NOTE: I like the word humbug
BEWARE: This is my revenge of being taught religion,
i.e., a lot of blatant humbug, in primary school!
The wizard and the chief
In the bush somewhere in central Africa there is one of those small, typical villages: a circle of mud huts with straw roofs. Two huts are decorated, these are the chief's and the wizard's. If villagers feel troubled, they go to see the wizard, with a chicken. The wizard will throw his handful of bones, he will look bewitched, and then he will tell the villagers anything that makes them happy again. So the villagers will happily go home and the wizard will happily eat the chicken. That is, in most cases.
Occasionally, a more clever villager will doubt the wizard's endless wisdom, raising uncomfortable questions about the wizard's special gifts. Afterall, one does not need a Nobel prize to become a wizard. For dealing with such dissidents, the wizard and the chief have entailed the power to expell dissidents from the village, eventually to kill one. The wizard's business model is backed by the chief, and, obviously, the chief's authority is backed by the wizard.
Now let us go to our more “civilised” society. The pope of the Roman Catholic Church is head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Read that again: catholic faith, as for any faith, needs dogmas on which it is based. Dogmas cannot be questioned, else the faith might collapse like a card-house. Not so long ago, this congregation was called the Holy Inquisition. It was empowered to interrogate, torture and kill dissidents. The only difference with today is that dissidents are not burned at the stake anymore, but, like dissidents in the African village, can be expelled from their church. Talking about card-houses, what is the Roman Catholic Church based on? The bible. But what is the bible?
Many people still think that earliest hominins were found in east Africa. Fossils some 200,000 years old have been found in the wellknown Great Rift Valley. However, much older are fossils of Homo Sapiens who lived in caves with fire in north-west Morocco; see the archaeological site Jebel Ighoud. Because of tribal life, I am convinced that in early Paleolithic, some 315 thousand years ago, our first known ancestors Homo rhodesiensis near Casablanca and H heidelbergensis near Salé, in Morocco, already discovered that a tribe's peace and prosperity are assured best if all tribesmen adhere to very few basic rules: honour your parents, don't kill fellow-tribesmen, don't have sex with your neighbour's spouse, and don't steal. These moral rules were passed on, naturally, from parents to children, generation after generation, by oral history, slowly turning into simple stories about good and bad behaviour. By the time mankind developed writing, these stories were written down and they evolved into compelling novels. Later, an important spiritual ingredient became the Hermetic philosophy of ancient Egypt and Greece, since 1908 artificially called the Kybalion, with its seven principles of mentalism, correspondence, vibration, polarity, rhythm, cause and effect, and gender.
Finally, the Dead Sea Scrolls, written from 3rd century BCE (BC) to 1st century CE (AD), mention the ten commandments that God (in heaven) gave to Moses (on earth, in 14th century BCE, on Mount Sinai to be precise). And what are those commandments? Honour your parents, no killing, no adultery, no stealing, but also some Hebrew humbug such as there is only one God and sabbath is holy. From early tribes in Morocco to Moses on Mount Sinai, it took about half a million years to include four universally accepted moral rules as one cornerstone of a new religion. This is called progress.
It is a collection of 66 books, written in Greek, by about 40 authors, in over more than 2000 years. The Old Testament consists of 39 or more books, from Genesis to Malachi. The books Exodus and Deuteronomy refer to the Decalogue, or the ten commandments, and to Moses who led the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery, circa 1486 BCE. The New Testament is younger, from ca. 33 CE until ca. 80 CE. It is a collection of 27 sermons (preachings) of prophets, apostles and disciples, from Matthew to Revelation.
Do not forget that the bible was written at a time when most people could not read and write, and few Israelites mastered the Greek language. All things, from Genesis to Revelation, were passed on by oral history: compelling stories that were easy to digest and remember. Repetition was not a problem, it was even an advantage. Stories that, once digested and remembered, could be told to family members and fellow-citizens. Stories of the Old Testament tell a lot of history of the Israelites. Stories of the New Testament are often focused on one person, Jesus. Well, stories or gossips? Some people heard from other people that someone could walk over water. And that another someone, or the same someone, could heal lame people only by touching them. That's in the New Testament, but what about the Old one? When Moses led the Israelites, fleeing from the Egyptians, through the Red Sea, the Lord caused the water to divide such that they could cross over dry land, and it was even possible to touch the walls of water with the left and right hands. Nowadays one could call the bible a soap, like a Brazilian novela.
