Do We Need Religion Today?

Take a brief look at the world around you today. Crime and vandalism are rife. Drunkenness abounds on the streets and fights are common. The young seem to have no respect for their elders and their parents appear to allow them to do what they like. Idiot driving pervades our roads and nothing is sacred. The drugs trade is flourishing and hardly a week goes by without somebody being shot through inter-gang warfare.

A very negative start to this article, but hey, that’s the way it is now. In the 1950s in Ireland murder was such a rare occurrence that when it did happen it was headline news for days. Do you remember the Indian medical student who strangled his Irish girlfriend, cut her body up and burnt it? Today murder is so common it is more often relegated to the inner pages.

In the 50s and 60s you could walk any street in Ireland (I’m talking about southern Ireland here) in relative safety. Nobody would harass you and certainly you were in no danger of getting kicked to death by a gang of yobs. Today there are places where most savvy citizens wouldn’t go, especially at night.

Okay, we can say there was institutionalised violence, children were not treated so kindly in many of the orphanages. The Magdalene Laundries cannot hold their heads high and of course the Catholic Church needs to hang it’s head in shame more because it refused to recognise that it had a problem and tried to cover it up. There are paedophiles in every walk of life but because these guys were ordained, it just didn’t do to expose them. While it may be easy for us today to point the finger at the bishops of the time, we cannot judge them on today’s standards. Most Irish Catholics would probably have done the same thing then.

So what has changed? Some point to the rise in violence on television, cinemas, and music. Others point to poverty, bad parenting, lack of discipline in school and the easy availability of drugs. Then the rush to riches during the so called Celtic tiger gave people a feeling that they could now afford whatever they wanted and pay later.

The problem probably lies in some or a combination of the above, however, I doubt television, cinema or music have much to do with it. When Elvis Presley first appeared on the scene, concerned parents and other pillars of society saw the devil in Presley’s music. I wonder what those same people would think if they heard some of the satanic heavy metal around today? Some years ago some parents sued the band Judas Priest because they said their sons had committed suicide while listening to the band’s music and because there were hidden messages in the songs. To complicate matters further some of these were so called back masked messages. In order to hear the message it was necessary to play the record backwards. Another message which was discernible in normal play was the words “Do it”. Of course the first question is do what? Ozzy Osbourne was also sued for his song “Suicide Solution”. However, these kids were long gone down the path of destruction before they even started listening to this music.

So what about television and cinema? Some of today’s films are extremely violent, some just a horrific gore fest. Some of the most gruesome films show in close and excruciating detail every slash of the knife, every cut, enough to churn a hardy stomach. But seriously, do such films make one want to go out and copy the action? I seriously doubt it. It’s fantasy. Horrible maybe, but fantasy nevertheless.

What about poverty and bad parenting? Even in the 50s and 60s in Ireland we had a lot more poverty than today and bad parents too. But it didn’t product a brood of sullen, violent youths prepared to kill. And if anybody says that nobody goes out for a night on the town with the intention to kill another person, why do they bring knives with them?

Lack of discipline occurs in some schools but not all. I have always thought that teaching was a vocation and I believe a lot of teachers should never be allowed near a class of kids. Not for any sinister reasons, but for the simple fact that they cannot teach. I had my fair share of such nincompoops. They drilled poetry into you. They drilled Irish language into you. They drilled religion into you. But what they didn’t do was to teach you how to think for yourself. In my day discipline was relatively easy to keep as they were allowed to give you a few slaps with the leather and it didn’t hurt either. It was a bad decision to take this out of schools and a lot of wayward behaviour today could be stopped in it’s tracks by a good belt. I don’t mean a savage lashing as I witnessed in my day being handed out by a christian (small c on purpose because in this particular rage he was far from being a follower of Christ) brother to one of my schoolmates. He even made the poor guy kneel before him and kiss the ground while the rest of us looked on. Who was going to stand up to this particular thug? But that’s another story. So today we have the do-gooders tut-tutting and sticking all sort of labels on bold kids and then in some cases stuffing them up with drugs. I ask you, what planet are they on? So I guess the lack of discipline, not only in schools, but also in the home itself may be a contributor to our sorry society today. But I still don’t think it’s a major one.

