Forever, or did it also just appear one day? Now, prove that. If that substance had been there forever and just randomly exploded, then it sounds like you, too, believe in something with an eternal quality - something that has always existed. Perhaps you don't call it a god, but that is the leap of faith I am talking about. For you to be able to believe in evolution, you have to also believe that something could have triggered it.
Anyways, that's about all I can really say. I'll end with an exerpt from an episode of "Friends" that has always been a favorite of mine. The scene: Ross, a paleontologist, making his claim for evolution, that Phoebe disagrees with.
Phoebe: Ok, Ross, could you just open your mind like this much, ok? Wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the world was flat? And, up until like what, 50 years ago, you all thought the atom was the smallest thing, until you split it open, and this like, whole mess of crap came out. Now, are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can't admit that there's a teeny tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this?
Ross: There might be a teeny....tiny...possibility.
Ebert: About that "world-wide flood" that "every religion had a reference to." Which religions were those in North America, South America, Asia Major, Africa south of the Mediterranean, most of Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, the Caribbean, the Arctic and Antarctica? The theory of evolution has not indoctrinated the masses. It originated and is supported mostly by the worldwide educated scientific...elite. Creationism has more successfully indoctrinated those more credible members of the masses
Wikipedia, under "Deluge: mythology" lists deluge myths of some sort (many seemingly referring to a universal deluge)for all of the areas mentioned except Africa and Antarctica. Of course, you don't find too many floods, or religions for that matter, of any kind in Antarctica. Something to do with the cold, I suspect.
She still looked at him as if she did not understand. The sergeant repeated--
"What party do you belong to?"
"I don't know."
"Are you Blues? Are you Whites? Who are you with?"
"I am with my children"
--From Victor Hugo's Ninety-Three
http://www.daisakuikeda.org/index.php?mid=peaceb&dimchar=normal&sub=essays&sec=p-stopkill
[
Roger,
A word on your response to Shane (thanks for the shout-out, Shane): "'Do unto others as they would have us do unto them.' This is a great, great quote. I'm stealing it."
Now, while it's true that good artists borrow, but great artists steal (Did Stravinsky say that?), I want to give credit where it's due.
The idea comes from Kwame Anthony Appiah's book, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. In chapter four, "Moral Disagreement," he considers what he perceives to be the limits of the Golden Rule if we do unto others as we would want done unto us (or if we don't do as we wouldn't want done unto us). The Rule is a good start, he concludes, but in a diverse world many of us want different things done (or not) unto us. So he advises that "we learn about other people's situations, and then use our imaginations to walk a while in their moccasins" (p. 63). Hence the variation on the Rule.
I may have settled on the wording, but Appiah lays out the idea--one eminently worth stealing.
Thanks again for a swell site--and have a better one, as they say in Blade Runner.
Paul
p.s. Shameless Plug: Check out the second-best movie site ever by following the link above.
Here is a question:
Why is creationism and evolution thought to be mutually exclusive concepts?
In one corner, you have the traditionalist view of the Bible that what is reported in the Bible is factual. Therefore, Jonah did survive in the belly of a whale for 3 days because God's will kept him alive.
In the other corner, we have scientists stemming from Darwin's theory that debunk the theory of creationism, although if memory serves Darwin had misgivings because his intent was not to debunk the existence of God. Could be off and I am not checking wiki either way.
My feeling (and this is purely my feeling) is that God created the heaven and earth. As humans, this is all we know. It does not mean that he did not create anything else in the universe. We just don't know about it, yet. It's true that the members of the animal kingdom share bioligical fundamentals. But what would you have God do? Make every living thing so unique that humans could not understand basic nature?
Regarding evolution, we read in the Bible that humanity lived for years beyond our own life expectancies. Again, whether this is accurate or not, no one knows, we can only speculate. But, why wouldn't God, knowing that he created a living planet in a volatile universe, give plants and animals the ability to adapt in order to keep life into the world? I suscribe to a theory that God created what we know. It is for us to make the most of what was given. The major rule is the "do unto others" which I think religious and non-religous people who are essentially attempting to be good, ascribe to.
Call me ignorant. This is my worldview. It is totally benign, I offer it to no one to convert to whatever misgivings that they have. And it still permits me to profess my faith in God and J.C. and explain scientific advancements that those intending to prove the nonexistence of God make.
Ebert: About that "world-wide flood" that "every religion had a reference to." Which religions were those in North America, South America, Asia Major, Africa south of the Mediterranean, most of Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, the Caribbean, the Arctic and Antarctica? The theory of evolution has not indoctrinated the masses. It originated and is supported mostly by the worldwide educated scientific...elite. Creationism has more successfully indoctrinated those more credible members of the masses
Well, I'm off to work, so I don't have much time, but I'll add a few quick resources I just stumbled upon.