But what remains if the bible is stripped of all stories and redundancies, and only the quintessential information is left? Remarkably, only three cornerstones:
1: There is only one God who created the world and also us (Genesis).
2: Basic moral commandments like honour your parents, do not steal and do not murder other people.
3: If you believe (1) and practice (2), you deserve eternal life in heaven (Resurrection).
Hence, points (1) and (2) are the carrots dangling in front of our noses, and point (3), eternal life, is the reward. That's all.
The commandments that Moses is said to have received on Mount Sinai are a few ethical rules plus some religiously tinged extras. One might expect that similar rules exist in other religions. However, instead of such a few moral rules one much more basic and universal principle became the foundation of human morality. It is throughout all cultures known as the Golden Rule. It exists in different wordings: Do unto others (Christianity), do not do to others what you would not want done to you (Confucianism), or most generically, Treat others as you wish to be treated. In all major religions and cultures: Christianity, Judaism, Buddism, Hinduism, Islam, Taoism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism and Jainism.
Oh boy, ancient people really loved gods and goddesses. Anything existing or not readily explainable could have one. Homo sapiens turned into H religiosus. We can still recognise the nordic origins of our weekdays with only four of the 40-plus gods and goddesses of the Norse Pantheon: måne, Tyr, Odin, Thor, Frigg, saturn and sol/solena. In måne we recognise Maan-dag, Mon-tag and Mon-day, but also lundi and lunedi. Zon-dag, Sun-day and Sonn-tag come from sol/solena. However, dimanche, domingo and domenica are all named after the latin (not Roman!) diés Dominicus, the day of the Lord, for worship and rest (see Genesis and Sabbath, one of Moses' ten commandments). The German Samstag is likely derived from the old German sambaztag, the Gotic sambatō, the biblical sabbatō (Sabbath! in Portugal we say sábado) and the Byzantine Greek sámbaton. The Germans also use Sonnabend, the eve of Sunday: sunnūnāband. Saturday comes from the latin god Saturn after which the planet was named; diés Sāturnī, Saturn's day, through the old English Sæternesdæġ. Hence, we started with four Norse gods, but we ended with six god-related weekday names. In the nordic countries, for Saturday the words for washing day, vaskedagen (DK) or laugardagr (NO), were used (vask is wash, laug means lye, lixivium).
To generalize: the Norse mythology counted a vast array of gods and goddesses, from the Æsir (war and chaos) and Vanir (nature, fertility, prosperity) groups. Due to the oral tradition of Norse mythology, the exact number of gods is impossible to determine, but there were some 12 to 15 major gods. When including also lesser-known deities, it is estimated that the Norse Pantheon counted more than hundred gods and goddesses.
Other mythologies
In Greek mythology, there was a vast range of deities, heroes and stories to explain the world, human existence and the cosmos. The creation myths were most important, a sort of Greek Genesis, to explain the unexplainable: first the Titans and then the ascent of the Olympian gods. Chaos was the primordeal void, a dark and empty space, a state of nothingness from which all emerged (note: there is a striking similarity with Larry Krauss' - see below - explanation of the pre-big-bang quantum fluctuations in a yet non-existing universe). From Chaos and Uranus (the sky) arose the Titans Gaia (earth), Tartarus (the abyss), Eros (love), Nyx (night) and Erebus (darkness). They were the most powerful deities. Other key Titans were Cronus, the leader of the Titans (time and harvest), Rhea, the mother of the Olympian gods (fertility, motherhood), Oceanus (vast waters) and Hyperion (light, the sun). Later, in the epic conflict called Titanomachy, the Titans were replaced by the Olympian gods, a transition from Chaos to a new order in the new cosmos, to civilization, in which justice, hospitality and community were valued. The key figures were Zeus, king of the gods (sky and thunder), Hera, their queen (marriage and family), Poseidon (sea, earthquakes, horses) and Athena (wisdom and warfare). In this small summary, we saw only eight of the 12 Titans and only four of the more than 3000 in the Greek Pantheon.