Drugs are certainly one area of deep concern where people can be so coked up they hardly know what they’re doing. Drugs can change personality also. And they weren’t generally available in the 50s (although they were certainly coming on stream in the 60s).

However, I believe the lack of religion is a major cause of the breakdown in society today. Many may find that surprising, but consider the following: lack of spirituality often fosters lack of respect for others as well as oneself. When a person has no respect for others, there is no reason for him to consider the consequences of his actions in relation to other people. Some will point out that there are very good living atheists in society who have no need of religion, but I would contend that committed atheists are generally humanistic and in a sense have a faith in humanity. But when a person has no such faith in anything, he tends towards nihilism and self gratification to the exclusion of others. He has nothing to which to orient himself. No spiritual values, no humanistic values, all of which points towards no values whatsoever. This is a dangerous position for anybody to find themselves in.

Let’s take a brief look at the Jamie Bulger case in Liverpool where a 2 year old child was adducted, tortured and murdered by two 10-year old kids. This is horrendous by anybody’s standards. What made these two do something like this? It wasn’t simply a situation which got out of control and went horribly wrong. No, the violence was systematic and took it’s awful course to death. It appears that these two were brought up in very bad family situations and were basically left to their own devices with no guidance whatsoever. It may be that this is a rare occurrence and you will always get people like this who are totally out of control. After all, they were not the first child killers in Britain. Unfortunately statistics seem to indicate that this type of crime is on the increase.

Another type of crime which is also on the increase around the world is the lone gunman who kills as many people as possible and then turns the gun on himself (or even two gunmen as in the Columbine high school massacre). This is a cold, calculated act of evil. What is going through these guy’s heads as they contemplate such a thing?

I would put forward the opinion, that any child who had been raised in a religious household (with the important caveat that the particular religion was uplifting and not oppressive) or even in a household where the parents held a sincere humanistic view is much more unlikely to act in a manner as discussed above. There is always the exception which proves the rule, of course. But all things being equal, I would hazard the opinion that religion can be good for humanity and society. Naturally the parents need to be good at parenting. It’s no use being brought up in a spiritual environment if your parents ignore you.

Without religion or maybe I should talk about spirituality which is more open and less narrow, people seem to be foundering. Look at the Celtic tiger and what happened to people in Ireland when they suddenly thought they had a lot of money. Banks gave 100% mortgages. Loans were no problem to access. Credit cards seemed like a ticket to spend, spend, spend. One notable thing I noticed was in my day when people got married, they moved (if they were lucky) into an empty house. My house warming had no chairs for my guests to sit on. Over time we accumulated the necessary items. But today (or at least during the boom years) it seems to me, people weren’t content with that. Once they had their house it was full of furniture, televisions, digital players all purchased with a nice piece of plastic or on the never-never. People didn’t seem to know the value of money. They simply lost the run of themselves.

Capitalism continues to push it’s money grabbing ways and forgets about morality. I get sick of hearing managing directors of big companies blather on about how important their employees are to them, how cherished they are and then to make them redundant willy nilly when things get a little rough. Suddenly gone is the concern for their charges and they let them go irrespective of age, mortgage status, financial situation or family commitments. To be fair, there is the odd “good” company out there, but unfortunately few and far between. And how about these rip off merchants who advertise competitions on TV with their small hard to read text and not on the screen long enough? They want you to enter a competition for a trip to New York or some such place and then send stuff to your mobile phone taking a couple of euro every time and continue to do so until you text Stop to them. How many people, especially those not especially technology savvy are being taken to the cleaners by cowboys like these? Unfortunately legal, but highly immoral.

And then of course shops, hotels, among others appear to be able to charge what they want. I’ve seen vast differences between the price of petrol or beer depending where you go. Want to take your family to the cinema or theatre and see what they charge you for popcorn. Captive audience! And what do our flamboyant government ministers have to say about this? The same buys who allowed the banks and builders drive our economy into the ground? Nothing! Shop around! It’s nothing to do with my department! Like the state of our health service, they take no responsibility. And you can bet your bottom dollar that it’s not them or their buddies who will pay for the mess. It’s you and me.

