Biblical Burning Bush

Exodus 3:2 And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.

Exodus 3:4 And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses.

Although the Bible (KJV) is somewhat unclear as to who is in the bush we can note with certainty that this was the last instance of such an occurrence. There have been no recent sightings of orally enhanced unconsumable burning bushes. Perhaps both the angel and God were in the burning bush. Would it be proper to speculate as to what God and the angel were doing in the bush?

If such a report were to be received in our time (2008) the skeptical antennae of curious scientists would go up while the pious parade of pilgrims to the site of the burning bush would proceed forthwith. No doubt a new shrine would be built to commemorate the occasion. One group seeks evidence while the other seeks salvation. One group wonders if David Copperfield was in the area while the other knows that Jesus was present.

A talking, unconsumable burning bush is indicative of science fiction to the skeptical mind for scientists know that such occurrences do not obtain in our universe. When bushes burn they are consumed and they do not speak with a human voice. It seems ridiculous to be making this point in the 21st century.

Deities must be imbued with supernatural characteristics in order to inspire awe and fear in the credulous and to establish their authority to be heard and followed. Humans who speak for the deity trade on these characteristics as reminders to the pious that God is superior to them and can do terrible things to them if they disobey the commands of the Lord. In ancient times, if a human wanted to be taken seriously his god had better have characterisitcs more wonderful than rival deities. A talking, unconsumed burning bush does quite well in that regard.

To the religious a report of a burning bush that spoke would fit into their world view that allows the laws of the universe to be suspended by God at any moment to suit his purposes. Hope springs eternal. Anything goes in the religious universe. Skeptics perform a useful service for the devout. They weed out charlatans leaving only valid instances of the miraculous.

In the 21st century we know that the contents of the universe have individul identities. That is why we can label an item, say, an apple, and not have to worry that it will acquire the properties of a coconut when we are not looking, Exodus 4:2-4:9 notwithstanding.¹ It is sad that there are those who think that such an occurrence is possible. In a recent survey done for the American Medical Association and published in the August 2008 edition of Archives of Surgery 57 per cent of respondents believe that God can intervene to revive the dying when medical personnel say nothing further can be done for their loved one. Apparently when their own relatives were the assumed ill person 20 per cent of medical personnel shared this belief in divine intervention. And when a patient does recover after doctors have said that further treatment is futile in our glee at the happy turn of events would we wonder about the significance of all the instances in which doctors were correct? Was the deity too preoccupied on those occasions? Was the patient not worthy of preservation? Does the deity play favorites?

Is it more likely that the talking burning bush is an example of science fiction or of a universe gone wild? We have yet to witness the spontaneous transformtion of an apple into a coconut. Things are what they are. It is what it is. Bushes don't talk and when they burn they burn.

While some of us wait for the second coming of the biblical burning bush (and won't we be miffed should it occur in a part of the world far from us and speaks in a language with which we are not familiar) the rest of us will move forward with a metaphyics rooted in reality and focus our attention on promising avenues of research that can assist the human race to improve on the imperfections we find in the universe that we inhabit.

If the verbal instructions from a burning bush would assist us to eradicate disease from the world we wouldn't care who are in the bush or what they were doing. We would have an oracle and the keys to the universe. Science and technology would be so much easier with an operating guide.

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1. Leprosy in the 20th century - the real deal

Popeye

Popeye

So keep "Good Be-hav-or", That's your one life saver
With Popeye the Sailor Man.

On December 8, 2009 a Google Doodle of Popeye The Sailor Man commemorated the 115th birth date of E.C Segar , Popeye's creator. Popeye is shown roughing up the Google logo while preparing to ingest a can of his beloved spinach, the source of his superhuman strength. In their mission to have a little fun with a memorable and adorable American icon, Google may inadvertently have provided a lesson in philosophy - proof of a negative.

 

From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:

fiction, noun: something invented by the imagination or feigned; specifically : an invented story

 

If a character is deemed to be fictional is that not proof of a negative? Popeye does not exist as an independent sentient being. Nor could he exist in reality as he is said to possess powers that no human could possess.

