Celebrity Opinion

In todays age of mass social media, we have access to the thoughts of all and sundry at any time of day and night, usually unfiltered and uneducated. Mostly, this isn’t too much of a problem, we walk (or scroll) on by without giving random opinions a second thought, but when it comes to celebrities, we hold them to this odd standard of not allowing them to be anything but a celebrity unless it suits our narrative.

I recently saw a tweet aimed at Osher Gunsberg which started with “you’re a reality TV star” indicating that he should have stuck to the one thing the tweeter knew him for, but it was his very tongue in cheek reply stating that he would “from now on only be the one thing you allow me to be. Didn’t realise … that humans were not allowed to have multiple interests or skill sets” that got me thinking about celebrity and the disdain society seems to have for them if they express and opinion, no matter how educated that person might be about the subject matter.

Osher, for those who bother to look into the person behind the celebrity, has long had an interest in the environment and climate change, and has spoken to and engaged with many experts on the subject. He’s not a celebrity dropped in for an endorsement, never to be heard on the topic again. He is passionate about it and tries to educate himself.

We see this idea of celebrity shut downs when it comes to politics, especially. In Australia, we have compulsory voting so it’s not such an issue, but you notice it to a great extent with American politics. Celebrity endorsement is used to get people to vote for one party or another, one candidate or another, but in expressing an opinion they open themselves up to a barrage of hateful posts on every social media platform known to man, and this can have a detrimental effect.

The idea of hounding or insulting celebrities for having an opinion seems bizarre to me. You can attack the idea but the actual person should really be off limits. Clearly, there are going to be cases where the particular celebrity just spouts utter nonsense on an ongoing basis, but for the most part, they’re just regular people with regular opinions, they just happen to have a massive audience.

Celebrities are also subjected to criticism when they talk about things which have personally affected them. During the bushfires which devastated large tracts of land in Australia during the latter part of 2019 and early 2020, Russell Crowe’s property suffered much damage. Naturally, he used social media to thank the fire fighters and was berated for seemingly using his celebrity status to get his house saved, yet he had done nothing of the sort, and had, in fact, had his land used as a staging ground by the fire brigade to give them better access to other properties.

The trouble with social media is that it doesn’t give the celebrity in question ability to show the depth and breadth of their knowledge of or passion about certain subjects. If you saw a social media post from singer/songwriter Charlotte Church about physics you might scoff but if you listen to her on the podcast The Infinite Monkey Cage episode “Universe: What Remains to be Discovered” (02/08/16) you come to understand just how much she knows about science and just how much excitement she finds in the subject.

As Charlotte says in the episode, she doesn’t need to have formally studied science in order to learn about it. There are books, and podcasts, and documentaries that you can learn from. You don’t need to study astrophysics for years at university to have a love for the science behind it. Personally, I have spent many an hour listing to science and history podcasts because, even though I don’t always understand it fully, I can appreciate the expertise, I can increase my knowledge of the subject and find people who do understand the subject for me to follow up and read their works at a later stage. And it was Charlotte's absolute giddy excitement that inspired me to write this piece.

So, if you gain nothing else from this piece, please allow celebrities to speak their mind. You can agree or disagree with their position until the cows come home, but attack the idea not the person. As we tell kids in sport, play the ball, not the man. And, who knows, maybe you'll learn something from them.

Homeopathy: Harmless treatment or dangerous quackery

Let's get one thing straight, right off the bat. Not all homeopathy is created equal. In and of itself, some homeopathic "therapies" are indeed quite harmless. The harm comes in the claims made by those selling the "treatments".

What is homeopathy? It is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. Thanks, Wikipedia. The basis for homeopathy is simple - if you give a healthy person a substance and it makes them sick in a particular way, then a diluted version of that substance, when given to a sick person with the same symptoms it will cure them. The dilution process is repeated to such an extent that the solution being taken is often completely devoid of the original substance.

Seems harmless enough, doesn't it? Like a placebo? Except placebos aren't given to people in lieu of medicine except in the trial phase of a medication or treatment. Regular patients don't get handed a placebo at the pharmacy and told it's an effective medical treatment.

If you had cancer, and I said to you that I had a medicine which would cure your cancer, you would want to be sure it worked. If I was a good homeopath, I would be able to convince you of this, despite there being absolutely no evidence which would stand up to even basic scrutiny. You take the "cure" I'm selling. You spend lots of money on months or even years of treatments. You might see an initial improvement in your overall well being - that's the placebo effect. If you believe a treatment will work, you can convince yourself it is working even if it isn't.

A positive frame of mind has been shown to have short term positive effects on a person. In pain studies, especially. People use hypnotherapy, breathing and other mind-over-matter techniques during child birth, in particular. This is where the placebo effect can be useful. Parents will also use the placebo effect on small children when they have a bump by giving them a bandaid to make the pain magically disappear. The bandaid is doing nothing for the bump, the parents soothing voice and the distraction of the bandaid are usually what is doing the trick, as well as the child not understanding how pain or bandaids actually work.

But back to you and your hypothetical cancer. You've been taking my homeopathic medicine for months, maybe years. You initially felt better but, as the cancer is still progressing, the symptoms return and are quite possibly worse. If I'm really good at my job I can convince you to try a different treatment or change the dosage of the original. Your cancer will keep progressing. It will eventually kill you.

If you decide that my treatments aren't working, no harm no foul, you can just change over to scientific medicine, right? Well, maybe. But maybe not. Even if you can start scientifically designed medical treatments right away, you are probably in a worse position that you were before I started treating you, so the medications you're now getting might not work as effectively, or at all.

