Book Review: Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (Dalai Lama)

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Ryren Cadora

I read quite religiously. Last week I picked up a copy of the Dalai Lama’s most recent book, Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (2012). In it he makes the argument that the world will be a better place if humanity begins to focus on building a system of ethics that is universal to all groups of people. Religion, he believes, is unnecessary to ground oneself in objective morality.

beyond religion

His Holiness the Dalai Lama adopts the Indic version of secularism. While the word “secular” has been bastardized and vilified in religious circles in the West, who see secularism as “antagonism toward religion,” the Indian traditions of secularism espouse “a profound respect and tolerance towards all religions” (p. 6). In this sense, the Dalai Lama seems to believe that religion is to be afforded the same respect as the religious. To this, I wholeheartedly disagree. I believe that people should be respected more than their belief systems in supernatural agencies.

Yet, despite this disagreement over simple administrative matters, the Dalai Lama makes a compelling case that ethics and morals are grounded in the biological natural tendency of humans towards social inner fulfillment. He shows that, despite any religious upbringing, humans are inclined towards acts of compassion that serve two purposes: 1) to alleviate the suffering of others and in doing so 2) to enrich our own lives and happiness. In other words, people generally do the right thing because it makes themselves feel good. If we understand this natural tendency towards kindness, we can harness it and live by its rules (such is the universally accepted Golden Rule).

Beyond Religion is divided into two parts. The first part makes his case for looking beyond religion to design universal ethics. The second explains how the individual might put this into practice. To have ethics and not put them into practice, he writes, makes your ethics completely worthless.

This book is not for socially active atheists. In general the atheist reader will take home nothing new from reading this book. Atheists have already looked beyond religion in determining that theft, murder, rape, and even gossip at the expense of others are wrong. This book would better serve religious folk, even devoutly religious folk. The Dalai Lama goes out of his way to refrain from espousing Buddhism, and he leaves ample room for Christians, Muslims, and other religious peoples to continue to see the world through their respective religions’ lenses, while understanding that humans are moral simply because they’re moral, not because a book tells them to be.

In that case, I recommend this book to people of faith. Reading it might help to bridge the gap between those who believe objective morality can come only from god and those who have found morality without god.

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Bible Contradictions #19: Who was Heman’s father?

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Ryren Cadora

Bible contradictions 19

Heman is not an extraordinary character in the bible. He appears to be nothing more than a struggling street musician who penned a depressingly dark one hit wonder called Psalm 88. Indeed, Heman is quite obscure. A quick look to BibleGateway shows Heman only being mentioned 16 times between four books (including his own).

So obscure is Heman that it should come as no surprise that the bible can’t keep track of who his father is. In 1 Kings 4:31 his father is Mahol. In 1 Chronicles 2:6 it’s Zerah. And finally, in 1 Chronicles 6:33 and 1 Chronicles 15:17 (the same book in which Zerah’s mentioned) daddy becomes Joel.

The editors of the bible must not have thought very highly of the bible if they didn’t bother to check this stuff.

This contradiction also appears in my video:

 

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The funniest thing in the bible? Man boobs.

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Ryren Cadora

The bible has a lot of hilarious verses. But there’s one in particular that will make you laugh so hard you blow your early morning vodka tonic out of your nose. The verse appears in Job 21:24 and, in some translations, reads as follows:

His breasts are full of milk, and his bones are moistened with marrow.

That’s right. Man boobs.

This is a baffling mistranslation in the King James Version. The verse merely implies that he is well-nourished. It might read better to say “His stomach is full of milk.” Indeed, some translations do substitute the word “stomach.” But many versions of the bible were quick to keep the man boobs reference.

Man boobs appear in the following versions of the bible:

  1. 1599 Geneva Bible
  2. Jubilee Bible 2000
  3. King James Version
  4. Authorized (King James) Version
  5. Young’s Literal Translation

It appears that every other translation of the bible cuts the man boob reference.

So I find it funny that a bunch of protestants could translate the verse as man boobs, and half a century later King James reads it and leaves it in his new version of the bible. You’d think someone would come up to the king and say “Maybe we should change this.” I mean, they changed almost everything else in the bible.

Just as well. The verse provides great fodder for healthy bible discussion.

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Bible Contradictions #18: Who was Moses’ father in law?