Since we know the originator of this comedic character to be a human with an imagination and that Popeye did not appear to the world before January 17, 1929 we know Popeye is fictional. To be a fictional character, especially one with purported superhuman strength (when he eats his spinach), is to have no external presence as a sentient being. Since Popeye is fictional he does not exist except in the minds of those who have become aware of his fantastic exploits through mind to mind communication of some external sort. We do not expect to meet Popeye in person. He is a creature of our imaginations and does not exist without us.

 

To be fictional is to be contained within human minds. We may give existential expression to the character as was done with Popeye via comics, TV, movies etc. but we do not mistake these expressions in reality as anything but the physical representation of a creature of the mind. There is no sentient being with the properties possessed by the imagined character of Popeye. There is no human being with overdeveloped forearms who has superhuman strength after he downs a can of spinach.
 

From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:

Supernatural, adjective: departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature

Similarly, we know that theocratic sacred texts were written by humans about the supernatural exploits of gods. Gods share many of the properties, such as superhuman strength, of known fictional characters. Many of us no longer believe in the external existence of Apollo, Odin, Horus, Zeus, Mithra, etc. We recognize them as creatures of the mind belonging to a more unenlightened time. We never expect to meet Superman, Batman or Spider-man in our travels in the real world unless another human is posing in costume.

The supernatural exploits of our favorite god mirror the properties of a creature of the mind and extend them into the realm of the quite fantastic. We can make our gods do anything. The imagination is not limited by the laws of nature, ergo gods can flood the world, walk on water and raise the interred, ergo...
 

We would like the world to be different than it is but prayer to an invented supernatural being will not change the way it is. We must adapt to the difficulties of our existence. Wishful thinking can provide direction but, if possible, only reason will drive us to our destination.

Secrets of the Immaterial Mind

Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines immaterial as: not consisting of matter.

Ideas are immaterial but they depend for their existence on the substrate of a functioning material brain.

Humans have no experience with any other kind of idea. In human experience ideas require consciousness and consciousness is the means of discovering that which exists. As Ayn Rand puts it: consciousness is consciousness of something.

Humans give expression to their ideas via the material universe employing such media as print, voice, art, music, plays, cartoons, TV, the internet and physical structures. This list is not meant to be exhaustive.

We know that Mickey Mouse was given public expression by Walt Disney somewhere around 1928 and before that MM was known only to the mind of his creator. Mickey was created for entertainment and it is easy to tell that Mickey is a fictional character. We know there is no walking, talking anthropic mouse named Mickey under contract solely to the Walt Disney company.

More nebulous are reality claims for characters such as Big Foot, Susquatch, the Abominable Snowman and the Loch Ness monster. Here we probably lean to the fictional category because of the quality of the evidence so far presented for belief and our knowledge of the propensity for some mischievous humans to commit hoaxes and create urban legends.

Less obvious is the claim made by some that their favorite deity is real, i.e., that there is an external referent for the concept of God heretofore left undefined.

It would seem to me that either the stated deity is made of something or it is made of nothing. If it is made of something then we have the quandary of explaining the origin of that something. Is there yet another being behind the scenes of the worshipped one?

If the assumed deity is made of nothing then what exactly are we talking about? Why make much ado about nothing? It can't affect us in any way. Paraphrasing Delos McKown, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University: the immaterial and the non-existent look very much alike.

The secrets of an immaterial mind have been exposed. It is made of nothing and hence it doesn't exist except in the minds of living self-conscious creatures called homo sapiens. Note the irony.

We don't have a universal definition for the deity because it is a creation of many human minds. We can make a god into anything we want and in theological history it could be claimed that we have done just that. Of the thousands of gods that we now reject we try to focus on one and come up with a self-consistent concept for what it could be.

Unless this god shows up in modern times as he is reported to have done in the past he must be relegated to the plethora of fictional characters that the human mind has conceived throughout its history.

Neither god as nothing nor god as something can predate existence. Existence is the starting point and any call to account for the universe is a question belonging to the same category of meaningless queries as what is north of the north pole.

How could it be otherwise? If ever there were absolutely nothing we would not be here to discuss it.

