What would the universe be like if it was created?

Recently, I was asked, "Do you believe that a creator created the heavens and the earth, water, the plants, animals, people, etc.?"

I believe that it's more interesting how I arrive at an answer, than what my answer actually is.  In an attempt to find an answer, I'll ask two questions:

1.  "What would the universe be like if it was caused by a random big bang, and life evolved through natural selection?" 
2. "What would the universe be like if it was created?"

The answer to the question that I was asked is then simply, "Which answer is more like the universe?"

I want to answer these questions about the universe as if man-made technology didn't exist, as this is about the origin of man, not what man has made, so I'll attempt to base my answers on what life prior to technology would have been like.

But, before I start, it may be worthwhile to think about what a creator would be like.  He / she / it would be extremely intelligent and advanced, or at least use technology that is.  It may be conscious or an intelligent machine.  We know is that its desire would be to create life, and therefore I would guess its reason would be to create happiness.

Natural selection has no motivation.  Any life form existing by natural selection exists due to the life form's abilities to survive and reproduce.  Natural selection might achieve these by selecting happiness and pain, as life forms experiencing the right emotions in the right scenarios would likely survive and reproduce better than others.  These emotions would be extremely difficult to override, as overriding them would override the survival and reproduction instincts.

So, my first thought is that, in a random world, both pain and happiness might be roughly equal, whereas a created world would likely be more heaven-like.

It is possible that the creator decided that the universe should appear to be random, choosing to do everything it possibly could to make it appear that it didn't exist.  If this is the case, then the outcome of these questions should make it seem like natural selection is the most likely, but the real answer would be a creator.  Of course in this unlikely scenario, we would have zero evidence for a creator, and therefore no reason to believe that life was created.

Below are my thoughts:

Natural Selection	Creation
Roughly equal spread of happiness and pain.	No reason for pain to exist.  All life forms would probably be happy.
It seems to me that there is an equal spread of happiness and pain, but perhaps there was a lot more pain in the past when people lived in caves without heating or running water, or any of today's man-made luxuries. Constant happiness appears to be almost impossible to attain. Much of nature seems to cause pain: Viruses, harmful bacteria, disease, e.g. coronavirus, smallpox, HIV, measles, the flu, colds, TB, bubonic plague, malaria, mould, cancer, etc. Harmful animals, e.g. snakes, spiders, lions, scorpions, mosquitoes, etc. "Acts of God", e.g. floods, drought, earth quakes, tornadoes, volcanoes, tsunamis, etc. Poisonous plants, like some mushrooms, etc. The concept of the food chain is brutal, and I can't imagine that there is a particularly large amount of happiness in the life of the average animal.
Reproduction / life forms copying themselves, with slight imperfections / variations is an essential element of natural selection. Death, also is a useful part of natural selection, as it selects out those life forms less capable of surviving.	No reason for reproduction.  The creator would likely create all life. Death is probably unnecessary.
An estimated one in eight pregnancies end in miscarriage. The chance of dying while giving birth used to be quite high. Many people are born with defects.  Most are not as good looking as they'd like to be.  Death obviously exists.
Life would be positioned in seemingly random locations in a highly varied universe, where conditions were stable enough for life to persist.	Life would likely be positioned in the centre, or spread evenly across a universe that would only be as big as it needs to be.
One estimate of the number of stars in the universe is 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.  Earth is not all there is.  Earth is not the centre of our solar system, nor the centre of the Milky Way, nor the centre of the universe.  It is ridiculously insignificant in terms of size and position.  In a dangerous universe, due to seemingly random conditions, Earth is mostly protected from frequent significant meteorite collisions, which could have allowed life to survive as long as it has.  The last major meteorite collision was 66 million years ago.
Scientific research, using processes designed to eliminate bias, would reveal natural selection, with life evolving over a long period of time, with simpler life forms arriving first.	Scientific research, using process designed to eliminate bias, would reveal creation, most likely at a single point in time.
Experts in astronomy, biology, physics, theoretical physics and geology seem to agree (or at least have compatible deductions) on most aspects of the origin of the universe and life: The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old. Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old. The earliest evidence of life is that life existed 3.77 to 4.5 billion years ago. The earliest fossil evidence of early Homo sapiens appearing indicates that humans existed around 300,000 years ago.
The system would have consistent, predictable physics. No intervention would exist, and we'd have to solve all problems by ourselves.	While it is possible that the creator would have created an environment that was entirely self-sufficient, it is possible that the creator would choose to interact with the life that it created, perhaps communicating with the life, or making alterations within the universe.
As we learn more about how things work we discover that rain is not sent by a deity, nor is lightning, nor rainbows, nor sickness. Everything has a physical cause and effect: evaporation, condensation, static electricity, refraction, viruses. No deity is in attendance at World Health Organization meetings, nor United Nations meetings, nor those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We never see headlines showing an intervention, such as a creator choosing to cancel a disease.

In conclusion, to answer the questions:

Q: What would the universe be like if it was caused by a random big bang, and life evolved through natural selection?
A: Exactly as it is.

Q: What would the universe be like if it was created?
A: Obviously, quite a lot different to this one.



I cannot think of anything that makes creation seem more likely than evolution.