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Ryren Cadora

Bible contradictions 18

When Moses was a wanted criminal for murdering an Egyptian who did nothing more than strike a Hebrew, he stopped by Midian to white knight a group of women who were being hassled by some blue collared workers. When one of the girls told her father what happened, the dad invited Moses to eat with them and then repaid Moses’ kindness by forcing his daughter, Zipporah, to marry Moses.

In this story Moses’ brand new father in law, the first pimp, is referred to as Reuel (see Exodus 2). In Exodus 3:1, one verse later!, Reuel’s name is changed to Jethro. By time we get to Judges, Reuel/Jethro’s name is changed yet again to Hobab.

Nowhere in the Judaeo/Christian literature is it implied that Reuel, Jethro, and Hobab are three different people. Moses may have had multiple wives, but Reuel, Jethro, and Hobab are all known as the father of Zipporah. Some bible enthusiasts claim that these were all his names. Like he would introduce himself as Reuel Jethro Hobab, esquire. But if this is the case, then it’s not explained or even mentioned in the Bible. There should’ve been a footnote or something, Chicago style!

It looks more like the story of Moses had multiple authors who were not working in concert.

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God’s cruelty misplaced?: the Philistines and the ark

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Ryren Cadora

I could go on and on about god’s cruelty in both the old and new testaments (and I probably will soon), but first I want to get into a wanton display of cruelty against a completely innocent group of people. The story is perhaps well known (if you’ve ever seen Raiders of the Lost Ark).

Spielberg’s 1981 Indiana Jones film contains a formative scene, wherein a group of Nazis open the Ark of the Covenant and peer inside. What happens next has made its way into pop culture history. In the film god punishes the Nazis by melting their faces off. See below.

This is a reference to a biblical story in which god’s most hated tribe steals the Ark. Well, that’s not entirely true. It’s a pretty funny story. You see, the Israelites wanted to secure the Ark someplace safe. So where’d they take it? They took it into battle with the Philistines! I’m not kidding. The Israelites actually believed the safest place to hide the Ark was in the camp on the battlefield. Of course the Israelites lost the battle, and to the victor go the spoils; the Philistines found themselves in possession of the sacred Ark. This upset a priest so much that HE DIED.

The Philistines didn’t have much luck with the Ark. They carried it around their country, and wherever they went strange things happened. People involuntarily planked, face planted, and, for some reason, their hands fell off. A bunch of people mysteriously got hemorrhoids. Mice started taking over the cities. And many people suddenly came down with nasty cases of skin boils.

After many months of these strange plagues and hemorrhoids, the Philistines paid the Israelites to take the Ark back. On their way to return the Ark, they stopped by Beth-shemesh to get drunk, or something. The people of Beth-shemesh gathered around the Ark, opened it, and peered inside, somehow all 50,070 people gazing into 2×4 foot opening of the Ark at the same time. This angered god so much that he murdered every last one of them.

You see, god has a really busted face, and he doesn’t like it when people look at him. The contents of and that which is above the ark are literally the face of god.

So god murdered 50,070 people for merely looking at his face. But why such cruelty? And why the people of Beth-shemesh and not the Philistines? God hated the Philistines more than any other group of people, but he only sent them hemorrhoids and mice for literally stealing god’s face! He didn’t kill the Israelites for losing the Ark, even though god left strict instructions on how to keep it safe/holy (also here, here, here, and here). Why didn’t god smite the Israelites for not only losing the Ark, but losing it by taking it into battle against the enemy? That would be like walking around a crime-ridden city while carrying your entire life savings in your pockets and thinking that’s safer than, I don’t know, putting it in a bank!

Seriously, I don’t care if physical man is inherently a sinner and is, therefore, forbidden from looking upon the face of god. He should’ve been more pissed at the Israelites for losing the thing and the Philistines for stealing it than a bunch of innocent bystanders who were merely curious about what was in the box.

No. God always has to throw a temper tantrum and murder people for very petty crimes.

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These murderers are now in heaven; many of their victims are in hell

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Ryren Cadora

If you buy the heaven myth, then you gotta buy the whole myth. Even serial killers get a ticket to heaven if they meet the following requisites: accept Jesus as your lord and savior and ask forgiveness for your sins. That said, I’d like to point out a list of people who committed horrible crimes but are now enjoying eternity in bliss…according to the Christian religion. Many of their victims, on the other hand, are burning in hell.

