“The difference between physics and metaphysics is that the metaphysicist has no laboratory.” – Robert W. Wood

On a scale of 1 to 10 – how high do you rank the possibility that vampires are real?

If you answered anything higher than 1, it means you still give the old vampire myth a chance. Rationally, of-course, there’s no real chance for any talking creature to survive hundreds of years by drinking blood, and certainly no real vampire has ever been interviewed. Yet, knowing all that (hopefully), you still gave it a chance.

Why so? Is there something scientific in the old myth (some parts of which are actually not that old)? Not really, but still it’s much more exciting to believe in vampires than to resist this widespread story. This myth, like many others, has its own roots and origins, and has evolved during the years.

Not only it is more exciting for you, it’s also more exciting for others. This means that books and movies about vampires will sell much better than books and movies about carpentry during the French Revolution. Even better than books and movies and TV shows about the real history of the vampire myth. We actually grow up with virtual vampires around us.

We love the adrenalin. We adore watching scary movies. We prefer the mystical solution to the simple one. In many instances when there is a simple solution, we tend to reject it because it’s too boring. We seek supernatural reasons, and invent ones in our minds when it means more adrenalin. We’re addicted to believing in myths and legends.

So let’s try a short weaning process. Find a place where no one can hear you. Now repeat loudly after me:

There are no real vampires, nor were there ever any. This is a myth, largely based on ancient tales and false interpretations of old diseases, as well as some more recent books and films. Count Dracula is no different than any other imaginary hero, including Frodo the Hobbit, and Pinocchio.

The story of Frankenstein is a nice legend. There’s no way one can put life into a body that’s been dead for quite a while. There are no functioning organs to support life in a dead body.

There are no werewolves. People cannot turn into wolves nor can they turn into sheep, turkeys or cockroaches.

The continent of Atlantis never existed. Its story is based on old writings by the Greek philosopher Plato, which is probably based on even older stories about some disaster – maybe the volcanic eruption on the Greek island of Santorini (Thera).

Airplanes flying over the Bermuda Triangle and ships sailing through do not just disappear or move to some other dimension. Accidents, unfortunately, happen (and will happen) everywhere, including the area of the Bermuda Triangle.

There are no witches, and since there aren’t any – they also don’t fly on brooms, vacuum cleaners, or any other appliances.

There aren’t any moth men that predict the future. The closest thing to that legend may be ugly men who predict the past.

No flying saucers suck electricity from power lines. Companies sell the stuff that’s running in power lines, and would yell like hell if it was stolen from them.

Okay, by now you deserve a break. You probably get the picture and can keep practicing this method with the rest of your favorite demons, magicians, mummies, and Freddy Krugers.

<< Prev Contents Next (soon to be published)

There are many words of wisdom in the Old and New Testament, as well as in the Koran and the Talmud. The Jewish Mishnaic tractate of ‘Eduyot’ says: “Your actions bring you closer, and your actions bring you further”, which simply and most wisely implies, “Judge things individually”. There are good things done by various religious people, and there are bad things performed by religious people. There are good things done by various secular people, and there are bad things carried out by secular people. If someone acts in a way that deserves criticism according to your opinion, then it’s okay to criticize that someone, whether he or she is a religious person or a secular one.

A somewhat related topic, but of a different ilk, has to do with associating the religious behavior of a group of people with having special protection from God. Religious Jews will generally tell you that it’s specifically their religious habits (especially following the Bible and keeping the Sabbath), which have kept the continuous existence of the Jewish people over the years. This follows the idea that it pays to be faithful, because it guards your community. Many Muslims will boast the fact that Islam has united them and their peoples, and will also claim divine safekeeping.