As for why so many people believe in a creator; I think the answer can be found in psychology.  It is a matter of natural selection of beliefs:  Since Christians and Muslims are terrified of the idea that not believing will end in eternal torture, and passionate about the idea that believing and obeying will result in eternal happiness, it's no wonder that their beliefs are thriving.  We are not perfectly rational.  Our minds exist to survive and reproduce, not to solve mathematical and logic puzzles.  We think with our emotions, and search for evidence to back our beliefs, ignoring the mountain of evidence against them, making excuses for the contradictions and logic problems in our convictions.

Taking a step back and viewing the Bible as a whole

Truth, I've come to realize, is usually not that hard to come by.  It's usually quite obvious and is always consistent.  Take for example the truth that my car requires petrol to drive.  Remove the petrol, and the car won't go.  It's simple, obvious, testable, and consistent.  It doesn't require me to have faith, it doesn't require me to attend frequent lectures, in order for me to believe it, and it doesn't require pretty pictures to make me feel good about the idea.

An apple is not a cake.  It's simple, obvious, testable and consistent.  The problem comes when someone is adamant that cake is an apple, because no matter what you believe, if you believe it strongly enough, you can find evidence for it.  You could say, cake is sweet, and an apple is sweet.  If you look at both through a strong enough microscope, you'll probably find that both look a bit organic.  If you look even deeper, you'll find that they're both made of molecules, and both contain a certain quantity of H20.  Yet, if you take a step back, you see the truth, quite obviously... an apple is not cake.

If you apply this logic to God, you should be able to know quite easily whether he exists, simply by imagining what life would be like with him, and without him, and then take a step back, look at the big picture, and see which one life is more like.  A problem is that God is not defined very consistently in the Bible.  So for the sake of keeping this brief, lets just pretend that the Bible only described God as loving and all powerful.  Imagining what life would be like with such a god would leave us thinking about an amazing existence, free of pain or stress.  Everyone would be happy all the time.  Life without such a god would appear quite random.

It's quite obvious which is more likely to be true... the happy or random life.  I also think that if God wrote a book that was incredibly important because everyone's eternal life depended on whether or not one believed it, that book would:

• Be indestructible (made of a super strong material, like a diamond)
• Be completely written and distributed to everyone right from the beginning of humanity
• Be written by God himself (not random humans)
• Be translated by God himself into every language
• Be personally given by God to everyone as soon as they were old enough to read (or sooner)
• Be read to anyone who couldn't read
• Be 100% unambiguous
• Be easy to read

...and of course if anyone had a mental disorder preventing them from understanding such a book, God would heal them.

Now lets take a look at the Bible... not in detail as in a bible study, but as a whole, and see how it compares to history, logic, and what we'd expect of such a book:

God always existed... that's what the Bible says.  He didn't evolve.  It's just a fundamental fact of physics that a single, intelligent, all powerful, conscious being must exist.

13.8 billion years ago the universe started.  This is not a thumb suck, nor a conspiracy theory.  It's a figure that very smart astronomers and scientists, who have spent their careers trying to learn about the universe, have figured out.  It's mathematical, objective and consistent.  4.5 billion years ago the Earth was formed.

Take a look at Wikipedia's list of Neolithical Cultures of China.  It lists eighteen cultures, dating from 18,000 BC to 4,000 BC.  The Mesopotamian history starts in 5,000 BC, and the Sumer history starts in 5,400 BC.

Looking at the bible, and going by its genealogies, which are slightly inconsistent with each other, the Earth, and Adam were formed around 4,000 BC... yes, that's while the other cultures were already living here.

God gave Adam a female, because, having looked through, and named all of the animals, Adam couldn't find a suitable companion.  Yes, that is what the Bible says (Gen 2:19-22).

It's a bit difficult to try and imagine what Adam and Eve were like, because they, unlike everyone else, were born with the ability to speak... or at least that's the impression I get.  They had no memories and no experiences.  Like innocent children, I suppose.  The Bible also implies that they did not know the difference between good and evil.  It's worth pausing and taking a moment to think about what that might be like.  The knowledge of good and evil that we learn naturally comes from empathy; the ability to share and understand the feelings of one another.  We know that good is making other people feel better, and evil is making them feel worse.  Someone who doesn't have this empathy is not a good person.  If you do whatever you want to without regarding whether it is good or evil, you will do good and evil.  If hurting a person or animal would have gotten Adam what he wanted, then, since he didn't understand good and evil, surely he would have just gone ahead and hurt them.  The knowledge of good and evil is a GOOD thing!  A person without the knowledge of good and evil may be considered to be a psychopath.

I need to just write about punishment quickly, because it is important to understand what punishment is, before you continue.  Punishment is a way to make life better for the majority of people.  If someone steals something, we might put them in jail, to prevent them from stealing anything else, and as a warning to other people that stealing will result in their being put into jail.  The result, we hope, is that less people will steal, and there will be more order and happiness in general.  If we could prevent crime without hurting anyone, this would be preferable.

Revenge is something else entirely.  It is a selfish, emotional response.  Its purpose is to make the person who feels hurt, feel better by hurting someone back.  It is often a bad thing, but may result in some good, only if it overlaps with the above definition of punishment.  Therefore only punishment is necessary.

God planted a tree in the middle of the garden that he had given to Adam and Eve.  It was a tree that would trigger eternal suffering for all non-Christians forever if Adam and Eve were to eat its fruit.  I remember when I was three or so, my parents accidentally left an axe lying around and I ended up sticking it in my big toe.  That was NOTHING compared to how careless you'd have to be to PURPOSEFULLY stick such a deadly tree with tasty looking fruit in the middle of a garden and tell the child-like inhabitants not to eat it.  Psychologically, someone is likely going to give in and eat it, even if there is no snake to tempt you... and these people didn't even know about good and evil, and even if they did, how would they whether to believe God or the snake (who was actually being honest)?

