Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Ye Olde Testament

Believe me, I'm not out to convert anyone, religion can be extremely comforting, but I stand with one of the Top Hundred Great Thinkers of Our Time, Richard Dawkins, in proclaiming, "There's probably no god."

When I told this to Scott he said, You mean you won't meet me in Heaven?

Well, I will, if there is one. And you'll have a full head of hair. And I'll have intact kidneys.

Scott is amazing. As a young man he gave the God issue a lot of thought and concluded, Yes, there is a God and an afterlife, and dropped the subject. Me, I'm a vacillator, having finally agreed on the No-Way theory.

One thing always puzzled me about my religion, Judaism. How could Abraham have attempted to sacrifice his son Isaac b/c God commanded him to do it? And why would this story be included in the Canon? Is this what we want to teach our congregation? Plenty of people hear voices to kill. Shall we heed them or medicate them?

So it was with great delight I read this photo-essay in the Times today by the wonderfully creative irreverent R. Crumb. Bill Hess, this is for you since you like the inclusion of my links. Click right here.

5 comments:

  1. If there is no God, then when the universe was much smaller some billions of years ago, what made it do what it did in terms of expanding, the bog bang and all? And what is on the outside of this contained, rather large universe of ours that is expanding each year? If there is an inside, there is an outside.

    Who create all this? Accident? Who create the system allowing accidents? Another accident?

    I personally don't confuse the issue of supreme being with organized religion's views on God. They are two different things. I think there is a God, but organized religion and all the mythology(most of which was created in times of supreme ignorance) around the various religions are merely man's way of explaining God.

    But to say there is no God is a stretch in my view. Otherwise, all of this 'stuff' we call life and the universe is not possible.
    Andrew

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  2. andrew, i write reviews on amazon.com and gave my microsoft keyboard a poor review saying the paint chipped off on the various keys. i repaint them w/white-out.

    now as to the god thing, i was working on my response to you while coming home from trenton, nj, where i dropped my daughter off so she could return home to bklyn.

    i couldn't think of anything to say. check out richard dawkins, an evolutionary theorist who gives compelling evidence for the for the unnecessity of god having started this whole shebang.

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  3. Thanks for the link, Ruth - I greatly enjoyed it.

    Although I have done little more than hint at it on my own blog, I have a lot of work to do on the religion front.

    BipolarPorch - I don't know if there is or is not a God (there is definitely a creator, but it is conceivable that The Creator could just be cosmic accident) but if there is, then who created God?

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  4. ooh, i love when people comment & also when they talk to each other. well-put, bill, about who created god. it's just another conundrum like the entire universe. one thing that gets me about the universe is it's unimaginably vast. and so is time. except of course for our allotted time here on the planet. okay, time for a quick nap.

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