Flood Legends from Around the World
Comparing Global Flood Stories
That first site has a number of interesting sources at the bottom of the page - including a number written by real, live scientists. Off the top of my head, I do know there are flood references in the Koran, but I can't say any others from memory. Those sites seem to have a lot of info on the matter. I may have mis-spoken by saying "every" religion, but certainly an overwhelming amount.
On a side note, I was reading through your original topic again last night, and I noticed you said you had been to Tehran and South Africa. I consider myself a bit of a traveler. I've been to about 20 countries, but have never had the pleasure of going to either Africa or Asia. I'm curious to know if you have any suggestions of "Great Places" to visit (perhaps outside of Europe). I've seen a number of great movies as a result of reading your reviews, so I'd be very interested if you ever blogged more about your travels. Just another thought.
Ebert: I have not yet been to China, except for the remarkable Hong Kong. I found Japan fascinating, especially outside Tokyo. Calcutta and anywhere in India. Oh, yeah--Hyderabad, home of an intense concentration of readers of this Journal. South Africa is one of the most interesting places in the world, and one of the most spectacularly beautiful. Cape Town is its jewel. I once crawled up the secret passageway to the tomb in the Great Pyramid, but wouldn't have if I could have turned back. Claustrophobia. I am not a sufferer, but that tiny passage and all these rocks above you can do it to you. Brazil, Costa Rica, Darwin's Gallapagos. All over Hawaii. Quebec, while reading "Shadows on the Rock" by Willa Cather. My two most favoriote cities: London and Venice. Stockholm is a true discovery.
[From the book One by One by Daisaku Ikeda]
"I don't want toys or chocolate. All I want is peace and freedom. People of Europe, people of the world, please find the humanity in your hearts to put an end to this war!"
--A young girl of the former Yugoslavia
http://www.daisakuikeda.org/index.php?mid=peaceb&dimchar=normal&sub=essays&sec=p-nonv
Ebert,
I didn't have anywhere else to write this, it doesn't pertain to this topic. But anyways... The day your review came out on the film "Let the Right One In" it said blatantly that Eli was a boy vampire. I felt this to be wrong, I have seen the movie close to five times now and I can still say that I never got that vibe. I just figure that when she says she is not a girl, she merely means she is a vampire, associating with no discernible human gender. But I went back to your site again to read the review a second time and found that that particular comment was not there. It's possible that I misread it the first time, but I would like to think that either: a. you realized that comment was potentially wrong or b. you were alerted to it by another person; and went back and changed it. I find this very big of you and is one of the reasons why your reviews and comments will always stand above the rest. You have the courage to say when something you did was wrong or potentially wrong, and then change it or alert people to it, and I find that to be one of the reasons that you have so many people on your site and blog, showering you with the highest of praise. On the second note, I love your blog and I hope to see another entry soon.
Ebert: What Eli said was, "I am not a girl," not "I am a boy." A reader pointed out the ambiguity, and I reworded the review. A flash-frame of Eli's netherlands raises confusing possibilities.
Geesh. This means I'm spending my lunch writing again.
Mr Ebert: Feel free to give my Email address to Tyler if this gets tedious. In case I put the HTML signs in the wrong place, I wrote who said what, where. I omitted my own quotes that were repeated by Tyler.
Reply to J. David Van Dyke:
TYLER: “Oh, so you observed evolution? Wow, are you really a billion years old?”
DAVID: Yes, so can you. You can observe it in real time here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_011_20.html
TYLER: Again, I say that the Bible is the most well-documented book ever written, and it was written by people with first-hand points of view of the early years of the world, something evolution could never have.
DAVID: Did you happen to watch NOVA last night? If the Bible is to be taken literally, who observed Adam and Eve, writing about them in the third person? As I understand it, the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch) were traditionally attributed to Moses. How did he give a first-hand account when he wasn’t there?
TYLER: The "observations" scientists talk about supporting evolution, I can only assume, are things like fossils, etc.
DAVID: Evolution is both observable and testable. A common misconception is that “observation” only takes place in laboratories. In fact, physical and biological sciences from many fields use data from nature, in the past and present. Take, for example, astronomy and geology: Astronomers observe stars that were formed before human beings walked on the earth. Geologists can’t go back in time but they can take evidence from rocks of what happened in the past. But I can give you more than that, though. Evolution is reproducible in the laboratory, too:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/artificial_01
TYLER: True, in the last couple hundred years people have pieced things together quite convincingly - convincingly enough to indoctrinate the masses, no doubt - but saying that there is no evidence for creation is just silly.