In a way, the above statements are right. A group’s tendency to live in relative isolation has always contributed to the survival of the group as a whole, with or without relation to any religion. Nevertheless, there are a few important points to note in this strange competition for celestial protection:

• Religion contributes to its own survival. There’s no wonder it works – this is what religion is built to do. A large part of religious content is tailored especially to protect the religious belief against external influences, regardless of them being true or false, good or bad.
• The survival and protection of the group is not the same as the survival and protection of the people. Many ancient nations have not survived, but their descendants live happily among us today as Muslims, Jews, Americans, French, Germans or whatever, time and again being very proud of their current people’s history.
• Furthermore, even groups and nations that have survived are generally different from their ancestors. During the years, habits and customs have changed. Some have changed slightly and others have been drastically altered. In most cases even the genes (i.e., the race) have been mixed with those of other peoples and groups.
• An old culture may wonder about its own survival and seek reasons for it. However, by definition, there will always be only those who survived – that is what survival is all about. Those who didn’t make it, for whatever reasons, are not here with us to philosophize on the matter, regardless of their original belief being more right or wrong. In other words: Where there is a finite set of nations, there must be a most ancient one. There is no reason to wonder that something that must happen has happened.
• For a group of people, being more ancient than another group does not entitle them to anything more or better. There are no points collected and no game to win. Just a little bit of pride (which is not bad in itself). Generally speaking, it should be more important to look ahead and plan for the future than to advocate the past.
• If keeping religious commands is associated with things happening to the group, then why only connect it to the survival of the group? It can be associated just the same with the suffering of the members of the group over the years, which has been unfortunately true in the Jewish case as well as (recently) in the Muslim case.
• And finally, with our modern world becoming amazingly and rapidly smaller, it seems that given enough time – perhaps hundreds even thousands of years from now – the ethnic issue will simply die of natural causes. That is, if mankind does not succeed in exterminating itself sooner.

Some researchers view monotheism (the belief in a single god) in the Western religions, as a root of arrogance, which leads to racism: Your gods are not legitimate, only ours is, hence we are superior to you.

A famous joke explains how cheap it is to call God on the phone from a certain location, because it’s a local call. The exact location depends greatly on the person telling the joke. It could be Ireland. It could be Jerusalem. It could be Alberta, Canada. It could be other places.

Are we special? Sure! We’re all special! We are human beings!! This is what makes us special. We should not forget and should not violate this uniqueness, by strange and foolish attitudes towards other human beings.

<< Prev Contents Next >>

“Us, and them. And after all we’re only ordinary men.” – ‘Us and Them’, Pink Floyd, Roger Waters

Using passive voice is a great thing, a must for skillful politicians and salesmen. “Promised Land” and “Chosen People” are both amazing expressions without needing to explain who promised and who chose.

So, who are God’s chosen people? In what way are they chosen? The answer depends of-course on whom you ask. Many faithful Christians will say that the Jews used to be the chosen ones, until they abandoned the real faith, thus “the truth abandoned them and took refuge in the Church” (St. Ambrose). Many religious Jews simply know they’ve never ceased to be the “chosen ones”. Some of them may even explain about the myth of the Jewish genius. The faithful Muslims, not very surprisingly, seem to know a whole different story of choice.

Certain Melanists believe that the black pigment called melanin, in our skin, contributes to our intellect and spirituality. Guess who promotes this theory? You guessed right – this theory is promoted mainly by some black people. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), on the other hand, believes that white people are inherently superior to any other race, and that they are following the Bible in doing God’s work. In fact, they’ve often used the religious symbol of the cross for various activities… The Nazis believed that the Aryan race was superior, and acted to exterminate supposedly inferior races such as the Jews.

Rest assured, each of the above has brought a wealth of evidence to support the appropriate claims. Yet, there are a few interesting questions to be asked in this context.

Does God check your genes? Or is it your behavior that determines your being chosen? According to St. Ambrose mentioned above, it’s clearly the behavior of the Jewish people that disqualified them from being “chosen”. According to the Orthodox Jews, there is a clear option to join the chosen group by going through the process of proper conversion to Judaism. What’s a proper conversion? Ahhh… weeks of Israeli parliamentary activity has been spent on this issue.

