Can simple processes of replication and survival really create more complex forms by themselves? I recalled the Life Game we liked so much during basic programming training. And it goes more or less like this: Let’s imagine a colony of, say, imaginary living cells, which reproduce and die generation by generation according to the following rules:

• A cell surrounded by too few other cells (one or zero) – will die of loneliness in the next generation.
• An empty slot surrounded by exactly two cells – will give birth to a new cell in the next generation.
• A slot surrounded by exactly three cells – will retain its status (living cell or no cell) in the next generation.
• A cell surrounded by four or more other cells – will die of crowdedness in the next generation.

And now let’s see what evolution does to our imaginary cells (tip for beginners – try starting from simple symmetric shapes):

Click here to try

Note two specific members of this sequence. First, there is the famous prominent rule that deals generally with observing the Sabbath – let us assume it has the sequence number i. Then, there is another famous rule delaing with saving the life of a jew – let us assume it has the sequence number j.

In order to enrich our model a little bit, we note that all those rules carry with them some considerable importance, at least from a religious point of view, since God is supposedly checking us on a daily basis for keeping them. At this stage of the model we still do not know the amount of importance assigned to each rule, so let us use a mathematical function called v to mark it. For example: v(j) is the importance of the rule that deals with saving lives.

Now let us remember some Jewish statements about the importance of these rules. One of them claims that “saving a life overrides keeping the Sabbath”. Using our notation:

(1) v(j) > v(i)

Another famous statement claims that “observing the Sabbath is equivalent to all the other rules combined”. Using our notation:

(2) v(i) = SUM [k≠i] v(k)

Now, from joining (1) and (2) together we conclude:

(3) v(j) > SUM [k≠i] v(k)

Since j≠i, we can subtract v(j) from both sides and get:

(4) 0 > SUM [k≠i,j] v(k)

Thus we arrived at a partial sequence of P, which is not empty, and whose sum of members’ importance is negative. Hence there exists at least one member of P, call it m, for which:

(5) v(m) < 0

Or, using the terms of our model, it is important not to follow the religious rule number m.

You have been warned!

Among religious preachers, especially Orthodox Jewish ones, there are many references to the amusing discussion on the alleged vast knowledge of our holy ancestors about the exact length of the moon cycle, also known as the synodic month, which is the basis for the Jewish calendar as well as several other calendars. You can see an example of this here.

The moon, as we know nowadays, has been drifting away from us since its formation, probably following the collision of some celestial body with Earth. While the Earth’s rotation slows down (causing the day to be longer), the lunar orbit time also becomes gradually longer. During Talmudic times (about two millennia ago) it was roughly 29.530586 days and nowadays it’s approximately 29.530589 days. When looking at different geological eras, we see much bigger differences measured in hours and even days.

But even if we limit ourselves to this tiny era that consists of the last few thousands of years… how could the ancient Babylonians and Greeks reach such seemingly-impossible precision, calculating the lunar cycle?

Let’s start by stating that the precision in question is not that high. When talking in days, the number 29.53059 looks pretty impressive (5 decimal digits!), however, if we translate this to shorter periods of times, we’ll notice it’s not extraordinary. The difference between 29.53058 and 29.53059 days is about one second. Not something which is unthinkable for ancient measuring. The ancient Babylonian calculation reached an accuracy of about 2 seconds per month.

Ancient clocks of those times typically used technological means such as measuring the angle of a shadow (sundial) or using “water clocks”, in which time was measured by the regulated flow of water (or other liquid) into or out of a vessel.

In these eras which we discuss here, a lunar eclipse takes a few hours and a solar eclipse lasts a few minutes. Both occur about twice a year, if we include partial eclipses, and much more rarely if counting only full eclipses.

We’ll spare you the simple explanations (learned in school) for the essence of these eclipses. We’ll only indicate that both types of eclipse occur only when the moon is in a specific lunar phase: A lunar eclipse – only when there is a full moon (middle of the month), and a solar eclipse – exactly during the time of the new moon (beginning/end of month).

All these facts didn’t go unnoticed by ancient astronomers, whose main occupation was watching the sky during ideal ancient darkness. As we already saw, they also had the ability to measure time periods of minutes with an accuracy of seconds, and time periods of days with an accuracy of minutes.