DAVID: There isn’t any evidence of special creation. None. But we’re in the Information Age, so if a piece of evidence existed, you could find it pretty easily. So knock yourself out and prove us wrong. And our moderator is right: The masses are the ones who adhere to creationism, not the scientists. I join Shermer in his suspicion that creationism is most prevalent in America because we have freedom of speech, where everyone is given a platform for their ideas (as they should). I’ll go you one better than that: Find a credible piece of evidence for special creation and I’ll treat you to lunch at Roger Ebert’s favorite Chicago restaurant. Or how about you treat me if I find ten pieces of credible evidence? (Assuming, of course, you are anywhere near Chicago. I’m about 100 miles away, but visit my favorite city every other month. ☺ )
TYLER: Really, only archaeology really needs to be explained for creation's sake, and everything there can be explained by a world-wide flood (which, oddly enough, before Darwin's time, every religion had a reference to in their holy texts).
DAVID: Really? Other than an undergraduate class or two, I’ve not studied world religions, but this seems far-fetched to me. If there were a world - wide flood as described in the book of Genesis, wouldn’t there be evidence of such? Did this occur when the earth was one super-continent? Not according to the rocks.
TYLER: The eruption of Mount St. Helens also went a long way in proving that things previously only explained by evolution could in fact happen in the blink of an eye.
DAVID: As respectfully as I can answer this: What in the world are you talking about? Examining the eruption of Mt. St. Helens proves my point. St. Helens did not erupt instantly, but was preceded by earthquakes and an avalanche. Seismologists had gathered the preponderance of the evidence from multiple sources (just like scientists do when studying evolution) and warned people to evacuate two months before the eruption.
http://www.boisestate.edu/history/ncasner/hy210/volcano.htm
TYLER: All other aspects of science, most notably species evolution, are perfectly possible if God were to create them the way they are. There is no need for evolution if God created everything.
DAVID: I need you to clarify this sentence for me: Are you saying that evolution is possible because God created evolution? Are you saying that evolution needs not be taught, or that species themselves don’t need evolution? I’m happy to respond, but I need to know what you mean here.
TYLER: This always makes me laugh. It sounds like you're almost admitting you can't completely prove evolution. I don't have to prove I am innocent to a jury; rather, a jury has to prove I am guilty. Likewise, if you aren't confident you can prove evolution 100% right, you shouldn't expect me to prove it to be 100% implausible. Obviously some things claimed in evolution could have happened, but that doesn't mean they did.
DAVID: Yes, you’re right, at least in the literal sense. Science is tenable, and someday, theoretically, a better theory might explain everything evolution has successfully explained since 1859. Just like theoretically, a better theory might explain everything gravity has successfully explained since Newton. You don't have to prove it is impossible 100% though, even 1% would do it. (Knock yourself out. What is Roger Ebert’s favorite Chicago restaurant? I hope its expensive. )
TYLER: The fact that no journal funded by evolutionists carries an article in favor of creationism is hardly an argument.
DAVID: I think you need to look at funding sources for scientific journals. Any reputable scientist(s) who could provide credible, measurable evidence (as opposed to Intelligent Design, which I've already written on) that evolution has not and does not occur would receive instant publication.
TYLER:
I'd love to see some proof to back that statement up. I expect an essay on my desk Tuesday morning citing every scientist in the world and a summary of their beliefs on the subject.
DAVID: It’s “nearly every scientist,” not “every.” Michael Behe, Duane Gish, et al, make up an extremely small amount of scientists who deny evolution. The vast majority of scientists accept evolution. Scientists debate how evolution occurs (and occurred), they don’t debate whether it occurred or occurs. The Discovery Institute published a list a “scientists” who doubt evolution. The list included about 700 names of prominent scientists who don’t believe evolution occurs (and occurred). Upon closer examination, the list is very revealing: Only about 20% of the signers were biologists, and an even smaller percentage of that 20% had any experience with biological evolution.
In response, The National Center for Science Education launched “Project Steve” in honor of the great (and now departed) Stephen Jay Gould. That names on the list surpasses the number of biologists on the Discovery Institutes’ list, but with one exception: Every signer on the list shares the first name “Steve.”
http://ncseweb.org/taking-action/project-steve
As to your assignment.
You asked for it: Here’s the beginning of my lit review.
"...Within the world of public school science education, there is an obvious conflict between those who advocate curriculum that stipulates solely natural causes of science and those who advocate curriculum that includes intervention by supernatural causes. This academic and philosophical conflict has occurred in the United States for many years.
A 1978 study directly relates to the “equal time” issue facing educators today. In that year, as an answer to creationist advocacy to include curriculum that provides “equal time” with creationism in the public schools, the New York Board of Regents conducted a massive survey of curators of the world’s major natural history museums (Sunderland, 1981). The study included questions specific to the creationist’s claims that their position was being ignored.