Intermezzo: the Trojan horse
Above I wrote that the Greek Poseidon was fond of horses. That is an often made mistake based on a wrong interpretation of Greek texts. Homer's Iliad was the first written history of Greece and the Greek. His Iliad ended before the Trojan war, when the Greek wanted their Helena back. His Odyssey started after Troy had fallen, so a historical account of the war is missing. The Trojan horse is a myth. The Phoenicians used Hippos ships, plural Hippoi, to transport, e.g., precious sandalwood and copper and tin, in the east Mediterranian. Copper and tin, in a ratio of 9-to-1, were used for the producion of bronze. Troy was about 1200 BCE, the late Bronze Age. Those ships were called Hippoi because their bow figured a wooden head of a horse. Hence, Poseidon was the god of the sea, ships and earthquakes. And the Greek did not leave a horse when they departed from Troy, but a ship.
Yet other mythologies
In ancient Rome there were over 200 gods and goddesses. The 12 most important, the Dii Consentes, were Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Minerva, Mars, Venus, Apollo, Diana, Vulcan, Vesta, Mercury and Ceres. You recognise some planet and rocket names. Oh, I almost forgot Saturn. The Di Selecti, a broader group, counted about 20. Hence, there were more than 170 lesser gods in the Roman Pantheon. It should be emphasized that there was a strong similarity between Greek and Roman gods: Jupiter is Zeus, Juno is Hera, Neptune is Poseidon, Minerva is Athena, Mars is Ares, Venus is Aphrodite, Apollo is Apollo, Diana is Artemis, and Mercury is Hermes.
In Egypt, there were 120 gods and goddesses, many with an animal head like a ram or lion. There was some tendency from polytheism to monotheism: Amun-Ra, a combination of Amun (the creator of life) and Ra (the creator of stars, earth and sun) rose to the status of patron deity of the Egyptian Pantheon. But later, Akhnaten, the husband of Nefertiti, who was the 10th ruler of the 18th dynasty, ca 1350-1330 BCE, dictated that traditional polytheism was replaced by Atenism, with only one God called Aten. We do not know why Akhnaten wanted to get rid of polytheism. In any case, Aten was derived from the sun god Ra. But Atenism never became very popular. The zoo of gods proved to be too attractive.
In India and Hinduism, there were 33 gods, but many experts say that these were only the principal deities. The many other gods were merely manifestations of these 33. However, later Shiva came to be seen as the principal deity of the Hindu Pantheon, the head of the 33. Today, the zoo still exists.
In ancient Israel, Yahwism was the Semitic, ethnic, religion of Israel and Judah. It was derived from the Canaanite religion. It was polytheistic, with a pantheon that comprised various gods and goddesses. It was practised from 1200-900 BCE. The primary deiti was Yahweh, the national god of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, and Asherath was his spouse. Below these two were others like Baal, Shamash, Yarikh, Mot and Astarte. See the confusing Yahwism Pantheon. The Song of Moses, about the relation between God and the Israelites, is thought to be written between 12th and 11th centuries BCE. With the prophet Elijah in 9th century BCE, and then Hosea in the 8th, the early monolatrists (one God between other Gods) tended to monotheists. Finally, in early first century BCE, monotheism became the norm: only the one God YHWH or Yahweh. Hence the first two commandments: (1) I am the only God and (2) redundant but understandable because of the monolatrist history: you shall not worship any other God. Alas, the Semitic zoo of gods was gone.
The wizards of the new Yahwism
During Yahwism and well before the Dead Sea Scrolls were written, some people, let's call them wizards, knew society, psychology and religion very well. They analysed the people's behaviour, and they took the conscious decision to construct a new Yahwism, probably from scratch, as an attractive alternative for the existing, polytheistic order. This was a process that must have taken centuries and it likely involved several generations of wizards. These were educated people, who later wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, who mastered the Greek language, and who knew the rich and colorful Greek Pantheon as well as the much smaller ancient Semitic Pantheon. Yet they decided to introduce a new, minimal, bleak and abstract trinity of a Father, a Son and a Holy Gost. A trinity which later needed the backing of 66 books with history and gossips. A new religion which was in principle not positive about humanity, but negative: by definition, we are all sinners, we need to go to confession and pray for remission. A negativity that was in stark contrast with the generally accepted moral rules of society, even before Moses was handed the Commandments. I am convinced that the ultimate reason for the introduction and success of the new Yahwism must have been a formidable compensation of the loss of the Pantheon by a promise. The promise of an ultimate remission. The promise of eternal life, of a happy and everlasting hereafter, in heaven. But it was all invented, it was all constructed. The wizards of the new Yahwism deliberately decided to introduce a promise of something that did not exist. A fallacy, a delusion.
