Athiesm in the Worlds of the Fantastic, with Super Science

Kalinara wrote up a post about how hard it would be for a person to be an atheist in the DC universe. She hauls out the standard that in a world where people regularly interact with divine beings, it should be impossible, or extremely difficult, to deny the existence of gods or God or other creatures of divinity. (I've used the word "divine" and its derivatives a lot this morning.) Denying those beings as you interact with them would be like standing on the beach in San Diego watching and hearing the surf roll in and out and smelling the sea breeze and denying that there was an ocean out there, right?

It's a classic thought and pretty logical. There's good reason why it's been around so long. For a while, I agreed with it. To pretend that something in front of you doesn't exist is just stupid. I don't think that way anymore.

I decided that just because something is in front of you, doesn't mean you shouldn't question it. Especially when you live in a fantastic world. And most especially when you live in a fantastic world that has tons of super science in it.

I understand that on a world like Middle Earth or Krynn or other such fantasy worlds where the gods and magical beings talk to regular people and no one seems to be out to explain how the universe works through science and mathematics it would be very hard to deny that a being who claims to be divine wasn't divine.

But the DCU isn't like those worlds. The DCU is full of aliens and strange creatures born from the depths of the ocean. Not only do the aliens bring super suits and power rings, but there are villains and heroes who make robots that absorb energies and pills that give people super strength. Hyperspace and wormholes and beams of energy are the normal ways for people to travel between stars and galaxies. Aliens, who look human, fly because their skin absorbs and converts solar energy. Men run faster than the speed of light because chemicals spilled on them as lightening struck. Women turn invisible by pointing a "black light ray projector" at themselves. And then there are so many people who get fantastical abilities because a gene, or combination of genes, becomes active through natural or artificial means.

Super science. That's what so-called gods and divine beings have to contend with. To be taken for what they say they are, they have to convince the people of the world that they aren't just guys and gals with a flight ring or spandex made out of an invulnerable fiber or who drank the wrong (or right, depending on how you look at it) soda and can suddenly lift a bus over their heads. How can they prove that they're magical or divine by summoning a feast when the US army has a transporter that can send a man to the asteroid belt? Hurling bolts of lightening seems less impressive when there's a guy out there who can summon hurricanes and blizzards by waving the mechanical wand he built*. When a robot can age or de-age a man by looking at him, when a group of explorers or a woman invents a ray that can heal all but death or a father can take his severely mutilated son and save his life with cybernetics, why should anyone think those who claim to be divine are?

In that kind or a world, could there be anyone who didn't doubt the existence of the supernatural and divine? Probably, but I think there'd be a lot less of them than there are on our world.

PS The strangest responses to her post were that some people decided that the atheists would probably be more like, "Sure, gods exist, but why should I worship them? What have they done that I should use my precious time and energy to tell them how great they are?"

I don't think a person who say gods exist is an atheist, but, you know, I like to go by the definition of the word.

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* I know it's been retconned out, but fuck that.

Photo Phursday

Jesus blessing the cars.

This part of the church was build in 1900. It was closed to the public in the mid seventies because it's not earthquake safe. Regular people still aren't allowed inside.

I am my brother's biggest fan.

This was a project for his English class in 12th grade. Guess what they were reading...

I swiped this from my parents the last time I moved away from their house.