So, the devil decides to take the form of a snake and go talk to Adam.  Why a snake?  Why not something a bit friendlier?  Why anything?  Where does the devil even come from?  Why is the devil evil?  So much missing background information here.  Because this is a story, and in stories, the villain is always ugly and scary looking... unlike reality, where the villain looks almost normal, like Adolf Hitler, or Kim Jong Un.

So the snake walked over to Eve (yes, it had legs, as you'll see later)... and Eve said, "Oh crap!  A talking snake!"  Nope, more like, "Oh hello Mr. Snake..."

After Adam and Eve had eaten the tasty fruit, God didn't just take revenge upon the Devil, Adam and Eve, but EVERYONE, and every SNAKE!  Note I use the word revenge.  This is not punishment to correct the behaviour, create order and make people generally happier.  This is something else, and doesn't serve any positive purpose that I can see.

He then placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword (futuristic technology, since swords wouldn't have been invented yet) flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.  He didn't destroy the garden.  He didn't place a wall around it.  It just makes me wonder if the garden and the cherubim and flaming sword are still there (can we see them on Google Earth?), or at what point the cherubim and flashing sword got tired and went home.

So, eventually after nearly a couple of thousand years (2,304 BC according to Creation Ministries) God flooded the whole Earth.  Noah built a boat, on which he kept at least a pair of every species that was required to evolve into the millions of species of animals we have today.  He kept them all together on a boat for AN ENTIRE YEAR!  Every type of insect, every type of virus, every type of bird (birds wouldn't have lasted for half a year without dry land), every type of rodent, land dwelling mammal, arachnid, bear, kangaroo, lion, elephant, etc. on one boat.  They were all able to eat and poop for an entire year, and live harmoniously with each other for a year on a boat.

In the meanwhile, while the entire Earth was flooded, these civilizations didn't care, and carried on living in submarines:

Neolithic 8500-1500 BC
Egyption Dynasty 4 2613 to 2494 BC, Dynasty 5: 2494 to 2345 BC, Dynasty 6: 2345 - 2181 BC
Mesopotamia 5000 BC to 333 BC
Sumerians 5400 BC to 1120 BC

Norte Chico civilization 3000 BC to 1800 BC

Another couple of thousand years pass by before Jesus is born (approx. 0 AD).

66 to 70 years later, the first book about Jesus, Mark, is written.  It is worth thinking about that for a moment... that for about 35 years after Jesus death, people were merely talking about him.  There was no official book.  Thirty-five years is a long time!  Imagine writing a book including lots of quotes from thirty-five years ago.  Your book might be based on some memories and what people are saying.  There's no internet or telephone or newspaper, so your book is merely vague recollections of memories and gossip.

When Mark begins, Jesus is already an adult.  There is no virgin birth, no manger nor wise men.  In this book, Jesus continuously talks about the coming of the Kingdom, which he says will happen within the lifetime of those with him (one could say within the first century).  This event was given many names, like the Apocalypse, Armageddon, and the second coming.  An event which never happened... Jesus' failed prophecy.

The book also introduces the concept of hell.  In other words, no-one knew what happened to them when they die from the beginning of time until Jesus told them... that is, if Jesus told them, because the vast majority of the planet still wouldn't hear about it for a long time.

It is interesting that there was volcanic activity in Italy 2,000 years ago, spewing fire and sulfur (brimstone), making it quite obvious where people got the idea of hell from.  Hell is below us, and heaven is above us.

Note that hell is not a form of punishment.  It does not serve any useful purpose.  It is much more like revenge.

Strangely the book of Mark ends with three women going to Jesus' Tomb (Mark 15:1-8).  An anonymous man tells them that Jesus has risen, but the women don't tell anyone.  That's it!  That's how the original first gospel ended... the women don't tell anyone, so nobody knows!  Now you may be thinking, "Hang on, there's more to Mark," but if you read your Bible's footnotes, you'll discover that the rest of Mark was not written in the original book, but added much later to a copy, by someone else, including the part Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.  Yup, unfortunately the original author of Mark did not say that baptism nor belief would save you (the fundamental principle of Christianity), nor that Christians are immune to poison, nor that Jesus appeared to anyone after his resurrection, nor that he ascended into heaven.

Instead of telling you to believe in Jesus, the way that Mark suggests you avoid hell, is not to sin; or to cut off your hand, or foot, or gouge out your eye, if they cause you to sin.

For more on Mark, read my open minded bible study.

20 or so years after the book of Mark, Matthew is written.  This is 90 years after the birth of Christ!  Can you imagine trying to write about something that happened  90 years ago without any resources except the book of Mark?  It's like writing about something that you heard about in 1928, in 2018.  In the book a Jewish lady gets pregnant without having sex with her fiancé.  To be honest, I'm not surprised she didn't argue with her fiancé when he told her he had a dream that the child's father was the Holy Spirit.  In this book, Herod kills all boys in Bethlehem under two years of age.  According to historians, this massacre never took place.

Of the books that were written about Jesus, there are four in the Bible.  The reason that there are four is because there are one for each of the four corners of the universe.

In conclusion, if you study every atom of a cake, you may not realize that it has a lot in common with an apple.  You may need to take a step back, and see that it looks absolutely nothing like an apple.  If you study every verse of the Bible you may find meaning, and see ways to be inspired, and find evidence that it's true, but if you take a step back and look at the big picture, you begin to see the myths and inconsistencies.