Le Tout Nouveau Testament...
...is the title of Jaco van Dormael's 2015 film, a black comedy, in which some god decrees that, for example, buttered and jammed slices of bread which drop always fall on the floor with the jam-side down. The new-Yahwism wizards can be seen as screen writers, not of films but of stories fit for oral history, later for written history. Compelling stories that could be easily told, remembered and believed. They deliberately invented stories for this purpose. Why they decided to introduce a new religion with only one god, as Akhnaten once had tried in Egypt, without success, we do not know. But they invented that their new God created the world in six days, and on the seventh day He relaxed, looked at what he had created, and was satisfied. He also created a man, Adam, so they also had to find a way to create a woman, Eve. How did they solve this problem? By morphing Eve from one of Adam's ribs. And then came a snake and an apple and the story went on. People liked such stories. This is in the Old Testament
Later, after the new religion had become more popular, a new cast of story tellers began to spread the stories, including the one God and the commandments. Until one of those people, Jesus, who claimed to be the son of God, became so popular that he was seen by the Romans as a dangerous dissident. This is true history, which actually happened. To end this part of the story, Jesus was accused and crucified. That was a normal punishment at that time, it is estimated that, over several centuries, about 2 million people were crucified by the Romans, and Golgotha was only one popular site outside the walls of Jerusalem. So far part of the New Testament.
In Greek mythology, the dead moved to the underworld where Hades made sure that no one returned to life. In Egypt, the god Osiris decided whether the soul went on to eternal paradise, the Field of Reeds. Although the idea of a happy paradise-after-death was generally accepted, people were still afraid to die. In Hinduism, death is a sacred transition, the soul is eternal, it leaves one body and enters another. However, this reincarnation depends on a person's karma.
The concepts of death, heaven and hell appeared often since Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, but ancient Hebrews did not really deal with them, nor did the Old Testament (Ehrman, 2020). Scholars believe that in ancient Israel there was a cult of the dead/ancestors similar to that in the neighbouring cultures to the west (Mesopotamian), north (Ugaritic/Hittite/Luwian) and southeast (Egyptian). Life after death, either in heaven or in hell, only appeared in the New Testament. Drum-roll, ta-da: eternal life was created. So, the bible and christian faith still teach ethical and moral rules, i.e., the commandments including some sabbath day for worship and rest, but also offer an enormous relief, i.e., eternal life, to the many people who are afraid of death and/or cannot accept that they will cease to exist, forever.
The literal interpretation of the testaments was often problematic. There was only one god, and in some “heaven”? Who had only one son, but on earth?? This son was given birth by a woman, who was even a virgin??? So how was she conceived, and by whom???? The people, who invented this, must have thought, well, let us therefore also assume some “holy ghost” for solving this and a lot of, here we go again, other humbug. If you do not believe in one of these fundamental cornerstones, the entire story collapses like a card-house. Hence: the doctrine of the faith and the inquisition.
What is the problem with religion? Our ancestors could not explain natural phenomena like fire, earth, rain and thunder. Surely, there must be unknown powers at work. These were named gods and, together with the basic, moral rules of society, all evolved into religion. Above I wrote about Norse mythology. Thursday is still called Torsdag (DK, NO, SE) and Torstai (FI), or Donnerstag (DE) and donderdag (NL), or Thorsday in Old English. During a thunderstorm, Thor swings his hammer...
During thousands and thousands of years, mankind evolved with religion for explaining where we came from, why we exist, how we should behave, and what is going to happen with us when we die. Religion has therefore become an integral part of our brain (McNamara, 2022). Even many eminent scientists cannot suppress the activity in the brain areas involved in religion: we are conscious, we can think and reason, so there must be a very special reason why we exist, and mankind could or should have a special role in our universe, a universe that was created by some, yet unknown, super-being.
