Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

Beyond The Mirror – A Bill Allin Column

April 27, 2007

What Is The Truth? (Part 17)
by Bill Allin

[Caution: What follows may be offensive to some people because it is based on fact, reason and probability, not on an established belief set (religion). If you are offended by anything that does not support your belief set, you should choose to not read this article.]

Where Can We Go From Here?

In this next-to-last part of the series What Is Truth? we will review the material covered in previous parts and try to put them in perspective.

First of all, all the holy books that were written for the major religions of today were prepared when life on earth was very primitive and tribal. The earliest written holy books were those of the Israelites because it was they who invented our present form of writing (with letters representing ideas, instead of pictures).

The very fact of their being old does not and should not make them any more sacred than today’s books. In those days it was very common for people to have dreams and visions which they believed came from God because they had no other explanation for them. They believed that every dream or daylight "revelation" relating to their people was a message from God or one of the deities they worshipped.

Even today we have many people who believe they speak on behalf of God because they have dreamed or thought something relating to God. That is a primitive and tribal way of thinking. If you want to see how tribes fare in the modern world, look at the sectarian violence between the Sunnis and the Shia of Iraq. These each, supposedly, act on behalf of God.

We may have great trouble imagining what life was like in those days, even if we try to imagine ourselves trying to scrabble out a living from desert conditions. But those people who wrote the first holy books (including the much-later Qu’ran) would have no way to conceive what life would be like today. Even our great grandparents couldn’t do that.

Those people wrote about rituals, behaviours and rules that would apply to their tribe, to hold it together against the ravages of other tribes who wanted to destroy them and take their wealth. Their religion was their culture, something to be maintained, supported and expanded at all costs.

We live in a world that has (for the most part) passed beyond the tribal stage into megasocieties that have little in common with life in primitive tribes. We watch National Geographic specials about tribal peoples and think how unbelievably primitive they are. The ancient peoples who wrote the holy books were as primitive as the peoples we see on National Georgraphic specials today. Only the Israelites could commit stories to paper (papyrus or skins).

Everything the people of those ancient times did not understand, they attributed to magic, miracles or devils. Their lives were filled with superstition because they had little knowledge to base their beliefs on. Their life advice (words of wisdom such as those imparted by Confucius or Plato) works today, but the rest is ancient history that should remain there. When we adopt ancient tribal ways into modern culture, we also adopt tribal values which are often brutally violent and oppressive.

When people speak of God, of what God is and what God does, they have no basis for their statements beyond what the ancients believed from their superstition. There is no evidence to support it that passes scrutiny. None of it can be found in the holy books themselves, other than by distorting messages that were never intended to convey those interpretations. Radical Muslim clerics teach that the Qu’ran advocates terrorism, for example, when in fact it does no such thing. Distorting the words of the holy books to apply to life today is dangerous, as we can see in Iraq.

People who believe in a Godless evolution are as closed minded about facts that can prove their beliefs wrong as those who believe that everything that exists was created from nothing in six Earth days. If a billion people believe something that is wrong, it’s still wrong. Just because someone teaches something with conviction and fervor does not make it truth. Just because they say their words came from God doesn’t mean that they did.

Evolution exists because it can be shown in action today. If not we would have no reason to fear mutation of the virus that causes bird flu or similar mutations that could result in pandemics.

Evolution on a micro scale (such as bird flu virus mutation) is evidence that God does not create perfection the first time. Rather it proves that God, as Creator, continues to tinker with His creation.

Evolution on a macro scale (such as results in new species) is a lame belief because science teaches us that a single entity of a new species could not mate and if it did there would not be enough variety of DNA to sustain a new species without at least 30 individuals with different DNA to provide genetic diversity. Genetics precludes macro evolution—that’s science.

Without a supernatural power, new species could never come into being. Non-believing scientists and atheists may argue against this, but their positions are weak and do not stand up to scrutiny. The evidence simply doesn’t exist.

Science also supports eternal life, though that life has nothing in common with the heavenly dream worlds that humans have imagined since the holy books were written. If people believed in the kind of eternal life proposed by science we would have much less of the kind of destruction of life and nature our planet experiences at the hands of those who believe in a fantasy heaven that would supposedly exist even if earth’s exterior became like that of Mars.

Of course people will commit acts of violence, abuse and brutality if they believe that they will go to their fantasy heaven by doing it. That heaven is always made out to be better than anything here on earth. Just because people believe something does not grant it any credibility as fact. Without evidence, most of what we are taught is fantasy.

In the final part of the series we will examine what we have to build on if we dismiss the unsupportable and often contradictory propositions put forward by people who base their beliefs on faith even if it flies in the face of provable fact.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today’s Epidemic Social Problems,' a book about real and inexpensive solutions to personal and community problems most people think are inevitable evils of modern society. They aren't. We just have to look in the right place.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Contact author Bill Allin at turningitaround@sympatico.ca