Bible (£370,000) project to celebrate 400th anniversary of the King James edition... Really?

"Hey kids, forget Twilight, Hunger Games or any book useful for revision... have a bible... it's on the house..."

Secondary and primary schools all over the UK are being given King James VI bibles in celebration of its 400th anniversary. This project has been predicted to cost £370,000 and is happening this week.

The bible and its many stories and claims has had a substantial influence on language, social infrastructure and the belief systems of many people around the world. This one book with its religiosity and all the other mechanisms of Christianity literally shaped the intellectual and cultural world for many centuries.

I think it is useful and very interesting to study the influence of the bible and its effect on the world. I would consider it useful in so far as how it shines light on how ideas spread, how tradition remains tradition and how it effects our language. Historians study the relevance of Greek civilization and Greek philosophy, they also study the Romans and other ancient histories. We must never lie about or repress the fact that religion has been and maybe still is the fuel for the engines of many minds, despite recent scientific and secular movements and arguments against it.

Atheists and secularists claim that the funding for this project, which is funded by charities and philanthropists, could have been spent on more useful and productive things. For example they could have spent more money on aid or cancer research which will bring benefit not just to those who are in dire need of it, but it will improve the whole world (Aid will save a handful of famished lives and cancer research could be used on everyone). The schools already have bibles. One teacher speaks of his need for other much more needed books:

"I work in an inner-city primary school and there's no way that our children are going to be reading and understanding the kind of English this Bible is written in," he said. "I have nothing against celebrating the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible, but we really could have done with some more story books."

Yes. The edition Gove is sending everyone is written in clear, concise English. LOL JOKE. It is actually written in 17th century English. So far 1) They already have bibles 2) They won't understand them 3) Schools need texts more relevant to today's education.

They could have bought more science equipment, more mathematics books.... did I mention that 15% of our school children carry on mathematics beyond GCSE. Japan has 81% of their kids doing it after GCSE. Japan also seems to have a better GDP then us and is in scientific prime. Something... just.. doesn't click right?

Why couldn't they have sent Einsteins relativity to schools? It would be more comprehensible because it is written plainly and concisely. Yeah the concepts are hard to grasp and the mathematics is pushing beyond some current students but surely it would be a great challenge. Did I mention that the special theory of relativity is the most tested scientific theory of all time and that its validity is bordering certainty? Well I have now. Yet the claims of the bible have been shown false through experiment... resurrection (without medical attention) is impossible. Do you want an alternative opinion to science... okay :)

Hasn't science proven that an actual resurrection of the body of Jesus was impossible?  The second law of thermodynamics says that matter is moving toward a state of disorder.  This means that once someone dies it begins the process of disintegration.  Thus, according to real science the bodily resurrection of Jesus is impossible.  Right?  Wrong.  The problem with this reasoning is that it assumes that the laws of nature, in this case the second law of thermodynamics, can never be overruled by a supernatural agency.  That is, by assuming that everything must be obedient to natural causes excludes, by definition, any belief in a supernatural explanation. - http://www.creationdefense.org/62.htm

The problem with this reasoning...? Well he is violating physics right there which has been shown to agree with experiment. He doesn't offer an experiment in which proves thermodynamics and quantum mechanics wrong. He doesn't offer evidence for his 'supernatural agency'. Great reasoning from a theist, probably the best they can come up with too. He concludes even more rationally:

In summary, the only appropriate mode of rational knowledge is faith in the supernatural event of the resurrection.

Wow.

This project could have been changed to provide schools with more useful equipment and books etc. which will be of some use or benefit. These bibles will be shown to the kids for a week, then they will be either put on the shelf for another 400 years... which if you noticed... giving modern children literature from 400 years ago in literal form is just being idiotic. We have progressed so much since then. We wouldn't give them a book about accusing real women of witchcraft.

So why did Gove and other charities and philanthropists fund this project? Are they stupid? No.  Not stupid entirely. They are just religious supporters. They see this as converting more modern children, they don't want them learning reason, reading interesting stories about vampires or wizards they just want to spread religion. Yeaaah it is important historically, but so was racism... are you going to send a copy of the Ku Klux Klan manifesto around? I think not. If I was a child in school and Gove gave me a bible this would be my face:

Principles of the scientific method

1) Principles
2) Rationale for choosing principles
3) Consequences of such principles

I. There exists a physical world independent of us.
II. Systems can observe and interact with this physical world.
III. Through observation, cognitive and interaction processes in some systems it can be shown that phenomena in the physical world obey mathematical constructions.
IV. The relation between a phenomenon and its mathematical construction cannot be proven true with absolute certainty.