Now, suppose you – the educated reader – are a respectable astronomer in ancient Babylon. You are equipped with all the above simple knowledge, and with state-of-the-art water clocks, courtesy of your patron king. You waited patiently between eclipses and managed a detailed record of events, as precise as those times enable. For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume we’re discussing two lunar eclipses, two years apart, for which you attempted to precisely measure (say, two-minute precision) the moment that is easiest to detect – the initial “bite” of the full moon by the Earth’s shadow.

Your records tell you that since that moment of the previous eclipse, 708 days, 17 hours and approximately 37 minutes have elapsed. You know this, since you measured in minutes the amount of time between sunset and the beginning of the eclipse. As we’re talking about the same season in the year, the sunset is more-or-less at the same minute of the day. If you are an experienced astronomer, you already took into consideration the small differences of the actual sunset (up to 8 minutes in our case).

Now you do some math: If 24 lunar months took exactly 708 days, 17 hours and 37 minutes, what’s the length of a single month? Exact arithmetic is a must for an astronomer who desires job stability: 17 hours and 37 minutes are 0.743 days. Thus we divide 708.734 by 24 and get… 29.53058 days. Should we stick to kosher food from now on?

The secret is of course that precision of seconds per month is more-or-less equivalent to a precision of minutes per year. It’s much easier to associate the latter with ancient measuring. The above simulation is imaginary, but similar to the real methods by which ancient calculations were performed. Perhaps there were more years and less minute precision. Perhaps vice versa. Maybe solar eclipses were used instead, and possibly several rather than just two.

This way or the other, there’s no need for “divine knowledge” and no celestial inspiration is required in order to achieve the results actually reached by the ancient Babylonians and Greek astronomers. All you need is clear sky, free time and old instruments. You also need some common sense, patience, accuracy, and basic knowledge of arithmetic – things that are not necessarily the top priorities of modern day religious preachers.

In a previous chapter, we already mentioned the wonderful logical statement “There’s no proof that there’s no God”. Perhaps this is the proper time to complement that statement with a well-known joke:

A couple went on vacation to a fishing resort up north. The husband liked to fish at the crack of dawn. The wife liked to read. One morning the husband returned after several hours of fishing and decided to take a short nap. Although she wasn’t familiar with the lake, the wife decided to take the boat. She rowed out a short distance, anchored, and returned to reading her book.

Along came the sheriff in his boat. He pulled up alongside her and said, “Good morning, Ma’am. What are you doing?”

“Reading my book,” she replied …as she thought to herself, “isn’t it obvious?”

“You’re in a restricted fishing area,” he informed her.

“But officer, I’m not fishing. Can’t you see that?”

“Yes, but you have all the equipment. I’ll have to take you in and write you up.”

“If you do that, I’ll have to charge you with rape,” snapped the irate woman.

“But, I haven’t even touched you,” groused the sheriff.

“Yes, that’s true,” she replied, “but you have all the equipment.”

And then, perhaps the most disturbing and truly amazing logical conflict is the one that deals with democracy and pluralism. It’s best described as “Help us to make you unable to help!”

1991-1992 was a rather tempestuous election time in Algeria. The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), an Islamic fundamentalist organization intent on governing by Koranic law, made huge gains in the elections. The elections were considered fair, but still the fundamentalist victory made people think that future elections were not going to be so democratic. Eventually, the regime cancelled the elections that would have created a Muslim state.

In 1997, Mr. Israel Eichler (who later became an Israeli parliament member, in an Orthodox Jewish religious political party) was a regular guest on Israeli TV talk shows. On one particular show one of the discussions focused on a case of a large Orthodox Jewish family, which – for some reason – wanted to live within a closed secular community.

“You must accept them,” said Mr. Eichler, “you believe in pluralism!”

“Would you accept me and my family in your ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood?” asked one of the secular participants.

“Of-course not,” said Mr. Eichler, “we do not believe in pluralism!”

There’s no worse method of abusing the term “freedom of speech” than using it to promote religious ideas that encourage control of speech and thought. Similarly, there’s no worse method of abusing the term “democracy” than using it to promote a religious anti-democratic regime. It’s as fair as using your feet in a basketball game. Either you take part in the pluralistic game and obey its rules, or you don’t, but please choose your arena clearly!