The subjects interviewed were: Colin Patterson (Paleontologist, British Museum of Natural History); Niles Eldridge (Invertebrate Paleontologist, American Museum of Natural History); David Raup (Curator of Geology, Field Museum of Natural History); Donald D. Fisher (State Paleontologist, New York State Education Department); and David Pilbeam (Curator of Peabody Museum of Natural History). All of the interviewees plainly believed that all fossil and living organisms on the earth were derived from a common ancestor in an evolutionary lineage (1981).
To the scientific community, the importance of evolutionary theory cannot be understated. The teaching of evolutionary theory remains one of the central tenets to teaching science. At least one-third, if not more, papers now published in the academic area of molecular biology address evolution (Mayr, 2001). Natural evidence from multiple sciences including geology, paleontology, biogeography, zoology, botany, comparative anatomy, molecular biology and embryology has been discovered (Shermer, 2008). For decades, evolution has been recognized by the scientific community as a crucial cornerstone to learning life science and thus has been designated a significant portion of science instruction (Dobzhansky, 1973).
In their article for the Kappa Delta Pi Record, education professionals Donald K. Sharpes and Mary M. Peramas adhere to the dictum that there is no reasonable doubt about evolution, any more than there is doubt about the existence of evidence relating to diseases such as breast or prostate cancer (2006). Ernst Mayr, one of the twentieth century’s leading biologists, writes, “All evidence supports evolution, and no other scientific theory is a viable alternative” (Mayr, 2001)..."
I’ve supplied our moderator with my home Email address, and suggested he give it to you. I’ll send you a copy of the whole thing tonight. (Fair warning: It’s really boring.)
TYLER: I can agree with you that good, hard science is based in evidence. Also, religion does take a great deal of faith. However, evolution can't be 100% explained by hard science. Again, I'm no expert, and I certainly can't argue all the points with you, so I won't even try. My only other question is in regards to the beginning of the universe. How exactly do you explain the Big Bang? How did nothing all of the sudden explode into something? Where did that nothing come from? If it was in fact something, how long had it been there? Forever, or did it also just appear one day? Now, prove that.
DAVID: Here’s a good explanation:
http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/bigbang.htm
TYLER: If that substance had been there forever and just randomly exploded, then it sounds like you, too, believe in something with an eternal quality - something that has always existed. Perhaps you don't call it a god, but that is the leap of faith I am talking about. For you to be able to believe in evolution, you have to also believe that something could have triggered it.
DAVID: This reflects a common but fundamental misunderstanding. While the big bang and evolution support each other, they are not one and the same. I accept evolution because of the vast preponderance of evidence. (I use the word “accept” when referring to the science world, which is based in evidence.)
As it happens, I do believe in God. (I use the word "believe" when referring to faith, which is based in belief.) People who exhibit grace like Archbishop Desmond Tutu exhibits in the video above makes me believe.
TYLER: Anyways, that's about all I can really say. I'll end with an exerpt from an episode of "Friends" that has always been a favorite of mine. The scene: Ross, a paleontologist, making his claim for evolution that Phoebe disagrees with.
Phoebe: Ok, Ross, could you just open your mind like this much, ok? Wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the world was flat? And, up until like what, 50 years ago, you all thought the atom was the smallest thing, until you split it open, and this like, whole mess of crap came out. Now, are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can't admit that there's a teeny tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this?
Ross: There might be a teeny....tiny...possibility.
DAVID:
Yeah. Phoebe was the dumb one, right?
To Robert Paterson
In Saudi Arabia less than half of the people work, they are all on welfare from the Saudi oil revenue. When you can just stick a stick in the ground and up comes black goo, the freedoms and opinions of your citizenry don't matter. OPEC is trying to take over the world with their oil revenue through buying up our media, off our elected officials or think tanks, distorting our elected officials political rhetoric at its source, our presidential administrations, buying majority shares of our countries biggest companies and doing the same other countries around the world.
We need to bail out the auto industry. I wish congress was more knowledgeable concerning our need for energy independence. I wish Barack Obama was president right now. What our congress should do is let the auto industry have their bail out with one provision: to mandate that all cars sold here in the united states be flex-fueled (as Obama's energy policy would mandate by 2012), which means the detroit 3 would have to convert their cars which only costs about 100$ extra per vehicle and it will only get cheaper the more mainstream it becomes like everything else, such as computers. Then we would all be able to cheaply convert our cars over to flex-fuel cars if we wanted to. We should also do it with the methanol standard, which is only around 30 dollars extra, which is a less corrosive fuel injector for methanol. But the current flex-fuel vehicles on the road can use it.