According to Jewish Orthodoxy, the definition of a Jew is someone whose mother is a Jew, or someone who has been converted to Judaism the Orthodox way. Every experienced software programmer will tell you the problems concerned with the recursive nature of this definition. In simple words: Verifying the Jewish-ness of the mother is in essence the same task all over again.

It gets more complicated, since, for instance, an Orthodox Jew will not consider the conversion process done by a Reform rabbi as proper (but not necessarily the other way around). Conversely, for Muslims, the chosen genes are generally attached to the father. This may of-course raise various flavors of strange situations when one parent is officially Jewish, and the other is Muslim.

However, if Judaism is generally inherited, it makes one wonder how come Jews from African countries are darker? And why is there a large percentage of Jews with blonde hair in Russia? Evolution doesn’t work that fast. Apparently, whilst the Israeli parliament and its religious parties were not watching, there have been some, well, you know…

Racism is bad – most people will tell you this. Yet this confusion between genes and way of life has been known to produce false accusations of racism. For example: Is it okay to criticize certain religious beliefs and customs, or is it racism? Does Islam, just as an example, represent a race of people (or several specific races), and it is therefore wrong to speak against? Do the ultra-Orthodox Jews constitute a race, or is it valid to claim they’re wrong and criticize their habits? And what about the Amish? The Zulu? Others?

The question is not purely theoretical – it may have practical implications: If I run a factory that needs seven-day shift workers, is it legitimate to reject the candidacy of an Orthodox Jew who refuses to work on the Sabbath? How come it’s considered okay, for the wine industry in Israel, to employ solely Orthodox Jewish men in the wine manufacturing process (in this case, for the employees not to work on the Sabbath is one of the requirements, in order to get the kosher stamp for the wine)?

<< Prev Contents Next >>

This method is most popular among Jewish players of the game, some of whom have turned it into a real art. Rabbi Zamir Cohen, for instance, has produced a booklet named Bible and Science, where he masters this game and allegedly exposes certain mysterious knowledge found in the Bible and in the Jewish Talmud.

In general, these so-called findings are nothing more than simple manipulations of old contents, combined with lack of knowledge and aimed at the young and the bewildered. Want an example? Sure you do!

The tractate of ‘Rosh Hashanah’ (in the Talmud) tells us of Rabban Gamliel, who is explaining to the other sages about the synodic month – the time between two consecutive conjunctions of the Moon and the Sun. In other words: The exact length of the Jewish (and also the Muslim) traditional month. Apparently Rabban Gamliel is quoted as specifying this period of time with precision that is equivalent to five decimal digits after the decimal point (i.e., 29.53059 days). Does it mean we should all start eating kosher and keeping the Sabbath?

An old Russian joke tells about a peasant named Ivan from the region of Smolensk. According to the news he won a prize for producing the largest amount of wheat during the last year. A commission of inquiry was established and found out that his real name was not Ivan, but rather it was Vladimir. He did not live in Smolensk, but in Moscow. It wasn’t wheat what he was growing, but rather it was corn, and the prize was for actually producing the smallest amount of it.

In our case, the story is similar. Research of the text and other related passages in ancient Jewish literature, demonstrates that some of Rabban Gamliel’s words were put there at a later time, and were probably associated with his name retroactively. Rabban Gamliel is himself quoted as saying some contradicting things later. Moreover, this amount of precision is nothing to be proud of, since it is the result of a simple calculation, which was known to the ancient Greeks as well as to the Babylonians. Similar results were found, in fact, in archaeological excavations such as those associated with the ancient astronomer Nabu-Rimanni, and dated more than half a millennium before Rabban Gamliel’s time.

Part of “The sages knew it all” game indeed tends to retroactively associate later masterpieces with earlier alleged authors. For example, we are used to link The Zohar book (that deals with the Jewish Kabbalah) with the name of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, from the Roman times, while in practice it was published in the 13th century in Spain, by a Jewish author named Moses De Leon.

