Nothing sacrificed, nothing gained

The Porter

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Sacrifice. In a religious context the word conjures up thoughts of killing animals or humans in the hopes of pleasing a deity. It could bring thoughts of martyrs or heroes who gave their lives for a cause, for a country or for others. One could sacrifice time or personal belongings. What makes a sacrifice is the giving up or destroying of something valuable, belonging to the person doing the sacrificing – be it an object, time or a life – in the hope it will have a desired effect. Something must be lost if it is to be a sacrifice.

Easter is less than a week away now and to the Christian faith, this is the big day. This is the day in which the sacrifice that god made for his creation (humanity) and the subsequent resurrection is remembered and celebrated. This is the faith I grew up in and the tradition I celebrated; in fact one Easter Sunday I played one of the two thieves being crucified next to Jesus for a pageant my church put on for its congregation of hundreds of people. I believed it all without question. Now as an atheist, I’m looking at these beliefs from a whole new perspective. It is from this new point of view which I can rationally examine the very root of Christianity’s claim of an all-powerful and all-knowing god who supposedly gave something up to give its creation a chance at eternal life.

I’m sure those reading this are familiar with the story of Christ’s crucifixion, but here’s a quick breakdown:

  1. god inseminates a virgin so it (god) can come into the realm of humans as a human to walk among the humans
  2. Jesus gathers up disciples & followers over his adult years and teaches things contrary to religious views of the time
  3. it pisses some rabbis off & they complain to the governor of the district
  4. Jesus is put on trial and eventually sentenced to death to satisfy the religious leaders,
  5. he’s hung on the cross, offered some gross stuff to drink (gall & wine), had his legs broken and was finally stabbed in the side by a Roman soldier
  6. dies (apparently at 3:00 pm on a Friday)
  7. placed in a tomb with a rock over it
  8. came back to life three days later and seen by lots of people
  9. ascended into heaven never to be seen again (except on a towel,  toast, and these places)
  10. is currently sitting at the right hand of god

According to Christianity, this series of events, the entire life and death of Jesus Christ death, was a sacrifice which god made for a desired result: it canceled the old law in which this deity demanded regular sacrifices (animal & otherwise), redeemed all of humanity for humanity’s very first curious disobedient act and provided salvation those who believe in this stuff with a promise of eternal life after death (as well as promise of eternal torture and torment for those who don’t). Without this one single sacrifice, the very core of the religion (and thus its entirety) is shattered. Everything about Christianity is built upon this one tenet.

Having defined what a sacrifice is at the beginning of this post and then recounting the events of Jesus’s life and death, point to what was lost. Point to what god gave up. Point to what was valuable to this deity which could not be recovered.

Perhaps the sacrifice was Jesus’ death, that this deity allowed a tiny part of itself to be killed. Well, that would have been an decent sacrifice, except three days later this god/human came back to life – and in the flesh too, not as an apparition. Nothing lost there, nothing given up.

Perhaps the sacrifice was the body that died or the blood that was spilled? Well that all came back too… the body was apparently re-used since nothing was left in the tomb. I could assume that since the body was working, there was plenty of blood left to re-animate it or maybe new blood was formed? If new blood was formed, then nothing is quite valuable about it. Consider what the price of gold would be if we could just make it on a whim. Once again there’s nothing lost, nothing given up.

Perhaps this deity sacrificed his spot in heaven? The question would then be, was god absent from heaven when it was on the earth? Nope, Jesus kept talking to his father time and time again. Ultimately, after Jesus comes back to life he gets to sit right next to god. Again, nothing lost, nothing given up. In this case, Jesus was besides himself (with joy).

Perhaps he sacrificed his omnipotent powers? If it is to be believed that this same human walked on water, healed the sick, turned water into wine and, oh yeah, brought himself and others back from the dead, then no, powers were not sacrificed.

Conclusion

I see no sacrifice given by an all-powerful being, nothing was really given up. There was nothing on the line – it wasn’t even a gamble, no chance that all could be lost. Jesus’s death was taken back (“Just kidding, guys!”), the body was restored, his powers were present on earth and there wasn’t any chance at losing heaven. Taking an honest look at things, it’s actually underwhelming to have the all powerful god of the universe pull a few parlor tricks then give two choices, “Either you believe or you’ll pay.” It’s not really a choice, is it – it’s a threat. It’s an insecure bully on the playground cracking his knuckles, staring you in the face and waiting for your next move. There was no love in the so-called “sacrifice”, nothing even close. At the very worst, god had a bad weekend. But by Monday it was business as usual.

I’ll leave you with this thought from Ayn Rand:

It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.

– from the “The Soul of a Collectivist”

 

Fighting inequality with a #2 pencil

The Porter

We’ve all had to do it, fill in the little bubble or place a check mark next to the box which best describes where our ancestors were born. Maybe you were getting a drivers license, taking the SAT’s or applying for a home or auto loan. It seems like a minor thing, but it’s spawned such controversy. Full disclosure here, I’m of European descent.

Growing up through the high school years, I felt uneasy filling in the race portion of the various forms which came my way as life required. It didn’t feel right, as if filling in the box was only perpetuating the “race myth” that has initiated so many wars and disputes through the ages. It brought to mind the horrible genocides and ethnic cleansings from both distant and recent pasts such as the Chinese hunting down Tibetans, Hitler’s attempt to eradicate the Jews or the Hutus trying to wipe out the Tutsis in Rwanda. You may be asking “You thought of all of this before filling out a bubble with a #2 pencil?” Yes.