What use is nuclear, wind, solar, electricity when we don't even make the plug-in hybrid cars anymore....we only use 3% of our electricity from oil. Nuclear, wind, solar, etc. is for our plug-in hybrid future! If the Saudi's have their way, and if we don't do anything about it, they most likely will, then with their power they will be able to distort our media--say how bad nuclear, solar, etc would be, or just plain bribe other countries out of it, or blackmail them and threaten to not sell oil to them if they start making plug-in hybrids, pay off our elected officials or think tanks, where our officials get their information, and perhaps start a nuclear war later on when oil becomes scarce and needs to be fought over.
Jeez, Roger, let's get a nice juicy movie argument going here again. When you invite "real world" considerations, you get "real world" nut jobs. The average person's anger button is somehow organically fused to their spirituality button, confusingly... push one, and the other seems to depress automatically.
Here's what I believe: there is a strong comforting bent to nature, regardless of that upper layer of predator vs. prey. When a person dies (like my own mother did, last Saturday morning), chemicals pump through them and they feel no pain - whether they've been attacked by a lion or by body-strafing cancer (as my mom was)... with death comes comfort, it seems, and nature itself seems to lack the true cruelty of man.
Besides, what's the worst imaginable afterlife? (realistically speaking... no lakes of fire here, because we all know you could only burn and re-burn enough times before you just take it for granted as the average Wednesday in hell)...No, The Worst Thing I can imagine after dying is waking up in my body, six feet under, with my mind still alive and trapped. But you know what? You would get used to that real fast, and design a kingdom of the mind that you could play in forever, with just the colors and flavors and sexual positions you favor. And that's the WORST possible afterlife, as far as I'm concerned. And that is because I believe that God/nature/chaos is not out to get us, and has no particular distaste for us or for antelope alike - when the teeth are in your neck deep, you feel what must be akin to an explosive orgasm and then pass onto the next level. Good deal, considered we were promised nothing coming into this thing.
Now back to movies! I got one: Star Wars prequels! Why does everyone hate 'em so much? They're fairly wonderful! What gives?
Ebert: Reassuring that the Returned report that tunnel of light. Why is that vision so widely shared? It could not be an evolutionary trait, because by definition the thoughts at the point of death could not improve a human's survival fitness. My theory: Because it is reported by those returning to life, perhaps the tunnel leads this way.
To Mickey:
"Why is creationism and evolution thought to be mutually exclusive concepts? ... This is my worldview...And it still permits me to profess my faith in God and J.C. and explain scientific advancements that those intending to prove the nonexistence of God make."
Science is certainly a wonderful gift. My wife is currently in medical school, and it's truly amazing some of the things we have been able to do as a result of exploring the scientific world. Species adapting to extreme circumstances in order to survive is certainly a viable possibility, but, personally, I'd like to thing "J.C." will return before that becomes too necessary.
To Ebert:
"Ebert: ...the remarkable Hong Kong. I found Japan fascinating, especially outside Tokyo. Calcutta and anywhere in India...South Africa is one of the most interesting places in the world, and one of the most spectacularly beautiful. Cape Town is its jewel. I once crawled up the secret passageway to the tomb in the Great Pyramid, but wouldn't have if I could have turned back...Brazil, Costa Rica...All over Hawaii. Quebec...My two most favorite cities: London and Venice. Stockholm is a true discovery."
Ahh, I think I have caught the travel bug again. I spent a semester in Argentina and traveled throughout South and Central America on my way back to the US. Oddly enough, I haven't been to either country that touches the US. The beaches in Costa Rica are amazing (which, I suppose, is why they call it "Costa Rica"). A friend of mine suggested we go to South Africa for the next World Cup, but I honeymooned in Italy this past year, so there's no money for that to happen. We didn't go north to Venice, but Rome, Pisa, and Florence were beautiful. London is probably next on my list, though I've also made it a point to visit the pyramids one day as well. My favorite city has to be Florene, but Rivas, Nicaragua has to be worth mentioning, if only for the volcano in sits next to:
La Isla de Ometepe
Your blog is a serious competitor to your site.
Ebert: You dare to prefer my Musings to my Lifework? Die, devil fiend!
"Violence vs. Nonviolence: The Struggle of the 21st Century
I am also reminded of a moving episode that Leo Tolstoy related in a letter written two months before his death. The letter, dated September 7, 1910, was addressed to Mahatma Gandhi.
The episode went something like this. There was a test on the subject of religion in a certain girls' school in Moscow. A bishop had come to the school and was quizzing the girls one by one about the Ten Commandments. When he came to the commandment "Thou shalt not kill," the bishop asked: "Does God forbid us to kill under all circumstances?"
The girls each answered as they had been taught. "No," they said, "not under all circumstances. We may kill in war or as legal punishment."
"Yes, that's right! You've answered correctly!" said the bishop.
Then one of the girls, her face flushed with indignation, spoke up: "Killing is wrong under all circumstances!"
The bishop was flustered and marshaled all his rhetorical skills to convince the girl that there were exceptions to the commandment against killing, but to no avail.