(iv) Prophecy – a good example is the ‘She’ar Yashuv’ case mentioned above. There have been many similar attempts by followers of various religions to find clues in the Biblical text for their being on the right side. Muslim preachers, for example, may quote various uses of words similar to ‘Muhammad’, ignoring the fact that they simply mean “precious things” in Hebrew. Of-course, enthusiastic Christians find traces of Jesus there. Certain fragments of text from the book of Psalms were associated with names of Zionist leaders from the middle of the 20th century. The list of ridiculous manipulations does not seem to end.

Give yourself a task: Try and search for some current event of your choice in the text of the Bible. Given enough time and resources, you’ll be sure to find something. Some ancient clues (in the right state of mind) can easily be interpreted to predict your chosen event. Cute game!

A few additional remarks are worth mentioning:

First (and not very surprisingly), none of this funny hocus-pocus stuff has ever been used to actually predict the future. It has always been used to explain past events. As the famous saying of Niels Bohr (also quoted in the above mentioned Michael Shermer’s article): “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”

Second, the only real prophet we know about is the scientific approach. It can predict vast amount of things: Future weather, volcanic eruptions, the sex of an unborn child, the next lunar eclipse, and the odds of a sick person healing. None of our past mystical prophets ever came close to such ability.

Finally, even if we prove with high probability (which we didn’t) that some person in the 2nd century came to possess certain specific knowledge of our universe – why should we start praying to God or Jesus? Does this imply there’s a god who constantly keeps an eye on the deeds of our specific species on our specific planet?

It appears that once we really want to believe in something, nothing will stop us, including the truth.

<< Prev Contents Next >>

“Fools never die, they are merely replaced by others.” – Unknown

In February 1997, the Israeli Air Force suffered its worst disaster ever. Two transport helicopters carrying troops collided in mid-air over the village of She’ar Yashuv in northern Galilee, resulting in the death of 73 soldiers. The small country mourned, and a commission of inquiry was established to determine the cause of the disaster.

During the days that followed the disaster, several religious radio stations quoted Isaiah, chapter 7, verses 3-4:

“Then said the Lord unto Isaiah: ‘Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the fullers’ field; and say unto him: Keep calm, and be quiet; fear not, neither let thy heart be faint, because of these two tails of smoking firebrands …”

The phrase ‘Shear-jashub’ (pronounced She’ar Yashuv) is mentioned several times in the book of Isaiah – sometimes as the name of Isaiah’s son. In fact, the northern Israeli village was named after this reference. Still, it was easy for some to make the association between the name ‘She’ar Yashuv’, the two burnt helicopters, the phrase ‘two tails of smoking firebrands’ and the fact that Isaiah is considered a prophet.

Six years later, in February 2003, the world watched in horror as the space shuttle Columbia broke into burning pieces high in the sky. During the week after, the righteous were busy again rummaging the Bible for clues. It eventually came out in the shape of some other claptrap called Bible code sometimes also referred to as letter skips. It appears that if you take the current Hebrew version of the Bible, start somewhere in the middle of the 7th verse of Genesis (that talks about the sky), and skip 1822 letters at a time, you reveal the phrase ‘Death to Columbia’. Of-course, the discovery is made with computers, courtesy of simple software that you can write at home over night.

In this game of hocus-pocus there are typically two sides – the instructor and the audience. They share the enthusiasm of finding mystical clues in allegedly God-given texts. They typically also share the lack of basic knowledge in statistics, or at least have the will to ignore it.

The game is most effective when the instructor possesses good presentation skills, and the student is a teenager at the age of “asking yourself questions” about important stuff, such as life in general and the world around us. The game is even more effective when there is a large and efficient organization or system backing up and supporting the instructor, perhaps even with some public funding. The background and environment of the students have strong relation to the expected outcome of the game. In a Jewish environment, the student may become an Orthodox Jewish believer. In a Christian atmosphere, he or she may eventually become a good Christian. In an Islamic environment, the game has been known to produce faithful Muslims.