Capitalism and consumerism are trashing traditional values. For example, look at the X-factor television show. Everybody now sings like an American. Different traditions and cultures are something to cherish, not to destroy. TV and the internet are making us all more Americanized with American values, not all bad perhaps but certainly not all good. And to give an idea of the power of TV, when the French stood up over the US going to war with Iraq over nonexistent nuclear weapons what do the American people do? They refuse to buy French products but they didn’t stop to examine their own consciences and ask were their leaders telling them the truth.

So, what do I mean by religion? In fact I would be better speaking about spirituality rather than religion which is just a structured form of spirituality. Some people need this structure while others do not. We don’t necessarily need religion, but we certainly need some sort of spirituality. Something as simple as getting carried away by the beauty of music and art. The ability to be able to sit and contemplate in a forest, on a mountain, by the sea. To look at the stars on a cloud free night and contemplate the majesty of infinity. To be able to sit quietly in a church and simply ponder the mystery of existence. To allow oneself to glimpse, no matter how fleetingly, a sense of something beyond humanity. Beyond our material world with all it’s shortcomings. And this spirituality is far from a claustrophobic, forbidding, oppressive Catholic religion which was particularly abundant in the 50s and 60s under the loveless and austere rule of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid and Taoiseach/President Eamon de Valera. This should be an uplifting of the spirit. It should be about the joy and freedom of being human. Whether or not you believe in a God doesn’t really matter. You can experience this spirituality if you try. Some of the hardliners try to explain it all away as a nasty side effect of evolution, but I would contend that they are wrong. Spirituality is something inherent in all of us. It is like the air we breathe, we need it to enhance our lives. How poor we would be if we could not experience some of the things mentioned above? Some prefer to take it further and allow God into the picture. That’s fair enough and there is plenty of room for him as well. But those God fearing folk should not try to force that view down those who have decided that for them God does not exist. Or are even in ignorance of his existence or otherwise.

And this gift of spirituality should be nurtured starting in the home. It should be encouraged by the school system. We don’t need the type of spirituality where you have wimpy priests or holier-than-thou laypeople going on about relating a football match to your life with Jesus. Or a tedious sermon about the love of God in our lives. What does that mean? No, we need a dynamic religion, one with hope, one with joy. Not a wagging finger saying everything is bad. We need the sort of encouragement which shows us how important it is to be human and especially to allow others to be human too. We have to learn to live in a society which has other people in it, who have rights exactly the same as our own. And we have to appreciate that right in others. If the universe is a cold, dark place, what hope can there be for a caring society? If the universe, on the other hand, has a sense of meaning, this can allow us to be so much more free and caring. A sense of meaning does not necessarily equate to an afterlife, after all many atheists live a full and meaningful life without God, but they mostly have their humanism to hang onto. This humanism which can give them a sense of something else, something greater than themselves. And after all, the mass of humanity is far greater than any one of us.

I hesitate to say that someone who does not experience some sort of inner peace from time to time is doomed to a cruel purposeless existence. Myself, as an agnostic, can look around and see hope in personal family and beyond to the great family all around me. At the end of the day, we are all on this earth together and we will sink or swim together. That in itself can give a great sense of freedom. Of something bigger than me. If there is a God, then so much the better.

I think encouraging this sort of approach to life in our children and in those around us can help make the world a better and more agreeable place to live in. A place where we can share our humanity, our troubles, our weaknesses and strengths and together help to enhance each other’s lives. No matter the colour of skin, race or religion. Go on, give it a try.

To be Honest, You have to be Agnostic!

There are really only three positions one can take when considering the existence of God. Faith, atheism or agnosticism. Of these the one which gets the most bad press is agnosticism. But to me this is the most honest of the three. Faith says that you believe in God whatever you perceive him to be. On the other hand atheism takes the same position except it denies the existence of God. Agnostics sit on the fence.

So what is wrong with sitting on the fence? Many say you have to make up your mind and take a decision. But how can I take a decision on something for which there is no evidence either way. But the atheists say there is a 99.9% chance of there being no God. Evolution has put paid to all that superstition. At the beginning of the last century some highly respected physicists said everything that was to be known about the universe was now known, all that remained was the crossing of a few t’s and the dotting of a few i’s. Then relativity and quantum physics came along and blew that idea right out of the water. So how certain is certain? Remember that old joke about bleach killing 99.9% of all known germs? As one comedian so aptly put it, it’s not the 99.9% I’m worried about, what about the 0.1%? Those are the bastards to worry about.

