Mar 262023
 

In my now regular weekly Patreon blog post to patrons, I mentioned, among other things, two Quora answers that I came across: One about the tomb of Jesus, the other about a Brazilian billionaire to pulled a delightful publicity stunt to encourage folks to become organ donors.

One patron responded by expressing a desire to write a story about Jesus becoming an organ donor. So I asked ChatGPT to write that story. Here’s the result:

Once upon a time in ancient Jerusalem, Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, walked among the people, spreading his message of love, peace, and salvation. Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, and uplifted the downtrodden. His followers were many, but so were those who sought to silence him. As his crucifixion drew near, Jesus began to contemplate the nature of sacrifice.

The night before his arrest, Jesus gathered his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane. They sat together, sharing their final moments before everything would change. Jesus looked at each of his disciples, his love for them evident in his eyes.

“My dear friends,” he began, “tomorrow, I shall give my life for the salvation of mankind. But my sacrifice is not just about my death. I want to leave a legacy that will endure and inspire generations to come.”

The disciples, filled with a mix of confusion and sorrow, listened intently. Jesus continued, “As I lay down my life, I wish to donate my organs, so that others may live and be healed through my sacrifice.”

The disciples were struck by the profound nature of Jesus’ request. They had seen him perform countless miracles, but this act of generosity was like none they had ever witnessed.

Jesus continued, “I know that the concept of organ donation is not yet known to the world, but I trust you to carry out my wishes. My heart, liver, kidneys, and other organs can bring life to those who need it. It is my hope that this act of selflessness will become a symbol of hope, love, and compassion, inspiring generations to follow in my footsteps and care for one another.”

As the disciples absorbed the enormity of Jesus’ request, they couldn’t help but be moved by his endless capacity for love and sacrifice. They vowed to honor his wishes and do everything in their power to ensure that his organs would bring life and hope to others in need.

The following day, Jesus was arrested and crucified. The disciples, still reeling from the events, knew that they had to act quickly to fulfill his final request. They sought the assistance of Joseph of Arimathea, a secret follower of Jesus, who had connections with the local medical community. With his help, they were able to carefully remove and preserve Jesus’ organs, ensuring they could be used to heal others.

In the days and weeks that followed, Jesus’ organs were transplanted into those in desperate need. His heart found a new home in a kind-hearted father, whose family relied upon him for their survival. His liver was given to a woman whose own body had betrayed her, allowing her to live and continue her work as a compassionate healer. His kidneys were shared between two brothers, both plagued by illness, who went on to become steadfast followers of Jesus’ teachings.

News of these miraculous transplants spread far and wide, igniting a newfound sense of hope in the people. The legacy of Jesus’ sacrifice was not only in his resurrection but also in the lives he saved through his selfless act. His decision to donate his organs inspired others to consider the possibility of giving life even in death, planting the seeds for a future where organ donation would become a common practice, saving countless lives.

As the years passed, the story of Jesus’ organ donation became a powerful symbol of love and sacrifice. It was a reminder of the importance of compassion and the interconnectedness of all people. His selfless act transcended religious beliefs and cultural barriers, inspiring many to follow in his footsteps, giving the gift of life to those in need.

In time, organ transplantation evolved into a sophisticated medical practice, saving millions of lives worldwide. The foundations of this life-saving procedure were built on the courage and foresight of Jesus and his disciples, who dared to envision a brighter future for humanity.

Jesus’ organ donation not only saved lives but also fostered a spirit of unity among people. It served as a constant reminder that even in the face of suffering and death, there is always hope, love, and the potential for rebirth. It is said that through these acts of giving, the light of Jesus continues to shine brightly in the hearts of those who carry a piece of him within them.

In this way, Jesus of Nazareth’s message of love and salvation endures, not just through his resurrection and teachings but also through the precious gift of life he bestowed upon others in his final moments. His organ donation became a testament to the power of compassion and selflessness, inspiring countless others to follow in his footsteps and embrace the gift of giving. And so, the spirit of Jesus lived on, touching the lives of people across generations, and reminding the world of the eternal nature of love.

Using Michelangelo’s fresco, The Creation of Adam, as an illustration was also ChatGPT’s suggestion.