The game itself has various flavors. They may be used separately or together. Let’s examine some of the most common approaches to this mind-blunting game:

(i) Bible Code (also known as Letter Skips or ‘Dilugim’ in Hebrew) – in this version of the game, we use a trick similar to the one explained above with the Columbia disaster. We scan the Biblical text and locate combinations of letters (that have a fixed distance from one another) which make some sense. Then (this is the tricky part) we tune our mind to believe that it cannot be a coincidence. It must be some secret message coded into the text by the Almighty – how else did it get there?

In practice, fooling around with the text enough time – with any sufficiently long text – will yield almost any desired result. You can probably locate your own name (if it’s not too long or complicated) as well as obvious hints to most famous disasters in human history. Just ask Michael Drosnin, the author of The Bible Code. If you proceed to read the Skeptic column of the Scientific American, June 2003 issue – you’ll find an outstanding article named Codified Claptrap by Michael Shermer. There you can discover in other masterpieces, such as Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, some interesting messages coded using this method. You can also read about the discovery of messages denying the method of the Bible Code, found in the book Bible Code II itself.

By the way, if you continue with the Columbia trick above and count two additional letters, you’ll get ‘No death to Columbia’. It’s also interesting to note that opposing religious trends have been known to find conflicting messages in the Bible. Jesus seems to be a major star of this scheme, for example, unless of-course you’re an Orthodox Jew. The other interesting thing to note is that the Biblical text itself – according to recent research – has changed quite a lot, especially (but not only) during the first millennium BC.

(ii) Numerology and Gimatria – these are other tricks to fool around with letters and numbers. Gimatria is a Hebrew version of numerology, where each letter is assigned a numeric value, based on the decimal method of counting.

The trick here is to sum up the values of all the letters in a certain word, name or phrase. Then to sum up the values of some other word, name or phrase. If by some coincidence the result is the same, it means, of-course, that God meant it to be that way. So – there must be some relationship between the two.

Example: During the first Gulf War in 1991, some wise guy found that Saddam Hussein is equal to Amalek in Gimatria. ‘Amalek’ is the ancient enemy nation that was allegedly defeated by the ancient Israelites with some help from God (see Exodus, chapter 17). Apparently, this brilliant finding did not help at the time with the total defeat of Saddam Hussein. It also did not help to defeat the use of this funny method by Israeli spiritual leaders, such as Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who discovered that Evil Haman (book of Esther) is equal to Yosef Sarid (a left-wing Israeli parliament member, hated by ultra-Orthodox Jews). Ovadia Yosef himself, by the way, is equal to Talks of Nonsense, using this same trick.

<< Prev Contents Next >>

“He who sues his friend in their secular court – his sin is unforgivable.” (Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, book published in 1981)

“Thus, a harsh edict, almost incurable, in the shape of democracy has fallen upon the world. That is a horrible disease that spreads and devours from soul to flesh.” (‘Yated Neeman’ – ‘Faithful Tent-Peg’, Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspaper, January 1999)

“The dark Zionist regime of the last century will be extinct … The supreme court’s halls shall be swept from their current occupants, whose place will be taken … by Sanhedrin [religious court] …” (‘BaKehilla’ – ‘In the Community’, Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspaper, February 1999)

“The Knesset [the Israeli parliament] as a whole is against the Bible … It does not matter which laws are made there … Even if we ourselves [the ultra-Orthodox Jews] vote and send our representatives there … to prevent harsh edicts … it does not imply any recognition of this institute …” (Rabbi Chaim Shaul Karelitz, a major ultra-Orthodox Jewish leader, article published in May 2000)

“The ideological perverts also named ‘secular’ … which are beasts. Perhaps improved beasts, one must say, as their external shape is human.” (‘HaShavua’ – ‘This Week’, Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspaper, April 2001)

And the poor “secular” people – what do they say? Where are they? Alas, there are not too many real secular people, especially not in the Middle East. In fact, most of those granted the title “secular” are exactly those mentioned in the beginning of this book, which wander between the “reality mode” and the “religious mode”. The presence of many secular people, so to speak, is more of a worldwide illusion. There are mainly the more religious and the less religious.