Even today, many christian people are absolutely convinced that God created our world in six or seven days, and that this happened 6-10 thousand years ago. So how can we explain very old fossils like one of our ancestors called Lucy in eastern Africa? Solution: those anthropologists must be mad! And how about the origin and evolution of species? Charles Darwin must have drunk too much whisky on the Beagle! If something is not written in the bible, then it must be humbug! This is a nice illustration of circular reasoning: how humbug creates humbug.
Religious people like to be part of religious organisations. That strengthens their identity. But why do religious people also like to form religious political parties? That is very important to them: when represented in a government, they can try to impose their opinions on to others, often opinions that originate from their religious beliefs: christian faith as the first and foremost ethical guideline in life. The bible says that life is sacred, hence abortion is not allowed, nor experiments with fetal stem cells, and absolutely no euthanasia. Euthanasia is reserved for critically ill pets, to end their suffering. But it may not be applied to your mother with final-stage cancer, when she asks for it, even begs for it. So she decides to stop with eating and drinking, really a humane way to end your own life. Most religious people cannot accept that others simply do not believe in their, well, humbug. Who believe that life is not sacred but precious, because you only live once. Who are also capable to take fundamental decisions in life after careful deliberations. Who do not need a bible or a religion, who can think by themselves.
How is it possible that religions still exist, although many people know very well that they are based on assumptions, even dogmas, on stories from oral history? Here comes my revenge of being taught religion, i.e., a lot of blithering, blatant humbug, in primary school! It is a conscious policy to indoctrinate children when they are still young, when their brains lap up all information without the time and possibility of reflection, to accept or reject. In my primary school we were taught religion by means of the Catechism of the christian faith, a booklet with questions (Q) and answers (A) that we had to learn by heart. Let me quote three (of 548!) examples:
Q: For what are we on earth?
A: We are on earth to worship God and thereby be happy here and
hereafter.
The hereafter refers to life after death. Here is another one:
Q: What does the 4th commandment (honour your father and mother) mean?
A: To honour your parents and the clerical and the secular arms.
Hmmm, to honour your parents is pretty trivial. But why appear here, suddenly, and in other words, the wizard and the chief whom we first met in the African village? A last quote:
Q: Why must we also honour the clerical and secular arms?
A: Because their power and authority come from God.
Yep, I wrote above that the wizard's business model is backed by the chief and the chief's authority is backed by the wizard, but now both are backed by some ultimate authority. By some God who has been invented by the wizards of the new Yahwism. The people who teach children of 10 years this nonsense, yes humbug, use their own authority and power to indoctrinate kids in order to make sure that their religion (and not only the christian) stays alive. They can be seen as criminals. Religion should only be taught when children are old enough and have acquired the capability of critical thinking. Even then, religion should always stay an option in life.
We find the wizard-and-chief principle in many cultures and countries. Throughout history, clerical and secular arms have united to educate people, but also to make them docile, even to suppress people, or at least keep them stupid. The Roman emperors already knew: give the people bread and circuses to distract them from problems and complaints. In the Roman case, early Christians were abused as entertaining fodder for lions. But in 313 CE, when Christianity was established by Constantine the Great as the Roman state religion, persecution had been reversed into power. The Christian “wizzard” was firmly established, yes, by the Roman “chief” himself.
Unfortunately, docility and stupidity are ideal properties which invite for exploitation. That is why the wizzard-and-chief principle can be found in many dictatorships. If, like in Christianity, as written above, both are backed by an even higher authority, dictators are inclined to think that they are elected by God herself, like in some imperial families. Examples: In Russia, dictator Putin is firmly supported by Patriarch Alexy II, the head of the Russian Orthodox church. Since the start of Putin's war with Ukraine, Ukraine's Orthodox church with Patriarch Nykodym has cut ties with the Russian counterpart. However, I am convinced that the Russian system is much more toxic. I have absolutely no idea why there are elections in Russia, because the outcome is already known. The same holds for Belarus.