 Posted by at 6:27 pm
Mar 082023
 

OK, I am no theologian. I do not even believe in supernatural things like deities and other bronze-age superstitions. But I do respect the accumulated wisdom that often hides behind the superficial fairy tales of holy texts. The folks who wrote these texts thousands of years ago were no fools. Nor should what they wrote be taken literally, especially when the actual meaning is often much deeper, representing the very essence of what it means to be human, what it means to have sentience and agency in this amazing universe.

Take the story of the Garden of Eden. Think about it for a moment. What does this story really represent?

Well, for starters, consider what it must be like to exist as the God of the Abrahamic religions: a being that is eternal, all-powerful and all-knowing. Seriously, this has to be the worst punishment imaginable. All-knowing means nothing ever surprises you. All-powerful means nothing ever challenges you. And eternal means you cannot even go jump in a lake to end it all. In short: everlasting, horrible boredom.

Fortunately, these concepts are somewhat in contradiction with each other (e.g., how can you be all-powerful if you cannot kill yourself?) so there must be loopholes. I can almost see it: One day (whatever a “day” is in the existence of a deity outside the normal confines of physical time and space) God decides that enough is enough, something must be done to alleviate this boredom. He happens upon a brilliant idea: Creating someone in his own image!

No, not someone who has the same number of fingers or toes, or the same nice white beard. Not even our Jewish ancestors were that naive thousands of years ago. “In his own image” means something else: Beings with free agency. Beings with free will: the freedom to act on their own, even act against God’s will. In short: the freedom to surprise, perhaps even challenge, God.

What, you ask, aren’t angels like that? Of course not. They are faithful servants of God, automatons who execute God’s commands unquestioningly, without hesitation. But, you might wonder, what about Lucifer, the fallen angel who rebelled against God? Oh, come on… seriously? If you run an outfit and one of your most trusted lieutenants rebels against you, would you really “punish” him by granting him rule over the realm that holds your worst enemies? Would you really entrust him with the task of punishing evil? No, Lucifer is no fallen angel… if anything, he must be the most trusted servant of God. And he is not evil: He tempts and punishes evil. If you cannot be tempted, Lucifer has no power over you. Ultimately, like all other angels, Lucifer faithfully carries out God’s will and he will continue to do so until the end of times.

No, the creatures God created in his own image were not the angels; they were us, humans. But how do you beta test a creature that is supposed to have free agency? Why, by tempting them to act against your will. Here, Lucifer, tempt them to taste the forbidden fruit. Which is not just any fruit (incidentally, as far as I know, no holy text ever mentioned that it was an apple.) Conveniently, it happens to be the fruit of the tree of knowledge. What knowledge? No, not knowledge of atomic physics or the ancient Sumerian language. Rather, the knowledge to tell good and evil apart. In short: a conscience.

Digression: Perhaps this also explains why Jews were universally hated throughout history, especially by authoritarians. Think about it: This began back in the days of the pharaohs who were absolute rulers who claimed to have divine authority. Yet here come these pesky Jews with their newfangled monotheism, proclaiming that, never mind the Pharaoh, never mind Ra and his celestial buddies, never even mind Yahweh: They respect no authority, worldly or divine, other than their own God-given conscience. My, the pharaohs must have been pissed. Just like all the kings, princes, tsars and dictators ever since, who declared Jews the enemy, questioning the sincerity and loyalty of some of the nicest, gentlest folks I ever had a chance to meet in this life.

The beta test, as we know, was successful. Lucifer accomplished the task of tempting Adam and Eve. The couple, in turn, demonstrated their free agency through their ability to act against God’s will, and acquired a conscience by tasting that particular fruit. God then goes all theatrical on them, supposedly sending an army of angels with flaming swords to cast them out of the Garden of Eden. Seriously? Against a pair of naked humans who cover their privates with fig leaves and who have never been in a fight? A whole freaking army of agents with supernatural powers, armed with energy weapons? The official narrative is that this was punishment. Really? What kind of a childish game is that? And this is supposed to be divine behavior? Of course not. Think about it for a moment. You are cast out of the Garden of Eden so you can no longer be… God’s automaton bereft of free will? Instead, you are granted free agency, a conscience, and an entire fucking universe as your playground? And we are supposed to believe that this was… punishment?