Putting people with religious thinking in power may be hazardous to your health. By definition, a person who surrenders his or her sovereignty to some god of their choice is due to surrender his or her free will (and decisions) to the rules dictated by that god. These rules may not always represent the optimal solution in the real world.

Would you put a country’s education in the hands of a leader who believes that all species were created simultaneously? Would you trust a decision about the future of some territory to be purely rational, when one’s god has already sentenced this territory’s future? What about public busses in Tel Aviv during the Sabbath? And letting poor Mr. Cohen marry his loved one, who happens to be divorced, or even recognizing atheists (e.g., heretics) as patriots? Here is what Vice President George H.W. Bush had to say to Robert I. Sherman, a reporter for the American Atheist news journal, in 1987:

Sherman: What will you do to win the votes of the Americans who are atheists?

Bush: I guess I’m pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me.

Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?

Bush: No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

Sherman: Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?

Bush: Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I’m just not very high on atheists.

Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, a Holocaust survivor, is considered a moderate man. Yet, in his 2005 speech during the March of the Living at the former site of the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, while representing the state of Israel, he counted all evils one by one:

“Don’t we understand it easily, what the snake understood? … like poverty, like crime, like ignorance, like atheism, like terror, like anti-Semitism, like atom, like cancer, like AIDS, … isn’t a time that we understand we all must live together?”

Thus creating the equation: atheism = terror and cancer (or pick any other evil of choice).

As opposed to the United States, Israel cannot afford to fall back too much into religion. Yet this process is so clear, that many people simply fail to pay attention to it.

Leaving religion is what made the modern State of Israel, and returning to religion is what will destroy it. Moreover, when this happens, the few remaining secular people will be the ones blamed for the consequences.

<< Prev Contents Next >>

“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.” – Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

You’ve probably heard of the term “Separation of Church and State”. What does it mean? For many it means exactly what it says: Let each and every religious person (or community) go about their own business. Let the state (or country) take care of the people’s business in general: Education, economy, defense, etc. In short: Don’t mix personal beliefs with the regime.

Is there a separation of church and state in Iran? Most readers would probably say ‘No’. Is there a separation of church and state in the United States, in Egypt, in Israel, or in other places?

In August 2003 there was a big debate in the American media over the federal court order, to move a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court building. Was it appropriate to have the monument there? Hundreds of people demonstrated against the decision to remove it. A quick survey taken by the CNN web site proved the public opinion was more or less split as to whether it should be there.

While it may be argued that the monument simply symbolizes some sort of striving for justice, it’s a little bit more difficult to use the same “symbolic” argument in the case of Israel’s laws of matrimony.

You see, long ago Jewish priests were not allowed to marry divorced women. Since the State of Israel irresponsibly abandoned all formal treatment of matrimony to the religious courts, then at the time of writing these lines (21st century, to remind you), it’s still impossible for people carrying the last name of Cohen to marry divorced women in Israel. In fact, it’s also totally impossible for people who are registered as having different religions (!) to marry in Israel. How do they work around this? Travel to some other nearby country – typically Cyprus – get married there, and return home.

The gluing of church and state in Israel does not end with the Cohens. The very existence of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, sponsored by the Israeli taxpayer, is another clear aspect of the phenomenon. Let alone other religious coercive laws, such as the formal forbiddance of displaying bread for commercial purposes during Passover (it’s still okay to sell it under the table), or the many limitations on raising pigs. Does stopping all public busses in Tel Aviv during the Sabbath make people more Jewish? It probably makes them more pissed off if they don’t own a car, but still it happens.

When Theodor Herzl envisioned the Jewish state at the end of the 19th century, he wrote:

“We shall therefore prevent any theocratic tendencies from coming to the fore on the part of our priesthood. We shall keep our priests within the confines of their temples in the same way as we shall keep our professional army within the confines of their barracks.”