For other examples you just need to search for fascists: Trump, Putin, Netanyahu and Erdogan, but there are many more. I include Trump because he is the most corrupt, fascist president of the USA. The republican party as a whole has become fascist, because all democrats are considered to be communists. And take a closer look at religion there. Evangelicals just love the show, hallelujah, more moronic does not exist. Although, take a look at ReAwaken USA: this despicable rabble is as religious as the evangelicals, but in addition also prone to any nonsense you can imagine: conspiracy “theories,” including COVID-19 misinformation, election denialism, QAnon and doomsday prophecies. Both are faith-based civic movements, and both support trumpapalooza until democracy has been demolished completely. Just ask MAGA folks. The Economist wrote “MAGA is blurring the line between church and state.” By the way, I am convinced that for many MAGA folks also MAWA applies: W is white.
Other examples: In Israel, Netanyahu desperately needs support of the ultra-orthodox jews to stay in power, hence sacrificing Palestineans in Gaza and on the West Bank is no problem. Finally, Turkish Erdogan needs support of the Islamist parties, so he canceled women's rights and is firmly against lhbti+ rights.
Infamous examples of incompetent governance combined with religious suppression are Ireland and Poland: stupidity meets poverty. Only at the end of last century more people could shake off religion and started to realize why they had to suffer so much. Concerning trumpapalooza, I really like the word, but apart from the GOP's midterm convention or money-making circus around their biggest problem, Trump himself, I prefer to use it sarcastically: over-exageration of total madness. That Evangelicals and ReAwakeners are stupid is utterly ironic: they worship the decidedly self-proclaimed anti-christ Trump. They just like to drill more holes in the bottom of the ship that is already sinking. Hallelujah.
Historically, in many countries the state was at least partially linked to religion, and many still continue. See this separation listing. Examples of a strict separation of state and church are India and Singapore. Germany still has its Kirchensteuer or church tax. In France, a 1905 law decrees strict separation, or laïcité, although regions Alsace and Moselle are exceptions.
President Macron did not attend three masses that Pope Leo XIV celebrated during the pontiff‘s official visit to France from September 25 to 28, 2026. Macron‘s absence from these religious ceremonies came after the Vatican declined several proposals put forward by the French side for the visit. Among the requests rejected were a military parade intended to honor the Pope with full honors as a head of state, a shared meal with the French president and other dignitaries, and Macron to accompany the Pope to visit the restaurated Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Only on the last day Macron decided to attend the last mass in Metz. Hence, we see that strict laïcité can be tricky.
So what are we left with today? Physics, the science of explaining all natural phenomena and more. Our universe consists of matter and energy which are ruled by only very few physical laws. Physics also deals with two extremes: the very small sub-atomic particles and the very big galaxies in the universe. After the big-bang, energy morphed into matter which condensed to form stars, galaxies and also planets like our earth. Once cooled, certain conditions led to more complex molecules with replication: the most elementary form of life. All the rest is rather trivial; read the book The Creation by Peter Atkins (below). The big-bang itself is part of cosmology, the science of explaining our cosmos. For example what happened in the first three minutes; read the book by Steven Weinberg (below), although current cosmology already concentrates on the first microseconds and before; read the book by Larry Krauss (below). Or whether our universe will keep expanding or will collapse, a very intriguing question which must be answered before our sun will die and absorb all planets, including our earth. But that will happen in a few millions of years, so we have plenty of time. By the way, physicists can explain many phenomena, but current cosmological models include two giant unknowns: dark matter and dark energy. Have you seen them?
Even theologians cannot ignore the fact that physics can undermine theology. That we do not need to assume some god to explain our existence (Atkins). That God is an invention of mankind (Dawkins). That the creation of the universe can be a result of quantum fluctuations in empty space (Krauss). Of course, theologians will rebuke, saying there still remain unanswered problems that physics can never answer. Afterall, these physicists undermine the clerics' raison d'être, their business model.
A clear example is the book In the beginning by Joseph Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict XVI, over the book Genesis 2. We may assume that he knew Atkins' book (there is no need to assume a God for explaining our existence). But he writes, in contrast to what is explicitly written in the bible, namely that the Christian God created the world and man in six days, that Genesis does not explain how we came to be, but rather what we are. Being does not explain itself. Scientific explanations of the physical world, no matter how elaborate and ingenious and praiseworthy, are ultimately incomplete, because they are powerless to account for the principles that are operative within that physical world. I cite: “This is an unescapable conclusion derived from the empirical nature of the sciences.” Moreover, “there are aspects of the world, such as the moral order, which the sciences are not equipped for to investigate.” Aha, downplaying physics is one thing, so let us also downplay psychology and sociology.