You might think that's an extreme example and that most people use homeopathy for things that aren't going to necessarily kill them. They might use it for a cold or the flu. What's the harm there? Except the pain to their wallet, there probably isn't one for the person taking the treatment. In fact, a recommendation for many low level infections is to keep well hydrated, so drinking a homeopathic concoction is probably quite good, in that sense. But they would have had the same result from drinking a glass of water every day, and saved themselves a lot of money in the process.

The harm comes from thinking that the homeopathic treatment is speeding up your recovery and that you are no longer contagious to other people. The harm comes from that person advocating homeopathic treatments to others who might then seek that kind of treatment for more serious conditions. The harm comes when parents treat their child with homeopathic allergy treatments at the exclusion of all other medicine and that child dies.

So why are homeopathic treatments as popular as they are? Because people like to think they are putting natural things in their body. It's also why natural remedies and organic treatments sell so well. The clients hear the line about "the body healing itself" or the familiar sounding ingredients and are comforted. That is the stigma of science. People distrust what they don't understand.

A classic example of this mistrust is the di-hydrogen monoxide experiments that have been conducted, usually by university students. They convince people to sign petitions to ban the substance. The substance is, of course, a fancy way of saying water. But they used a "chemical" name which sounds a little like an actual substance you wouldn't want to ingest - carbon monoxide - and it scared people into signing a bogus petition to ban water because they didn't want their foods washed in di-hydrogen monoxide.

Homeopathy works on the same principle. It tells people that scientific medicines with long, scary-sounding names are not to be trusted, but their unproven elixir will work wonders.

I'm not telling you that science has all the answers. No scientist worth their weight will tell you that either. What they will tell you, however, is that the medicines available go through rigorous testing, must meet incredible scrutiny, and are pulled from shelves when proven to be ineffective.

Would I go anywhere near a homeopathic treatment? Not if my life depended on it.

An Athiests Guide to the Bible: The Story of Creation

In the beginning, when God created the universe ...

Well, that's a interesting way to start. Regardless of which version of the bible you read, they all start with this idea. That God created the universe. But what is God? Not who. What. Is the Christian god a physical being, an incorporeal consciousness or an idea dreamt up by man? Obviously, if it's the third option, then the whole concept of the bible is severely put in doubt. The idea that an idea could create anything is, quite frankly ludicrous.

So if we are to believe that the bible is not simply a book written by man to explain that which they do not understand, then God must be either a physical being or an incorporeal consciousness. If God were a physical being, you would think that someone would have spotted him. We have some very smart scientists, high ranking religious clergy, philosophers, and all manner of extraordinarily intelligent people in the world. None of them have shown any physical evidence for the undoubted existence of God as a corporeal being.

That leaves us with God being an incorporeal consciousness. So how do you prove the existence of something that has no physical presence? Well, the short answer is, you can't. And that's the mistake that so many people make about atheism. Atheism in it's purest form is the rejection of the belief in any god because we see no evidence for it, mainly because much of the argument for any god is exactly the same argument for any other god, and they can't all be correct.

Anyway, for the purposes of this post (and future Guide posts) let's assume that the Christian God of the bible I hold in my hand for the purposes of writing this series is an incorporeal consciousness. Now that we've defined what God is, we must define what the universe is. So let's see what my bible says about that ...

In the beginning, when God created the universe, the earth was formless and desolate. The raging ocean that covered everything was engulphed in total darkness, and the power of God was moving over the water. Then God commanded, "Let there be light" - and light appeared. God was please with what he saw. Then he separated the light from the darkness, and he named the light "Day and the darkness "Night." Evening passed and the morning came - that was the first day.

As someone who trusts the scientific explanation for the beginning of the known universe, this biblical explanation is troublesome. The first way in which is troubling is that is doesn't say how the universe was created. Of course, the bible was written at a time when physics of any description wasn't a thing. Even science struggles with the creation of the universe, so this isn't a criticism of the writers of the bible so much as a criticism of interpreters of the bible who think that a description of the beginning of the solar system is the equivalent of the a description of the beginning of the unknown universe.

The next troubling aspect is that the earth was created before light. Science tells us that the sun formed before the earth. The Sun has been around for around 5 billion years. The earth, young thing that it is, is only about 4.5 billion years. To give some context to just how young our solour system (and our earth is), the known universe itself is just under 14 billion years old. So it's not a great start for the bible.

The last bit that troubles me is the separation of light and dark to create day and night. We know that the sun provides the light for the earth and that the spin of the earth gives us day and night. We also know that there is not a distinct separation between light and dark because as the sun sets over the horizon the amount of visible light from the sun lessens, the reverse happening at sunrise. At its extremes we see how difference night and day are but it is extraordinarily hard for ordinary human beings to pick the point where day actually turns into night because, despite there being a time for sunset, the minute (or even the second) after that time is not exactly night, there still being light from the sun visible even thought the sun itself is not.

The bible continues ...

Then God commanded, "Let there be a dome to divide the water and to keep it in two separate places" - and it was done. So God made a dome, and it separated the water under it from the water above it. He named the dome "Sky." Evening passed and morning came - that was the end of the second day.

You can, naturally, imagine the writers of the bible looking at the sky and thinking that, because the sky was blue and the water was blue, there must be water above the sky to give it the colour. Today, many Christians will tell you that the dome is actually just the edge of the atmosphere in an effort to marry their faith and science. It fails to answer what the water above actually is and where it is located.

Then God commanded, "Let the water below the sky come together in one place, so that the land will appear" - and it was done. He named the land "Earth," and the water which had come together he named "Sea." And God was pleased with what he saw.