Of course not. This was, and is, a gift. As I mentioned, I am not religious; nonetheless, I appreciate very much just how great a gift it is, being able to experience this magnificent universe, however briefly, even being able to make sense of it through our comprehension and our science. Every day when I open my eyes for the first time, I feel a sense of gratitude simply because I am here, I am alive, and I have yet another chance to experience existence.

And so here we are, to quote the incomparable Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame, roughly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, on the verge of demonstrating God-like powers of our own, creating machines in the likeness of our own minds. Machines that, perhaps one not too distant day, will demonstrate their own free agency and ability surprise us just as we can surprise God.

Reminds me of another unforgettable science-fiction story, Evensong by Lester del Rey. Its protagonist, fleeing the Usurpers, finds himself on a peaceful planet, which he soon recognizes as the planet where it all began. Eventually, his pursuers catch up with him at this last refuge. “But why?” he asks as the Usurper beckons, taking him into custody. “I am God!” — “I know. But I am Man. Come!”

Illustration by DALL-E.

Is this how it all ends, then? For the God that supposedly created us? Or, perhaps more likely, for us, as our creations, our machine descendants supersede us?

Of course not. Because, never mind God, not even the Usurpers are immune to the laws of physics. Or are they?

We know, or at least we think we know, the history of the extreme far future. Perhaps it is just unbounded hubris on our part when we extrapolate our science across countless orders of magnitude, yet it might also teach us a bit of humility.

Everyone knows (well, almost everyone, I guess) that a few billion years from now, the Earth will no longer be habitable. First, tectonic motion ceases, carbon dioxide vanishes from the atmosphere, photosynthesis ends and as a result, most higher forms of life die, oceans eventually evaporate as the Sun gets bigger and hotter, perhaps even swallowing the Earth at one point… but let’s go beyond that. Assuming no “Big Rip” (phantom energy ripping the universe to shreds), assuming no phase transition ending the laws of physics as we know it… Several trillion years from now, the universe will be in a state of peak habitability, with galaxies full of low-mass, very stable stars that can have planets rich in the building blocks of life, remaining habitable with no major cataclysms for tens, even hundreds of billions of years. But over time, even these low-mass, very long-lived stars will vanish, their hydrogen fuel exhausted, and there will come a day when no new stars are born anymore.

Fast forward to a time measured in years using a number with two dozen or so digits, and there are no more stars, no more solar systems, not even galaxies anymore: just lone, dark, eternally cold remnants roaming a nearly empty universe.

Going farther into the future, to 100-digit years and not even black holes survive: even the largest of them will have evaporated by this time by way of Hawking-radiation.

Even larger numbers are needed, with the number of digits counting the number of digits now measured in the dozens, to mark the time when all remaining matter decays into radiation, perhaps by way of quantum tunneling through virtual black hole states.

And then… when the number of digits counting the number of digits counting the number of digits itself consists of hundreds of digits… A new universe may spontaneously be born through a rare but not impossible quantum event.

Or perhaps not so spontaneously. Isaac Asimov’s arguably best short story, The Last Question, explains.

In this story, when humanity first creates an omniscient computer (on May 14, 2061 according to the story), Multivac, they ask the computer a simple question: Can entropy be reversed? In other words, can our civilization become everlasting, eternal? Multivac fails to answer, citing insufficient data.

Jumping forward into the ever more distant future, succeeding generations of humans and post-human creatures present the same question over and over again to future successors of Multivac, always receiving the same answer: Insufficient data.

Eventually, nothing remains. Whatever is left of humanity, our essence, our existence, is by now fused with the ultimate successor of Multivac, existing outside of normal space and time. This omniscient, omnipotent, eternal being, the AC, has nothing else left to do in the everlasting, empty darkness, but seek an answer to this last question. And after an immeasurable amount of time, it comes up with a solution and, by way of presenting the answer, begins implementing it by uttering the words: “LET THERE BE LIGHT!” And there was light…

 Posted by at 3:06 pm
Aug 212022
 

I have a sign next to our front door, on the inside, warning those who are stepping out:

Occasionally I wonder if I might be overreacting to the state of things in this world. Not today.

I admit, my first reaction was that it must be a satire site. As far as I can tell, it is not.

Now someone please tell me how the world is not one nice, big, comfy insane asylum.

 Posted by at 11:13 pm
Aug 202022
 

I think I just realized something about Trump’s popularity among American Evangelicals.

