YET IN MY FLESH SHALL I SEE GOD

I have been reading a great deal of Darwinism and evolution these few days and I'm quite entranced by our origin. Although there is no conflict between religion and evolution, I can't help thinking that God must be quite a bungling fool if everything seems to be done by trial and error. Genesis says God saw that whatever he created was good. But the more I understand evolution, the more I see the imperfections of all species. An intelligent Creator wouldn't have created humans the way we have evolved. Evolution makes do with the body that we have and builds on it. If there is a Creator and he employs such a means of "creation", he can't have given much thought to the whole thing. He is either not bothered about his creation or he is a bungling fool or he does not exist.

My mind tells me of course God does not exist. Tonight, I chanced on a shelf containing some of my old song books that I used to sing. The first few books were Bach's cantatas. Next to them, stood a thick volume of Handel's oratorios. It's amazing that I used to be able to sing all these and they're written for soprano voice. And it was not that long ago when I sang them - less than a year ago. I took out my clarinet and played one of Handel's pieces. It was in E major. Drat it! I'd have to mentally transpose it to F#. I played it once through and it was so beautiful I played it again, and again. I could remember every word as I played even though I looked only at the musical notation and not the words. Mozart said that the clarinet was the instrument that was closest to the human voice and he was spot on. It was amazing!!! I played my clarinet and it was really my voice (before it broke) - singing soprano. The words were loud and clear - it was quite surreal. I heard my old voice again and every word uttered distinctly.

Those of you who have sung oratorios will know that lines are often repeated many times. I used to think the repetitions of lines that were so common in Baroque and Classical singing were meant to fill up the space for the music.
When I played the line "And though worms destroy this body, Yet in my flesh shall I see God / Yet in my flesh shall I see God", I just knew I was in communion with God. The scales fell from my eyes when I sang it with my clarinet. The first "Yet in my flesh shall I see God" is intended to sound doubtful and tentative. When it is repeated, it becomes definite and emphatic. That's precisely it!!! We are always assailed and buffeted by doubts but Handel through his music is telling us in an emphatic voice "YET IN MY FLESH SHALL I SEE GOD".

I felt I had communed with God and all I had with me were my clarinet, the music stand and Handel's score. Those were all I needed to hear the voice of God and to chase away the clouds of doubt. I have lost my voice for good. I will never sing soprano again - and thank God for that!!! But my voice will always remain in my clarinet even when I'm 100 years old.

I always find Handel more meningful than Bach and the other composers, possibly because Handel wrote in English and it's easier to understand him. When I was in Dresden last December, I heard Handel sung in German. The Germans wanted to claim Handel as their own, but I think they're wrong. Handel loved England and he became English and wrote all his oratorios in English and wrote pieces for the English King. He lived, worked, died and was buried in England.

Whenever I feel God to be distant and unreal, I know what to do. Get my clarinet and Handel's music. Yet in my flesh shall I see God.

THE NATURE OF REALITIES

The beamishboy has thought long and hard about life and God. In my earlier blog entry, I spoke with some asperity about the total lack of evidence for God's existence. That is true and I can say nothing to correct that statement.

But does anybody expect evidence for God's existence?

I now have an answer for all this. To understand where God stands, we need to understand the nature of reality. No, I'm wrong; we have to understand the nature of realities. There are as many realities as there are different beliefs.

Most people, particularly atheists, can only think of one form of reality. We shall call this common reality. That Obama is the 44th President of the US is in the realm of common reality. No sane person would dispute that. The facts, as we know them, I mean those that are not disputed are a part of common reality. Whales are mammals, water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen molecules - these are all real.

Most of science falls within common reality. However, some aspects of science remain speculative. For example, the String Theory is not believed by all scientists. Neither is the multi-verse theory for the origin of the universe. All speculative aspects of science are not a part of common reality. They are speculative and once they have been proved to be correct, they enter the realm of common reality. Sometimes, science undergoes some changes. What was THOUGHT to be common reality may be found to be erroneous and it gets booted out. But that does not mean that science is inaccurate.

For most people, there are OTHER REALITIES. I'm not saying that everyone should force himself to believe in other realities. It's just that some people do. Those of us who believe in realities that are not a part of common reality should be honest about this. We should not pretend that it's real to everyone. It's only real to us because we CHOOSE to believe in it.

How many forms of realities are there? There are as many of these realities as there are beliefs in the world. Some beliefs have died but their realities are still there - locked mysteriously in the realm of the supernatural. What about religions that conflict with one another. There's no problem. The different realities are very different indeed. There are different realities within even the same religion.

Can any of these realities (which are not common reality) be proved in any way? Absolutely not. If they can be proved, they would immediately form a part of common reality.