As far as the bible goes, this part I don't really have a problem with. We have earth and water. Ok, the water isn't just called sea, but oceans and lakes and rivers and all manner of different things. This is largely by the by, and if you're picking up on this point as something to argue against the validity of the bible, I think you're probably being a bit picky and a lot petty.

Then he commanded, "Let the earth produce all kinds of plants, those that bear grain and those that bear fruit" - and it was done. So the earth produced all kind of plants, and God was pleased with what he saw. Evening passed and morning came - that was the third day.

At this point, I have to leave what the bible actually says for a moment and remark upon the utter lack of creative thought that went into the writing of the bible. It feels like it was written by a small schoolchild who has been tasked with writing a narrative for the first time. It is very dry, almost procedural. The texts that engage people the best are not manuals but those where language engages the reader on a psychological and emotional level. The bible does neither.

Then God commanded, "Let lights appear in the sky to separate day from night and to show the time when days, years, and religious festivals begin; they will shine in the sky to give light to the earth" - and it was done. So God made the two larger lights, the sun to rule over the day and the moon to rule over the night; he also made the stars. He placed the lights in the sky to shine on the earth, to rule over the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God was pleased with what he saw. Evening passed and morning came - that was the fourth day.

And this is where we go HANG ON A MINUTE! There is so much wrong with this passage. Not just in relation to the actual science of reality but simply as a consistent narrative. Let's start with the science. The moon is not a light in that it doesn't produce it's own light. It reflects the light of the sun, that's why we get eclipses. Also, the sun and moon and stars are not equidistant from Earth.

The moon is 384,400km from Earth.
The sun is 150,440,000km from Earth.
The nearest star is 4.37 light years from Earth.

The idea that all those things are attached to a dome over the earth is, given current scientific knowledge, absurd. Most Christians understand this. Most Christians have given away with a literal interpretation of the bible. They still believe that God created everything but they make the distinction between the difference in the understanding of man at the time of writing the bible and now, so far as to say that the people who wrote the bible didn't understand how God did it, so they made it up. My counterpoint is always that if they made up that bit, could they not just have made up the whole thing?

Apart from the lack of scientific reality, there is a huge disruption to the chronological progression of the narrative. On day one God created light but didn't create the sun until day four? This doesn't make any sense. Also, God separated the light and dark on day one but he's doing it again on day four? Did he forget? If he didn't forget, what was creating the light on day one and how was that different from the light the sun? This is but one of many contradictions or anomalies in the bible and we'll get to many of them in this series but let's move on ...

Then God commanded, "Let the water be filled with many kinds of living beings, and let the air be filled with birds." So God created the great sea monsters , all kinds of creatures that live in the water, and all kinds of birds. And God was pleased with what he saw. He blessed them all and told the creatures that live in the water to reproduce and to fill the sea, and he told the birds to increase in number. Evening passed and morning came - that was the fifth day.

Scientifically speaking, fish and birds were not even close to being the first living creatures. Maybe the writers of the bible just didn't think the previous creatures were important. The first creatures on earth were single celled organisms. OK, we are just repeating the argument that the writers of the bible probably didn't have any idea about science but this leads to a questioning of the concept that the bible is the direct word of God. If it's the direct word of God and the writers are simple transcribing it, then surely God would understand the science and be able to explain it in a way that the writers understood, without the huge gaps and errors, and why did God wait thousands of years between creating humans and starting his book? But I digress. Lets push on, we still have two days to go!

Then God commanded , "Let the earth produce all kinds of animal life; domestic and wild, large and small" - and it was done. So God made them all, and he was pleased with what he saw. Then God said, "And now we will make human beings; they will be like us and resemble us. They will have power over the fish , the birds and all animals, domestic and wild, large and small." So God created human beings, making them to be like himself. He created them male and female, blessed them, and said, "Have many children, so that your descendants will live all over the earth and bring it under their control. I am putting you in charge of the fish, the birds and all the wild animals. I have provided all kinds of grain and all kinds of fruit for you to eat; But for all the wild animals and for all the birds I have provided grass and leafy plants for food" - and it was done. God looked at everything he had made, and he was very pleased. Evening passed and morning came - that was the sixth day.

As a writer who got a distinction in grammar, I get very cranky when texts are not consistent in their tense or their pronouns. Here God refers to himself as we/us. There are a few explanations:

(a) There are many gods or God is talking to the angels.
(b) There's only one God but he's referring to the holy trinity
(c) There's only one God but he's using the royal "we"
(d) The writers stuffed up

If we are taking the atheistic position, this is clearly a stuff up by the writers. If we're taking the Christian position, it could be any of the other possibilities. This is not ever really reconciled. What is also not reconciled is that if God makes humans to be as himself, why are we not incorporeal consciousnesses? The fact that we have physical form could mean that this is the image the God has of himself or that God has a physical form. Going back to the opening of this post, if God had a physical form we, as a species, would have discovered a trace of it by now, one would think.

And so the whole universe was completed. By the seventh day God finished what he had been doing and stopped working. He blessed the seventh day and set it apart as a special day, because by that day he had completed his creation and stopped working. And that is how the universe was created.

Well, the solar system is not the universe, so that's a bit of a reach on behalf of the writers to claim that. It's not even all of the solar system, if we're being truthful. And there's not much of an explanation of the how, either. This is a huge problem I have with most religions, not just Christianity. God did it is not an explanation worthy of any enquiring mind, even if it was fundamentally true. If I built an amazing Lego world and someone asked you how it was made, and your answer was, "Nona did it" that would be true but not an explanation of how it was made.