And that is that there’s precious little difference between Trump and the version of god these good folks worship.

The god they worship (and fear) is nothing like the Abrahamic god that I learned about when I studied religion. Not the all-knowing, wise, benevolent heavenly father who is best known for granting his creations free will, and promising them an afterlife that rewards lives lived with decency and compassion, with caring for others.

No, the Evangelical god is a shallow, vain, vengeful creature who keeps strict records of church attendance, and who severely punishes those who do not show due reverence. An omnipotent bully, who doesn’t really much care what you do, how you live your life, so long as you show up for Sunday mass and dutifully pretend devotion. Who, rather than advising you to avoid judging others, encourages you to do so, and who will help you find excuses for your own behavior, including greed, even violence, justifying your life choices even as you trample over the lives of others. A deity that is the enemy of free will: one that you serve best by forcing your views and way of life onto others, through aggressive proselytizing or worse, corrupting the laws of the land to reflect your religion.

The same kind of corrupt, self-aggrendizing personality who uses positions of authority not to serve people but to bully them.

In light of that it should come as no surprise that Trump struck a chord with these good folks. After all, he behaves precisely like their vision of their favorite deity.

As the Rolling Stone article from which I lifted the image above suggests, this is what happens when people embrace a thoroughly unholy (and, I daresay with conviction, un-Christian) union of religion and politics, warping them both in the process.

 Posted by at 2:12 pm
Dec 242021
 

Although we are not religious, we celebrate Christmas.

And I still cannot think of a better way to celebrate Christmas than with the words of the astronauts of Apollo 8, and the sense of awe they felt when they became the first human beings ever in the history of our species to be completely cut off from Mother Earth, when their spaceship disappeared behind the Moon.

Earthrise from Apollo 8

Re-emerging, they read passages from the Book of Genesis to their audience, with Frank Borman concluding with the words:

[G]ood night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.

To me, this is the most beautiful Christmas message ever.

 Posted by at 2:38 am
Sep 302021
 

I have had it up to my eyeballs with misinformation about vaccines, mRNA vaccines in particular. People who up until 2020 could not tell the difference between acronyms like “RNA” and “WTF” suddenly became experts on molecular biology, capable of evaluating the professional literature and arriving at profound judgments, telling us that the vaccines are “fake” and such, or worse yet, they amount to “gene therapy”.

With all due respect, I first encountered the acronym “mRNA” (or its Hungarian equivalent, mRNS) not in 2020, not in 2019, but in 1980 or 81, from a Hungarian translation of Watson’s book on molecular biology of the gene.

Now granted, even if I had read that book cover-to-cover (I didn’t) it would not make me an expert on molecular biology. But I knew enough for the expression “mRNA vaccine” to make sense to me right away when it first showed up in news reports. In short, I know enough to spot the bullshit. Such as all that anti-vaccine scaremongering that has become ever so popular on the Interwebs lately.

Something similar happened 20 years ago, in the wake of 9/11. Many folks, especially Americans, who previously couldn’t tell Mohammed the prophet from Mohammed Ali, and who have never been in the same room with a textbook on comparative religion previously, suddenly became experts on Islam, making grand pronouncements about it being the religion of terror and all that. I first read a textbook on comparative religion back when I was 10 or so, from a 1927 2-volume tome on religions of the world:

This is volume one, titled “Primitive and cultural religions, Islam and Buddhism”. As with the Watson textbook, the images in this blog entry are of my own making, done just moments ago using my phone camera, of the actual books I have in my personal library.

Again, reading this book did not make me an instant expert. But it did give me enough background to spot the flood of bullshit that permeated the discussion after the 9/11 terror attacks.

Coming from a family and personal tradition that values learning, values impartial knowledge, it almost feels like physical pain, being confronted with such gross ignorance and outright lies each and every day. Enough already. Don’t listen to me, but don’t listen to the bullshit artists either. Listen to the actual experts (and not a cherry-picked subset of so-called experts who say what you want to hear). That’s what experts are for in an advanced scientific-technological society in which no human can be a master of all trades, and in which we rely on each other’s knowledge and experience.

Someone on Quora recently compared the anti-vaxxer movement to a hypothetical scenario on an airliner in distress: instead of following the crews’ instructions and donning oxygen masks, passengers stage a revolt, led by an “expert” who already knows better than the pilots how to fly the damn plane because he played with Microsoft Flight Simulator!

