How to Get Lost with a Bible

It has been said that if the Bible is your roadmap, you will get lost.

The main reason for this is that the Bible was written at a very different time in history and under very different circumstances than we find ourselves today. In an ancient world, where the mindset was to conquer your neighbors and expand into their territory, it made sense (albeit in a cruel way) to have laws that encouraged as much reproduction as possible and the extermination of other tribes. But today, just let a nation try obeying all the laws that Jehovah supposedly gave to the Israelites after the Exodus, and it will be immediately branded a terrorist state. Just let us produce as many kids as we possibly can, and we have a recipe for economic and ecological disaster. This is because our world can no longer remain in an expansionist mode. We have to begin the transition into an equilibrium mode of sustainability. “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth” no longer works because we have already filled the Earth.

However, I do not believe that we should accept the Bible as a roadmap or an instruction manual. Instead we should accept it as a record—partly historical, partly legendary—of the attempts of ancient people to make sense of the world. We can learn a thing or two from their at least partly unsuccessful attempts to figure out the right way to live in the world. This means we have to apply some judgment values to the Bible. The better part of wisdom is, today, to reject the Genesis 1 approach—that we should be conquerors of the Earth—and embrace instead the Genesis 2 approach—that we should be stewards and caretakers of the Earth.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everybody. At least, according to the French Revolutionary calendar that was adopted in France right after the Revolution. It was used from 1793 until 1805. Read more here. One purpose of the calendar was to produce a scientifically-based calendar system.

Part of the scientific basis is that it was modeled after nature, after the seasons and the phenomena associated with them, rather than arbitrary months invented by human governments. For example, March used to be the first month, but Roman emperors added January and February, apparently for purposes of tax revenue. Because the Romans stuck two months onto the beginning of the year, the names of the months now make no sense. “September” means seventh, “October” means eighth, “November” means ninth, and “December” means tenth. But the French Revolutionary Calendar begins very close to the Autumnal Equinox, which was actually yesterday. The seasons, and the movements of the Earth relative to the sun, dictate this calendar.

The French Revolutionary Calendar is also based on the moon. Each of the twelve months has thirty days, consistent with the phases of the moon. Twelve months therefore have 360 days; the remaining five days were special days added to the end of the year. Today is the first day of Vendémiaire, that is, the month of grape harvest.

The traditional religious calendar had feast days of the saints. The French Revolution swept religion aside and established non-theistic science as its basis. This is one of the reasons I like it so much: it takes its framework from nature, rather than foisting a religious framework upon nature. Their calendar named each day after (in most cases) plants, although many were named after animals or farm implements. For example, today is raisin, or grape. I guess the revolutionaries had their priorities straight, didn’t they: naming the first month after the grape harvest, and the first day after the grape.

The Revolutionary Calendar was just one way of rethinking the world. The scientists of the French Revolution also produced the metric system, which is not only still used but has been expanded. The metric system is based on nature. For example, they said the meter was one-ten-millionth the distance from the equator to the North Pole. (They were pretty close.) It was also based on powers of ten. Instead of 16 ounces in a pound and 2000 pounds in a ton, or 5280 feet in a mile, there were 10 millimeters in a centimeter, 100 centimeters in a meter, and 1000 meters in a kilometer. And it is based on water, also. A milliliter is one cubic centimeter (cc). A milliliter of water weighs one gram. A calorie is the amount of heat that can raise the temperature of 1 cc of water 1 degree Celsius. How nicely it all fits together. No wonder scientists have used the metric system for a long time. And every major country other than the United States uses the metric system. As scientists continue to explore the very large and very distant and very small and very brief, they have expanded the metric system to 24 orders of magnitude both ways from the base. There are a million million million million yoctoseconds in a second, and a million million million million meters in a yottameter. The French revolutionaries did not imagine this possibility. Now the metric system has spread around the world, while the Revolutionary Calendar has been largely forgotten.