But let's look at the story of Creation as a whole. It took 7 days. According to the bible, they were Earth Days as evening came at the end of each day, so seven lots of  24 and a bit hours going by current time telling techniques. But was it? Scientific studies of the bible have speculated that perhaps each day was an era, not a strict day as we know it. This is marginally closer to reality in that it allows time for evolution to take place but doesn't do anything to explain this process meaning that they thought this was unimportant, it didn't happen or the writers had no concept of it.

If you subscribe to a literal interpretation of the bible, you must deny the science that contradicts it and all the evidence which supports the science. I have talked to people both in real life and online who fall into this category. I have no problem with their belief in God but I do take issue with their rejection of evidence-based scepticism.

In the next Guide, in a few days time, we will look at the story of the Garden of Eden: its location and what it looked like. We will deal with the disobedience of man in the subsequent post.

Philosophical Musings by a Curious Mind

If the universe is everything, and scientists say that the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into? If you try to answer this question, you may just drive yourself insane. Philosophy, of course, can be rather like that. The search for meaning and logic in this world of hours can often seem fruitless. In this entry I have not tried to categorically answer the questions. I have tried to put forward my own thoughts on them as well as, hopefully, giving a more objective look at some of the questions. Whether you agree with my analysis or not, I hope that this sparks your imagination in some way.

Why is there something rather than nothing?

The question of how and why the universe came to be is one that has caused even the brightest might to pause. I don’t think that anyone can definitively answered this question without calling it a fluke or accident. This, of course, assumes you believe in a scientific rather than religious explanation for the existence of everything in the universe and the the universe itself. There is a strong push for the theory that the universe arose spontaneously, through self-organizing evolution. There is, however, no specific evidence of what set this process in motion, though the idea of a quantum fluctation in the vacuum of space has been put forward.

So, why is there something rather than nothing? Well, it’d be pretty boring without anything, wouldn’t it?

Why is the world the way it is?

The process by which the world came into existence and turned out the way it did is as complex a method as anything known to man. Why our planet is able to sustain life as we know it is mainly down to it’s distance from the sun, it’s gravitational force and it’s relative safety from the bombardment of asteroids. Once the building blocks of life are established then it is down to natural selection to drive evolution, leading to the multitude of plants and animals currently inhabiting the world. Georgraphically, the planet has been shaped by many violent forces, from plate techtonics to storm activity and meteor strikes. It has created a world of deep ocean trenches, mountains that reach far beyond the clouds, vast deserts and dense jungles. These differing natural habitats have lead evolution on a merry dance down many divergent and convergent paths creating a miriad of living things, more than one person could ever imagine in a lifetime.

From a more human perspective, the world is the way it is because of the effect that humans have on each other. Different emotions lead to different reactions in different people depending of their predisposition to react in a certain manner. Some people may be more likely to react with violence to certain situations, or may percieve prejudice where there is none. They may become more determined when faced with adversity or loathe the idea of inequality and strive to remedy this. Greed is a key determining factor in why the world is the way it is: the desire for more land, more money, more power and more influence all come under this banner.

There are many major factors in the determination of why the human world is the way it is which are created by humans themseleves as a result of these reactions. These include war, scientific breakthroughs and technology. Politics and trade create both harmony and tension between different peoples around the world.

Where do we come from?

Depending on who you ask, humans were either created by God/s or evolved as part of the natural selection process. Scientifically, humankind has undergone many transformations in its history. If we look at the major milestones which led to modern humans from an evolutionary point of view we are confronted with the following:

Order:                   Primates:                              Primates:                              75 million years ago

Superfamily:       Hominoidea:                       Apes:                                      28 million years ago

Family:                 Hominidea:                          Great Apes:                          15 million years ago

Orangutans – separate out here

Subfamily:           Homininea:                                                                          8 million years ago

Gorillas – separate out here

Tribe:                    Hominini:                                                                             5.8 million years ago

Chimpanzees – separate out here

Bonobos – separate out here

Subtribe:               Hominina:                            Bipedal Apes:                      3 million years ago

Sahelanthropus tchadensis                               7 million – 6 million years ago

Orrorin tugenensis                              6 million years ago

Ardipithecus ramidus                         5.8 million – 4.4 million years ago

Ardipithecus kadabba                        5.8 million – 5.2 million years ago

Australopithecus anamensis             4.2 million – 3.9 million years ago

Australopithecus afarensis                               3.9 million – 2.9 million years ago

Kenyanthropus platyops                   3.5 million – 3.3 million years ago

Australopithecus africanus               3 million – 2 million years ago

Australopithecus aethiopicus           2.6 million – 2.3 million years ago

Australopithecus garhi                      2.5 million years ago

Australopithecus boisei                     2.1 million – 1.1 million years ago

Australopithecus robustus                                2 million – 1.5 million years ago

Australopithecus sediba                    1.95 million – 1.8 million years ago

Genus:                   Homo:                                                                                   2.5 million years ago

Homo habilis                                        2.4 million – 1.5 million years ago

Homo gautengensis                            2 million – 600,000 years ago

Homo erectus                                       1.8 million – 300,000 years ago

Homo ergaster                                     1.8 million – 300,000 years ago

Homo georgicus                                  1.8 million years ago

Homo floresiensis                                1.1 million – 17,000 years ago

Homo antecessor                                 780,000 years ago

Homo heidelbergensis                        500,000 years ago

Homo neanderthalensis                     230,000 – 30,000 years ago

Species:                 Homo Sapiens:                    Humans:                               0.5 million years ago

Subspecies:           Homo Sapiens Sapiens:    Modern Humans:               0.2 million years ago

When you think about the idea that modern humans co-existed with other humanoid species for thousands of years, and possibly interacted with them, and the fact that so many different species of hominids have been discovered, it is amazing that only we survived the evolutionary process.