Jeffrey Dahmer

jeffrey_dahmer

This serial killer was responsible for the deaths of at least 17 people, many of whom were minors. A cannibal, necrophile, and all-around weirdo, Dahmer spent his time in prison being saved, being baptized, converting to Christianity and ministering to his fellow inmates. He was murdered by a mentally unstable man in 1994. What makes Dahmer’s case so interesting is that, while Christian teachings have us believe that he is in heaven, almost all of his victims died during homosexual encounters. Therefore, if Christians are right, Dahmer’s sitting up there in heaven enjoying the finest things in the afterlife, but his victims are burning in hell. I wonder how many Christians ever bothered to consider this.

Stephen Morin

stephen_morin

Brutally murdered as many as 30 victims. His final potential victim survived after convincing Morin to convert to Christianity. He was executed in 1985, but just prior to his death he asked Jesus for forgiveness and gave himself to Jesus, thus securing his spot next to god.

Sean Sellers

sean-sellers

This one’s debated, but when Sellers was 17 this confessed satanist murdered his parents as they slept. He was sentenced to death row, where he converted to Christianity. Just before his execution he sang a Christian hymn, thus riding the stairway to heaven.

Velma Barfield

velma-barfield-8

This lovely lady, Velma Barfield, was convicted of one murder, but evidence suggests that she killed six, including her own mother, two husbands, a boyfriend, and a couple of elderly folk. She was arrested and sentenced to death. During her time on death row, she converted to Christianity and led prison prayer meetings. Upon her execution the Reverend Billy Graham sang praise for Barfield’s model of a good Christian. Billy Graham will be in good company in heaven we he departs this world.

Westley Allan Dodd

westley-allan-dodd-1

Dodd murdered and raped three young children, one as young as four. When he was captured he felt remorse and begged to receive the death penalty to ensure that he never hurt anyone again. The state complied and he was executed in 1993. In prison he converted to Christianity. His last words were, “I was once asked by somebody, I don’t remember who, if there was any way sex offenders could be stopped. I said, ‘No.’ I was wrong. I was wrong when I said there was no hope, no peace. There is hope. There is peace. I found both in the Lord, Jesus Christ. Look to the Lord, and you will find peace.” These days he’s frolicking in heavenly fields with his murder victims.

Michael Bruce Ross

michaelbruce

Michael Ross raped and murdered eight women from 1981 to 1984. In prison he converted to Catholicism and counseled other inmates. He felt extreme remorse for his crimes, and sought to expedite his execution, even though it took 18 years. His decision was twofold: First to provide closure to the families of his victims, and second, to return to god. And that’s where Ross is now, with god. He was finally executed in 2005, spending his final days in deep prayer.

David Berkowitz

david_berkowitz_prison_mugshot

Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, is still alive (as of this writing). But during the 1970s he was a prolific serial killer. His final body count stands at six dead and seven wounded. He blamed demon possession for his actions. Nevertheless, he was given a life sentence for each of his victims. One day while reading the bible with a fellow inmate, Berkowitz had a sudden conversion to Christianity. His faith led him to refuse parole even though he’s eligible under New York laws. These days he writes books and essays expressing hope through Jesus. While Berkowitz has a fairly good chance at getting admission through the pearly gates, some of his victims do not. They were shot while having premarital rendezvous, you know, a sin according to Christians.

Karla Faye Tucker

karla-faye-tucker-31

Finally, Karla Faye Tucker murdered two people in Texas with a pickaxe, claiming to have experienced orgasms after each blow. She was arrested and sentenced to death. During her incarceration, she converted to Christianity. Her deep spiritual conversion led several prominent figures, including the Blessed Pope John Paul II to beg for her life to be spared. The state even received pleas from the brother of one of her victims. This was to no avail, and she was executed. Her last statement contained apologies to the victims’ families, a prayer to Jesus, and a promise to see her loved ones again in heaven–all those things necessary to actually get to heaven. One of her victims, however, was a wife beater and possible drug addict, none of which correlate with being on god’s good side. Thus, she’s in heaven, and her victim in hell.