Mathematically it seems that aliens are not as advanced as us.

Technology progresses exponentially.  As we gain better technology, the speed at which we can improve our technology becomes faster.  Over the first 200,000 or so years humans developed chariots, crossbows, catapults, aqueducts, etc.  In the next couple of hundred years (a thousandth of the time that humans have been around), we invented cars, television, space rockets, etc.  Over the next few years, we invented the internet, voice activated smart phones, self-driving cars, etc.  We're quickly heading towards the technological singularity.

For the future, the exponential trend means that we could advance as much as we did in the last ten years in the next five, which is mind blowing.  If the trend continues, it means that in about 2030, we could advance just as much in one year, and by 2040, we could have robots which can build better robots than themselves, leading to an infinite loop of improvement, and the singularity.  That is just if the trend continues at its current rate.  It may take longer, but it won't stop, and I'd be very surprised if it hasn't happened by 2060.

From then on the world could be very different to what it's like today.  We will have optimized everything that we can.  Our meat based bodies will be replaced by a more durable, efficient material.  Consciousness may even be generated by machines, meaning that even our minds wouldn't need to be meat based.  Our existence will probably be in a simulated world, or we could plug-in whenever we wish.

You may be skeptical, and say that my timelines are too short, and that won't happen for the next thousand years.  You'd be very wrong, but it doesn't matter :)  What matters is that it's a very short period of time relative to the age of the universe.  14 years is a billionth of the age of the universe, and 1,400 years is a ten millionth of the age of the universe.

So, hypothetically, if there was an alien race that was more advanced than us, it's very unlikely that they'd be just a little bit more advanced.  If they developed just 1 percent faster than us, they'd already be 10 million years ahead.  If we can get to the singularity in fifty years, then 10 million years is just mind-blowingly, ridiculous.

But I don't think they exist, and my reason is simple mathematics.  The goal of an advanced civilization would be to generate as many happy minds as possible.  They would not only use their technology to make their life forms as happy as possible, but they would also make as many life forms as possible.  The reason would be to increase the probability that one is a happy life form, and to generate as much happiness as possible before their universe ends (unless they've figured out that that won't happen, or found a way to prevent it).

Now, given the millions of years that they've had to do that, they should have had time to generate a few billion times the number of life forms that we have on planet Earth, making the probability of being a less advanced life form very, very small.

The next thought that comes to mind is, well, why would we be the most advanced?

Maybe it's just that simple, that no beings have ever reached the singularity, and we're going to be the first and most intelligent.

Alternatively, maybe no life form has ever survived the singularity.












Image credits:

1. http://www.freeimages.com/photo/old-cart-2-1345899
2. http://www.freeimages.com/photo/future-1429276
3. http://www.freeimages.com/photo/jump-1527153
4. http://www.freeimages.com/photo/losangeles-universalstudio-ter-1469233

An Open Minded Bible Study - The Gospel of John

I recently read an email from someone that I care very much about.  It included this quote, "If you read the gospel of John with an open mind and genuine seeking for the truth, you would come to know Jesus and you would have faith in Him."

I thought that I would give this a go.  Before I start, I'll set out some rules, so that I follow the instructions as well I can:

• I will be as unbiased and open minded as possible.  I will attempt to do this without any preconceptions about what the outcome will be.
• I will attempt to evaluate the book as if I had never read or heard of it before.
• I will use my knowledge of critical thinking to point out any problems that I find.
• I will hold the book to the highest standards, checking that any important claims (especially extraordinary ones) have suitable references or evidence.
• I will evaluate it on it's own, rather than as part of a collection of books known as the New Testament, ignoring any contradictions or similarities to the other books.
• I will be genuinely honest with myself, and seek the truth.

So, first lets start with a background check... who is John?  Is he the subject, or the author?  When was it written?  Etc...

According to Wikipedia:

• The Gospel of John is anonymous. Traditionally, Christians have identified the author as "the Disciple whom Jesus loved" mentioned in John 21:24, who is understood to be John son of Zebedee, one of Jesus' Twelve Apostles. These identifications, however, are rejected by the majority of modern biblical scholars. Nevertheless, the author of the fourth Gospel is sometimes called John the Evangelist, often out of convenience since the true name of the author remains unknown.
• John is usually dated to AD 90–110.
• Written in Greek.

According to this website:

• The oldest manuscript (just a few verses) is dated at 125 AD (we don't have the original).
• We have a manuscript of some more verses dated from about 150 to 200 AD.
• Most of the first two thirds of John are in a manuscript dated at about 200 AD.

From this we can already make some guesses about the book:

• Since the original book was probably originally written 60 to 80 years after the crucifixion of Jesus, it's unlikely that the author was an eye witness to the events he recorded, and could have gotten some information from the other three gospels written beforehand, and perhaps other writings or stories passed on by word of mouth.  Nevertheless, it is slightly possible that he was an eye witness to some events as a boy, and lived a longer life than most.  People didn't live very long in those days.  If he was an eye witness, and wrote the book from memory, it is likely that any quotes would be paraphrased, rather than exactly what the person said, and could easily be inaccurately remembered.  I have also noticed, while reading through the book that it is not written as an eye witness account.  It is written using the third person omniscient perspective, as most stories are: In this point of view the narrator knows everything. The narrator isn't limited by what one character knows, sort of like the narrator is God. The narrator can know things that others don't, can make comments about what's happening, and can see inside the minds of other characters.
• Since we don't know much about the person who wrote the book, any quotes without references or evidence should be taken with a pinch of salt.
• Since we don't have the original manuscripts, we don't know how many changes, omissions and additions there have been since the original.  Changes and mistakes were common when hand copying manuscripts, as can be seen by footnotes in bibles detailing discrepancies between manuscripts.