There are too many religious explanations for where we come from to do them all justice, so I will stick to the one I am most familiar with – Christianity. The bible states that man was created out of the dust. This implies that man’s physical body is irrelevant and that it is the breath of life, given by God, that is important. This breath of life, relates to the spirit or soul. To say that man was created in the image of God is to say that God gave Man the same attributes as he himself possessed, such as intelligence, will and emotion.

Some religious scholars believe that the book of Genesis, in describing mankind as being descended from a single individual, teaches certain lessons, rather than being a literal translation on actual events: taking one life is equivalent to destroying the entire world, and saving one life is equivalent to saving the entire world; a person should not say to anyone that he comes from better stock because we all came from the same ancestor; and to teach the greatness of God, for when human beings create a mold every thing that comes out of that mold is identical, while mankind, which comes out of a single mold, is different in that every person is unique.

There are also Evolutionary-Creationists who believe that God created the matter in the universe and the building blocks for life but left the rest up to the evolutionary process. They see the story of Adam and Eve as a cautionary tale outlining the results of going against the wishes of God.

As far as translating this religious hypothesis into scientific language, I believe that God is synonymous for the universe. The creation of man from the earth is analogous with the evolution of man from primodial soup to intelligent creature and that the breath of life represents the critical step from mere primate to human.

Who are we?

There are many traits that make us human, such as self-awareness and free moral agency, speech and symbolic cognition, our nimble thumbs, conscience and the capacity to imagine. They distinguish us from other species, especially those closest to us genetically (chimps and other hominid species), but it merely tells us what we are and not who we are. Who we are comes from the manifestations of these qualities.

More than any quality that defines us as human, it is our social and emotional contributions which define who we are: our ability to love, to have faith in things which cannot be proven and to learn about things not in our immediate sphere of influence; our ability to sympathise and empathise, to show compassion, tolerance and acceptance of difference; and our ability grow and change as individuals.

Where are we going?

The development of the human mind has been incredibly rapid evolutionarily speaking. If we continue to increase our brain power there is no knowing where we will end up. There is wonderful optimism inherent in the thought of what human nature will be like in the coming milleniums. There is, however, a dark pessimism which pervades also. This has to do with the struggle of good and evil within the individual and society as a whole. Will the advent of new technologies be used for the betterment of mankind or be its downfall? There is a trend for scientific discoveries to be co-opted by the mechanisms of war and there is a fear that any future developments, no matter how benign they appear to be will be corrupted by the war machine to the detriment of humankind.

Of course, humanity has the power to create it’s own future, it’s one of the features that makes humans human. What we dream we can create and do. As individuals we all dream of something better and if we can harness that power of positivity as a society then there are no bounds to the amazing things that we can achieve.

Is there a God?

Well, that depends on who you ask. I don’t know if there is a God. I do not have an underlying faith in any particular God. I reject the Christian idea of an omnipotent God and do not believe in the literalness of the Bible. This type of belief in a God or Gods signifies a method for explaining that which cannot be explained scientifically. If there is a God, I believe that it is within each individual, like a moral compass, that guides our actions but does not pre-determine them.

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions simply because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. Siddhãrtha Gautama (Buddha)

Christianity believes in a single God who is all powerful. The first commandment is “thou shalt have no other God before me”. This leads one to the question of whether Christianity allows for the presence of other dieties but thinks that theirs is better and should be followed above all others, or whther it merely suggests that other deities are artificial and should be abandoned in preference for the one true God. Islam also has in a single God who has 99 names. God, the creator, is just, omnipotent and merciful. "Allah" is the Arabic word for “one true God”. There is a lot of cross over between Christianity and Islam, however, the deification of Jesus by some denominations of Christianity is seen as blasphemous by Muslims as they believe it shows polytheism which goes against their idea of there only being one true God. Judaism holds faith in a single deity, the same deity as Christianity, the major difference being that those of the Jewish faith do not believe that Jesus was the son of God.

Hinduism recognises a single deity and views other Gods as aspects of this single deity, which has led to it being seen as one of the most tolerant of all the world religions. It also has, because of the wide variety of belief systems which go into its make up, the notable feature of having freedom of belief and practice meanings it’s follows are free to believe and practice as they see fit. In Baha’i there is a belief in a single God who has sent many prophets throughout human history, including Adam, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, The Bab and Baha’u’llah. This provides a cross over between Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism.

Shinto believes in Kami (deities) but they bear little resemblence to monotheistic dieties. They are benign entities which protect and help their people. They are more closely related to the nature gods of pagan religions. Sikhs believe in a single, Formless God, with many names, who can be known through meditation. They believe his name is synonymous with truth and that he is the creator of everything. They also believe that he is without fear or hate and that he is immortal and, therefore beyond birth and death. Only he can be worshiped as all other Gods are false Gods. In Vodun, also known as Voodoo (though this word has been demonised by western culture), has a central God (Olorun), a lesser God (Obatala) and a pantheon of spirits (Loa) which resemble in nature the saints of Catholicism.

What all this means, naturally, is that this question cannot be answered unequivocably due to the simple reason that people believe in different things. The majority of people believe in some sort of God, they have faith their God’s existence, but there are also people who have no concept of God or believe there is no God at all.

