god

MLMM Friday Faithfuls — Integrating New Beliefs

Fandango10 Comments

For this week’s Mindlovemysery’s Menagerie Friday Faithfuls challenge, Jim Adams asks us to respond to this challenge by writing if we think that religious doctrines should evolve as man gets smarter, or why religions don’t seem to be receptive to change even when there seems to be a flaw in their beliefs, or write anything about the sunk cost fallacy, or write about whatever else that we think might fit.

I’ve been debating with myself all day about whether or not to respond to this prompt. Here is why. Believing in the existence of a supernatural deity (or deities) is foundational to almost all organized religions. But I’m an atheist and not believing in the existence of such a deity (or deities) is foundational to being an atheist.

Most people I know in the real world are not atheists and believe there is something — God — out there that is larger than themselves. And I am equally sure that most of the bloggers I interact with here in the blogosphere also believe in God. So even though I personally don’t participate in any organized — or even unorganized or disorganized — religion, I’m not about to throw everyone under the bus who does believe in God and who does practice their religion by denigrating their religion or their belief in God.

So I’ll just say that being an atheist suits me. And if believing in an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent supernatural being and following the dogma, tenets, and rituals that were created thousands of years ago suits you, well, whatever floats your boat.

Song Lyric Sunday — Let Us Pray

Fandango16 Comments

For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday, Jim Adams has asked us to find a song that is about God or the afterlife, a theme once again suggested by Nancy aka The Sicilian Storyteller. This was a tough theme for me because as an atheist, I don’t believe in God or that there is an afterlife. But after giving this theme some thought, I finally came up with the song by Norman Greenbaum, “Spirit in the Sky,” a song about God, Jesus, and the afterlife.

“Spirit in the Sky” was written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Norman Greenbaum. It was released in late 1969 from the album of the same name. The single became a gold record in the U.S., selling two million copies from 1969 to 1970. It reached number 3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and number 1 on the UK, Australian, and Canadian charts in 1970.

Norman Greenbaum set out to write a religious rock song. He is Jewish, but instead of using a Jewish word for God, he used “Jesus” because he thought it would be more marketable.

The original inspiration for this was a gospel song about a preacher by country singer Porter Wagoner. After hearing Wagoner’s song, Greenbaum thought, “Yeah, I could do that,” even though he knew nothing about gospel music. He said it only took him about 15 minutes to write the lyrics, but it took months for him to finish the music.

Greenbaum first arranged the song for acoustic jug band — he had previously been a member of psychedelic jug band Dr. West’s Medicine Show and Junk Band. Then he tried a folk version, and then a Delta blues style, but none of these were satisfactory. Finally, under producer Eric Jacobsen’s direction, the song started to gel at Coast Recorders studio in San Francisco. The resulting sound was an “oddly good and compelling” combination of boogie rock, blues, gospel, and hard rock music, with loud drums, distorted electric guitar, clapping hands, and tambourines.

Because of the song’s length and lyrics, the record company was initially reluctant to issue it, but it was finally released as a single after two other singles from the album had poor sales. “Spirit in the Sky” became a worldwide hit, and was for a time the best-selling single for the Reprise label.

Later albums and singles by Greenbaum were not embraced by the market and by the 1980s, he had abandoned his music career and was working as a sous-chef and restaurant kitchen manager.

Here are the lyrics to “Spirit in the Sky.”

When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that's the best
When I lay me down to die
Goin' up to the spirit in the sky

Goin' up to the spirit in the sky (spirit in the sky)
That's where I'm gonna go when I die (when I die)
When I die and they lay me to rest
I'm gonna go to the place that's the best

Prepare yourself you know it's a must
Gotta have a friend in Jesus
So you know that when you die
He's gonna recommend you
To the spirit in the sky (spirit in the sky)

Oh he'll recommend you to the spirit in the sky
That's where you're gonna go when you die (when you die)
When you die and they lay you to rest
You're gonna go to the place that's the best

Never been a sinner, I never sinned
I got a friend in Jesus
So you know that when I die
He's gonna set me up
with the spirit in the sky

Oh set me up with the spirit in the sky (spirit in the sky)
That's where I'm gonna go when I die (when I die)
When I die and they lay me to rest
I'm gonna go to the place that's the best
Go to the place that's the best

The Absurdity of It All

Fandango50 Comments

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday that frozen embryos are people. The court ruled that anyone who mistakenly drops and destroys frozen embryos could be held liable in a wrongful-death lawsuit, writing that it had long held that unborn children are “children” and that that was also true for frozen embryos, affording the fertilized eggs the same protection as babies under the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.

So the destruction of a frozen embryo that resides not in a woman’s womb, but in a freezer in a fertility clinic in Alabama is now punishable in that state in the same way that causing the death of a child is. Yikes!

This ruling comes as at least 11 Repugnican-controlled states have broadly defined personhood as beginning at fertilization in their state laws.

Alabama’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker quoted the Bible as he examined the “sanctity” of unborn life. “Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself,” Parker wrote. “Even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.” Double yikes!

So let’s take a closer look. Most of these frozen embryos belong to couples that are attempting to have a baby through a process called in-vitro fertilization, or IVF. IVF is a medical procedure in which doctors extract eggs from ovaries and fertilize them with sperm outside the body, forming embryos that can subsequently be moved to the uterus.