On the other hand those of faith say that they know Jesus. They go further and say that they have met him, have spoken with him. Well fair enough, but they can’t prove this to me. Without meaning to be disrespectful, I could equally say I have met and spoken with the fairies at the end of my garden. I might even believe it, but I reckon I’d have a hell of a job trying to convince you of that. You can ask me to show you the fairies, but I’d tell you that they are invisible. Then you can ask me to show you something that the fairies have done and I’d say they have given me my health. Eventually after detailed questioning I’d get frustrated and tell you that you just don’t have any faith.

None of the above means that there is a God or that there isn’t a God. Neither side can prove it either way. So if somebody wants to say they don’t believe in God, that’s fair enough. They can lead just as moral and good a life as anybody else. You don’t have to be a religious person to be a good person. Similarly if someone says they believe in God, that’s fair enough too. However, they should be strong enough to at least admit there is a chance, no matter how small, that they may be mistaken.

So I sit on the fence, not in judgement of anybody, but because I simply don’t know whether or not there is a God. Which is why I think it is the only honest position for me to take. That does not mean that I’m right or that everybody should have that opinion. After all, I could be mistaken.

Today’s atheists are a militant bunch. Many of them don’t seem content to quietly get on with their lives, content in their disbelief. They have to proselytize and try to get everybody to see their point of view. Some even put advertisements on buses telling the world there probably is no God. I wonder why they included the word probably? However, it seems to me that many of their arguments ring a little hollow. They like to set up straw dogs so that they can easily knock them down. They argue with fundamentalists who are just like themselves, head to head, neither side giving an inch. They like to quote the bible extensively telling us what a bad old egg the old testament God was. Getting his chosen people to kill other peoples so that they could have their land. The promised land. Yes, I agree this particular God was a vengeful, blood thirsty fellow, but surely the atheists don’t believe that this is a realistic God to debate? Where is the God of compassion and love? The God of Francis of Assisi? The God of the poor? The God of the sermon on the mount?

Many of the bible stories were written by humankind to try to make sense of the world they found themselves in. On one hand many of the stories like the killing of heathens etc were a history of the Jewish people who were just as blood thirsty as any other race. On the other hand many of the stories were allegories or parables which tried to teach wisdom. For example, many point to the terrible story of Abraham being asked to kill his son, Isaac and even worse Abraham agreeing to go along with the command without question until an angel stays his hand at the last minute and suggests sacrificing a ram (conveniently entangled in a nearby bush) instead. What sort of a God is that who would try and test his loyal subject in such a way? But this was not a story about loyalty or obedience. In those days people did sacrifice their children to their God. The story was trying to teach the people that child sacrifice was not what God demanded. In fact I don’t believe he even demanded sacrifice, but in those days people believed that he did. So let them sacrifice an animal instead. So the atheists should be a little more thoughtful before condemning the bible stories out of hand.

Many of today’s believers are also a militant bunch. Especially those of a fundamentalist and literalist frame of mind. Take the creationists for example. They will tell you if anything in the bible contradicts hard scientific fact, then the bible takes precedence. It’s not that these guys are stupid, many of them have advanced degrees in their fields. It’s just that they are convinced of the literal truth of every word in the bible. It appears similar in the world of Islam where fundamentalist Muslims believe that their Koran is also literally the word of God. Not all Muslims are like that, of course, there are many moderate Muslims as there are many moderate Christians, Jews, etc. But they can’t all be right. Also take the so called Christians who bomb abortion clinics (killing some) in the USA on one hand and then the fanatical Muslims who carried out the 9/11 attacks. But these are extremists.

Most atheists and believers, however, are not so extreme and are willing to debate their beliefs sensibly and with benefit to both sides of the argument. Similarly with agnostics except they don’t tend to hold extreme views. After all how can a committed agnostic argue with passion on the existence or non existence of God when he has already taken the position of not knowing in the first place? This is not to say agnostics are better people. Many of them simply don’t care either way.