Wouldn't that make religion extremely personal because its reality depends on what individuals believe in? Of course, religion is absolutely personal. Attempts to convert others are definitely wrong. People who try to convert others have mistakenly assumed that their religion comes under common reality and that's plainly wrong.

THE GOD ELUSION

The beamishboy has come to a crossroads. Should I continue to hold on to a belief in God?

The Facts

First, God is highly elusive. So elusive is he that there is absolutely no trace of God anywhere. Like the abominable snowman and the Loch Ness monster, God has left no footprint behind. He has left no evidence, answered no prayer, done no miracle, appeared to nobody and he has made no sound at all. Those who claim that God has answered prayers or has done any of the things I've stated are just not thinking right. We know God cannot heal people beyond what doctors with their current medical knowledge can or beyond what nature's healing powers are capable of doing. God will then muscle himself in and say "I healed you!!! Praise me!!!" but any objective guy can see that that's rubbish. It's the doctors who healed me, you may say. But God will insist that it's because he blessed the hands of the surgeons!!! Oh for crying out loud!!!

The same goes with miracles. They don't happen and those who claim they do are just, again, not thinking right. God closed the mouths of the lions in the Book of Daniel you may say. But we also know that when Christian martyrs together with whole families were thrown into the lions' cage, there was not a single case of God shutting the mouths of the lions. We know that the cruel Romans even went to the extent of throwing infants to the lions so that their mothers would put up a fight with the lions and that would give greater entertainment to the crowds who were watching the feeding of Christians in large amphitheatres. We know there was no record of any miracle either by the Roman historians or the early Church Fathers. If there had been even a hint of a single miracle, you can be sure the Church Fathers would have written volumes about the mercy of God and his wondrous miracles. There was none. The Book of Daniel is at best not independent reporting.

If God answers prayers, in the area of healing alone, there should be clear statistics that Christians generally heal better, live longer and fall sick less. Even if only 10% of prayers on healing are answered, there should be a significant and appreciable difference statistically. Not only is there no evidence for such a favourable position for Christians but the fact is most Christians don't even BELIEVE that they have any advantage however small a percentage over non-believers or people at whom no prayers are directed. And yet they believe in the efficacy of prayer. That's internally contradictory. Now, clearly, they are not thinking right.

Then there is the rubbish about the need for a creator. This idea is so demonstrably primitive. From the earliest childhood, everyone knows that building blocks do not arrange themselves into beautiful castles. There's got to be a designer or maker. It's natural for the human mind to extrapolate. So they say there must be a creator for the Earth, nay, for the whole universe. So they say, "Let there be God" and there was God and men saw that God was good and they blessed Him. After that, they decreed that you can't go behind God. He's after all been defined. He's the ultimate. To go behind him would be illogical and invalid. Yes, there are co-religionists of mine who DARE to use the word "logic" in their religion and I assure you they're so hardened they really don't blush as they say it.

So you start with a decree that God is the ultimate Creator behind whom you cannot go. And you decree that since a watch that I've found while walking on a road must have a creator, everything else must have a Creator except for the first rule ie God is the ultimate and only He has no Creator. God exists by human decree.

I'm only speaking of God in general; not the Christian God in particular. Let's say we now pick my God, the triune God of Christianity. We have to look at the Bible, the source book of my religion.

Anyone who thinks the Bible is inerrant and flawless is clearly not thinking right. For as long as I have been a Christian with consciousness (I'm talking about the time I was too young to consciously understand the faith), I have been cooking up excuses for the obvious errors of the Bible. There are books galore that supply excuses for the sometimes shocking errors of the Bible. They are called "apparent errors" because no devout Christian likes to say that the Bible is full of errors.

Recently, I decided to go into the origin of the Bible. I studied the Canon of Scriptures and my Vicar told me that I should have a good balance and since I was reading books written by liberal Christians, I should balance that with evangelical Christian writers. He knew I could not take fundie nonsense and I could not abide Josh McDowell's write-up on the Canon which is so frightfully inaccurate and skewed and so unscholastic. I can counter that guy any time and expose his errors. So he recommended me a REAL scholar (not an apologetist like McDowell who allows his primary function as an apologetist to cloud the evidence) and he suggested FF Bruce - his book The Canon of Scripture. I also read Bruce Metzger's The Canon of the New Testament.

All fundies should read those books. It's IMPOSSIBLE for anyone who fully understands the Canon of Scriptures to defend inerrancy. There is no magic in the Canon. It's as flawed as you would expect any collection of ancient literature to be.