Rationale for Principle I.

We cannot inductively or logically prove the existence of an external world. It is merely assumed, as we can only know of sense impressions which appear internally in our brains. However, this assumption seems valid to hold as the rejection of such an assumption leads one to try to explain the origin of our sense impressions and the problem of how one even exists. Such grounds are left for the ancient philosopher or the insane.

Axiom I. has enabled explanation of the origin of sense impressions, of the beginning of ones existence (birth) and many other simple phenomena. (Theories on optics, anatomy and general biology requires the force of an external environment to explain biological phenomena)

Rationale for Principle II.


Systems can be defined to be physical systems which observe a finite region of space with sensory equipment. These systems can manipulate some finite region of space with other physical equipment.

These systems include biological systems, computational machines and robotics. Obviously there is much variety in the mechanisms for observation and interaction but the principle logically covers these.

Rationale for Principle III.

This axiom is much more complicated. First it can be said that in our definition of a system it is possible for a system to develop a component which has a structure such that information can be communicated and processed into more different components. For example a human brain is such a component of a system. It is also possible for this system to devise communicative methods to interact with other systems of the same or similar type. This sort of logic continues until we arrive at complex  adaptive systems such as ourselves which have developed science and other means of investigating the world. Through science up until now natural phenomena seem to elegantly obey mathematical constructions such as the nature of space-time (relativity), Quantum mechanics, Financial systems, biological systems and plantation etc.

I say mathematical constructions because in the future we may not just use algebra, geometry, matrix algebra etc. there may be more sophisticated mathematical techniques to describe nature.

If we come across a phenomenon in nature which does not seem to obey our current mathematical techniques at the time. It may be that more innovation or discovery must first come in mathematics. I hold almost no doubt (some skepticism should remain as principle IV will highlight) that mathematics can describe nature in impeccable detail and form. By obeying mathematical constructions I mean that the phenomenon in question can be described or modeled in some way by a mathematical construction. The mathematics does not necessarily dictate the phenomenon (although it could in principle if it were shown that the physical world is constructed of an information basis).

Rationale for Principle IV.

The physical world which we, systems, observe and interact with is not identical to the abstract mathematical world we witness in mathematics. They seem to originate from fundamentally different origins and we seem to interact with them in different manners. One with sensation the other with logic, internal cognition and reason. The apparent certainties and completeness within mathematics is due to it being merely a construction based upon axioms and logical deductions. It is trivial in this sense. Nature may not be necessarily be like this and until we know every specification of nature we must hesitate to be absolutely certain about any mathematical theory about nature or a part of nature.

Until we have witnessed every observed phenomenon in our universe and in all universes we cannot accept any logical certainty applied to the laws of nature. It is also impossible for us to not observe every phenomenon as we are finite systems with restricted mechanisms e.g. we may not view the world at the speed of light or we may not observe the event horizon in a black hole and communicate it back.

Because of these limitations we have thus provided rationale for principle IV. However, these principles themselves are not certain as they refer to nature. This implies that they may turn out false under more investigation or they may remain true but they may not eternally be true.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. - Albert Einstein

Consequences of such principles:


These four principles can be chosen as axioms to the empirical method, that is, as fundamental assumptions made by science at this current time and most probably for a long time.

These principles imply that we can attempt to understand everything we observe through mathematical modeling and theories. We can through these models try and predict to varying degrees of certainty certain events in nature. Through these predictions and their verification or rejection by nature theories develop and science develops. For example Paul Dirac's Quantum theory of the electron predicted anti particles and hence anti matter. These could be tested and were verified. More work could be produced based or around that theory. If the theory would have been false then physics would develop in a different way, nature would look different.