"No," she declared. "Killing is a sin under all circumstances. It says so in the Old Testament. Moreover, Jesus not only forbade killing but taught that we must do no harm to our neighbors."
In the face of truth in the girl's assertion, the bishop's authority and verbal skills were of no use whatsoever. In the end, he could only fall silent. The young girl, Tolstoy wrote with evident satisfaction, had proven victorious.
Let us amplify the words of that young girl—"It is wrong to kill, even in war!" And let us broadcast them to the world! "
SGI President Daisaku Ikeda
http://www.daisakuikeda.org/index.php?mid=peaceb&dimchar=normal&sub=essays&sec=p-nonv
Reply to J. David Van Dyke:
Sorry if you missed your lunch. If it's any consolation, I no longer sleep much. As I said before, there's not much left I can say, so I'll keep this brief. It's becoming more obvious that nobody's mind will change, but there are a few final things I'd like to say.
DAVID: Yes, so can you. You can observe it in real time here...Evolution is both observable and testable. A common misconception is that “observation” only takes place in laboratories...Evolution is reproducible in the laboratory, too: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/artificial_01
Ok, so here's the catch. When people hear "evolution" (and this is what I was arguing against), they are generally thinking about what should actually be called "macro-evolution." What you seem to be defending, at least part of the time, is "micro-evolution." I won't deny that genetic mutations occur. However, for the evolution of species to occur (i.e., monkey to man), new information has to be added to DNA to make that possible. Genetic mutations that can be observed (or recreated in labs) always result in either a change of current information, or a loss of information. Again, I don't claim to be an expert on this, but here's a good article to start with. Everything on this site supports my beliefs, so feel free to browse around. I can't even begin to suggest which articles should be read, as all are great that I have read. I do apologize, however, that they didn't use paragraph breaks on their site...though maybe that's just my browser?
http://www.creationinstruction.org/newsletter.php?nl=23
That article ends with an interesting point on how evolution (again, macro-evolution, not micro) can not be taken seriously even using the scientific method. I'm not sure if you said this, but someone mentioned that gravity is also only a theory. This article points out that gravity is a law, not a theory, unlike the theory of evolution.
DAVID: There isn’t any evidence of special creation. None. But we’re in the Information Age, so if a piece of evidence existed, you could find it pretty easily. So knock yourself out and prove us wrong.
Not sure what you are looking for here...perhaps see the reply on Mount St. Helens later? I think the point is that we have to have faith in God and what He gave us in His Word. Obviously nobody saw creation from a third person view, so there is no "proof" in that sense.
DAVID: If there were a world - wide flood as described in the book of Genesis, wouldn’t there be evidence of such? Did this occur when the earth was one super-continent? Not according to the rocks...Examining the eruption of Mt. St. Helens proves my point. St. Helens did not erupt instantly, but was preceded by earthquakes and an avalanche. Seismologists had gathered the preponderance of the evidence from multiple sources (just like scientists do when studying evolution) and warned people to evacuate two months before the eruption.
My last reply (which I directed towards a question Ebert had for me) had a link to info on the flood. Here is another article explaining how the eruption at Mount St. Helens supported a global flood over macro-evolution. I again agree that science helped in predicting the eruption, but that doesn't mean it proves macro-evolution.
http://www.creationinstruction.org/newsletter.php?nl=26
DAVID: I need you to clarify this sentence for me: Are you saying that evolution is possible because God created evolution? Are you saying that evolution needs not be taught, or that species themselves don’t need evolution? I’m happy to respond, but I need to know what you mean here.
Sorry, reading that again, I don't even know what I meant. I believe I meant to say that if God created each species as they are, there would be no reason for species-to-species macro-evolution. You might be able to devise a link, but if God created everything then he wouldn't have let us simmer and evolve for a couple million years just for the heck of it.
DAVID: You don't have to prove it is impossible 100% though, even 1% would do it.
I'll go back to the article on macro-evolution in reference to how we have never seen brand new information in DNA arising from a mutation, something necessary for macro-evolution.
DAVID: It’s “nearly every scientist,” not “every.”...As to your assignment. You asked for it: Here’s the beginning of my lit review.
Sorry, I may have worded that wrong again. In your previous post, you claimed 99.99% of scientists agree with evolution. If I can find 1,000 that don't preach it, that means you have to find 1,000,000 that do. I guarantee you I can find 1,000 people with a PHD, MD, or whatever, who would not agree with the possibility of macro-evolution. Perhaps you were talking about micro-evolution, in which case I'd agree with you 100%.
DAVID: Here’s a good explanation: http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/bigbang.htm
Thanks for the site. I needed a few quotes from there to make my next point. If I may quote, it says:
"What exisisted prior to [The Big Bang] is completely unknown and is a matter of pure speculation."