This is the real secret of the immaterial mind and has proven very difficult for most humans to grasp and accept as the implications are too daunting for minds conditioned by Sunday sermons.

After all, where would morality come from if not from an immaterial mind?

Perhaps from the material minds that created Him?

There are not too many of us that would enthusiastically enforce Exodus 35:2.¹ This verse makes God both irrelevant to our age and an abomination before us. We have left Him behind. Some of us have just not realized it yet.

Q: Prove God doesn’t exist.
A: That’s a tough one. Show me how it’s done by proving Zeus and Apollo don’t exist, and I’ll use your method. ~from Pat Condell

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1. Exodus 35:2 clearly states that anyone working on the Sabbath should be put to death. You really going to feel good about enforcing that one?" -- Penn and Teller on the Bible

Staying Alive

Adam was said to have lived for 930 years. Methuselah comes in with the greatest reported longevity of 969 years.

Fact or fiction?

Heads or tales?

In the 21st century we can be excused for doubting the reliability of these figures since no one was around to authenticate them. The longest lived person with valid credentials was Jeanne Calment who was 122 at her death. See Wikipedia under Methuselah.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

There can be none in the case of the patriarchs.

Tales.

Second Time Around

Jesus is not the only ancient biblical character to have benefited from the practice of resurrection. Apparently, it was quite prevalent in olden days and a skill that was fairly widespread among the biblical elite.

We all know the story of Jesus and Lazarus but Jesus also raised the daughter of Jairus shortly after death and a young man attending his own funeral. See the New Testament.

Peter raised a woman named Dorcas and Paul raised a man called Eutychus.

Elijah vanishes in a whirlwind in 2 Kings (2:11).

If we are to believe John Smith founder of the Mormon Church a resurrected John the Baptist ordained him.

In the modern era William M. Branham founder of the faith healing movement of the 1940s claimed to have raised a boy from the dead in 1950.

Fact or fiction?

Heads or tales?

From the perspective of the 21st century we can be excused for doubting the authenticity of such stories. Dead is dead. Resurrection makes great science fiction though. Zombies are always good for a fright.


Tales.

Religion equals mind control

Religion equals mind control. See it in action.

Individual rights trump religion. See it in action.

It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible. – George W. Foote

The world holds two classes of men – intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence. – Abu’l?Ala al Ma’arri

Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. – Frater Ravus

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. – Seneca the Younger

A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows. – Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. – Anonymous

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. – Steven Weinberg

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. – Susan B. Anthony

Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based. ~Ambrose Bierce

Blasphemy contest

Winning phrases of CFI's blasphemy contest

* "Faith is no reason." submitted by Ken Peters of California
* “There’s no religion like no religion,” submitted by Daniel Boles of Thailand
* “I wouldn’t even follow your god on Twitter,” submitted by Michael Hein of South Carolina
* “The reason religious beliefs need protection from ridicule is that they are ridiculous,” submitted by Michael Nugent of Ireland
* “I survived the God virus,” submitted by Perry Bulwer of British Columbia, Canada.

Answering Life's Tuff Questions

Like "why isn't tough spelled like tuff?" That would make too much sense.

If there is a god, why would a universe be required?

What purpose would a universe serve for this god?

What would be the marker for the achievement of this goal?

Why create living things? What is the point?

And why create them with lifespans?

Why create a universe with helminth parasites, hemlock, guinea worms and mosquitoes, all of which can result in the death of other living things?

These things are easy to comprehend if we assume the universe had no direction and evolved to its present state without a purpose in mind. We can accept them readily as 'just the way things are' if no designing agent is conjured as a universal director.
Otherwise they would appear to be the expressions of a diabolical mind.