So, I am an agnostic. To be honest, I’d prefer that there is an afterlife and a good God, but maybe that is just because I don’t want to die to nothing. I would rather like there to be a purpose to the universe rather than it just coming into existence and blinking out again. I would like there to be meaning to my life, although many atheists say that there is meaning to life without God or purpose. Just grasp what we have and do the best with it as all we’ll leave behind are our footprints and our children. It is not a bad philosophy, but me being me would prefer more. Maybe that says a lot about me and as the old song says you don’t always get what you want!

The idea of God is crazy! This super being who always existed decided to make a universe with people in it and there it is. Let there be light! And then one day it will all end and we’ll all go to heaven or oblivion (I can’t believe in such a ridiculous place as hell) and that will be it for eternity. Eternity! That’s a concept that nobody can fathom. Try to imagine it. Existing for ever. Surely there has to be an end?

But then again, the idea of a universe popping into existence is also crazy. Whether there was this vacuum of seething particles or absolutely nothing, somehow this universe pops up with all it’s incredible and complex laws eventually leading to humans who are capable of contemplating it. Think about it. What happened before the Big Bang? Was there a previous Big Bang stretching back to when? What started the whole thing off? And then again, why should there be just nothing? Nothing is about as hard to understand as something. Can you imagine nothing? I mean really nothing, not even something for nothing to be in. The mind boggles.

There are those (who we generally refer to as mystics) who after years of contemplation begin to glimpse the reality behind the universe. They suddenly have a flash of understanding which quickly vanishes again. So where does this experience come from? Maybe something deep down in the human psyche? Or maybe something else. In fact, in my opinion assuming that God does exist, the only way we mortals can access him in this life is through deep contemplation (denied probably to most of us).

Which brings me to the “God of the Gaps”. Sufficiently advanced technology will appear as magic to those less technologically advanced. For example imagine showing a caveman electric light. Suddenly you stand up in his cave and click something on the wall, and an electric bulb flashes on in the ceiling above. What else would he think but that it was magic. Or something from the gods. This is similar to ourselves were we to come across a highly advanced technological civilisation hailing from interstellar space. If they have achieved the technology to cross light years of space, they sure as hell won’t be wasting time buzzing aircraft or abducting humans. In fact if they didn’t want us to see them, then you can rest assured that there’s no way we’d see them. In ancient times (and perhaps not so ancient) our ancestors saw gods behind every tree, in every stream, with every gust of wind or downpour of rain, with every crop failure and success. But now we have grown up (or like to think we have) and have a much better explanation for weather and crop failures. So we remove God from those. But then what about the miracles? Like Lourdes for example. Well, these are probably mostly psychological (a strong faith can produce wonders). I often think of the sceptic who said he was surprised that no artificial limbs were to be found among all the crutches left by supposedly healed individuals.

Then the bible takes a bashing. Galileo and others firmly put the sun in the centre of the solar system which many said directly contradicted the good book (for there it says that the sun was stopped in the heavens implying that it revolved around the earth). Probably the most devastating blow was the theory of evolution which said that we didn’t even need God to create us. We evolved from the biochemistry of the earth, which was created from the aftermath of the sun’s formation. Now the scientists tell us that the whole universe was created in the event known as the Big Bang. No need for God at all. And as sciences progresses it gradually pushes out the “God of the Gaps” leaving no room for God to hide.

All of which brings us back to the point I made above that it is just as crazy to think that God created the Universe as it is to think that the Universe created itself. But, you may object, God didn’t create himself. He was always there? Okay, so the universe was always there. Again no proof and the agnostic accepts this. It all boils down to what you personally believe. So if you think that Jesus, or Jehovah, or Allah is the God you worship, that’s fine. I won’t argue with you. But you must also respect my agnosticism and let’s be honest: admit that you ultimately don’t know.

Let’s consider some other crazy ideas. To some the stories religion teach us, for example Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden, the changing of bread and wine to the body and blood of God, are nuts. The idea that God, supposedly omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, would create two people and put them in a garden, and then tell them not to eat of a certain tree is contradictory. God must have known what would happen. If he didn’t he is not omniscient. And then when this pair do exactly what God knew they were going to do anyway, he punishes them. It is like me giving sweets to my kids and telling them not to eat them. What sort of parent would I be if I then punished my kids for doing what I knew they would do.