In Taoism the idea of a personified deity is a foreign one, as is the concept of a creator God, who formed the universe. Therefore, they do not pray as such because there is no God to hear the prayers or to act upon them. They seek to answer life's problems through meditation and observation. Jainism does not believe in a God, but believe the universe exists as a series of layers: 30 layers of heaven (the upper world), the earth and the rest of the universie (the middle world) and 7 layers of hell (the nether world). They also believe the universe has no beginning and will have no ending.

Buddhism does not believe in a God, though it does not deny the existence of a God or Gods either. Buddhists believe in a rebirth of the soul until enlightenment is achieved and the soul reaches Nirvana.

At its core Buddhism is a non-theistic religion and, unlike other world religions, Buddhism is not a doctrine of revelation. The Buddha did not claim to be the bearer of a message from on high. He made it clear that what he taught he had discovered for himself through his own efforts. The Buddha himself is revered not as a deity or supernatural being but as a very special kind of human being. Kerry Trembath (former Secretary of the Buddhist Council of New South Wales)

There is debate, due to the nature of Buddhism, as to whether it is a religion or a philosophy. If you define religion as being based on one or many deities then Buddhism fails to meet this criteria and is therefor not a religion. If you define religion as Clifford Geertz, an anthropologist from Princeton, does (that being an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendent quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, God or gods, or ultimate truth) then Buddhism does indeed fall under the umbrella of religion.

The person who has a lack of belief in a God or Gods is referred to as an Atheist. The “undecided voter” in religious terms is Agnostic. Taoists, Jainists and Buddhists fall into these two categories.

The question of whether there is a God or not is a very individual and personal question. Everyone has to answer the question for themselves based on their own “proof”. Whether there is a God or not, and whether you believe or not, should not be a factor in determining the validity of someone’s life. I find it disturbing that people will dislike or even hate someone based on their religious belief. Just like it is irrational to dislike someone for their favourite colour, it is irrational to dislike someone for their choice of religion.

The real question should be: Would the existence of a God make you act differently from how you would act if there were no God? In a perfect world, it should not matter. People should treat each other with respect and dignity regardless of what may or may not happen to them in the afterlife. The idea of Heaven, for example, should be a reward for good behaviour not a bribe to ensure it.

What is good and what is evil?

From a purely evolutionary standpoint, good is that which benefits the survival of the species. There really isn’t evil, evolutionarily. There is indifferent. There is harmful. There is no evil and this is why:

Evil implies, for me at least, intention to do ill will. Evolution does not have will. It is mankind that has will and can exercise that will. I believe that people can be evil. I believe that people can be wired so that they enjoy inflicting pain and suffering. I also believe that those people can choose to deal with it or not deal with it. It is in choosing not to deal with it that one becomes evil. There are also no inherently evil acts. There are acts which are bad, like killing someone, but it is the intention with which the act is performed that makes the act evil, not the act itself.

What is knowledge?

Knowledge is defined as information and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.

There is a quote by Albert Einstein that goes, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” This is very true. All too often people jump into a situation where they have the information about what they are doing but not the understanding to put that information to use, with sometimes detrimental and sometimes catastrophic results.

Knowledge allows us to make informed decisions. It gives us a greater capacity for a fulfilling life. The knowledge we amass over the course of our lifetime can bring us joy, help us to get through pain and give us tools for survival. This knowledge comes in all forms: knowledge of how to cook and look after ourselves, knowledge of how to relate to people, knowledge of how to complete tasks for monetary renumeration, and knowledge of love and other emotional responses.

Knowledge of a specific area in minute detail can benefit the whole world. Brilliant minds able to store information, process it and spit out knowledge are the backbone of progress in our society. With this knowledge, however, comes great responsibility. It befalls society to set a mandate for the use of knowledge and to enforce it’s rule. Should the knowledge be used for the benefit of the fe at the expence of the majority then we have failed as a society to protect not only ourselves but all future generations.

What is truth?

Truth is subjective. Is that statement true? It is truthful subject to you agreeing with it. It has been said that there are no absolute truths. I believe that there can be mathematical or scientific truths, eg. 1+1=2 and copper is a metal. I also believe that the truth of other things is more constructed than self-evident.

Winston Churchill once said, “History is written by the victors.” This idea can also be applied to truth, as history is supposedly the truth of past events. It has been shown, by the comparison of historic texts from differing views, that the truth is history is often not written by either side but lies somewhere in the middle.

As humans, we do not see objectively. We see how we have been taught to see. Take for example the following scenario:

A man is witnessed by three people picking up a child, who is kicking and screaming, and putting them into a car before driving off. The first witness, who knows neither the man nor the child, calls the police and reports and abduction. When the police arrive they interview the second witness, who only knows the child, being their teacher. This person has never known the child to act in that manner and confirms the theory of abduction. The third witness, who knows both the man and the child and is a friend of the child’s mother, tells the police that the man is the child’s estranged father who hasn’t been in the child’s life for months. The police then locate the man and the child at the man’s home where the child is playing happily.

What was the truth of the situation? The man, having been through a messy divorce, had not seen his child for some months. Having agreed on a custody arrangement, the man picks the child up from school but, having promised the child a trip to the park and the park being closed for refurbishment, the child throws a tantrum. The witnesses cannot be blamed for the assumed truth they thought they saw as they have been programmed by their own experiences to see this situation as sinister, rather than innocent.

I am not saying that all witnesses would have seen the above example the same way and that is my point. Having all the available facts are what make the truth visable to us, yet many of us operate with only half the facts and assume truths where perhaps there are none.

What is consciousness?