"If the universe is indeed finite, how long has it been in existence?"
The only possible explanation scientists can come up with requires something to have been there before the Big Bang. That substance would have either been there infinitely, or it had to have been put there. This article said it was created it...but by what? If the universe is finite (which I agree with), then something infinite had to start it. Why, again, would God need to rely on 15 billion years of evolution if He could do it all in a second on His own?
DAVID: This reflects a common but fundamental misunderstanding. While the big bang and evolution support each other, they are not one and the same. I accept evolution because of the vast preponderance of evidence. (I use the word “accept” when referring to the science world, which is based in evidence.) As it happens, I do believe in God. (I use the word "believe" when referring to faith, which is based in belief.)
I find it interesting when people say they believe in a god, but they also believe that man came from monkeys. If God exists, and created the universe, I see no evidence that he would have let us evolve into what we are now. My God is omnipotent and created us in his image. The universe and everything in it are His creation. If one doesn't believe that everything in the Bible is true, including special creation, then I really don't see the point in having a god at all. But that's just my two cents (err, I guess it's up to eight cents). I appreciate the debate, but I'm not going to defend any more points. I think if I haven't said it already, any answers can be found in the sites or books I have already put forward. Again, I can only hope I sparked a thought in someone's mind.
And, alas, I have been unable to watch "Confessions of Dangerous Mind" the past two nights, so I'm going to do that tonight instead of replying any further.
I only have two points to add.
The first is to correct spelling: Yukio Mishima.
The second is to comment that I do not believe that one can justify rape although one can rationalize doing various crimes including rape in order to survive. Trusting the promise one of who would set up such a sadistic test is always questionable.
That thread reminded me of two films:
"Casualties of War"
"Hotel Rwanda"
I so enjoyed this entry on India and Iran and the muslim community; thank you for bringing this to my attention.
I'm not sure if you're aware of travel writer, Rick Steves (often seen on PBS) but his blog is one that I visit as I do yours. He was recently allowed to visit Iran and his blog of his time there is fascinating, insightful, and ultimately hopeful. While the links may not be suitable publishing my comment in your blog, as Ricks political leanings are in line with my own (and I assume from your writings, yours) I thought you would find the links and his story an interesting read if you have the time.
http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/beyond/iran.htm
The trip will be broadcast on PBS early next year
http://www.ricksteves.com/iran/
Mr. Ebert,
I don't know if you are still posting these, but here are my answers. I think this is an important-enough conversation to warrant my response. (Some of my students are reading this, by the way.) -David
Hi Tyler,
The fact that you label macroevolution as “monkey to man” shows me that you have not really studied how evolution works at all, and don’t really have any idea what you are writing about. (You will note that I readily acknowledged that I was not a biblical scholar, so I didn’t write as if I were one.) No reputable evolutionary biologist has ever stipulated that one species (a monkey) evolved into another species (a man). The best evidence (and again, evolution is based solely in evidence) shows that humans and great apes show a common ancestor on the phylogenetic tree. But fair enough. Here’s evidence (something your site completely lacks) of macroevolution:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
The site you provided me (predictably) contains no evidence for special creation, only critiques of evolutionary theory, the DNA example for which was dead wrong. In fact, the latest genome map of the chimps very much supports evolution, showing that we are closer to chimpanzee DNA than rats are to mice.
Your own example lends itself to falsifiability, the concept of which I referred to earlier. DNA had not been discovered when Darwin proposed his theory. When the chimps’ DNA was mapped, should their DNA NOT be closely linked to that of humans, evolution could be falsified. But it was.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/jan/24/research.highereducation
That article ends with an interesting point on how evolution (again, macro-evolution, not micro) can not be taken seriously even using the scientific method. I'm not sure if you said this, but someone mentioned that gravity is also only a theory. This article points out that gravity is a law, not a theory, unlike the theory of evolution.
This is an exercise in semantics frequently used by creationists. The National Science Foundation has issued a statement indicating evolution is repeatedly testable and true. Should I instead write “the truth of evolution?” of “the fact of evolution?”
Not sure what you are looking for here...
Sure.
How about spontaneous generation of a species from inanimate matter?
Or how about a hominid fossil next to a dinosaur fossil?
Or even a fossil of an animal with a backbone next to a trilobite?
Here is another article explaining how the eruption at Mount St. Helens supported a global flood over macro-evolution. I again agree that science helped in predicting the eruption, but that doesn't mean it proves macro-evolution.
http://www.creationinstruction.org/newsletter.php?nl=26
I read the article linked above. It is absolutely ridiculous. This is why Dawkins calls creationism a “colossal, mind-boggling falsehood.” Do you honestly believe that the Grand Canyon got to be so grand because the Noah story is to be taken literally?! My word, I’m trying to be respectful, but this is absurd. It is simply and utterly preposterous to use the eruption of St. Helens as “proof” of a world - wide flood that occurred 10,000 years ago. To assume this, one would have to discount every piece of geological evidence ever accumulated. If God made the earth in the way you claim He did, why did he leave all the evidence indicating he didn’t?