In fact, the pre-birth of the State of Israel was at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, by young Jewish people who abandoned the religious way of life in favor of Zionism. Many of them were shunned by their communities, and often by their own families, for the sin of leaving the religion and heresy.

<< Prev Contents Next >>

“England and America are two countries separated by a common language.” – George Bernard Shaw

Religion deserves a dictionary of its own, and indeed there are already quite a few. However, they typically use a very serious approach. How about something lighter, but one that still carries the correct meaning of things?

So here it comes – The Ultimate Religious Dictionary:

Angel – An alien humanoid of male gender, with wings and knowledge of the Bible. Typically guards the righteous (see ‘Righteous’).

Ape – Charles Darwin’s grandfather.

Bless – Recite ancient text while looking as if you’re making an effort.

Christian – (if the speaker is a Christian:) A good man; (if the speaker is a religious Jew:) A pagan; (if the speaker is a Muslim:) A criminal and a conqueror.

Church – A place where God wants us to be without hats.

Democracy – A regime that conducts elections.

Dinosaur – A non-existing animal, part of some anti-religious scheme.

Evolution – A fantasy designed by some poor lunatics in order to demonstrate their hate of the truth (see ‘Hate’, ‘Truth’).

Freedom – Your option to choose what your priest or rabbi or sheikh tells you.

God – (There’s no definition to this word, but you’re supposed to understand it anyway.)

Hate – Possessing non-religious opinions; Opposing the religious way of life; Criticizing religious beliefs.

Heretic – One who dares to say things, which religious literature defines as heresy, regardless of their meaning and content.

Jew – (if the speaker is a religious Jew:) A good man, if religious; a potentially good man, if non-religious; (if the speaker is Muslim:) a conqueror with American friends; (if the speaker is Christian:) a chosen person who might or might not abandon the right way.

Kangaroo – An animal that swam all the way from Noah’s Ark to Australia, some 4000 years ago.

Kosher – Food (and sometimes other things) stamped by a well-paid person, who has learned kosher rules (see ‘Learn’).

Learn – Study the text of the Bible and other religious literature; Practice logic rules that appear in ancient religious texts (such as the Talmud) as long as the outcome is identical to the one that is found in the text.

Love – Converting one’s belief to religion (‘Love of Israel’ – converting one’s belief to Orthodox Judaism).

Messiah – An unclear title, for which there is a strong competition between Jesus of Nazareth, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of Chabad-Lubavitch, and a futuristic stranger riding a white donkey.

Miracle – Something that perhaps happens and that makes you feel good if it happens.

Mosque – A place where God wants us to be with no shoes on.

Muslim – (if the speaker is a Muslim:) A good man; (if the speaker is a Christian:) A terrorist; (if the speaker is a religious Jew:) A somewhat primitive religious person.

Pluralism – Justification for missionary activity.

Protein – The evidence for evolutionists’ conspiracy.

Psalms – A Jewish medicine for everything. Since the Gulf War in 1991 it has been known to stop missiles.

Pure – Exercising not having sex for a long time; not being dead; not during menstruation.

Purpose – The plan designed for the future of a thing or a person in the blueprint of the universe drawn by God.

Righteous – A person, typically a male, who performs religious rituals in detail.

Save – A Christian flavor of ‘Love’ (See ‘Love’).

Sex – Something that God lets you get away with, under certain conditions.

Strengthen – Act in a way that encourages others not to think rationally.

Sun – A big source of light created after Earth, circling Earth ever since.

Synagogue – A place where God wants us to be with hats.

Tradition – A logical method of proving things beyond doubt.

Truth – Anything that correlates with the speaker’s belief.

Unity – A situation where everybody follows my religious rules.

Okay. Now you may put the book aside, have a short break, freshen up and come back soon invigorated.

