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