As an aside, You are making the extraordinary claim that special creation happened, not me. All the evidence (and again, science is based solely in evidence) points to evolution. You should be the one providing the extraordinary evidence for your extraordinary claim.
Sorry, reading that again, I don't even know what I meant. I believe I meant to say that if God created each species as they are, there would be no reason for species-to-species macro-evolution. You might be able to devise a link, but if God created everything then he wouldn't have let us simmer and evolve for a couple million years just for the heck of it.
On the contrary, scientists have written quite a bit on macroevolution.
Ernst Mayr has written about it:
http://bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca/Evolution_by_Accident/Macroevolution.html
As has Lynn Marguiles:
http://www.panspermia.org/threetests.htm
And Stephen Jay Gould:
http://www.pnas.org/content/91/15/6764.full.pdf+html
And many others:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
I'll go back to the article on macro-evolution in reference to how we have never seen brand new information in DNA arising from a mutation, something necessary for macro-evolution.
Please see the link above explaining what macroevolution really is, how scientists “prove” it, and the massive amount of evidence in support of it.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
Sorry, I may have worded that wrong again. In your previous post, you claimed 99.99% of scientists agree with evolution. If I can find 1,000 that don't preach it, that means you have to find 1,000,000 that do. I guarantee you I can find 1,000 people with a PHD, MD, or whatever, who would not agree with the possibility of macro-evolution. Perhaps you were talking about micro-evolution, in which case I'd agree with you 100%.
Sure. Find me 1,000 accredited biologists (unlike most of those of the Discovery Institute’s List) first, and I’ll get to work.
"What existed prior to [The Big Bang] is completely unknown and is a matter of pure speculation."
"If the universe is indeed finite, how long has it been in existence?" The only possible explanation scientists can come up with requires something to have been there before the Big Bang. That substance would have either been there infinitely, or it had to have been put there. This article said it was created it...but by what? If the universe is finite (which I agree with), then something infinite had to start it. Why, again, would God need to rely on 15 billion years of evolution if He could do it all in a second on His own?
I don’t know. Good questions. As I wrote before, though, the Big Bang and the expanding universe (while supportive of evolution) aren’t synonymous with evolution.
But this again shows me that you haven’t really looked into the evidence. The universe (scientists estimate) is about 13-15 billion years old. Life on earth is about 2.8-4 billion.
I find it interesting when people say they believe in a god, but they also believe that man came from monkeys.
Does the Pope count? I’m not Catholic, but I’ll bet he believes in God. He accepts evolution.
He writes, “ “This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favour of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.”
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22136550-5002700,00.html
And again, evolutionary theory doesn’t say people came from monkeys.
If God exists, and created the universe, I see no evidence that he would have let us evolve into what we are now.
My word, Tyler, how much more evidence do you need?
My God is omnipotent and created us in his image. The universe and everything in it are His creation. If one doesn't believe that everything in the Bible is true, including special creation, then I really don't see the point in having a god at all. But that's just my two cents (err, I guess it's up to eight cents). I appreciate the debate, but I'm not going to defend any more points. I think if I haven't said it already, any answers can be found in the sites or books I have already put forward. Again, I can only hope I sparked a thought in someone's mind.
And, alas, I have been unable to watch "Confessions of Dangerous Mind" the past two nights, so I'm going to do that tonight instead of replying any further.
My God values critical thinking.
I like that movie too. –DVD
Thank you Roger.
I took a number of your courses, the first was long ago, on Luis Bunuel. And, now I teach in that same Graham School. Courses on Islam.
Be well, my friend.
Ebert: I miss the class so much! This blog has taken its role for me, especially in how I would ramble around before getting to the subject. I know many former students visit here, and wish more would comment! I saw Chuck and Eileen at a book signing, and threatened to mark them tardy.
Hi Roger,
Yes, something I picked up from you in the class was the technique of giving a long winded answer when you didn't know the answer to the question (or didn't want to answer the question). Then, the answer would complete with, "Did I answer your question?" Now, you weren't the one giving the long winded answer. Rather, you were mentioning it as a technique.
Works every time. (Just kidding).
But seriously, I don't know if there is a future for your Film Study course, but I sure hope there is, even if you just type your comments, as they get projected on the screen somehow.
Omer M
Hotels in Hyderabad have hiked up security measures to cut down on the risks of terror attacks but somehow they have come in the way of the warm hospitality of the five stars.