The Revolutionary Calendar is certainly not the only one based on nature. The Jewish calendar begins with the Month of Nisan in spring.

The reason I like to observe the Revolutionary Calendar, in addition to the regular calendar, is that it helps to fit my thinking into the cycles of nature. It helps me realize that we are part of nature, rather than being masters over it. Just as we cannot force the sea to not rise (see my earlier blog entry), we cannot force January 1 to be the first day of the year in anything other than an artificial sense. We have to start thinking of ourselves as part of the mesh of nature, of evolution, of ecology.

So happy 1 Vendémiaire, everybody!

New videos

Two new videos you might enjoy:

Darwin speculates on the origin of music by means of sexual selection: http://youtu.be/X-Mz3Mupsmw. 

Darwin interprets the Genesis story of Jacob and the heterozy-goats in terms of genetics: http://youtu.be/_pROlv9_g_A. 

Republican Religion

I have posted a video on the Darwinandthebible YouTube channel about how the story of Noah's ark cannot be literally true, and also that a literal interpretation ruins the meaning of the story. Hope you enjoy it. Now for the new essay.

Republicans like to associate themselves with the Christian religion. But this is not really their religion. Their religion is the Republican Party. The dividing line between the saved and the damned is membership in the conservative wing of the Republican Party. Of course, they will not actually say this. But consider what they do, and whom they choose to represent them.

For awhile, many “Christian” Republicans were strong supporters of Newt Gingrich. When he pulled out of the race, Rick Perry endorsed Gingrich. Gingrich has been an unabashed womanizer, going against all the ethics and morals that Republicans claim to believe in. Yet his conservative Republican beliefs are enough to release him from the consequences of what would be, for a Democrat, sinful behavior.

And now former governor Mark Sanford has been elected to the House of Representatives. Not that it makes any difference; the House Republicans do nothing except proclaim the holiness of the Republican Party, which they would do whether Sanford is a member or not. But while governor Mark Sanford not only committed a very extreme act of adultery, but he lied about it publicly, and he is also guilty of dereliction of duty: he told nobody in the state government where he was (in case of emergency) while he was off hiking the Appalachian Trail along his mistress’s geography. Not only adultery but also lying and dereliction of duty do not matter, so long as he follows the Republican Party line.

Although I do not proclaim any particular doctrine, I have always been an admirer of Jesus. It really bothers me when someone, or even an entire political party, insults Jesus by claiming themselves to represent Him while they openly and brazenly commit what would be, for a Democrat, immoral behavior, and behavior that would disqualify any Democrat from public service. Had I only the self-proclaimed Republican Christians as evidence, I would be forced to consider that Jesus was evil, a thought that fills me with revulsion.

Republicans worship their own party. That’s pretty much a summary of the whole situation. They wave their Bibles in the air but I doubt that they ever read them. To the Republican climate of hypocrisy one can add blasphemy as well.

A New Video

I have just posted a video on the Darwin and the Bible channel about what Charles Darwin (standing out in a heavy rain) (link here) might think of the environmentalist message of the story of Noah's Ark--a message almost wholly ignored by Bible believers today.

Subtle Misinformation from Christian Radio

When I was driving through Texas recently, my radio choices were between Christian radio and Christian Christian radio. I thought I would listen awhile.

On at least two radio preacher programs, the message was the same: in relationships, it is most important to cultivate a close relationship with one person than to be promiscuous with lots of partners; and that a lasting relationship begins with a strong bond of shared values, and grows out into physical intimacy from there.

Actually, most non-Christians that I know believe this also. With few exceptions, the people I know who are not conservative Christians also form long-term bonds (usually marriages) that are based on character and values, not just sex; and with few exceptions, these people are not promiscuous.

So I did not have a problem with what the preachers said about the best way of forming, and the value of forming, deep lasting relationships (for many of us, that means with a spouse). What I found objectionable was that these preachers were consistently portraying all non-Christians as being sex-driven promiscuous maniacs. They did not actually say this, but their implied advertising message was, “Are you a sex-driven promiscuous maniac? If not, then join us and send us your money.”