I also read other books on paleography and serious textual criticism and I found that even if there are no problems with the Canon, there are huge problems with the transmission of the books as well as the origin of the books. Most of these books are anonymous and we don't know if our version is indeed the correct version. For example, Papias said in the 1st century that he HEARD that Matthew wrote a gospel in THE HEBREW TONGUE. He also heard that it'd been translated into Greek by different translators. In the ancient world, that's how copying was done. You read the text and you do your own translation. They didn't have official translators. Papias says Matthew was originally in Hebrew. Scholars have confirmed that - if my memory is right, even Leon Morris has confirmed that or at least he says that is one possibility. Who translated OUR Greek version? Was ours the best translation? What if a madman did it? Nobody knows. Oh but the Spirit of God is supposed to hover over the translation and ensure only truth is printed. But rubbish!! We know that some quotations of Jesus from Matthew could not have been said by Jesus because they were meant to be a pun that could only work in Koine Greek and not Aramaic which was what Jesus spoke. We also know that the many Old Testament prophecies mentioned by Matthew were only prophecies because of a mistranslation of the Hebrew OT into the Greek Septuagint.

The more we know, the less likely it is for the Bible to be accurate and I'm not even talking about it being divine.

What am I to do? The human brain is good at dichotomies which is why we are able to multi-task. I accept that religion is very much an integral part of humanity. It's a bequest to us by our genes which, after aeons of evolution, encoded God in us so that we are hardwired to be religious. There are some uses for God in the survival of the human species. For one thing, it takes away our terror for death. Every gene strives to survive. Every living thing strives for survival. But for the human being, there is a further problem. He understands futurity and he has self-consciousness. He KNOWS he's going to die. He's constantly in a fight-or-flight state and the adrenalin pump into his blood tells him he must act. But he IS going to die, whatever he does. Religion affords an outlet. It gives dignity to him even in death. He accepts that he will trust God with his death and afterlife.

I have decided that it's silly to pretend to have knowledge that God exists. Of course I don't know that God exists. In fact, all knowledge points to his non-existence. In other words, I KNOW God does not exist. But my heart tells me I can depend on God. Tennyson expresses this most beautifully in his poem - I can only remember a bit of it - he hopes that knowledge and heart may make one music. I will let knowledge and my heart make one music in my mind - I know there is no God and yet will I believe in Him and when someone I love dies, I will seek God for comfort. I will not spurn what my genes have bequeathed on me. I accept my humanity and I accept my God.

That's the best way I can express my religion. I will never again seek this elusive God for evidence of his existence because I know he doesn't exist. But my heart will cherish the faith I've inherited from my ancestors.

200th Anniversary of Charles Darwin

The beamishboy is celebrating Darwin's 200th Anniversary. I've borrowed some books from the library on evolution. In the Christian Teen forums that I go to, I notice that most American teenagers do not believe in the truth of evolution. What's become of Americans? What kind of education do they get there?

I just hope that all Christians will put a stop to Creationist lies. I discovered a couple of years ago that they actually circulate FALSE information as facts in order to prove their ridiculous beliefs. I can list some of the lies. But there are Christian websites that are doing this at the moment. They expose the lies of Creationists and they tell the world that you don't have to believe in Creationist lies in order to accept the Christian faith.

Creationists are such an embarrassment to us Christians. I daresay 99% of Creationists live just across the Atlantic. Just what did the Mayflower do to them?

The Hols!!!!!

Yoopsies doodles! Toads and poodles!!!

The hols begin tomorrow. It's the long leave for us but it's not really that long even though it's called "long". It's just a week.

Cheeeeeers!!!!

Accession Dinner

Last night was my first small concert for the year. This was at a dinner to celebrate the Queen's Accession. My House Master and I performed with our clarinets. We played Mendelssohn's Konzertstuck (Op 114) for piano and two clarinets. I had a large stocking placed over my exposed toes and cast so even though I used crutches to go on stage, I didn't look too weird. My Master called it a "noble injury" sustained while playing rugby for the school. I like that!!! We went through all three movements smoothly and without a hitch.

Another calamity befalls the beamishboy

When things go bad, they really do. Not only have I to go round on crutches, but I've caught a bad chill. It's all my fault. There was a lot of snow the other day and some of us decided to burrow through a mountain of snow. I may not walk but I sure can burrow. The House Master was furious with us but there's no rule that students are not permitted to burrow in snow.

But I've caught this horrid cold and it's affecting my rehearsal. It's very hard to practise on my clarinet for that solo performance. Particularly tough is Baermann's quintet, especially the 3rd movement which is allegro and has the tendency of making me breathless. My nose runs and it's pretty disgusting if I don't pause to blow my nose. How can one practise an allegro piece if one can't play an entire phrase without stopping?

My House Master told the Concertmaster that I was "totally and utterly irresponsible". But the Concertmaster was more intrigued that I could burrow through the snow with my right foot in a cast and he even asked me to show him where we did the burrowing but my House Master looked so angry that the Concertmaster was compelled to chide me a little. It was quite funny, I thought.

The worry is I CAN'T PLAY THE CLARINET WITH THIS DREADFUL COLD!!!