An Odd Comment

Over at the Xanga version of this blog, someone called "TheVoiceReturns" responded to the "God Angrily Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule" I re-posted yesterday with this:

```````


"But God has promised us a new heaven
and a NEW EARTH, where justice will rule.
We are really looking forward to that!"
(2Peter 3:13)(CEV)-BibleGateway



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(The link is mine.)

My first thought was that passage reads like an argument for people traveling between stars to settle on new worlds. From a "new earth" around a different star wouldn't people gaze upon "new heavens" each night? On a "new earth" wouldn't the people there only settle with people who share their views? Wouldn't that make it so, at least for a while, "justice will rule," since they all share the same idea of justice?

I was going to be flip and ask about space travel and colonization, but the more I thought, the more I wondered how that passage relates to God not wanting people to kill people. So, not expecting any sort of a response, I wrote back:

I see nothing in that passage that says killing is necessary.

Is killing justice? Is that what you are suggesting?

Quoting a passage like this after I re-posted something that says God doesn't like people killing people leads me to think that's what you're saying. Without you giving me an idea to your interpretation of that passage, that's what I'm going to assume.

If you ever come back here, I'd like an explanation. Do you, or at least the part of you who blog as TheVoiceReturns, believe that God wants people to kill people and through the killing this new heaven and new earth will come to be?

I don't get it.

And I really don't get it. I'd like to, though. I want to understand how killing (or not killing) relates to a "new earth, where justice will rule," but I don't.

Do any of you?

Today, Again

Because it's a more fitting tribute to today, I'm going to re-post The Onion's "God Angrily Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule"

NEW YORK—Responding to recent events on Earth, God, the omniscient creator-deity worshipped by billions of followers of various faiths for more than 6,000 years, angrily clarified His longtime stance against humans killing each other Monday.

"Look, I don't know, maybe I haven't made myself completely clear, so for the record, here it is again," said the Lord, His divine face betraying visible emotion during a press conference near the site of the fallen Twin Towers. "Somehow, people keep coming up with the idea that I want them to kill their neighbor. Well, I don't. And to be honest, I'm really getting sick and tired of it. Get it straight. Not only do I not want anybody to kill anyone, but I specifically commanded you not to, in really simple terms that anybody ought to be able to understand."

Worshipped by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, God said His name has been invoked countless times over the centuries as a reason to kill in what He called "an unending cycle of violence."

"I don't care how holy somebody claims to be," God said. "If a person tells you it's My will that they kill someone, they're wrong. Got it? I don't care what religion you are, or who you think your enemy is, here it is one more time: No killing, in My name or anyone else's, ever again."

The press conference came as a surprise to humankind, as God rarely intervenes in earthly affairs. As a matter of longstanding policy, He has traditionally left the task of interpreting His message and divine will to clerics, rabbis, priests, imams, and Biblical scholars. Theologians and laymen alike have been given the task of pondering His ineffable mysteries, deciding for themselves what to do as a matter of faith. His decision to manifest on the material plane was motivated by the deep sense of shock, outrage, and sorrow He felt over the Sept. 11 violence carried out in His name, and over its dire potential ramifications around the globe.

"I tried to put it in the simplest possible terms for you people, so you'd get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important," said God, called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions. "I guess I figured I'd left no real room for confusion after putting it in a four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to Moses. How much more clear can I get?"

"But somehow, it all gets twisted around and, next thing you know, somebody's spouting off some nonsense about, 'God says I have to kill this guy, God wants me to kill that guy, it's God's will,'" God continued. "It's not God's will, all right? News flash: 'God's will' equals 'Don't murder people.'"

Worse yet, many of the worst violators claim that their actions are justified by passages in the Bible, Torah, and Qur'an.

"To be honest, there's some contradictory stuff in there, okay?" God said. "So I can see how it could be pretty misleading. I admit it—My bad. I did My best to inspire them, but a lot of imperfect human agents have misinterpreted My message over the millennia. Frankly, much of the material that got in there is dogmatic, doctrinal bullshit. I turn My head for a second and, suddenly, all this stuff about homosexuality gets into Leviticus, and everybody thinks it's God's will to kill gays. It absolutely drives Me up the wall."

God praised the overwhelming majority of His Muslim followers as "wonderful, pious people," calling the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks rare exceptions.

"This whole medieval concept of the jihad, or holy war, had all but vanished from the Muslim world in, like, the 10th century, and with good reason," God said. "There's no such thing as a holy war, only unholy ones. The vast majority of Muslims in this world reject the murderous actions of these radical extremists, just like the vast majority of Christians in America are pissed off over those two bigots on The 700 Club."

Continued God, "Read the book: 'Allah is kind, Allah is beautiful, Allah is merciful.' It goes on and on that way, page after page. But, no, some assholes have to come along and revive this stupid holy-war crap just to further their own hateful agenda. So now, everybody thinks Muslims are all murderous barbarians. Thanks, Taliban: 1,000 years of pan-Islamic cultural progress down the drain."

God stressed that His remarks were not directed exclusively at Islamic extremists, but rather at anyone whose ideological zealotry overrides his or her ability to comprehend the core message of all world religions.

"I don't care what faith you are, everybody's been making this same mistake since the dawn of time," God said. "The Muslims massacre the Hindus, the Hindus massacre the Muslims. The Buddhists, everybody massacres the Buddhists. The Jews, don't even get me started on the hardline, right-wing, Meir Kahane-loving Israeli nationalists, man. And the Christians? You people believe in a Messiah who says, 'Turn the other cheek,' but you've been killing everybody you can get your hands on since the Crusades."

Growing increasingly wrathful, God continued: "Can't you people see? What are you, morons? There are a ton of different religious traditions out there, and different cultures worship Me in different ways. But the basic message is always the same: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shintoism... every religious belief system under the sun, they all say you're supposed to love your neighbors, folks! It's not that hard a concept to grasp."

"Why would you think I'd want anything else? Humans don't need religion or God as an excuse to kill each other—you've been doing that without any help from Me since you were freaking apes!" God said. "The whole point of believing in God is to have a higher standard of behavior. How obvious can you get?"

"I'm talking to all of you, here!" continued God, His voice rising to a shout. "Do you hear Me? I don't want you to kill anybody. I'm against it, across the board. How many times do I have to say it? Don't kill each other anymore—ever! I'm fucking serious!"

Upon completing His outburst, God fell silent, standing quietly at the podium for several moments. Then, witnesses reported, God's shoulders began to shake, and He wept.

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday. Did you know that?

I didn't, until I got to work and was speaking with one of the ladies. Earlier, I saw her fiddling with the copy machine before we spoke. As we were speaking, I noticed a black and gray smudge on her forehead. And, thinking it was toner, I told her.

"It's Ash Wednesday," she said.

"Oh," I said.

"Yeah," She said.

And I walked away.

I always thought that those Ash Wednesday people were supposed to have a cross put on their forehead, not a smudge. My guess is that she couldn't stop herself from playing with it and she smeared it all over.

After the awkward conversation, I looked Ash Wednesday up on Wikipedia to find out what, exactly, the ashes symbolize and where the use of the ashes came from. What, I wanted to know, are the origins of Ash Wednesday?

Wikipedia was very little help to me. It says something about the ashes have something to do with reminding people that they are really nothing ("Remember, man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.") which really doesn't seem to jive with all the stuff Jesus was talking about. There's also the suggestion that it's a penance, but if it's something that all "good" Christians do and they're proud of it, is it really a penance?

Besides, what was Jesus doing 46 days before he escaped his tome and said "Hey." to some guys he knew? Was he rolling around in some cinders making an ash of himself? I doubt it.

I'd like to know, in 500 words or less (less would be preferable), how Ash Wednesday started, why the ashes go on the forehead, what this has to do with a good guy getting nailed to a tree for saying we should all just get along?

I'll do my best not to get this way on Palm Sunday, but I still wonder, is it okay for normal people to walk on the palm fronds on that day, or are they only meant as a symbolic welcoming of Jesus into the churches? (Which seems odd to my. Why only welcome Jesus into your church one day a year?)