John 1

The book starts off with some poetic writing about someone called "The Word", which created everything along with God.  He doesn't write how he knows this, which I would consider to be a very important omission.  I could guess that this comes from stories that the author had heard, or other writings, but either way, I can't trust what he's writing without any kind of reference.  I think it's possible that he could have got the idea from Genesis 1:26, where God is quoted to have said, "Let us make mankind in our image," indicating that there were multiple creators.  If he were to write something obvious and simple, like that the weather is sunny today, then it would be easier to believe what he's writing, but any extraordinary claims, like that a particular person was the other creator, require references or evidence.

I do find it interesting that he claims that "Through him all things were made," which contradicts some people's beliefs that Satan made the bad things.  According to the author, all things were made through Jesus, which would obviously include snakes, spiders, mosquitoes, cockroaches, viruses, bacteria, mold, poisonous mushrooms, volcanoes, lions, etc.

Verses 12 and 13 are interesting: "Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God."

Again, no references, but  I suppose if I say that for every line without references, I'll get rather repetitive, so I'll just assume that you understand this very clearly: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  Wherever the author writes about anything extraordinary without a reference, claiming some knowledge about God or a miracle or prophecy, it cannot be rationally accepted, and is most likely untrue.

Furthermore, the poetic nature of the writing makes his point unclear:  being "born of God" does not have a definition, and neither does "believed in his name."  For example, does this apply to someone who believes that Jesus is God's son?  Does it apply to someone who believes that Jesus is God's son, but doesn't actually know that his name is "Jesus", e.g. what if one believed that God had a son, and made up a name for him, like "Phil"?  What if one believed that Jesus existed, and was part of the creation, but didn't believe that Jesus was related to God?

The author writes about John baptizing, and baptizing Jesus, which historians consider to have actually happened.  John's baptism was, according to the author to "Make straight the way for the Lord," but the author does not write how the baptism does that.  The purpose of the baptism, and why people came to John to be baptized seems unclear.

In verse 49, someone named Nathaniel says, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel," but the reason that he says this is because Jesus told Nathaniel that Jesus saw him under a fig tree, which doesn't make any sense.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 starts off with a story about Jesus turning water into wine (Extraordinary claim without references).  I find it interesting that Jesus' mother simply assumed that Jesus could create wine.  Jesus seemed to not want to perform the alchemy as his hour had not yet come, but does it anyway.  His mother assumed that he would need other people to help, which implied that she knew how it was done.  I assume therefore that the author is implying that he'd done this before.

The next part of chapter 2 is about Jesus driving the traders out of the temple with a whip.  Verses 18 and 19 are interesting:

"The Jews then responded to him, 'What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?'

Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.'"

These verses are a prophecy, which if fulfilled would be evidence that Jesus was special.  However, I find verse 21 annoying: "But the temple he had spoken of was his body."  This is an example of a logical fallacy called "Moving the goalposts" or "Special pleading."  Any prediction (or prophecy) has to be very clear in order for it to have any value.  If one can just re-interpret a prediction when it doesn't come true, then the prediction was entirely meaningless.  One could even go as far as to say that if the goalposts are moved / re-interpreted, then the prophecy was false, and therefore a lie or mistake.

There are plenty of examples of this logical fallacy in religions, for example, Mark's gospel predicted the end of the world / Armageddon / the second coming was supposed to happen within the lifetime of those standing by, but since it didn't happen, the prophecy is re-interpreted due to cognitive dissonance.  Jehovah's Witnesses have predicted the date of the end of the world / Armageddon / the second coming many times, and when the event doesn't occur within the time frame, they simply change the date, or try to explain away the prediction as a misinterpretation, instead of admitting that they are simply wrong.

Chapter 3

In chapter 3 Jesus is reported to have told Nicodemus that no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.  He does this without explaining what he means, and seems to get frustrated that Nicodemus doesn't understand him.  I don't understand why Jesus couldn't have simply been straightforward, and explained it in a way that did make sense.  Jesus goes on to say, "everyone who believes may have eternal life in him."  Again, it's unclear... Jesus doesn't explain precisely what needs to be believed.  It seems he tries to give an explanation of the reason that the belief would allow anyone to have eternal life, but it doesn't make sense: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son."

There is no explanation as to what good condemning a person does, nor why a person who believes something is not condemned.  I'll add that a rational belief is based on evidence, which is especially required when an extraordinary claim is made.  Since there is no evidence for these claims, it follows that belief in them is not rational, and therefore the book suggests that only people who have irrational beliefs may have eternal life.

The same concept is repeated in vs 36: "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them."

Chapter 4

In chapter 4 Jesus speaks to a Samaritan woman.  He supposedly tells her that she has had five husbands and that the man she was with was not her husband.  From this she deduces that Jesus is a prophet, and blows it way out of proportion in vs 29.  This deduction is very poor reasoning.  The same faulty reasoning is used by people who believe people who claim to talk to spirits, or be healers or have some other kind of magical mind reading skills.  If someone told me some things about myself, the rational thing to do is simply believe that they've heard it from someone, or something else,... not that they're a prophet!