Guinea worms are ingested by humans when they swallow water containing tiny fleas that have previously ingested the tiny eggs of the guinea worm. The eggs develop in the intestine and achieve a length of about three feet after about a year. Then males mate with females in your digestive tract who must lay the eggs in water. The guinea worm now begins to move by burrowing through your organs on its way to your skin. As they get near your skin they secrete an acid that causes extremely painful blisters on your skin to provide them an exit route. As you treat these blisters with water the guinea worm thanks you by bursting through your skin like spaghetti with a head. Over the course of the next several weeks you will want to pull the guinea worm out of you, inch by inch, in such a way as not to cause the worm to split. This would leave the rest of the worm still inside you where it will calcify under your skin. The worm won't kill you but secondary infections in your blisters such as tetanus will see to your demise. And how did humans discover these things? The universe does not come with an operating manual. We had to learn by trial and error. There was no Microsoft helpline to call to get a solution. No direct line to the director. People died so that others could learn to avoid the danger.

And the point of this lovely creature creation to a loving god? Blank out.

The ascaris worm is an example of a helminth parasite that lives in your intestines and can form clusters larger than a softball that can block your intestinal passages. When these guys migrate within your body they can cause deadly conditions like pneumonia and gangrene.

And the point of this lovely creature creation to a loving god? Blank out.

Hemlock is a poison. It can cause paralysis and seizures depending on the variety.

And the point of this lovely plant creation to a loving god? Blank out.

Mosquitoes are a disease vector and are responsible for the death of over a million people per year. Going back to biblical times the number of people whose lifespans were shortened numbers in the billions. If you were god would you create such a creature? Forgetting for the moment why you would want a universe in the first placewhy would you construct it with creatures that attack, maim and kill the humans that you love? If the universe is fine tuned for the emergence of human life it would also seem to be fine tuned for the development of these and many other nefarious organisms? Hell of a design. With thanks we praise thee for the remarkable pests and poisons that assail our persons.

An operating guide to the universe would be a handy aid to living for ignorant humans.

Unfortunately we had to discover a lot of things by trial and error.

If you were god would you supply a manual to your intelligent creations, to the ones for whom you created the universe?

And why did you create them? What do you need from them?

Do you obtain pleasure from watching someone drink hemlock and succumb to the poison?

Why didn't you warn the first person to 'discover' the hard way that hemlock is not a nutrient?

These and many other 'booby traps' for humans exist in the universe. Why did you create them?

When a plane crashes and there are survivors why do we thank you? Were the ones who perished not worthy of saving?

Or should we think that the ones who perished are the favored ones and that the survivors are reviled because you did not want them with you in paradise?

Why do we value life if the objective is to get to heaven? Babies who die take a shortcut to paradise. Do they grow up there? Will their parents recognize them when they get there?

What is the point for you? Amusement? Judging? Adulation?

For how long? For how many? When is it over for you? When will your goal be achieved?

What is your goal? To attract more people to heaven than Satan can entice into Hell?

What is the prize and when is it won? When is the game over?

All of these questions go away if you do not exist. We just accept the curious nature of the universe in which we find ourselves and seek to suck the most pleasure from our carcasses as we can before we can't. We try to figure out how things work without an operating manual and congratulate ourselves when we solve one problem and then we move on to the next.

The future of the human species seems inevitable. If our expanding sun does not wipe us out then our future collision with the Andromeda Galaxy certainly will. If you were god why would you build in that ending?

If you were god why would you need a universe at all?

Need implies imperfection.

Even god is human.

Baby Z

As reported on Yahoo on November 5, 2009, 'MELBOURNE (AFP) - A "miracle" Australian baby has become the first person cured of a rare and deadly brain-melting condition after doctors gambled on an experimental drug tested only on mice, they said on Thursday. The child, known only as "Baby Z", was facing a painful death of seizures and brain damage from molybdenum cofactor deficiency, a genetic defect which causes a build-up of toxic sulphite and usually kills in months.

But she made an amazing recovery just three days after first being given the untested treatment which was flown in from Germany and rushed through the courts.

Within hours after receiving the experimental drug cPMP the child's sulphite levels began to drop and reached normal levels in about 3 days.

God stood by and watched and was prepared to allow this child to suffer a painful death as had many others in the past who had suffered from the expression of this rare genetic defect.

Scientist Gunther Schwarz of Germany had tested cPMP on mice with success and shipped the drug to Australia for use with Baby Z. Biochemist Rob Gianello had discovered the drug which fixes the previously incurable condition.

This is another example of humans correcting God's work.