Do you remember that the pope is the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith? To protect the dogmas on which the faith is built? Who now writes about the empirical nature of the sciences, without mentioning explicit problems of Atkins, Dawkins or Krauss. Who says, in other words, that the existing moral order needs a religious explanation. A moral order that Homo rhodesiensis and H heidelbergensis, some 700-500 thousand years ago, already knew? Without the one God and moral rules of Moses' Commandments that appeared some 600 thousand years later. As I write below, theology is spiritual masturbation, and I added the word spiritual only in order not to be too negative.
My conclusion is that Mr Ratzinger tries to revive the good old times when Galileo Galilei wrote his observations of 1610 in his book The starry messenger, confirming the heliocentric theory of Nicolaus Copernicus of 1543, which went against the geocentric idea of Ptolemy that was adopted by the roman catholic church. Galileo was first interrogated and condemned by the inquisition in 1616, and in a second trial, in 1632, he was convicted to house arrest and his books were banned. Luckily, the books by Atkins, Dawkins and Krauss cannot be banned.
In physics, for example, there is a very high moral standard. If you cite someone or something, you include a reference to the source. You do not invent data, you only publish measured data. When you write a mathematical formula, you also include the derivation. When you speculate, you say so. You do not lie. If you break such rules, you commit a moral and mortal sinn. Mortal in the sense that your carreer may be over.
In the social sciences, there are plenty of examples where well-known people, for example politicians, lost their PhD degree because someone found out that they copied texts from others in their dissertations without putting references to the sources. Also in the social sciences there are moral standards that you cannot break. In theology, which is not a science, truth is flexible. You can say and write anything as long as it fits your belief or faith or whatever you call it. Mr Ratzinger is so flexible that he can bend what is explicitly written in the bible to what he would like to be believed by his sheep, even scientific sheep who should know better. A completely new interpretation of biblical texts. I call this masturbation, you can do this until you are completely satisfied. It is a proof of the shameless arrogance of the clerical (not secular) arms. Here he shows up again, the wizard, but this time without the chief. But Mr Ratzinger was also the pope, and thus the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. My conclusion is that Mr Ratzinger, as pope, broke the most elementary dogma of his own faith, namely that God created the world. And no one called for the “holy” inquisition!
Sure! First, our hardware: the atoms of our bodies will be part of future bodies, whether we like it or not. As a matter of fact, some of the atoms in our body once belonged to other bodies, even dinosaurs, because there are so many atoms in us. Second, our software: our thoughts as condensated in books etc. will be alive but only if they matter to other people and in the future. Alas, few people get a Nobel prize, but there are plenty of other ways to leave our traces. It is our own duty in life what we make of it: to be remembered or to be forgotten. The choice is our's.
And what actually happens when we die? When our power (heart) is switched off? Our brain is no longer supplied by oxygen, so it shuts down and we may have a recall of memories deeply stored in our neural circuits. Our visual system also shuts down, so we may see a tunnel of bright light which gets smaller and smaller. Like the vanishing electron beam and phosphor spot of an old-fashioned TV set based on a CRT. Period.
(1) Do not read books from philosophers. Use your own brain.
(2) Do not trust people who studied theology, this is spiritual masturbation.
(3) Peter Atkins: we don't need some god to explain our existence.
(4) Richard Dawkins: god is an invention of mankind.
(5) Larry Krauss: quantum fluctuations could explain our universe.
(6) Brian Greene: on cosmos, space, time, and reality.
(7) Steven Weinberg: the first three minutes after the big-bang.
(8) Paul Davies: all physical constants that govern our universe.
I would like to add Michael Shermer, the founder of the journal Skeptic. In his book Truth he treats three questions: (1) Known knowns - what we already know; (2) Known unknowns - what we still do not know; and (3) Known unknowables - the deep problems for which there may not be a definitive answer, like consciousness, free will, the existence of some God and the question -if it is one- why there is something and not nothing. He debunks the idea of the fine tuning argument which has become popular under theologians: that the universe is physically calibrated so precise (see Paul Davies’ accidental universe) that it is meant to produce human life. This may hold for the universe as we know it, but not for the chaos of which it originated. He points out that the physical parameters which must have been fine tuned so precisely can be computed differently. This debunks the idea. He emphasises that to believe that the universe has been created for one species in tens of millions on one planet around one of hundreds of billions of stars in one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in, who knows, an infinite number of universes is humbug. We are not the universe’s center of gravity!