Principle I and II imply that the meta-physical objects do not exist. Meta-physical means something which is independent of the physical world. As such objects cannot be observed or interacted with there existence cannot be explained mathematically or even verbally. They cease to exist. This then implies the non-existence of God if God is meta-physical. If he is physical then we can in principle verify God however there is nothing specific to predict about God, nothing quantifiable or detectable therefore it seems God cannot be verified even if he is physical. To make this clearer: If I told you that there was DUFFY and I think that DUFFY exists, you would say where is he? If I saw everywhere or anywhere then you would be confused. Vagueness such as this cannot be useful in verifying such objects. It seems DUFFY does not exist or its existence is negligible. So we do not hold Go'd's existence to be true on this fact. This applies to other such objects or things which are either 1) metaphysical 2) or non-verifiable.

We could in principle use these mathematical constructions and interact with the universe in such a way as to benefit us, the observing system. This is what we humans have done. We have formulated medicine and technology which have benefited us (in the sense of prolonging our life expectancy, intelligence and general health and well-being)*.

It must also be said of the importance of the study of mathematics, science and the application of them. As they are the source of our ability to overcome environmental struggles with the environment and with the inevitable event of individual death.

It seems other subjects are not on the same level. This may sound narrow-minded but it is true, without science and mathematics our race would be extremely primitive. Other subjects are great for intellectual pleasures and past-times etc. but if they vanished we would still be able to conquer our environment and other such problems. However this does not mean they should just vanish. Some subjects such as art, philosophy, theology and literature represent our past in the sense that they were used to overcome such problems but improved methods have evolved and stemmed from them. The evolution of our intelligence as a species is a very interesting and gradual process.

I hereby present to you the basic principles of the scientific method. For which you may adopt, adapt them or discard them.

*I am talking on an aggregate level as we are in better health to those in the Tudor times and more of us can read and write etc..

Josephine and the nature of time

A short story

by Luke Kristopher Davis

"Hurry up Jo!" mum exclaimed, she was always in such a rush on a school day. "Okay, okay mum! I'm just doing my hair... I'll be 5 minutes". It's Monday,bleugh, the day I have Mrs Shaw's chemistry test and oh shit I also have a meeting with my tutor about... what was it.. oh yeah... how I am always late for registration. Damn registration. My mum opened the front door and snatched her keys from the table, "Right Jo I'm going now, either you come now or get a detention for being late.. again!", "just coming" I replied. I grabbed my lunch, which looked as if it was the usual slop; cheese sandwiches, Kelloggs bar and an Activia yogurt.

On the way to school I planned my day, my expected joys and expected nightmares. One joy was going to Mr.Bourbaki's physics lessons. He was odd but I liked him. He always does something funny like spill his drink on his notes or something random. All the other lessons seemed pretty dull, except maths which I enjoyed even though the teacher reminded me of a Darlek from doctor who. DIFFERENTIATE! DIFFERENTIATE! The meeting with my tutor will be sooooo annoying. He will drag on with his 'registration is important.. in case we have a fire alarm.. we won't know if you are here. Get a decent watch ....' blah blah fucking blah.

We passed the town hall which was next to my school, which was a comprehensive in Middle-witch, I always looked up at the big clock over seeing the town. It was a nice clock, nice antiquated features.

"Jo-se-phine! Jo! Over here!" that was my friend in my tutor whose arrival seemed to always be simultaneous with mine. Becky was nice, a bit of a sheep trying to fit in but we got along pretty well. "Are you going straight to tutor Jo? I can tell you about what happened on waterloo road oooo it was so oh my godly exciting." She had that permanent smile on her face. "I'm going to go for a walk, probs be in tutor soon", trying not to portray my obvious shared excitement. I lied anyway. I don't go for walks...I went straight into the library. The library was my place to go in the mornings, I would chill out and get any book that took my interest and read it for 20 minutes or so before tutor. I would also always overrun. Everyone thinks the library is for loners and geeks, but I had plenty of friends but I just enjoyed being surrounded by books and it was quite relaxing.

I was never a big fan of fiction. Fiction didn't seem to attract me. I preferred encyclopedias and books about something real. Something I can relate to. I strolled round the reference section and saw a book named: 'Inside the human body'. Yeah i'll read this one, it had detailed colored diagrams which made it quite different.

'The nervous system is how different parts of the body communicate. For instance, if you prick your finger with a pin you feel pain. The prick stimulates a nervous fiber on the point of application and this creates an electric pulse which is sent from the point of application, through the spinal cord, to the brain. Where the signal is processed neurally.'