In February 1999 there was a big ultra-Orthodox Jewish demonstration against the Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem. Hundreds of thousands of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox Jewish) people demonstrated against the court’s recent decisions, which they seemed to dislike. In a nearby park, a much smaller demonstration was spontaneously formed, of non-religious people who protested against this mass abuse of democracy. Two of them held a big sign that read “Daddy, why didn’t you protest when it was still allowed?”

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“’Contrariwise,’ continued Tweedledee, ‘if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.’” – ‘Through the Looking-Glass’, Lewis Carroll

I had an argument recently with someone over the Internet. It had to do with the origins of the Hebrew names for God, as part of the overall argument about the origins of the Bible itself. “According to the Bible,” he said, “the name ‘Yehova’ was being used around 3500 BC. Therefore, the archaeological Canaanite findings from 800 BC are much more recent.” – He actually wrote ‘Ye-ho-va’ (including the hyphens) rather than ‘Yehova’, well, you know…

One of the most curious methods of arguing about the origins of the Biblical text, is to use the stories told by the text itself as some kind of absolute evidence. Of-course! It is God’s word! The Bible itself says so, end of argument!

Has something gone wrong with the inference mechanism in some people? It seems as if this issue was deeply imprinted within us during our religious education, up to the point where some of us simply ignore the circularity within this kind of logic. “It’s written in the Bible” has become to be considered hard evidence, regardless of the fact that the issue under dispute may be the integrity of the Biblical text itself.

Such circular logic is much more common than what you may think. In previous chapters we discussed the Jewish perception that “succeeding generations are said to lessen in spiritual power” as well as the Biblical text “…and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they shall teach thee.” (Deuteronomy, chapter 17, verse 10). God tells me I should do what the old sages say. In turn, they interpret these words as an order to follow my rabbi’s instructions. Thus the chain of “decreasing spiritual power” is followed all the way to me, instructing me to follow and obey the very concept of decreasing spiritual power, and teaching me to take the Biblical God for granted. In other words, as has already been written: God says I should listen to my rabbi, which in turn teaches me that everything God says is right. Hallelujah!

Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’, which has been mentioned in a previous chapter, is a masterpiece of satire that has appropriate scenes for many religious whims. This time we’ll quote the somewhat educational discussion between the reluctant Brian and his followers:

Follower: Hail Messiah!

Brian: I’m not the Messiah!

Follower: I say you are, Lord, and I should know. I’ve followed a few.

Crowd: Hail Messiah!

Brian: I’m not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand?! Honestly!

Girl: Only the true Messiah denies his divinity.

Brian: What?! Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!

Crowd: He is! He is the Messiah!

Brian: Now, fuck off!

Follower: How shall we fuck off, O Lord?

Imagine yourself in the following situation: Someone sells you precious consultation advice on a topic that is very important for your future. The consultant also warns you that others may say totally different things about this topic. However, when they do so – it’s just a test, actually managed by the consultant him/herself. Wouldn’t you be a bit suspicious about such strange advice? What sort of chance does that give you or the other consultants?

In the same vein, here is what the book of Deuteronomy advises you in the beginning of chapter 13 (verses 2-4):

“If there arise in the midst of thee a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and he give thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spoke unto thee, saying: ‘Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them’; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or unto that dreamer of dreams; For the Lord your God putteth you to proof, to know whether ye do love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”

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The Daily Planet’s roof.

Superman is standing on the roof, looking down. Even an ordinary man with no super powers would notice the situation down below is far from ideal. The town is on fire, and in the few places still untouched by the fire, the citizens of Metropolis took upon themselves the task of enhancing the chaos with riots and looting.

The voice of Lois Lane is heard from behind: “Aren’t you going to do something?”

While her question is not really a surprise, his answer manages to surprise her: “No.”

“No? What do you mean ‘No’?”

“No means ‘No’.”

Just like that. Plain and simple. It looks like Superman has decided to quit the super-hero business. Exercising her journalist curiosity, she continues to question him: “But you are Superman! You can fix all that before dinner…”

“I’m through with this saving business. From now on I’ll just stand here on the roof and watch you humans kill, rape, steal and who knows what else.”