Back in vs 24, Jesus says, "God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth."  Samaritans would have been used to worshiping God.  I do, however question what the purpose of worship is.  I would guess that people used to believe that deities were responsible for anything that they couldn't understand, so when there were natural problems, like drought or sickness, they would assume that the deity was angry and do anything they could, including appealing to its ego.  To me, however, the idea of someone expecting worship is immature, egotistical, and certainly not loving.

Verse 48 says, “Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”  I would say that's entirely rational.  One should not merely believe an extraordinary claim without sufficient evidence.

At the end of the chapter, Jesus is said to have told a royal official that his sick son would live.  In verses 52 and 53 it says,

"When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, 'Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.'

Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, 'Your son will live.'"

This is an example of anecdotal evidence.  Anecdotal evidence is when someone has an experience that could be co-incidence, but is taken as evidence instead.  This type of logical fallacy causes many people to believe in things like alternative medicines, vitamins and prayer as cures, simply because they have experienced being cured of something at the same time that they took the supposed cure.  Of course it could have just been the body's immune system, or another medicine that cured them.  The belief is compounded because co-incidences are remembered, and events that don't coincide are forgotten.  To explain this another way, for every co-incidence that happens, there are thousands of co-incidences that don't happen, but we only remember the co-incidence.  If someone phones you and you happened to be thinking about that person shortly before the call, you'd probably remember the event as a surprising co-incidence, but you won't remember the thousands of times that you thought of a person and they didn't call.  Our minds are very good at pattern recognition, and will constantly look out for interesting co-incidences and "evidence" for our beliefs.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 starts off with something quite bizarre.  It's about some kind of magical pool.  According to the footnotes, some manuscripts explain as follows: "From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had."

To me this is the most far fetched idea so far, because this magic has nothing to do with Jesus.  We know that magic like this doesn't exist today, because if it did, we would be able to see it and test it.  So there are two options... either Jesus lived in a magical time, when it was normal for angels to stir water and make it magical, or the story is simply based on a myth.  When given two options like that I see no reason to believe the extraordinary option.

Verse 16 is also quite bizarre: "So, because Jesus was doing these things (miracles) on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him."  This is really hard to fathom;  Jesus is supposedly commanding lame people to walk, and instead of being completely gobsmacked at the incredible thing they've just witnessed, they tell Jesus not to perform miracles on a Saturday!

Verse 29 contradicts what Jesus said earlier about those who believe not being condemned: "Those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned."  The promise of eternal life for believers is repeated many times in the book.

Chapter 6

In chapter 6, Jesus gives a confusing talk: "For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them."

Many disciples say "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" and they stop following Jesus.

Jesus says, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them."  What I understand from this is that Jesus told people that God decides whether or not someone may become a Christian.  So the belief in Jesus is not something you choose... you simply either believe, because God allows you to, or you don't believe because God doesn't allow you to.  Rational belief is based on evidence and logic, any other reason for belief, like it only being available to chosen people sounds like nonsense to me.  It also brings up the question of what God's criteria would be for choosing his followers.  What I like about this statement is it is actually testable.  We could, theoretically, look at the kind of people who follow Jesus, and get an idea of God's criteria.  A look at the kind of people who follow Jesus, however, reveals that people are more likely to be followers of Jesus if they are brought up in a Christian community, and if they have Christian parents.  Chinese and middle eastern people, for example, are unlikely to be Christians.  Does this mean that God doesn't like Chinese people?  Of course not... people simply believe because they've been brought up with those beliefs and have either not challenged their beliefs, or have challenged the beliefs and not found them to be false.  Another example of a group of people which seem to be to be very unlikely to be Christians are experts in critical and rational thinking, as well as AI researchers.  This is surely because, in their intellectual pursuit of truth, they have challenged the beliefs of Christians, and have not found enough evidence, rather than simply not being "enabled" by God.

Chapter 7

John 7 verse 5 says, "For even his own brothers did not believe in him."  I think this is an interesting statement.

Chapter 8

Up to this point it seems that most of the book is about Jesus struggling to convince people to believe that God sent him.  At the end of chapter 8, he claims to be God: “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”

Chapter 9

Jesus heals a man born blind by spitting on the ground and making mud, then placing it on the man's eyes and telling him to wash it off in the Pool of Siloam.

Since there is no evidence nor references for these extraordinary miraculous claims, they are unlikely to be true.  Therefore it makes me curious about where the ideas originated from.  I can see that there is a recurring pattern in that something is usually used to do the miracle: water, loaves and fish, a pool and spit.  I would guess that the use of spit and pools for healing might have come from ancient ideas that spit or water could be used for healing.  So I looked it up to see what ancient Greeks believed (the book was written in Greek), and I found this: "Greek mythology specified that certain natural springs or tidal pools were blessed by the gods to cure disease. Around these sacred pools, Greeks established bathing facilities for those desiring healing." - Wikipedia.

Chapter 10

Jesus tells people that they have to go through him to be saved.  In verse 30, he claims that he is his own father (God): "I and the Father are one."

Chapter 11

In this chapter a man named Lazarus dies and Jesus suggests they go to him.  Verse 16 is very strange: "Then Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, 'Let us also go, that we may die with him.'"

Jesus again tells people that if they believe in him they will have eternal life.  He resurrects  Lazarus.