Consciousness is defined as the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings or the awareness or perception of something by a person. It is this second half of the definition with which I am primarily concerned. Being conscious of your own self is two fold. There is how you view yourself and how you believe you are viewed by others. This goes for physical and psychological self conciousness. It can affect your entire life depending on how you perceive yourself.

Counsciousness of your surroundings is also important for survival. Being aware of how people will reaction is vital but being able to percieve how people might react is paramount. Whether we subscribe to the theory that there is a higher consciousness which can be attained is a personal decision. It makes the assumption that there can be some sort of ascension of the mind to a high plane of thinking. I tend to be of the belief that all humans are capable of any level of thinking or consciousness given the correct tools.

Do we have a "free will"?

First we must define free will. It is the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate, or the ability to act at one's own discretion. What this means is that the choice of action is left to the individual and is not predetermined.

There are many factors in the debate over free will. There is the idea that the past and present determine the future. Whether this principle is enough to completely override free will is in itself debatable. I believe that the past and present limit the choices we can make but still leave enough variation in choice that free will can be exerted.

The idea that all behaviors, beliefs, and desires are fixed by our genetic endowment and our biochemical makeup is one that has some scientific basis. However, in  a very strict reading of this theory only nature is taken into account and not nurture which leads to the debate over nature versus nurture, or biological versus environmental factors. In a looser reading of the theory, environment can also predetermine outcomes of behavioural choices.

The other factor that plays a large part in people’s perception of the concept of free will is the existance of a God or Gods, and their possible intervention in the affairs of man. For some, God is the only one who can determine the future and therefore negates the free will of man as all actions have been predetermined by God. For others, God gave man free will and allows man to exercise this free will. For yet others still, God gave man free will but reserves the right to interfere when necessary, giving the illusion of free will so long as that will chooses the path determined as acceptable by God, or at least doesn’t interfere with God’s grand plan.

In my mind, the concept of free will is as complex as any in this universe. We are creatures of our own making, shaped by our genetic makeup, environmental factors (including cultural biases), and free thought. It is more likely that identical twins (having genetically identical bodies) growing up in the same basic environment with the same basic influences will grow up to make similar choices, exercising their free will in similar ways. They will not be identical in the choices they make, however, because their experiences of events will not be completely identical. Likewise, two people born on opposite sides of the world, with different cultural backgrounds and different experiences growing up, may lead very similar lives through the exercise of free thought.

How can we be happy?

This is a question that can only be answered by first answering the question, “what is happiness?” and that is one of the hardest (and simplest) questions to answer. It is hard because everyone has a slightly different take on what it means to be happy, yet this is also what makes it easy because it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks of as happiness, your definition of happiness is what you measure your own happiness by.

For me, happiness comes from within and without. Loving and being loved (by my son, the rest of my family, my friends, my partner when I have one) brings me happiness. Success brings me happiness. Knowing that I tried my best, even if I failed, brings me happiness. Knowing I have made the right decision makes me happy. Helping others and making them happy makes me happy.

Whatever your definition of happiness and how you come by it (whether it be faith in a God or Gods, having all that you need, the love of family, or personal success either materially of spiritually), I hope that you have happiness or find happiness in every aspect of your life.

Why can we not live forever?

First of all, I’m not sure I’d like to live forever. What would you do? I mean, eventually you’re going to run out of things to do and people see and places to go. University of Cambridge philosopher Simon Blackburn, in his essay "Religion and Respect," writes, ". . . things do not gain meaning by going on for a very long time, or even forever. Indeed, they lose it. A piece of music, a conversation, even a glance of adoration or a moment of unity have their alloted time. Too much and they become boring. An infinity and they would be intolerable." I’m quite glad we don’t live forever. I know it’s sad when people die, and some people are taken way too soon, but without death there is no birth … no new life, no new thought, no innovation, no progress.

Second of all, it depends on your definition of living forever? Is immortality just physically being present until the end of time or is it something more intangible? English author, Albert Pine once said “What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.” We enjoy the works of Shakespeare, Beethoven, Picasso and whole raft of other writers, musicians, artists, etc because their works have spoken to generation after generation. They have, in effect, become immortal. Likewise, we discuss thoughts and ideas expressed by Plato, Copernicus, Churchill and many other philosophers, scientists and politicians even though they have physically died. Chuck Palahniuk perhaps put it best when he said, “We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”

Thirdly, does immortality take into account the eternal soul? If you believe in Heaven and Hell (or some other such resting place for the soul in the afterlife) or in reincarnation or resurrection, then immortality is a certainty.

Scientifically, immortality is the holy grail of medical research. There are several things which impede the establishment of immortality in human beings, one of which is the Hayflick Limit (the point at which a cell can no longer divide because of DNA damage or shortened telomeres). If scientists were able to come up with a solution to the problem of shortened telomeres and the many other variants which contribute to the aging process, we might achieve something akin to true immortality – biological immortality.

There are many ideas doing the rounds of the scientific, pseudo-scientific and science-fiction communities in regards to immortality. Cryogenics (freezing organisms for later revival at a time when a cure for whatever disease they have has been found) is one such idea. Another is Cybernetics (where human body parts are replaced with electronic parts, creating so-called cyborgs) and mind-computer interfaces (where the human consciousness is uploaded to a computer). There is also nanotechnology, with nanorobotics theorist Robert Freitas expounding the proposal that nanotechnology will eventually make the human body effectively self-sustainable and capable of living indefinitely by creating nanobots to go through systems within the human body (such as the bloodstream) to find dangerous things like cancer cells and bacteria, and destroy them.