Now consider the changing of bread and wine to the body and blood of Christ. We are told that after the transformation (or transubstantiation, as it’s more properly known) the bread still looks, feels, and tastes like bread as does the wine still feel, look and taste like wine. But to the believer they are totally transformed into the precious body and blood of their lord and saviour Jesus Christ. Nutty or what?

Okay, now let’s see what the physicists are asking us to believe. The moon is not there when nobody is looking at it. This is seriously considered as reality by some physicists (including Nobel prize winners). Quantum physics exploded onto the world in the early twentieth century and is still the most complete theory of reality we have. We even refer to it as the standard model of physics although it still has it’s problems which remain to be sorted out. Two famous physicists fought over the interpretation of quantum mechanics for years: Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. Unfortunately Niels won (at least for now) and so the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory is with us to this day and many physicists have concluded that human observation of a microscopic event changes the reality of the event. In other words, if nobody is looking at the moon, it could be anywhere!

There are billions and billions of copies of us in the universe. Again coming from quantum theory, in order to account for certain experimental results the many worlds theory was suggested and surprisingly many scientists today would favour that interpretation of reality. This basically says that every time a particle or atom has a choice on what to do next or where to go, it chooses every eventuality. Therefore if a particle has a choice to go in one of two directions, it chooses both, splitting the universe at that point. So now we have two copies of our universe, one in which the particle went one way, the other in which it went a different way. So now we have two universes with two copies of every sun, star, planet, particle in each universe. Two copies of every person! And as every particle has normally many more choices of which direction to go and there are billions of particles in our universe, we now have billions of copies of our universe all slightly different. Nutty or what?

We have taken two examples from religion and science and both are as nutty as each other and it actually seems that the religious ideas are easier to swallow. So what is this all about? I think it is really man trying to find an explanation for his existence. Why he is here. He did it in biblical times with stories just as physicists do today with stories/theories. The more we think we know, the more we know that we know very little.

I would now like to discuss the problem of evil. For me this is the greatest obstacle to belief in God. If God is supposedly infinitely good, then why does he allow evil to exist? If he can’t prevent it, then he is not all powerful; if he can prevent it, he is not all good. The idea that he has to allow evil in order that we can have free will doesn’t wash. At least not with me. You can argue that he also gave us intelligence to see what is good or evil. Surely intelligence shows that fighting and killing each other is not the way to go? But our intelligence doesn’t go far enough as apparently many don’t see the stupidity of not working together. We are too greedy. Too power mad. Too into looking after ourselves to the detriment of others. Whatever you may think of Jesus Christ, he certainly left us some incredibly great lessons in how to deal with each other for the better. We may learn that in time, but why does it take so long?

In fact, some people do not even have a conscience so how can they make a rational choice between evil and good? A sadist who kills feels it is good for him. He likes it, enjoys it and therefore why shouldn’t he? He just doesn’t care or have any empathy with other human beings. So why didn’t God give him a conscience?

Then there is the problem of suffering. As far as I’m concerned suffering is an abomination which is one reason so many scientists and doctors are working towards it’s elimination. I do not believe that God so designed a world that he has to punish every single individual in it just because the first people he put in it disobeyed him. Come on! It’s like me punishing all my kids (I have only two, by the way) just because of what one of them did. Just doesn’t make sense. This whole atonement thing where the son of God arrives on earth and is horribly tortured and put to death so that he can repent for our sins makes no sense. And after that, down through the centuries, the church has decreed that suffering is a good thing. A good thing! If Christ is God and he did come to earth, it was surely to show us that there are better ways to live our lives than the ways we were going about it. His message of love and forgiveness is so powerful that the redemption thing pales beside it. He said the kingdom of god was within us. In order words, get off our lazy asses and seriously begin to work for a better world. Of course a man with a message like that in the Roman occupied Jerusalem of the time was asking for trouble and he was crucified by the Romans. But that was not his message. If anything his message was one of hope. His message was the resurrection. But no, the church had to concentrate on the death bit.

And now they have been shown up in a very bad light. For years they held us in the grip of fear. Even the constitution of Ireland was half written by the church. One couldn’t look sideways but the church heard about it and steps were taken. If you didn’t go to mass, you were hell bound. If you ate meat on Fridays, you were hell bound. The fear they engendered eventually went too far and it is no wonder that young people of my generation rebelled. And now where are they? The churches are empty. The only reason most go to church today is for weddings and funerals.