<< Prev Contents Next >>

“In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of “respect”.” – Salman Rushdie

“Where one burns books, one will soon burn people.” – Heinrich Heine

You may have heard that some Christians have a thing against Harry Potter. Rev. John Hagee, the famous pastor from San Antonio, Texas, devoted several of his shows to battling “the great evil of Harry Potter”, as part of his war against so-called witchcraft.

Certain Christians find the justification they need for such a battle in the New Testament:

“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;” (1 Timothy, chapter 4, verses 1-2)

Whether Harry Potter encourages kids to delve into witchcraft (as claimed by some parent organizations across the US) is yet to be seen. One should wonder what is witchcraft anyway – not too many parents seem to ban Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, though similar reasoning may apply in this case. Does it sound too absurd? Not if you ask Rev. George Bender of the Harvest Assembly of God Church. On March 2001, the congregation gathered around a bonfire in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and burned Harry Potter books, together with Disney videos such as Pinocchio, some rock CDs and literature from other religions. The act was naturally justified as based on the Bible.

In various states in the US (especially in the south) there is a history of book banning. All over the world many Orthodox Jews have banned the New Testament itself. In recent years the issue of Harry Potter has appeared in several Jewish discussions because a central part of Judaism is the 613 Mitzvot (613 commandments) derived from the Bible, of which the 62nd one reads: “Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live” (Exodus, chapter 22, verse 17).

Burning witches in the past millennium was more of a Christian business. Yet, burning printed material and destroying other precious things – in the name of religion – has been the business of others as well. Islamic revolutions, such as the one in Sudan during the late 80s, experienced breaking and destroying many bottles of wine and other forbidden alcoholic beverages. The destruction of the huge stone Buddhas by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 shook the civilized world. The famous Egyptian Sphinx escaped a similar Fatwah (a religious edict) in the beginning of 2006. The Satanic Verses, a famous book by Salman Rushdie, was for Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini much more than what Harry Potter has been for Rev. John Hagee. In 1989, the now deceased leader of Iran declared that the book was blasphemous, and called for the death of Mr. Rushdie. Salman Rushdie went into hiding, with the protection of the British government. A million dollar reward was offered for Rushdie’s murder, and worldwide, many people associated with the book’s publishing were physically attacked.

It seems that some religious leaders are eager to limit the possibilities for the flock under their care to even know of other things, whether factual or fictitious. Not knowing seems to be a major part of not believing. Is religious belief so fragile that it needs to be nurtured all the time?

The issue is even deeper – it’s related again to the sensitive matter of believing vs. knowing. If people knew (scientifically speaking) about a God above who enjoyed our doing certain things, then there wouldn’t be any real reason to prevent them from reading opposing literature and opinions. Hence the very existence of the thought police is the best indication for the need for its existence. Guard and protect – this is one of religion’s self-defense mechanisms.

Orthodox Judaism generally forbids causing any harm to written religious texts. A hand-written official Bible even gets a proper burial ceremony if damaged. Yet, there seems to be a good excuse for anything when it’s arbitrarily deemed necessary. For example: When written by a heretic, the book should to be burned.

In the year 2000, a small Israeli organization named Daat Emet (Knowing the Truth) compiled and distributed interesting pamphlets among ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in Israel. Most of the content of those pamphlets consisted of actual quotes from traditional Jewish religious literature, such as the Talmud, and even the Bible. However, the material was well organized in a way that demonstrated numerous contradictions and factual errors in the ancient texts.

The people who compiled the pamphlets obviously had a background in Judaism. Their purpose in creating the pamphlets was simple: Encourage people to raise doubts and be able to criticize, while talking their own language, using the very same texts that are studied on a day-to-day basis.

The response to the pamphlets was in many instances quite extreme and varied from public slander to actual violence. In several cases, the pamphlets were gathered and burned in public. Needless to say, in privacy many religious people did read the forbidden material, just as many of John Hagee’s followers probably read Harry Potter and many Iranians read Salman Rushdie.

With a bit of luck, this book will be banned as well.

<< Prev Contents Next >>

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?”

<< Prev Contents Next >>