Conclusion

Christians would have us believe that no matter how awful our crimes are, we still have an opportunity to go to heaven, even if we’ve stolen that opportunity from our victims. If one is murdered during the throes of sin, one is damned, or so the Christians would say. But their murderers get to heaven by default, as long as they repent and accept Jesus.

This has even more horrible implications for rape victims. A person is raped, their rapist is caught, and he finds salvation through Christ. His victim, on the other hand, is unable to cope with the trauma and commits suicide. The victim goes to hell by no fault of their own, while the rapist goes to heaven. I ask again: Do Christians even bother to consider these major ethical problems with their god?

NOTE: This was originally posted on one of my other blogs, but since I’ve created this one specifically to handle atheist-themed posts, I decided to repost it here.

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Bible Contradictions #17: Are sins forgiven?

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Ryren Cadora

Bible contradictions 17I posted about Mark 3:28-29 before, but I wanted to hit this one home again. The bible is full of passages speaking about god forgiving sins. We can rape, murder, commit acts of wanton genocide, and blaspheme against god and Jesus. And in the course of one nanosecond of repentance all prior bad acts are wiped away, expunged from our eternal permanent record. But during Joshua’s quest to murder every living he came across, we learn that god is a jealous fellow who is incapable of forgiving certain ethnic groups. To make matters worse, god can’t forgive anyone, no matter how holy they are, if they blaspheme against the holy spirit.

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The Quran is basically just a book of threats (against pretty much everyone)

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Ryren Cadora

My Muslim roommate gave me a copy of the Quran, telling me that if I read it I will “surely become a Muslim, as everyone who studies religion will find the truth in this book.” I spent two evenings reading it in its entirety, but after only two minutes I noticed something peculiar and grabbed my orange highlighter.

It's soiled because even my cat (tail pictured) thinks it's BS. So he knocked over my water while I was reading it.

It’s soiled because even my cat (tail pictured) thinks it’s BS. So he knocked over my water while I was reading it.

The image above shows two typical pages in the Quran. The highlighted sections are passages in the Quran that espouse violence against nonbelievers, calls them idiots, or promises that Allah will torture them in fire forever. This, quite literally, takes up about 60% of the Quran.

Nonbelievers (also called “enemies,” “wrongdoers,” and “mischief makers” in the Quran) are identified as Atheists, pagans, polytheists, Jews, Christians, and spiritualists who have heard even a “partial truth” from Muhammad, but who “refuse” to acknowledge “what they know is clearly true.” Of particular note, Muslims who kill Muslims are condemned to hell, but are still treated better than nonbelievers because Allah will pardon them after Jesus is resurrected and Allah commences his final judgement.

Why does the Quran say these things? Well, it elaborates. According to the Quran, because I’ve read even a single word from the Quran, I am now a Muslim and a believer. But because I refuse to acknowledge that, I am disobeying Allah.

Sorry Quran, but I’m still 100% atheist.

But really, a book should stand on its own merits, not empty threats. And the Quran is filled to the brim with empty threats. More than half of the damned thing is passages condemning disbelief. Could it be that it contains so many threats against nonbelievers because Muhammad made the whole thing up and felt insecure?

Finally, I suggest that everyone read the Quran. It’s pretty hilarious!

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The bible doesn’t understand physics: Baffling blunder in the Book of Joshua

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Ryren Cadora

Yesterday I wrote about how Joshua became the only person in the bible who commanded god to do something that god actually did. It wasn’t a prayer, a plea for help; it was a demand. Basically, in order to win a battle, Joshua ordered god to stop the sun in the high sky for 24 hours. God abided. This got me thinking. It’s been a number of years since I’ve taken any physics classes, but I still remember enough to understand how catastrophically disastrous this would be to every living thing and structure on the face of the planet.

We now understand that the sun isn’t actually revolving around the earth, but instead the earth is rotating, giving us the illusion of the sun traveling around the earth in roughly 24 hour periods. The earth rotates at approximately 1,675 km/h (1,040 mph). We don’t feel this movement for the same reason that we don’t feel a jet moving unless it slows down, speeds up, changes directions, or crashes. In the case of the earth suddenly stopping its rotation, it would be much more like a plane crash, only much, much worse.