Also, it was not the evil of child abuse which was the greatest sin, but the cover up. These priests who stood in the pulpit and told us that bad thoughts were sinful, covered up and hid the greatest sin of all. They shunted paedophile priests to different parishes in the hope nobody would find out and realise that priests were human after all and not some kind of higher life form. Instead of being good decent human beings, standing up, admitting what was going on and doing something positive about it, they hid it. And the really sad thing is the thousands of good priests who have been deeply affected by this shame not of their own making.

And still the church can’t see and refuses to change. I think they would continue the cover up if they could. As far as the church is concerned women are second class citizens as are gay people. When are they going to give their priests the option of marriage and stop making marriage a poor second class to celibacy? Why won’t they kill the nonsensical doctrines of hell and purgatory as they did Limbo some years back? Why don’t they get rid of infallibility? The pope underneath all his glitter and power is human and as prone to error as the best of us. Why don’t they scotch Humanae Vitae? Why don’t they open the church to full collegiality, the power of the church should not be held in the hands of one man, the bishops and laity must share in it too.

Sometimes I think that perhaps the Jewish religion is a better one. This was what Jesus was, all his life, he never was a Christian!

So true to my agnosticism, I brought up my own children without forcing religion down their throats like it was mine. I tried to answer their questions as honestly as I could giving both sides of the argument. Now they are free to choose their own religion or none as they see fit. After all, if God is really there, then people find him sooner or later. Further, and maybe more importantly, they are at least free of the fear of hell (something which was drummed into me and I hasten to add, not by my parents). Nuns and Christian Brothers seemed to have a real connection to Satan and hell. What? Did they take tea with him? They sure seemed to know an awful lot about him. The stories we were told in school: people coming back to their loved ones to tell them they were in hell and how they should give up their immoral lifestyle if they wanted to avoid the same fate. Children being shown hell and it’s tortures by apparitions of the virgin Mary. What sort of a twisted mind is that? Hell has no place in the domain of a truly good God. If he has cooked up such a place, then I can tell ya, we’re all in trouble.

Ultimately, if God exists, he is surely so different to us that we cannot even begin to imagine what he may be like. Even the mystics have said they have only ever got glimpses of God, flashes in a great darkness. Of course there are those who say the mystics are deluded.

Finally, if God gave us intelligence, let’s use it and not be led astray by blind faith. If God doesn’t exist, let’s use our intelligence anyway. Maybe it’s all we have to rely on at the end of the day.

Free Will

Something, it seems to me, that everybody takes for granted is the assumption that we have free will. I take it for granted myself, unless I start seriously thinking about it, like now. I can choose to do many different things right now. I can stop writing this article and go and have a cup of coffee. I can go for a walk, or read a book, or even take a nap. Of course, taking a nap implies that I am tired in the first place, otherwise the chances of my deciding to take a nap are minimal. Okay, in a bid to convince myself that I have free will in the matter, I could decide to take a nap even though I am not tired. But that doesn't prove much, does it?

The problem is that all these areas are of no great importance in life. They are not the big issues. They are not the life changing issues which might make a meaningful difference. Look at it this way. I didn't choose most of the major things in my life, where I was born, colour of my skin, parents, siblings, sexual orientation. I didn't even make the choice to be born! I happened to be born in Dublin to catholic parents, hence I am white, Irish, heterosexual and originally catholic. Now there's a thing. I was born catholic and eventually changed to something else, at present agnostic. So here is a good example of free will. Or is it? I'll discuss this further below.

What about a life changing experience such as choosing a partner? Is that a free choice? Many will say yes, definitely, but think about it. What about all those girls or guys you fancied but who didn't fancy you? No choice there! The girl you choose had to like you as well. You can't make her like you. So you fancy somebody and ask them out. They have the choice to say yes or no. If no, that's it. You didn't have much of a choice there. If they say yes, you go out together, but don't get on. Not much choice there either. So you continue making choices and eventually find somebody who does like you and does want to marry you (or these days simply become your partner) and maybe have children etc. Then your marriage goes west! So, really not a lot of free choice here at all.

