Friday Funny - Very old

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Satan v. God

One dark night in hell, the Devil, bent upon his ultimate revenge, determined to become a computer programmer.

Secretly he pored over main pages, Microsoft press releases, and hex dumps of the renowned SATAN program, until, satisfied that he was master of the unclean craft, he began to work his mischief.

Lounging near the back gate to heaven, he remarked to Jesus that there were some things the Devil could do better than God. Perl programming, for instance. The Savior, knowing something was afoot, but unwilling to let the slight go unchallenged, suggested a programming contest to last from sunrise to sunset, to see who could solve the halting problem in the fewest lines of Perl code, with God Almighty as the judge.

Sparks flew from the keyboard, and a sublime glow emanated from the monitor of the Prince of Darkness and the Prince of Peace, respectively, until five minutes before sunset, when a bolt of lightning flashed and the computers went dead.

A few minutes later God arrived and asked for the results. The Devil fumed and complained bitterly, but he had lost the whole day’s work. Jesus fared considerably better and won the contest because, as everyone knows, Jesus saves.

Miracles: Fables, Hoaxes, Errors or History?

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In Jason’s Friday Thought Experiment, he made this statement:

They have a wealth of information that is available to them, all the science, history, philosophy, medicine, religion, etc that is available on our own world but without the cultural bias.

That got me to thinking about the historical portions of the Bible, and whether the events recorded there could be counted as actual history - particularly, the recorded miracles.

Events recorded in the Bible are actual history on one condition - the condition that they actually happened.

I believe the Bible to be dependable as a historical record, particularly where it has been corroborated by extrabiblical records. For example, there are extrabiblical accounts referring to the man, Jesus. So whether his claims to being the Son of God are true or not, it is at least supportable that the man was an actual historical figure.

There are literally hundreds upon hundreds of stories recorded in the Bible as if they actually happened, using real names of real people in real places at real times. Every one of these stories either happened, or it didn’t. If it happened, it is history. If it didn’t happen, then that story is either a fable, a hoax or an error.

Back in 2004-2005, I did a read-through of the entire Bible looking for every recorded miracle in the Bible. By my count, there are 314 distinct miracles recorded as historical events in both the old and new testaments. (Note - I counted only those miracles that, if they actually happened, there would have been some observable proof of it.) For example, consider the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. It’s interesting that the characters in this story are real people and it is set with an historical backdrop.
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Drum Therapy

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I took my family to visit the Sustainability Centre yesterday.  There was a “green issues” event, I wanted to visit my mother’s grave site and the father of my partner, Hil, wanted to see it to prepare for his own death.  While looking at some of the events like solar panels, water filters for recycling, sustainable woodland fencing, woodcraft, etc I happened on a drum therapy* demonstration.

I wandered in about halfway through a treatment and initially thought it was just some fun with drums for kids and adults to enjoy.  The drums were beautifully decorated and the tent was laid out with cushions and extra drums which some kids were playing along with.  My own children joined in quite quickly with the rhythm while two older women drummed energetically above and around another younger woman who was lying prone in the centre of the tent.

“Odd”, I thought, “perhaps it is just a novel method of relaxation, the woman seems quite relaxed.”  After a minute or two of observing and listening to conversation is became apparent that the older women were performing (literally) a “healing” for the younger one.  I waited until they had finished and eavesdropped for a while.  The “patient” was visibly shaken and felt weak after the “healing”, she expressed surprise on how the drum beats seemed to go right through her.  She asked about the power of the drums and how it was used.  The drummers apparently were being “guided” on how and where to drum.  Upon further enquiry I discovered that this guidance was from the spirit of nature.

I appreciate that environmental issues and natural living will attract people who have a holistic approach to life including alternative ways of living.  I do think that it gives the idea of “living green” a bad name when superstition and mysticism is placed alongside environmentally conscious practices.  Advocating drum therapy as a means of relaxation, sharing for a group or art is one thing but claiming spiritual guidance is another.

*This site wasn’t the one demonstrating and don’t claim supernatural guidance.  I’m linking to it as an example.

Friday Thought Experiment

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I’m a big fan of thought experiments, they help me to move away from an emotional response to an idea and view it logically.  When I apply the logic that I gain from the experiment to a real situation I find that I have a better understanding of the issues.  Where the experiment cannot be applied to the real world I find I have a better understanding of the concepts.

I read on the blog of a very anti theist type of atheist (much wore than me ;) ) a thought experiment where everyone on the planet lost all memory of the world and had to relearn all that they knew of the world.  He proposed that religion would play no part in the reconstruction of society.  I’m not so sure so I thought I’d reduce it to a simpler experiment.

This will help me to understand how some Christians can interpret their faith in God as knowledge of God and why some people stress that they would not necesarily have the religion of their home and family but would have the “right” one.

I suggest that colonists leave Earth and set up on another planet in a distant galaxy, too far to make communication reasonable, say 100 light years.  Having limited space they take no books but store the sum of human knowledge on some sort of electronic media that can be read by the space craft’s computers.  All colonists are stored in cryogenic sleep until their arrival and provided with data pertinent to their survival by some kind of direct learning machine.  Now, let’s suggest that something goes wrong with the learning machine and the only knowledge that they end up woth is that which they need to survive.  How to farm animals, raise crops, communicate with one another and operate the machines that they have brought with them.  They have a wealth of information that is available to them, all the science, history, philosophy, medicine, religion, etc that is available on our own world but without the cultural bias.

Do you think that the colonists would adopt religion?  If so, which one (or a new one) and why?  What about successive generations descending from the colonists?  How would they react to visitors from Earth who retained either their own religions or who had rejected all religion (the opposite to what you think the colonists would do)?