Chapter 12

This chapter contains a few examples of the third person omniscient perspective that the book was written in: "So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well," and "At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him."

Chapter 13

Jesus washes his disciples feet.  This is a nice gesture to his disciples and a practical way to teach them how they should behave towards each other.

Jesus prophecies that Judas will betray him.  I find this sentence a bit strange: "As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him."  I wonder if the author is saying that Judas was just an ordinary, decent man, but Jesus caused Satan to possess Judas and make him betray Jesus.

Chapter 14

Jesus says to his disciples, "You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.  I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe."

I take this to mean that Jesus is predicting his death and resurrection, and when he rises and comes back to them they will believe.

Chapter 15

Jesus prophesied to his disciples, "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you."

This is an extraordinary statement, and therefore unlikely to be true, but it does make me wonder if Jesus actually said it to his disciples, and if any of them tried it out.  If God were to tell me, "Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you," I would probably say something like, "Get rid of sickness, aging, cold, hunger, thirst, stress and death, and give everyone amazing games to play, so that we can all have fun and be happy."  Of course cognitive dissonance would make it difficult for a strong believer to stop believing simply because a prophecy didn't come true.  They would probably have made excuses like, "That wasn't 'done for me' because I have forgotten some of Jesus' words."

Chapter 16

Jesus prophecies "The time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God."  Interestingly many of the apostles (if not all) were supposedly murdered.  However, since the book was written after the murders would have already occurred, this doesn't provide us with any evidence that Jesus (nor the writer) knew the future.

Jesus prophecies about his death and resurrection, and again tells them that they can have whatever they want: "Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete."

Vs 29 is interesting: "Then Jesus’ disciples said, 'Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.'"

Firstly it shows us that quoted text does not mean that a person said exactly those words.  It would be ridiculous to think that all the disciples said exactly the same sentences.

Secondly the disciples didn't believe that Jesus came from God because of the miracles.  They believed because Jesus apparently knew all things without asking questions.  In the preceding verses, however, Jesus doesn't say anything that would provide any evidence that he knew all things.  He merely prophecies about things which haven't happened.

Chapter 17

Verse 1 says, "After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed."

I have to ask... which direction is heaven?  I think the use of the word heaven could either refer to the sky or the place in which God lives.  However, based on the context, that Jesus is praying to his Father, God, I think it refers to the place in which God lives.  I would guess that people back in those days believed something like the Earth was flat, and the center of the universe, and heaven was up, and hell was below.  Of course, if there was a heaven, it would neither be up nor down, because that direction changes as the earth spins.  It seems that the idea of hell being below the Earth comes from observations of volcanoes... fire coming from below Earth... hence the phrase fire and brimstone (brimstone means sulphur, and volcanoes emit sulphur dioxide and smell like sulphur).

Interestingly, it seems that God (the Father) doesn't even agree to Jesus' request, as Jesus asks "Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

Chapter 18

Jesus is arrested and Peter cuts of the priest's ear (Strangely in this version there is no mention of Jesus healing the high priest).  Peter later denies Jesus.

Chapter 19

Jesus is crucified.

This chapter contains an interesting verse: "The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe."  I say "it's interesting" because the writer assumes that it's true, but provides no reason why he says that the man's testimony is true.  It's a bit strange.  Why write that the testimony is true, if you have no more reason to believe it than the reader?

Jesus is buried in a tomb.

Chapter 20

Mary Magdalene and two disciples discover the empty tomb.

I'm a bit confused about one verse: "Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)"

I'm so used to seeing the word believed in this book in the context of believing in Jesus, that I wonder if here it means that the disciple believed that someone had taken Jesus' body.  I don't think it means that he believed that Jesus had risen, because that would be the last thing someone would believe if they saw an empty tomb, before they had seen any evidence of something extraordinary.  It carries on to tell how Mary Magdalene was crying because she believed that Jesus' body had been taken away.

It turns out the guy she's crying to is Jesus.

Jesus appears to his disciples, gives them the Holy Spirit, and says, "If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."  So far in this book Jesus has never mentioned hell, nor what happens to someone if their sins are not forgiven.  Nevertheless, if I were to receive the ability to forgive sins on God's behalf, and believed that God would give eternal life to anyone I forgave, I'd forgive everyone.

Thomas doesn't believe that Jesus has risen, until provided with evidence, by seeing the holes in his hands and side.

Chapter 21

Jesus appears to the disciples again, and miraculously fills their fishing net with fish.  There's a strange verse here:  "None of the disciples dared ask him, 'Who are you?' They knew it was the Lord."  Maybe it's a translation problem, because if it really was Jesus, they would obviously recognize him, and there would be no need to write the sentence.

Jesus prophecies about Peter's death.  Jesus then speaks about the disciple that he loves and says, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?"  I think this is the only time in the book that Jesus refers to his so called second  coming.

The writer clarifies, "Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die."  If I were to guess, I'd say it's likely that the writer wrote it because the disciple had died and Jesus had not yet returned.

He then writes, "This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true."  He's writing about this disciple as being another person.  Again, he mentions that his testimony is true, but doesn't explain.  Since the disciple apparently wrote about Jesus, it seems possible that the writer of this book copied those writings.