There was a picture demonstrating this and a picture of a map of the human nervous system. Pretty cool stuff. I put the book back and started to look for another one. I had 5 more minutes. That should be enough time to skim through another one.

I looked in the physics section, as I did have physics first period anyway. Plenty of textbooks and popular science books such as 'The elegant universe by Brian Greene' which was about string theory, I have only read about that in some magazines and on some blogs. Wasn't for me at the moment. I saw quite a nice old book on the bottom shelf in the 'light' section. I did like the look of old books. The title was: 'Relativity: The  Special and the general theory by Albert Einstein'. Wow Einstein. Bourbaki was always going on about Einstein and what was the other one... Bohr yes Bohr. I don't know who Bohr is or was. But I recognized Einstein. I sat and looked at the contents: 'chapter 3: Space and time in classical mechanics, chapter 8: On the idea of time in physics and chapter 9: The relativity of simultaneity', these chapters stood out to me. The Bell rang. Crap. Best go to tutor before he really gets pissed off with me. I put the book back where I found it.

"Gooood morning 11 Hamlet, how are we doing today? I have some term reports to give out and some certificates to give those hard workers who did well this term!" Mr.Grinne said in a profoundly camp tone. "Oh wow someone woke up from the wrong side of the bed this morning." Alex 'the joker' replied in his smart ass tone. "Alex that's impossible, both sides of my bed are the right side.. hahaaha..." silence and cringe pervaded the room ".. ohh hmm.. well let me just take the register". Registration killed my soul. Grinne's face was too happy, he was one of those deceptively happy people who probably is whipped by his wife and disrespected by his kids and is on the verge of suicide. The register had been done, I was probably day dreaming. "Oh wow you're here Miss hunt, looks like you took my advice on board... but we are still meeting at break-time", "Yeah okay sir" I replied with minimal effort.

Time.. Time... tiiiiime. It's such a used word...  'are you on time?' 'What's the time?' we are all obsessed with time. Well not me. Time was popular in the contents page in the book by Einstein. Was he talking about time in the same way as my mum does? As Becky does? As Mr.Grinne? I'm not sure that he was. 

What is time? Is it just what our clocks say? These questions floated through my head. Can we define time independent of our clocks? Time might be part of the world like Bourbaki said inertia was. Like matter was.

"So yeah like Sambuca got cancer and Finley is totally getting annoyed with it, I mean, he is only young what can he do about it. I bet he will leave her. But that would be totes too harsh. What do you think Jossse?" Becky was still rambling on about Waterloo road. "He will probably stay with her until the end and make sure she is happy, the drama will most probably want to present good morals into its viewers especially if a large portion of them are teenagers." She looked blank for a while. "Oh yeahhh oh my god yeah!", her smile was back. 

I went to physics. I sat near the window and thought more about time. I remembered how me and Becky always arrive at school at the same time. If we assume time to be defined as... what our clocks say then me and Becky's clocks would say the same thing. Our clocks were synchronized. If my clock differed by a significant amount say x where x>10 minutes as traffic delays could play a role then mine and Becky's arrivals at school would be different. Also if I fly to Australia am I going to travel into a different time or merely a different time system where the reference clock is defined differently. I recalled one chapter title in Einstein's book; 'The relativity of simultaneity'. Did this chapter imply that what is simultaneous is relative.. if so than this was obvious. If an event happened and is seen by me and Becky, and me and Becky had different clocks which said different times, then by logic we would know that the event wasn't simultaneous. However this seemed silly.  I have decided to randomly change the clocks of me and Becky and this didn't seem right. Let's suppose that me and Becky's clocks are identical. If say a lightning strike occurred  in between us where the distance of the event was the same between me and Becky, the time duration of such an event = distance traveled by light/ the speed of light. The time duration would be the same. It would be simultaneous. So what was Einstein going to talk about...

Then I realized something... that I assumed me and Becky were at rest relative to each other. Mr.Bourbaki always went on about how motion makes sense on relative to something else. So then I played. What if there were two lightning strikes and I was moving in my mum's car at constant speed relative to the ground and Becky. The lightning strikes would hit say two points at equal distances from Becky and when my mum drove past Becky the distance between those two points would be the same for me too. Except one point of lightning would be behind the car and one in front. Becky would obvs see the lightning rods hit the two points at the same time. Would I? Well I am moving towards one point and therefore the distance is decreasing between me and that point and the distance between me and the point behind me is increasing. Therefore the lightning behind me would arrive at me last. This was totally confusing but it made sense in physics terms.