To give a patient the best chance at a pregnancy, multiple embryos are created in the hopes that a patient can try again if an attempt at a pregnancy fails. As a result, as many eggs as possible are often fertilized and kept frozen. There are hundreds of thousands of patients who depend on treatments like this each year and countless embryos are frozen each year.

Think of all of the socio-economic and political implications that this ruling has. If frozen embryos are children, then…

  • should frozen embryos be counted in the Census Bureau’s population count for purposes of each state’s representation in Congress and for distribution of federal funds to the states?
  • should frozen embryos be considered to be dependent children for which parents can use the child deduction on federal and state taxes?
  • should parents be able to establish a tax-advantaged college savings account for each of their frozen embryos?
  • should parents fill out preschool applications for their frozen embryos?
  • should parents set up playgroups for their frozen embryos?
  • if IVF is successful and results in a pregnancy, if the new parents destroy their other fertilized embryos, are such parents serial killers?

These are just some of the questions that this decision by the Alabama Supreme Court raises that must be addressed.

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — January 26th

Fandango6 Comments

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about it? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Flashback Friday post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on any day this past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on January 26, 2019

SoCS — Mysterious Ways

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“It’s less than three months away!” Brian exclaimed. “I’m not ready.”

“Not ready for what?” Ben asked his roommate.

“The Rapture.”

“The what?”

“The Rapture,” Brian repeated. “Here, take a look at this full page ad that was in today’s paper.

Ben read it out load. “Get ready for the Rapture. April 23, 2019 AD.” He handed the ad back to Brian. “Isn’t that what you call ‘end times’ or something like that? Where all true believers who are alive will be saved and will rise, along with the resurrected dead believers, into heaven to join Jesus?”

“Close enough,” Brian said. “And it’s happening in less than three months. I’m not ready, Ben.”

“Well, you know that I don’t believe in all that religious mumbo jumbo, Brian,” Ben said. “But you’re a believer, so what are you worried about? I’m sure you’ll float up to heaven with all of the other good boys and girls for fun and games with Jesus for the rest of eternity.”

“It just doesn’t add up, Ben,” Brian said. “Anna and I are supposed to get married on May 5th. But that will be too late.”

“Why will it be too late?” Ben asked. “Anna’s a good Christian, right? Maybe you and she can float up to heaven together, hand-in-hand, and get married once you’ve settled in. Hell, maybe Jesus, himself, will officiate at your wedding.”

“It’s not funny, Ben,” Brian whined. “I’m not ready for this. Why didn’t God give me some sort of sign so I could have planned for this?”

Ben pulled the newspaper ad from Brian’s hand and held it up. “Isn’t this a sign?”

“I don’t mean a physical sign,” Brian said. “A spiritual sign.”

“I don’t know, Brian,” Ben said, “but haven’t you been telling me ever since we met each other how God works in mysterious ways?”

This little sacrilegious tale, one that I hope doesn’t offend anyone, was written for Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. We are asked to use “ad/add/AD” (Anno Domini) in our post. We can use one, two, or all three.

JYProvocative Question #14

Fandango14 Comments

Our host for the weekly provocative question challenge is Jewish Young Professional, aka JYP.

So what is her provocative question for this week? It’s about artificial intelligence (AI) and if the role of God, religion, or spirituality should be a part of AI. Specifically, JYP wants to know…

Should religion (or spiritual intelligence) influence how we use AI? Should AI influence religious thought and practice? Should the two things be totally unrelated to each other? Should something else guide how we use AI?

I’m not sure if I’m the best person to express my opinion about the influence of religion on artificial intelligence. I’m an atheist and I believe that man created God and that religions that promote or mandate the worship of this god that we created in our own image is just a way for religious institutions to use mythology, dogma, and rituals as means of mind control for the masses.

As to artificial intelligence, I’m no expert on AI. I can’t really explain what it actually is. So I went to the source and asked ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence engine, “What is artificial intelligence?” Here’s the response I got:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to the development of computer systems that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence. These tasks include learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, speech recognition, and language understanding. AI aims to create machines capable of emulating various aspects of human cognitive functions.

Okay, I don’t know how much that definition helped, but the belief in God and the intent of most religions is to offer “answers” to unanswerable (at least based upon today’s knowledge) questions and to fill in the void between what is knowable and what is unknowable.

AI is a tool that uses advanced technologies to leverage our existing knowledge and possibly expedite gains in that knowledge through the power of computing. God is a made-up superentity that we use, along with religion, to fill in the blanks in our knowledge of who we are, how we came to be, and what our purpose is. It doesn’t make sense to me to muddy the AI waters with God and religion based solely on faith where there is no scientific evidence to support God’s existence or even the events depicted in the Bible, which are alleged to be God’s Word.

Despite those who believe that we are, or should be a Christian nation, the United States is a secular, diverse society, and religion shouldn’t dictate or unduly influence technological development. That’s not to say that religion, spirituality, and belief in God should be ignored. AI should be aware of the issues and challenges present in our society. But AI development should primarily be guided by scientific principles and ethical frameworks that are universally applicable, regardless of religious beliefs. How else, in whatever AI eventually becomes, can we ensure fairness and non-discrimination for all?