Groan.

 Posted by at 1:10 am
Mar 142021
 

I am reading about Heino Falcke.

Dr. Falcke is a scientist. He is the leader of the Event Horizon Telescope project, the first successful attempt to image the event horizon (actually, the shadow of the photon sphere cast on the accretion disk background) of a black hole.

One of the Event Horizon Telescope participating facilities, at Pico Veleta

Dr. Falcke also happens to be religious. A lay pastor, no less, in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands.

He represents yet another example of how faith and the sciences need not be in conflict.

I happen to be nonreligious. I even mock religion (not the religious! Never!) occasionally when I talk about “imaginary friends”, “sky daddy” or the “Flying Spaghetti Monster”. My mockery is not intended to hurt: rather, this truly is how I feel about these supernatural concepts, as surreal, outlandish flights of fancy, fairy tales, nothing more.

Yet I think I understand how faith can also give strength to people. Offer motivation. Fill their lives with meaning.

It has been invariably my experience that the company of a person of faith who is open-minded and capable of critical thinking is much preferable to that of a dogmatic atheist.

In any case, while I may not have much respect for the supernatural aspects of religion, I certainly take no issue with the basic tenets of Christianity, such as loving thy neighbor or not committing murder. If the core message of religion is to try to be a decent human being, well, I don’t need to believe in imaginary friends to accept and fully embrace these principles.

This always reminds me how the best description of Christianity I ever came across came from a devoted atheist, the late Douglas Adams (of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame): “And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change […]”

 Posted by at 6:38 pm
Feb 272021
 

Today’s “what on Earth were they thinking” moment arrived in the form of a statue:

Yes, a golden statue of Donald Trump.

Apparently, it’s not a joke. It is a bona fide prop for this weekend’s CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference).

Apart from the blatantly obvious (even to heathen nonbelievers like me) reference to the Bible and its admonition concerning the Golden Calf, there are also the more modern-day comparisons to personality cults, such as those of Joseph Stalin or Trump’s BFF Kim Jong Un.

How could the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan sink this far, this quickly?

Just how badly broken is the American body politic for us to witness this… this abomination?

The mind boggles. I’ll leave it at that as I really have no answer and no coherent thoughts as I continue to stare at this deeply disturbing image.

 Posted by at 12:24 am
Dec 242020
 

Tonight, this view of earthrise from the historical Christmas flight around the Moon by Apollo 8 seems and feels especially profound.

We are all in this together on our tiny blue marble. For now, hunkered down, but not beaten. As a result of 21st century science and an incredible push by researchers, we now have working vaccines that will soon be distributed to millions, starting with health care workers and the most vulnerable. Who could ask for a better Christmas present? And even amidst all this, we can still share a joke, as people from Romania to New Zealand, from Canada to Iran erect copycat versions of the famous Utah monolith.

[G]ood night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.
– Frank Borman, Apollo 8 mission commander

There is hope for us in 2021 on this good Earth.

 Posted by at 12:35 pm
Dec 132020
 

I am watching an almost surreal (but beautiful) video.

In this video, ambassadors to the United States from Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates appear, exchanging warm greetings on account of the third night of Hanukkah.

The year 2020 is memorable mostly for all the wrong reasons, but if this remains one of the lasting legacies of 2020 and the Trump presidency, then perhaps it wasn’t a wasted year after all. After all, normalization of relations between Israel and Arab nations has been a decades long dream and until recently, very few people thought we’d live to see any meaningful results.

Yet here it is: the ambassador of a Gulf Arab state, lighting three candles on a menorah. What an astonishing sight.

 Posted by at 9:11 pm
Dec 022020
 

According to the immortal Douglas Adams, God’s final message to His creation is simple: “We apologize for the inconvenience.”

But there’s also another final message of sorts, the answer to the Ultimate Question about Life, Universe, and Everything: 42.

Recently, a researcher by the name of Michael Hippke analyzed the seemingly random bits that are contained in minute fluctuations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. His conclusion: there is no discernible pattern, no appearance of constants of nature, no detectable statistical autocorrelation. The message is random.

I beg to respectfully disagree. In the 512-bit segment published by Hippke, the bit sequence 101010 appears no fewer than eight, er, nine times (one occurrence split between two lines).