I told Mr.Bourbaki after class about it and he smiled "ah it seems you have come across relativity, it goes against everything we thought but yes you are right as Einstein was". "Oh wow so I kind have discovered it too?" I replied. "No, science doesn't work that way haha but very good work, you might find the consequences of relativity even more baffling" he said with enthusiasm. "Take for instance Time. We used to think time was absolute, we thought it cannot be altered. But Einstein had shown that if you approach the speed of light time for you slows down. If say you went at the speed of light to Jupiter and back, you wouldn't have aged that much but most of the humans will have aged or even died due to old age. This is why one cannot travel faster than the speed of light, it takes an infinite amount of energy and even so breaking this barrier would imply you could travel into the past and throughout all time." I began to have a headache. Wow this is hard. But I sort of loved thinking about it. "So is time not just defined by our clocks, is it part of the universe?" I asked, "Yes, time and space are part of one fundamental geometry of nature" Bourbaki began to wipe the board. "If science be right sir, wouldn't we need evidence of time." I began to put my bag on my back. "Yes you are right, that is true that is where it gets difficult and confusing. Time is useful to us in science so we make use of it. That is still a problem." I thought back to the human body book and about evolution. We might have evolved our brains to think in this way.

I went to the meeting with my tutor at break. "So yes why are you always late Josephine Hunt?" Mr.Grinne asked. "Sir, whilst you are in registration I was moving at the speed of light sir and when I arrive in tutor my time has been dilated and therefore I will always arrive quite late." I grinned. "What on earth are you on about, don't be late again. Anyways who would want to be late to our fantastic tutorial program?". "I guess you're right" I said. He let me go early and by the end of the day I had taken Einstein's book out.

It was a pretty good day. I wonder what book will make my day a little bit more interesting tomorrow. 

Breivik: Embodiment of insanity and irrationality

He massacred 77 innocent lives to fight off immigrants and multiculturalism
and he is proud of it. 

12.2 percent of the population of Norway is foreign and these people have mainly come from; Poland, Sweden, Pakistan, Iraq and Somalia. No doubt some of these immigrants have sought a better land than their own which might be crawling with political corruption, warfare and religious strife.

The second most popular religion in Norway is of the Muslim faith which may have somehow influenced Breivik's reaction to the ever changing establishment in Norway.

Was this man's actions justified? Of course not. He committed not just murder but genocide.  This man tactically planned his attack and has given several reasons (no doubt corrupted reasons) why he has done so. This video shows him in court where he pleads that his actions were a sort of preemptive strike which probably means he was trying to seemingly defend himself against the foreign world. Which makes no sense. It is all very delusional. He also played World of Warcraft for a long time which the court took note of. He also cries to his own propaganda video which shows signs that he was brainwashed or just a very sadistic individual.

He obviously has psychological  issues which may have stemmed from early childhood, neglect, obsessive behavior or religiousness and even depression.

His views are not grounded in reason and he may be far from rational thought. Multiculturalism is a key to a progressive society as it stimulates debate, new ideas and a diverse range of people in a community. Breivik is consumed by fundamentalism, he believes in the pure absolute of one race or people similar to that of Hitler, Nick Griffin and Stalin.

This is an example of what fundamentalism can do. It can force a person to kill 77 people. To believe in anything fundamentally takes either a lot of indoctrination (brainwashing), insanity and psychological disorders. This principle also commutes i.e. fundamentalism itself can lead to insanity and extreme acts.

This man should serve life in a very isolated prison. He shouldn't be allowed freedom to commit such crimes again which he said he could do again.

He represents fundamentalism, insanity and irrationality. He is fueled by a similar substance which fuels the insane acts of terroism which is caused from fundamentalism either through religion or through brainwashing to hate the western world.

Those who have died in his attacks will not be forgotten but they are unfortunate evidence of why we must get rid of fundamentalism in our belief systems and continue to promote reason, skepticism, science, evidence and open-mindedness.