It may be naive, but I don’t get race. I don’t understand why there must an “us vs them” mentality any more. Sure it was useful when we were living as small bands of tribes trying to survive, but those are no longer modern day realities. One of the most powerful attributes humanity has is it’s capacity to work together. Example after example can be provided where individuals of disparate or even rival races have come together in co-operation for one purpose or another, thus making any ethnic division pointless.

At one point as a young 20 something, I realized that it was optional whether or not to disclose my ethnicity and in protest I chose to not answer. I felt I was doing good! I felt I was making a silent statement to the world that I would not accept race as a concept or as a dividing line between people. I felt that if everyone did that we’d be that much closer to erasing the color lines for good.

But of course that’s not how life really is, it’s much more complicated than simply not checking a box. I began to understand that humankind does not know everything yet, there is no instruction booklet to refer to (no matter what the roughly 4,200 different religions worldwide tell you) , but that instead we are discovering it as we go. The more I learned the more I understood there really is a significant gap between races (and genders, but that’s for another post), especially in this melting pot of a country. More importantly I began to learn about the people who are trying to find out where exactly the issues lie and where the definition is, the economists. I began to understand that the most powerful tool they had was statistics and they were using that tool on huge sets of data where individuals had indicated their race. It all came back to those silly little bubbles and boxes.

I realized that my silent protest was actually hindering the process of discovering how to solve the issue. When I declined to fill out that section of the form, test, application, etc, the available data set for a study to draw from shrinks. If, as my 20 something self had wished for, no one filled out those bubbles, there would be no data set to draw from and it would be exponentially more difficult to discover what’s keeping the races separate and to ultimately find a solution.

So now, as you can guess, the feeling of uneasiness is no longer there when I come to that ethnic identity section as I’m filling out the forms in a doctors office, but instead I feel I’m contributing in my own small way to rubbing out that racial gap between fellow humans.

Imagine a world without knowing why zebras have stripes

The Porter

Kiev Zoo Zebra Sergey Galyonkin on Flickr (2009)

Scientists have finally discovered why zebras have stripes. Unfortunately the paper is behind a paywall, so here’s a good article describing the findings. The basics are this: the range of striped equids (the horse family) overlaps with where biting flies are most active—regardless of species and where the stripes occur on the body. So the stripes aren’t for camouflage, social interaction or even to reduce body temperature. The stripes have to do with the biting flies!

Now obviously this discovery isn’t ground-breaking or universe shaking, but 50 years from now, who knows how it’ll be utilized. But for me, that’s not why I like this study. This study unearthed new information, a question was asked and the solution found using the tried and true scientific method.

As a recovering Christian I can imagine asking my pastor back in the day “Why do zebras have stripes?” The most likely answer to come from a man steeped in religious teachings would be “Because god made them that way.” or something to that effect. This answer effectively shuts down any further inquiry into the question.

When it comes to discovering the cosmos, it doesn’t pay to ask a theologian, pastor, priest, rabbi or imam. It’s an intellectual cul-de-sac, and inspires no further follow-up questions, no further search for additional knowledge. It’s implied to not look behind the curtain. With religion or even “faith”, it all comes back to god being the sole, dead-end answer.

A delicate balancing act

Imagine with me a hypothetical world where religious leaders were given ruling powers, the power to make laws and to punish those who break them. It could easily follow that with a worldview in which all answers must ultimately lead to a supreme being, any questions into the nature of things would be directed back to the source of all natural things, the creator. This dystopia environment would surely not encourage any inquiry into the nature of things and in fact would punish any result found to lead away from the supreme being. The theocracy is constantly on a knifes edge and anything new is a threat to that delicate balance. It must, therefore, keep a keen eye and a tight grip on knowledge. It must only dole it out to those it can trust will not seek to find answers which would undermine it’s power, thereby keeping the vast majority of it’s subjects uneducated is a necessary safeguard.

What results is a bottleneck on discovery and innovation.

Obviously the above thought experiment isn’t a hypothetical, Europe had been in this state for centuries under the Catholic church. The Middle East is going through it now under Muslim rule.

The alternative

Now we know why zebras have stripes. The millenia old question has been answered, so what now? Is that it? Of course not! All great questions answered by science actually churn out more questions, and there are a lot of great questions. So let’s throw out some ideas (of course you can do that in the comments, I get to do that here).

  • Could this new information be used to ease the suffering/discomfort of fellow humans who live in the same regions as the striped animals?
  • Can clothing or blankets be made to have the same effect? Would those items reduce the amount of pesticides used to control the pests?
  • What other insects/pests does this effect work on?
  • Could the method used to discover this link between zebras & flies be effectively used to answer other questions?

And I’m sure there’s a dozen more questions that could be raised just from this one study.

Conclusion

My point is this, the world we are waking up to is a huge and wondrous place for an inquisitive species such as ourselves. Looking around in the toolbox of humankind, the least reliable tool for discovery has been religion. On the flip-side, the most reliable tool to satisfy our innate curiosity has consistently been the scientific method. It presents itself with no pre-conceived conclusions, it welcomes free thought and it’s accepting of the many failures that will ultimately guide us to the glorious successes.

Why do zebras have stripes? Well, the biting answer ultimately flies in the face of organized religion.