I am of the opinion that immortality cannot be truly fathomed by the human mind, and that while people may be tempted by the idea of immortality, the actual fact of living for hundreds of thousands of years would soon wear thin. Combine this with the fact that you cannot live longer than the universe (unless you believe in multi-verses and invent a way of travelling between then) then immortality is impossible.

I am quite content to live my life and for it to come to it’s natural conclusion. I am not afraid of death. I do not look forward to dying, but I am not about to seek biological immortality just to avoid it as I would achieve no more in a million years than I would in the one hundred years.

What is the meaning of life?

As far as a dictionary definition goes the meaning of life is: the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.

Evolution, as such, has only one purpose: to increase the likelihood of survival. Each individual species or subspecies has little purpose in the grand scheme of things, scientifically, except to exist and to continue from one generation to the next. If we think about humans specifically and look at it from a philosophical point of view, there are many theories as to the purpose or meaning of life.

Plato believed the meaning of life was in attaining the highest form of knowledge. This is the driving force behind the study of science, literature, art and religion. On the other end of the spectrum we find the Nihilists, including the French philosopher Albert Camus, who believed that the world had no extrenal values or meaning and that it was the absurdity of human nature to search for these things. Existentialists remove the meaning of life from the world as a general entity and place the burden of the creation of meaning squarely at the foot of the individual.

As an individual, we can assign any meaning we wish to life, supposing that we believe in the concept of free will, at least to some degree. If we give over the determination of our destiny to a third party, such as God, then we cannot truly know the meaning of our life as it is in the hands of a mind not our own and, therefore, unreadable.

In my personal opinion, the meaning of my life is to be the best person I can be and to create part of the next generation which is better in their lifetime than I am in mine. If I am remembered only by those who know me personally, then so be it, it is not important. The meaning of my life is not to be famous. It is not to solve world peace. It is merely to lead a peaceful existence that leave a positive place for my son (and any other children I might have) to call home. If I achieve that, and nothing else, then I have succeeded in life and my life has been meaningful.

Creating an acceptance of difference

Tonight I had to break the news to my son that I don't necessarily believe in God (actually I don't know if there is a God or not, I'm what you might call an undecided voter). My son is currently 6 years old, he attends scripture at school and believes what people tell him without question. He believes in God and those things associated with it. He hasn't started the process of breaking down his belief structure and deciding if he still believes. I was not much older than he is now when I began that process but it probably wasn't until I was nearly a teenager that I properly began to question religion so I'm not expecting him to change his mind any time soon, if at all.

It was really hard telling Bubba that I didn't believe what he believes. I found myself wanting to tell him to believe what I believe but I know, perhaps by having gone through the process, that simply telling someone what to believe doesn't make them believe it, they have to come to it on their own.

I don't want my son to be one of those people who judges people by what they believe. I want him to be open minded and accepting of the differences between people. I want him to be proud of his beliefs but not to think that they are the only beliefs or that the beliefs of other people are worth less than his. I want him to be able to say, "We can agree to disagree."

I have been Christian and Athiest and Agnostic. I know the struggle of finding a place I feel comfortable to rest my beliefs. I have read extensively on most major religions and their subsets. I cannot, in true conscience, say I fully understand how people can believe in any of the diety-based religions or the nature religions. It doesn't mean that I object to them believing in them. Each to their own, as they say.

If my son decides that he will remain Christian, after careful consideration of all the options, then so be it. It is faith without that questioning that I object to. The blind faith of the uneducated and the zealots. It is with those people I will argue, not because I think they will change their opinion but because it winds them up. I am their devil because I can site scripture and yet have no faith.

I have had heated arguements, especially in my middle teenage years, with many a scripture teacher over the finer points of the bible. If I had to lable myself I would have to say I'm an evolutionist. This belief has usually been the source of many of my arguments. I remember taking a book on evolution in to a scripture teacher because he believed in the literal reading of the bible, that God made all the animals and plants, and that the world was created in 6 days. It blew my mind that an educated adult could completely disregard all scientific evidence to the contrary.

These days, I am a little more accepting, if not understanding. I still think people should believe what I do but I accept that no everyone will. In fact, most people don't believe what I believe. Most of the world believe in some sort of religion. Maybe you could say I believe in the religion of science.

Some people think that if you believe in science and not some diety-driven religion that you lack spirituality. I say that being spiritual and being religious are not the same thing. I've known some very religious people who don't appear to have a spiritual bone in their body. Alternatively, I've known some very spiritual people who won't have a bar of religion.

The thing I like about science is that is has the ability to change its mind. If a theory is proven wrong, it is proven wrong. Science is often critical of itself and challenges itself. What religion does that? I also like that science says, "I don't know but I'd like to find out." Science doesn't claim to have all the answers. Science sets out to answer those mysteries that are as yet unexplained, it doesn't lay the blame or the praise for the mystery on something even more mysterious.

The thing I like best is that science doesn't even say it knows how the world began. It has a theory but it's just that, a theory, it might be wrong. I like the idea of the Big Bang Theory but really, it's a bit like believing in God and I'll tell you why: my first question to a scripture teacher was, "if God made everything, who made God?" I have the same question about the Big Bang Theory: where did the stuff which created the Big Bang come from? The only solice I have that science is where my heart lies is in the answers I got to each question. From my scripture teacher, on being confronted by this question from a 7 year old, I got, "He just is." From science, being constantly confronted by this question, I get, "No-one knows."

I want my son to have the same curiosity that I have. I want him to question things and not accept things blindly. I want him to be open to all the possibilities and not closed minded. Most of all, I want him to know that no matter what his choice of belief, I will always love him ... unless it's scientology.