“What made you decide that? Has Lex Luther taken over your brain again?”

“Nope, it’s my own decision.”

“But… why?”

– * — * –

Why indeed? This is the real question.

Superman does have the power to stop this thing in seconds, but he chooses not to do it, for reasons known only to him.

So what does that make him?

It makes him appear lazy. He can just move a finger and help the world – it wouldn’t require too much from him. It makes him a real sociopath. Enjoying the sunset with clouds of smoke in the background, while people suffer down below. It makes him evil. It’s a situation better fit for an evil character than for the superhero.

What does it tell us about him?

It means he is not a hero. A real hero helps when there is a need, rather than standing high above and watching the sunset, with clouds of smoke in the background. It means he is not good hearted. Someone with a good heart would help others in trouble.

– * — * –

But wait a minute! It’s clear that Superman would never do something like this. After all he is Superman – that’s his very name. So where does all this lead to?

Let’s explain this in two ways:

First: In the above text, replace the name “Lois Lane” with yours, and replace “Superman” with “God”.

Second: This version elaborates on the first one. Several comparisons can be drawn between God and Superman:

Both have super powers.

Both have the ability to make the world a better place.

Both have books written about them, describing their heroic acts.

Both are admired by many people worldwide (not necessarily those who purchase every Superman comic only never to take it out of the wrapper, but rather from the point of view of the “ordinary” people in Superman’s universe).

There are, of-course some differences as well:

Superman is not a god.

Superman uses his powers to help mankind (preventing floods, fires, earthquakes etc.) and if he fails, it’s because some things are beyond his powers, not because he doesn’t try.

– * — * –

The last difference must have infuriated quite a few readers, so let me explain the logic behind it: Unlike the story I told above, Superman would never step aside watching some disaster without attempting to help. God would.

How come I dare claim that God would just step aside and do nothing? How do I know he hasn’t saved many people in each of the disasters that happened to mankind?

God allegedly has the power to stop every catastrophe immediately. So immediately, in fact, that he can stop a disaster even before it claims its first victim. You see, God is allegedly almighty, but if he cannot stop disasters in this way, then he is not almighty.

Now I’m sure no one will argue with me about the fact that disasters do happen, and therefore we come up with only two possible logical conclusions:

1. There is no almighty god.

2. God exists, but chooses to stand on the Daily Planet’s roof, doing nothing.

– * — * –

Let’s concentrate for a moment on the second possibility, and return to Superman’s roof example.

I wonder what Superman’s admirers down below would think about him, once they find out that he could have stopped all this, but chose not to.

Will they be disappointed? No doubt.

Will they cease to “believe” in him? Probably yes.

However, when God stands up on the roof of the building and people down below die in fires, tsunamis, 9/11, the Holocaust – they not only don’t wonder why hasn’t God lifted a finger in the direction of saving them, but they even worship him.

Do they cease to believe in God as a result? Illogically, only a few do so.

“Tell me yourself, what will cause you to quit believing… Is there anything that will stop your belief?”

Now, let’s analyze for a moment the possible answers to this question. Your friend may answer something that boils down to “nothing”. If he/she does so, then this is a declaration that his/her belief is not based on any evidence whatsoever. If it were based on some findings and conclusions, then the potential discovery of contradicting findings would be sufficient for him/her to generate different conclusions – a thing that he/she says will never happen.

In other words, he (or she… well you know…) who gives such answer, declares his faith to be blind faith; and it’s pointless to argue about it, since he declares in advance, that every claim presented – even if true and overwhelming – will not be sufficient to change his belief.

A different kind of answer may be: “If XXX happens / if I see XXX, then I’ll stop believing”. Such an answer opens up a possibility for an interesting discussion, as the person who uses it declares his faith to depend upon extraneous factors. He stipulates certain conditions to God, and pretends to understand better than him when this god is right and when he is wrong in his deeds.

A belief that presents conditions to God is in contrast with, say, the principles if the Jewish faith, as phrased by the Rambam and the Talmud (and others), stating that one should never doubt, and worship God for “no prize”.

Your religious friend may of-course reciprocate the question to you: “What will make you start believing and being religious?” However, this is what’s it all about: The rationalist skeptic, whose ways of life are derived from self-choices and logic conclusions, should have no problem stating he will decide according to what he will see and be convinced, subject to future changes, if and when new things will be revealed. The scientific approach gives here pretty clear answers (which also demand a more precise definition of what “religious” and “God” are).