If the earth stopped suddenly, everything not sufficiently anchored to the earth would suddenly fly sideways at 1,675 km/h. You and all humans across the globe would be flung into mountains, trees, or anything else standing in the way, and you would hit these objects at breakneck speeds. If there is nothing in your way, you will drag along the ground until all the skin and limbs were torn from your body. Buildings would twist, crumble, and collapse as the loose foundations beneath them shifted violently.

If you happen to survive being thrown into dense objects or dragged across the earth, you’d still have to contend all kinds of objects slamming into you. Boulders, debris from destroyed buildings, and other people would be piling on top of you with crushing force.

If you live relatively close to a body of water (most of the earth’s population), the oceans and lakes of the earth would suddenly slosh, creating a series of massive and freakishly fast tsunamis as the waters rock back and forth across the globe. This would likely utterly destroy the planet as we know it.

To make matters worse, each point on earth absorbs energy (heat) from the sun for half the day and radiates energy into space for half the day (on average–this depends on distance from the equator). If the earth stopped spinning for even one day, as is done in the Joshua passage, suddenly half the earth would be absorbing energy for 24 hours, while the opposite side of the earth would radiate energy for 24 hours, causing one side to be intensely hot and the other side to be intensely frigid. This might also create very warm oceans, leading to deadly and sustained tropical storms. The atmosphere might not get too warm to sustain life on the illuminated side of the earth, but it would be unpleasant, to say the least.

Now that you can imagine a very hot illuminated side of the earth, whereon every living thing has been soaked by numerous massive tsunamis and slammed into the sides of mountains, and finally bombarded with a blanket of other people and debris… now imagine after 24 hours and Joshua has claimed victory in battle god flips the switch back to the on position, causing the earth to begin revolving at 1675 km/h again, throwing everything in the opposite direction at 1,675 km/h.

I wasn’t a physics major in college, so there might be a few mistakes. But generally I think I have a sound hypothesis going here.

If god really stopped the rotation of the earth, then he really put into play a lot of other suspensions on the laws of physics, explanations that should’ve been included in the bible (y’know, if god was actually real). But for reasons no one can explain (unless he’s not real), he chose to not reveal anything to his followers.

No, this just goes back to man’s inability to understand that the earth rotates and revolves around the sun. The bible clearly doesn’t understand physics.

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Is prayer not working? Try commanding god to help you!

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Ryren Cadora

The Old Testament is chock full of military conquests of god’s chosen people over nonbelievers and polytheists. The Book of Joshua is a prime example. Joshua was commander of one such pre-crusades crusade. He sacks Jericho, saving a lone inhabitant: a prostitute. He then approaches Ai and suffers a humiliating defeat. Not wishing to lose favor with his men, Joshua stones one of his own men, a thief who’s blamed for the defeat, and makes a second attempt to take Ai, scoring a narrow victory over the Canaanites. Upon approaching the next city, Gibeon, Joshua takes note of the city’s size. Fearful of the pending campaign against Gibeon, Joshua hastily signs a peace treaty with two undercover Gibeonites, without first asking god’s permission. Joshua then realizes that he just signed a peace treaty with the people god commanded him to kill. Upon realizing what happened, five other surrounding kings send their armies to attack Gibeon. Joshua is having none of this, and he disregards god’s commandment to kill the Gibeonites and makes a commandment of his own…to god: 

Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.

And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

God Should’ve been pissed at what Joshua had done. But Joshua pretty much said, “to hell with god’s commandments! Hey, god! It’s about time you did something for me! I command you to make the sun stand still long enough for us to defend the Gibeonites!”

And god listened! God stopped the sun in the high sky for an entire day, allowing Joshua’s army to defeat the five kings.

After the victory, Joshua again disobeys god. Although he ultimately conquers Gibeon, he takes its inhabitants as slaves instead of killing them, despite god being pretty clear that he wanted Joshua to kill them all. It’s a small crime, I guess, considering that Joshua spends the rest of the book murdering every man, woman, child, and goat he comes across.

The moral of this story is unrestrained and indiscriminate killing is ok…I mean, it’s that god’s a pushover. Even if you explicitly break one of his commandments, he’ll do anything you ask of him if you just demand it hard enough. Prayer’s for wimps. So if you want something, man up and demand that god give it to you! Even if it’s something as incredible as stopping the movements of celestial bodies.

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