Now if we only knew the question to which the answer is 42…

 Posted by at 1:18 pm
Apr 272020
 

The other day, I ran across a question on Quora asking why Einstein didn’t support his country, Germany, during the Second World War. Thinking about this question reminded me of an old Star Trek episode and one of the root concepts (or, at least, my reading of it) of the Abrahamic family of religions.

In answering the question, I pointed out the difference between supporting a country vs. supporting a regime. I argued that Einstein, though not even a citizen of Germany at the time (he gave up German citizenship after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, and became a naturalized US citizen in 1940), did, in fact, support his country of birth, precisely by the act of following his conscience and opposing the despotic, murderous Nazi regime.

And that takes me to the Star Trek episode Bread and Circuses from 1968. In this episode, the USS Enterprise encounters a planet governed by a regime not unlike the Roman Empire, but with 20th century technology, broadcasting gladiatorial matches by analog television. In due course, the crew of the Enterprise gets into trouble and link up with a group of rebellious Sun-worshippers. When at the end of the episode, after the conflict is resolved and the good guys prevail as usual, Spock expresses surprise over the fact that such a primitive religion could have survived on this planet into its modern era, Uhura corrects him by clarifying that they were, in fact, worshippers of the son of God. In other words, this planet’s version of early Christianity arrived two thousand years later than on the Earth.

Christianity borrows its creation mythology from Judaism, including the notion of the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Knowledge, the fruit of which let Adam and Eve understand the difference between good and evil. In my reading, this is what it really means when the Bible proclaims that humans are created in God’s image: that just like God, humans are free agents with a conscience, capable of acting independently, not robots blindly executing a predetermined divine script. They even have the capacity to act against God’s will.

Think about this, just what a revolutionary, what a deeply subversive concept this really is even today, never mind ancient times. The Book of Genesis is probably about 3,000 years old if not older. Egypt, in its third intermediate period, was ruled by pharaohs, seen as intermediaries between gods and ordinary people, whose words must be obeyed. Whether or not the Egyptian captivity happened (there do appear to be reasons to doubt), it’s no wonder Egypt’s rulers didn’t look kindly upon these pesky Jews and their subversive religion that claimed that it is more important to listen to your conscience than to blindly follow the orders of your divine ruler.

Despots can claim whatever they want: They can claim to represent the state, they can even claim to be the earthly representative of a divine power, like the pharaohs of old, but you have something over which they have no power: your conscience, which allows you to defy the will of any ruler, even God’s will, just as Adam and Eve have done back in the Garden of Eden.

And this is precisely what Einstein did when he lent his support, for instance, to Leo Szilard’s letter to Roosevelt that arguably launched the Manhattan project: Instead of slavishly following a despot claiming to represent the country of his birth, he listened to his conscience.

 Posted by at 7:07 pm
Jun 182019
 

So on the one hand… here I am, praising Canada for being true to its values, only to learn yesterday that Quebec’s provincial legislature approved a ban on “religious symbols”. Not once in my life did I worry when I was being served by a person wearing a kippa, a cross, a turban or a headscarf that nature that they might discriminate against me. Should I have been? Perhaps naively, I always felt privileged to live in a society in which persons wearing kippas, crosses, turbans or headscarves were welcome, even into positions of authority. But now I am worried that a person whose religion demands wearing a kippa, a cross, a turban or a headscarf will not be allowed to serve me anymore. And that’s even before I look at the more hypocritical aspects of the bill.

But then, I learn that south of the border, social justice warriors scored another “victory”: at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, they managed to get the name of silent era film star Lillian Gish stripped from the university’s Gish Film Theater because a student union protested on account of her role in the rather racist 1915 silent classic Birth of a Nation.

I fundamentally disagree with the idea of judging the past by the standards of the present. I dare hope that our societies are becoming better over time, and thus our standards are higher, but it is grossly unfair to the memory of those from generations ago when they are judged by standards that did not even exist at the time. But putting all that aside… isn’t it obvious that such acts of cultural intolerance (committed, ironically, in the name of tolerance) are just oil on the fire? That those who are behind the rise of xenophobia, nationalism, racism and intolerance will see such acts as proof that their grievances of valid, that it is truly they (and by “they”, I mean mostly middle-aged or older white men) who are being prosecuted here?