Taken from Hebrew: http://hofesh.org.il/articles/jew/faith-and-jewish-flavors.html

The real studies discuss several possible sources for this wonderful story (which appears in various versions in the ancient Middle Eastern cultures). Among other things they mention some seasonal floods in ancient Mesopotamia, and recently – the option of this story originating from the formation of the Black Sea, not too many thousands of years ago.

This way or the other, let’s stick literally for a moment to the original Biblical version – a flood annihilating the entire living kingdom, sort of, you know.

“And all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered”, insists the text (Genesis, chapter 7, verse 19). Hmmm… let’s attempt performing a rough calculation: In order to cover Mount Everest (the highest mountain), the sea surface had to rise by about 9 km from its “normal” level.

In the same school we also learned (hopefully) how to calculate the volume of a sphere: We multiply 4/3 by Pi and by the sphere radius raised to the power of 3. This is more or less equivalent to 4.2 times the radius raised to the power of 3. Let’s apply this calculaion to our Biblical flood.

Earth radius is about 6,400 km. The radius in the peak of the flood had to be, of-course, 9 km larger, in order to cover “all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven”. Hence, the volume of the water was roughly the difference between the volumes of the two spheres: 4.2 times (6,409 raised to the power of 3 minus 6,400 raised to the power of 3). A simple pocket calculator will tell us that we’re talking about more than 4.5 billion cubic km of water.

Is it a lot? A little? Let’s see: If we were to bring all that water in a “ball of water”, what would be the volume of that water ball? The equation is simple: 4.2 times what radius raised to the power of 3 would give us such a result? Those of you who graduated school successfully will come up with the result quickly: We need a water ball with a radius bigger than 1,000 km. In other words, a small “water star” nearly the diameter of our moon.

We also need, obviously, to get rid of all this water afterwards.

The rate of our flood is also, how shall we put it, somewhat problematic. 40 days of rain, according to the same story. 9 km of height. What’s the average rate? Did the math? Here is the result: More than 9,000 mm (350 inches) of rain per hour. This is more than double the amount of rain falling on the rainiest places on Earth during a whole year… A meter of rain every 6 minutes, a foot of rain every 2 minutes, everywhere…

Such rain rate, or even rates that are many times smaller, are theoretically impossible, not to mention the calculation which demonstrates that no wooden “ark” would hold under such enormous water pressure. But that’s not all.

Each liter of sea water contains about 35 grams of salt. This is approximately 0.3 pound of salt per each gallon of water. In order not to kill the fish of the sea (which Noah, for obvious reasons, did not put in his ark), one needs to preserve more-or-less the same level of water salinity. Another quick calculation: 4.5 billion cubic km of new water mean roughly 150 million of billions of tons of salt, which are more than 100 million cubic km of salt, in its common shape. This is enough to cover the whole area of the USA with 10 km (6.2 miles) of salt, or to cover the whole area of the State of Israel with unimaginable 5,000 km (3,100 miles) of salt.

We also need, obviously, to get rid of all this salt afterwards. Furthermore, salty sea water would kill all the fresh water fish, from lakes and rivers which would be covered by that flood.

* * *

We can keep on discussing these strange topics, but what’s more important is the following: With a little bit of creativity, every difficult question described above can be answered. Where did the water come from? An asteroid made of ice came in touch with our atmosphere. Where did the water go to afterwards? Lightnings decomposed it into oxygen and hydrogen, which evaporated into space. And so on and so forth – try to compile some similar additional excuses yourself – it’s quite an amusing game.

And when these excuses become too difficult or too ridiculous, we can always summon our Lord to help: God generated a miracle and flattened the mountains, so they would be covered sooner, or created the water from nothing. After all he is almighty… Since the Biblical story categorizes the event as a sort of miracle under God’s supervision, then why bother explaining at all? Actually, why bother researching anything if we assume in advance that the world does not have clear rules and all things can happen at anytime? Who needs science when you can walk on water?

* * *

Or maybe (just like in many other cases) we have here an ancient story blown out of proportions – what do you say?