No.
We do not need a bible or a wizard to tell us how to behave: simply do not do to others what we do not like that others might do to us. Simply try to live a happy life, make others happy, be an example. There are way too many people who think that it is normal to steal and kill, from normal fellow-citizens to presidents of the biggest countries. But if this is not enough for you, think about one of Mark Twain's wisecracks: there are only two important days in your life, the day you were born and the day you found out why. Success!
Before the written Qumrán Dead Sea Scrolls people “wrote” on clay tablets by pressing one end of a small stick into the wet clay, and these tablets were then baked in an oven. There are thousands of such cuneiform tablets, in mainly two languages. (1) Akkadian is one of the earliest semitic languages which later evolved into Arabic and Hebrew. Akka was in Mesopotamia, nowadays Iraq and northeastern Syria. (2) Sumerian is one of the world's oldest languages. It was an isolate language, not related to any other language. Sumer was in south Iraq, it was one of the earliest civilizations, from 4500 to 2000 BCE. With the help of artificial intelligence it is now possible to analyze and translate such cuneiform texts into English. Oldest cuneiform texts are dated 3400 - 3300 BCE, while youngest were used until 75 CE. See also the Behistun Inscription from ca 500 BCE, which was arranged by king Darius 1 of Persia. It was the “Rosetta Stone” of Old Persian cuneiform scripts. I attach a plain text file with the Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian translations: ASCII text. In my text about Sanskrit I included a selection of Old Persian words together with other languages. If interested, you can take a look at the Old Persian Swadesh list. Babylonian? See also Akkadian, the East Semitic language in Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, Isin, Larsa, Babylonia), from the mid-third millennium BCE until its gradual replacement by Old Aramaic by the 8th century BCE.
Many Qumrán Dead Sea Scrolls were torn into stamp-size pieces because beduins were paid some 5 dollars per piece. This was an extremely stupid error. And those pieces were later sold, for astronomical prizes, to collectors and museums. And as always, if a lot of money is involved, criminals are at work. A Norwegian collector, Martin Schøyen, bought many fragments, but the last (?) were reasonably good forgeries. Later, the private Washington Museum of the Bible, founded by the filthy rich and evangelical (i.e. stupid) Green family, was also a victim. However, despite warnings from real specialists, who even recognized the handwriting styles of different forgers, the Greens were so eager to display scroll texts that they first tried to silence the specialist. They consulted the experts, but asked them to sign a non-disclosure agreement. They refused, so later the Greens were forced to close their scroll exhibition. It is still not known who produced the forgeries, but one link goes to the Israeli state. Netanyahu cut a foolish figure when he proudly showed one scroll fragment containing the word Jerusalem. But that did not exist then, the fragment was obviously forged. Both Israel and Palestine claim that Jerusalem is their capital. This is an example that shows how far people are willing to go in order to falsify history by fake evidence. And later the [expletive] moron Trump pleased Netanyahu and the Israelites by moving the US embassy to Jerusalem...
Ehrman, B.D. (2020) Heaven and hell, A history of the afterlife. Simon and Schuster.
McNamara, P. (2022) The neuroscience of religious experience, Decentering and the self. Cambridge University Press.
Krauss, L.M. (2013) A universe from nothing, Why there is something rather that nothing. Atria Books.
Atkins, P.W. (1981) The creation. W.H. Freeman and Company.
Dawkins, R. (2006) The God delusion. Bantam Press.
Greene, B. (2004) The fabric of the cosmos: space, time, and the texture of reality. Alfred A. Knopf.
Shermer, M. (2026) Truth. What it is, How to find it and Why it still matters. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
Weinberg, S. (1977) The first three minutes. A modern view of the origin of the universe. Basic Books.
Davies, P.C.W. (1982) The accidental universe. Cambridge Univ. Press.
If you have nothing, really nothing, better to do:
Ratzinger, J.A. (1986) In the beginning. A catholic understanding of the story of creation and the fall. Eerdmans.
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