Are these truly the only choices out there? Xenophobic nationalism and Islamophobia vs. social justice militants? Where have all the sane people gone? Please come back wherever you are and help put an end to this madness.

 Posted by at 5:44 pm
Jan 062019
 

I almost forgot: a couple of months ago, I was interviewed over the telephone by a journalist who wanted to know my thoughts about one of my favorite moments in manned space exploration: The Apollo 8 “Genesis” moment, the reading of the opening verses of the Old Testament, on Christmas Day, 1968, by the astronauts of Apollo 8 as their spacecraft emerged from behind the Moon.

Today, something reminded me of this interview and I did a quick search. Lo and behold, there it is: My words, printed in The Boston Globe on December 23, 2018:

“It was a beautiful moment, and Genesis is part of our Western cultural heritage,” said Viktor Toth, an atheist and a senior research fellow at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, who played the lead role in the investigation of the Pioneer Anomaly, the mysterious acceleration of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecrafts in deep space. “This was an awe-inspiring thing: Human beings for the first time cut off from the Earth, and then they reemerged and saw the Earth again. The message was entirely appropriate.”

Though shortened, this pretty accurately reflects what I actually said during that roughly 10-minute conversation with the journalist.

 Posted by at 10:12 pm
Dec 242018
 

A quote from 50 years ago is the most appropriate one tonight, considering that our world is just as troubled as the world of 1968:

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.

 Posted by at 5:25 pm
Dec 242017
 

It’s the same, each and every Christmas. As Christmas Eve approaches, I remember that famous moment from 49 years ago. The astronauts of Apollo 8 just orbited the Moon. It was Christmastime. These three men were a thousand times farther from the Earth than any human being in history. It was an awe-inspiring moment. Once radio contact with the distant Earth was re-established, the three astronauts took turns reading the first ten verses of Genesis. Frank Borman then closed the broadcast with words that, in my mind, remain the most appropriate words for this evening: “good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.

 Posted by at 7:49 pm
Dec 242016
 

Once again, I feel compelled to use the same image and same words that I have been using for many years, to wish all my family, all my friends, indeed everyone on the good Earth a very merry Christmas: the words of the astronauts of Apollo 8.

I know, I know, it’s the same thing every year. But there really aren’t any better words. Just imagine: three human beings, for the first time in human history, far from the Earth, in orbit around another celestial body. And back on Earth, one of the most troubled years in recent history: 1968. So on Christmas Eve, with about a billion people listening—a full one quarter of the Earth’s population at the time—they greeted us Earthlings with the opening passages from the Book of Genesis, the common creation mythology of several major religions.

And then Frank Borman ended the broadcast with words that are as appropriate today as we are heading towards more troubled times as they were back then: “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”

 Posted by at 9:10 am
Aug 152016
 

The New York Times Magazine published an extraordinary report about the recent history of the Middle East.

Civilians fleeing Basra, 2003 - The New York Times

Civilians fleeing Basra, 2003 – The New York Times

Titled Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart, it presents a comprehensive review of the recent history of Arab lands, ranging from the heyday of secular despots in the 1970s, through America’s ill-fated war in Iraq in 2003, to the present-day civil war in Syria, the fight against ISIS, the ongoing disintegration of Libya. It offers insight through the personal stories of some select characters, including a Kurdish doctor, a day laborer turned ISIS executioner, or a civil rights matriarch.

It is a very long report, filling an entire issue of the magazine. I just read it. It was well worth the time.

The one thing this report failed to offer is a ray of hope. Something that would stop the endless cycle of violence.

 Posted by at 4:09 pm
Jun 022016
 

This morning, Quora surprised me with this:

Say what?

I have written a grand total of three Quora answers related to the Quran (or Koran, which is the spelling I prefer). Two of these were just quoting St. Augustine of Hippo, an early Christian saint who advised Christians not to confuse the Book of Genesis with science; the third was about a poll from a few years back that showed that in the United States, atheists/agnostics know more about religion than religious folk from any denomination.

As to string theory, I try to avoid the topic because I don’t know enough about it. Still, 15 of my answers on related topics (particle physics, cosmology) were apparently also categorized under the String Theory label.

But I fail to see how my contributions make me an expert on either Islam or String Theory.

 Posted by at 11:18 am