Additional Thoughts

The book of John paints a very different picture to traditional Christian beliefs:
- There is no mention of hell... which is an extremely important topic in Christianity.
- There is no mention of paradise... merely eternal life, without defining what it is.
- Jesus teaches about love, and good values, but only about 4 times; The main emphasis of the book is Jesus repeatedly performing miracles and trying to get people to believe in him.
- There is no mention of Armageddon or the end of the world, but only a brief mention of the second coming, including a possible excuse that the disciple who was expected to be alive for the second coming may not have survived (perhaps he avoids it because Armageddon / the end of the world never happened within the predicted time frame of Jesus' generation).
- Baptism is not required for salvation... only belief.

6 Ideas to Reduce Extremism

It seems like all of these senseless, extremist murders are carrying on without much being done about them.  I find it very  frustrating.  The following is a list of things I think should happen to reduce extremism:

1.  Every child should learn critical thinking at school.  This will teach them to challenge what they're being taught, and understand how their minds can deceive them, e.g. basing their beliefs on emotions, rather than logic and evidence.

2.  We need a new kind of social network; the opposite of a dating site, where instead of being matched with people like you, you're matched with people who are completely different to you.  In Facebook and Meetup we join groups with like minded people, and we keep contact with those people.  We need to diversify, and make friends with people of different races, languages, sexual preferences, etc.

3.  We need to invent better technology to overcome language barriers, e.g. gadgets like Pilot.  Facebook does an okay job of translating foreign languages, so people can type in their own language and others can read it in theirs.

4.  We shouldn't have schools based on specific religions.  Now, I know you're thinking "But my religion is the one true religion and we should get rid of schools that follow other religions, but not mine."  My counter argument is that is exactly why there shouldn't be specific religious schools;  No-one is going to learn about your religion if you're isolating it from the rest of the world.  It would be better for all schools to teach about all the major religions, covering evidence for and against them, and then the children can use the critical thinking skills which they learned at school to decide, based on the evidence, which is the right religion and obviously they'll choose yours.

5.  The use of intellect, rather than bombs.  The group, Anonymous, showed us an example, where they disabled extremist websites.

6.  We need a democratic way of making changes in other parts of the world, not just in our own country, e.g. Democratic Intelligence.

How did all these civilizations survive the great flood?

Flood 2304 BC

How did these civilizations survive it?

Neolithic 8500-1500 BC
Egyption Dynasty 4 2613 to 2494 BC, Dynasty 5: 2494 to 2345 BC, Dynasty 6: 2345 - 2181 BC
Mesopotamia 5000 BC to 333 BC
Sumerians 5400 BC to 1120 BC

Norte Chico civilization 3000 BC to 1800 BC

The infinite improbability of me

If I were to guess, I'd say that most non-religious folk believe that one is born once, one dies, and then one ceases to be conscious ever again, in any form.

Mathematically, however, there are problems with this theory.

Before I assign numbers to variables, and create formulas, I have to first define an expression I'm going to use.  The expression is unique experiencer, or unique point of experience, or if you prefer, perhaps, unique perspective of experience explains it better.  Whatever it is, it's me, or it's you.   It's that thing that people who believe in re-incarnation believe will be re-incarnated, and that thing that people who believe in heaven and hell, believe will go there.  It's also that single thing that is exactly the same in your future self, your present self, and your past self, regardless of whether you lose your memory, or have every atom in your body replaced, one at a time.  It's that thing that, in your or my case, there appears to be only one of in the entire universe.  Following me so far?

Let me convert this theory into numbers and show you the problem:

Number of potential unique experiencers = ∞ (infinite)
Number of me (single unique experiencer) = 1

Ask yourself this question, "What is the probability, therefore, of me being born?"

The answer is 1/∞ (number of me / potential unique experiencers).  I call this infinitely improbable.

In other words, before I was born, the chance I would be born, given a finite period of time was infinitely improbable.

Lets carry on the maths...

One could say that, given an infinite period of time, one could therefore be born, but it doesn't work like that, because only 13.8 billion years have passed.  I say only, because 13.8 billion / ∞ = almost nothing.  In fact it doesn't matter how many years have passed, because anything / ∞ = almost nothing.

So, the fact that the infinitely improbable event of my birth has occurred, means that it is infinitely unlikely that my premise is right.

The ∞ is wrong (there must be a finite number of potential unique experiencers).

So, how many potential unique experiencers are there then?  The only logical number that I can think of is 1.  If there were more, then there would have to be some kind of pool of unique experiencers that gets re-used.  For example, if there were an arbitrary 1 million, then after the millionth life form is born, the first gets re-used.  But what happens if there are 1,000,001 alive simultaneously?  Is the newest unique experiencer two life forms?

The simplest answer is that we are all simply, a single, unique, experiencer.  We are all me.  In the same way that I am my future self and my past self, I am you, and I am the slugs in my garden.

The model for my theory is that we don't simply exist as a single point in time (one dimension).  We exist in at least two dimensions:  time is one dimension and consciousness generators is another.  By consciousness generators I mean things like brain cells or neurons.  I'm not a neurologist, so I don't know exactly what the second dimension is, but it makes sense to me that the smarter a life form is, the more likely we are to be that life form at a given point in two dimensions, where one dimension is time.

Well, that's my theory anyway.  If you're an open minded critical thinker and have any thoughts on this, please feel free to share them.  I'm more interested in being less wrong, than being consistent with what I've written.

To learn more about this theory, check out my other blog post:

http://soberauer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/questioning-life-after-death-using.html

Image credits:

1. grave yard - http://www.freeimages.com/photographer/ivancicas-47350
2. baby face - http://www.freeimages.com/photographer/mounis23-59792
3. people - http://www.freeimages.com/photographer/cobrasoft-62365