God comforts while humans save.

The universe may not care that we are here but we do.

Shack Attack

In the fictional novel 'The Shack' by William Young, God is depicted as a triumverate of characters: God Himself takes the human form of a black woman something like Auntie Mame, the Holy Spirit is a somewhat amorphous spirit called Sarayu and Jesus appears to play himself. The nature of the Jesus DNA does not come up in the story. The Shack tells the story of a tragedy that strikes Mack's daughter Missy who is abducted in the midst of another crisis and murdered in a shack in a remote location in the Oregon wilderness. The book attempts to deal with the problem of evil which is essential for theists to resolve if their God is to be saved from analytical oblivion. How can a loving God who created humans as His pets allow the unspeakable evil to befall us and stand by without doing anything? This seems unconscionable to us so theists must find a way to 'explain (excuse)' God from a rather obvious moral judgement. The book repeats the story of 'The Fall' set out in Genesis. Since Adam chose to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil RATHER than trusting in a loving God the human race henceforward had to experience the evils of the world outside of Eden. God can be 'with us' in our pain and suffering but cannot intervene because He respects our choice to live by our minds. So the triumverate in the book assures Mack that Missy was never alone during her terrible ordeal and that Missy took comfort in that fact. This image is supposed to relieve Mack of some pain and allow him to go forward with his life.
God allows evil because He respects the choice made on our behalf by Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
If you were God why would you create a universe? What would be the point of it?
Asuming we can find a satisfactory answer to that one would you fill the universe with a 'pet' and then subject that pet to all manner of hazards that can attack its very existence?
The answer seems obvious.
And doesn't this answer call into question the very existence of such a superbeing or set of superbeings?
The pet acts to find solutions to the hazards so that they can be neutralized as the pet seeks a better environment in which to live than the one provided by God. Or He doesn't exist in the first place.
We are here. We don't know why. We have no universal operating manual to consult so we must figure it all out on our own. It just is the way it is and we must deal with that.
There is no God, never was a garden of Eden or an Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of a fictitious tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That is just a mythical story created by humans to offer some comfort to their fellow beings.
The Shack will appeal to and serve as affirmation for devout Christians but can offer scant comfort to those facing a denouement to their lives that consists of the excruciating pain of cancer. Humans provide morphine to dull the pain and provide a more comfortable journey into death. Who is more humane: a God who does nothing because of a choice made by the first human or a doctor with pain killer? Who is your friend? Who is really there with you?
In the story there was no one there with Missy. She died a horrible, painful death committed by a sick human being who had executed other young girls. All the prayers in the world didn't help Missy. And the fact remains, God, if He exists, watched it all.
Is He worthy of praise, adulation or love?
Or is it easier to believe that He doesn't exist?
Anger is the proper response to such despicable crimes.
Forgiveness allows the victim's relatives and friends to move on with their lives without allowing anger and revenge to consume them.
We don't need God for that.

Shiloh

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Shiloh, the mermaid girl, died at age ten in October of 2009 of a rare congenital condition known as Sirenomelia. People with this affliction are born with fused legs, hence the mermaid label, and often die within days of birth due to complications from kidney and bladder development and function. Shiloh was an exception. If you were God would you intervene to fix this problem? Would you design your universe to avoid such cruel and unusual imperfections?
These things are easy to comprehend if we assume the universe had no direction and evolved to its present state without a purpose in mind. We can accept them readily as 'just the way things are' if no designing agent is conjured as a universal director.
Otherwise they would appear to be the expressions of a diabolical mind.

If you were God...

why would you create a universe? What would be the point? What need of yours would it fulfil? Why do you need anything?
When will your purpose for the universe be achieved?
Assuming we get by the first question:
What would you put in it?
Would you include life?
How would that life develop? Full blown creation or by evolution?
Would you deliberately include poisons and other hazards to life?
If such hazards evolved would you leave them or intervene to nullify their nefarious effects?
What kind of god would you be? Good or evil?
Would you really want people to live by the laws of Leviticus?
Would you intervene via prayer fulfillment or miracle?
For whom and when?
And what would be the point to this universe?