Conservative Christians routinely lie about liberal Christians and about non-Christians. This is particularly outrageous because many famous evangelical preachers have been promiscuous and sex-driven.

So the radio preachers may be right about what they say about long-term intimate relationships, but they are consistently wrong, and I believe deliberately wrong, about what they say about those people who are not allied with them.

Another Advantage of Frugal Living

Frugal living has always been a good idea. I know modern conservative Christians do not think so. For example, in a previous blog entry, I documented that one leading conservative group thinks that the way to show God that you love him is to waste as much fossil fuel as you can. I wonder what these Christians think about Jesus and His frugal way of living. God made gold and silver, but Jesus showed how much He hated God by never seeking any. Throughout the ages, many religious people (of diverse traditions) have seen frugality as a way of respecting the created world and its creator. Not so modern conservative Christians. Let them hate Jesus, and let them hate me, for our frugality.

But there is another advantage of frugality. It seems that neither the government nor corporations feel obligated to fulfill their contractual obligations unless you sue them. Here are the corporate examples. I signed a contract with Sears for siding on my house. They cashed my check then repeatedly put off the work, until I told them that I was ready to hire a lawyer; then they began the work. The computer on which I am writing came from Best Buy, back when we naively trusted it, and in less than a year it is crashing. I also bought a camera from them last year; twice in a row, they had to fix it, the second time to correct damage they had inflicted on it while repairing it the first time. I had to threaten legal action to get them to replace the camera. A camera and a computer are staples in my work. Anything that is not fundamental to my work I will simply not purchase from a corporation. Farmer’s markets? They are pretty good.

The government example is an agency everyone knows and despises: the IRS. We all know we have to pay taxes; but the IRS is a corrupt agency. They were recently in the news for targeting conservative groups for special scrutiny on tax-exempt status applications. But there is a bigger problem. We all know that they take months to send refunds back. But during those months, they provide no information about what is going on. You can check on their website, but if you do click on “Where’s my refund?” you will almost certainly get a message that says that no information is available. I had to write a letter to the White House (not quite a legal threat) before the IRS checked up on it. It turns out that they were working very very very had to give me a bigger refund than I had requested, which is great news, only for those months I was waiting, I had no idea if they had even processed my return. I had a delivery confirmation, so I knew they had received it; but I had no way of checking whether they had subsequently misplaced it. Recently, I received a letter from them explaining to me why my refund was delayed, but not explaining to me why they had kept the process a secret for so long. All we want is to know what is going on, and for IRS to not be a totally secret organization reminiscent of Soviet days.

A refund is not a privilege that we are requesting from the IRS; the refund amount is the amount of money by which we overpaid on our withholding. It is our money, not theirs. So now I have greatly reduced my withholding; I plan to pay taxes each March (I do not wait until April) rather than to expect a refund. I can be absolutely sure the IRS will cash my check the moment they receive it, and within a day or so it will show up on my bank website. The ousted IRS director loudly proclaimed, “We provided horrible customer service.” But the news reports focused on a minor aspect of this ineptitude. What about the millions of us who waited for our refunds, and kept in the dark while we were waiting?

None of us can do anything about the fact that the IRS is corrupt, other than to minimize our withholding. But there is something we can do about corrupt corporations. We can simply purchase as little as possible. Quite simply and obviously, the more we buy, the more opportunity there is for corporations to take our money without delivering acceptable goods and services. Anything that seems even remotely unnecessary or luxurious, I will reject it. I occasionally eat out, but only when traveling or for special occasions, such as my daughter’s birthday. Even on those rare occasions, I often get temporarily double-charged for the bill.

If rejecting most luxuries sounds like what Jesus said to do, that is more than just an interesting coincidence. Let the conservatives decry me as evil for my opposition to large corporations. Let them call me unpatriotic if they like. But if they call me unchristian, they should take a second look at the Bibles that they wave in the air without reading.