Now let's get on to religion. Initially you have no choice in the matter. You are what your parents decide they want you to be, usually what they themselves are. So you start life being a Christian, Jew, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist or even Atheist. Some of us begin to think for ourselves, maybe in our teenage years, maybe later and decide to switch our religion. Usually it's from a religious faith to none or even agnostic. Sometimes it's the other way round. But again, I ask what choice is there in that? What about those who don't change. Did they choose not to change or did they even think about it? And what about those who do change? Do they exercise a really free choice or was it just their way of thinking which made them sit up and change? Our education system is so bad, that most people aren't thought to think for themselves. They are just thought things by rote and are told that's the way it is, learn up or else. They probably never get to question. And those of us who do question things, what's there within us that makes us do that? We didn't decide one day by free will, I'd better start to ask questions. So I don't really see much choice there either.

Consider your likes and dislikes. Do you have a say in this? For example, if you like sport, did you decide to like it or did you always like it? And take something you are not interested in, say history. Did you decide not to like it? Go into a library and take down a book on history and try to make yourself like it. You probably won't succeed, and if you do, well maybe you did like history in the first place but didn't know it. You'll notice that your likes change over time. For example, if somebody told me twenty years ago that I'd read books on church history, I'd have laughed at them. What a boring subject. Yet today I devour them and I can confirm there was never a time when I decided I was going to enjoy such books. Gradually I got interested in the subject, but there was never a "decision". So again, I ask, where's the free will?

In fact a lot of things change about you over time. Not only do certain cells in your body get replaced, a lot of the body you have today is no longer the one you were born with. However, more importantly for our purposes, your ideas and outlook change over time. A lot of these mental changes depend on the environment you live in, the friends and acquaintences you keep, the books and newspapers you read, the films and television you watch. Each of these has an influence on you whether you like it or not and you may find that your ideas begin to change almost imperceptibly over time, sometimes influenced by the above. But seldom do your ideas change overnight. It happens subtly over time. So exactly where or when can you say you made a free decision to change one of your ideas? For example, you might believe passionately in a particular idea or you might follow a particular football team. If you think about it you'll most likely find that something you were passionate about years ago, you are no longer so. When did the change occur? I'll bet you that you can't really say. But more importantly you can't say that you ever sat down and made a decision to change in this area.

So where exactly does free will or choice come in? Take something as simple as deciding to have a cup of coffee or tea. If you consider the situation carefully, you'll find that you don't really make a choice. You either feel like a cup of coffee now or a cup of tea. Then again, you can sit down and say you're going to give this free will stuff a whirl. I'll make a firm decision. Even though I feel like having a cup of coffee at this point, I'll exercise my free will and have a cup of tea instead. Very good, but you're actually taking an idea and deciding to defy it. Or are you? Are you really deciding to decide to defy it? Or are you just in the mood to do an experiment.

Some scientific experiments appear to show that we do not have free will. For example a famous experiment some years back has shown that approximately 10 seconds before a person made a conscious decision to do something, the brain had already taken the decision. Of course, these experiments were only dealing with very simple decisions, for example whether to press a button on the right or on the left. A lot too depends on how the MRI imaging which was used is interpreted so the issue is far from closed.

Of course, if we don't actually have free will, this leads to the troubling question as to what, if any, responsibility must we take for our actions? For example if a serial killer has no conscience, no remorse and simply enjoys killing, is he responsible for his actions as he has absolutely no choice in the matter? I'm not defending him and believe he should be locked up for life (in fact he deserves the death penalty, I'm not a namby-pamby do-gooder). But if he had no other choice, what can we do? Well, I suppose lock him up and tough! He can't be allowed to be free if he threatens others in this way.

So if we don't have free will, do we give up? Throw our hats at it? No free will, what's the point? Another interesting experiment was carried out a year or so ago which tried to find out a little more about the effects on society if free will does not in fact exist. A number of participants were given passages from a book to read. Half of the participants got a section of the book to read which stated that there was no such thing as free will, our choices have already been predetermined and we can't change them. The other participants got a section which concentrated on the importance of studying consciousness and didn't mention free will at all. After reading the passages all the volunteers in the study were asked to complete a survey on their belief in free will. Then they were asked to complete 20 arithmetic problems which would appear on a computer screen. But they were also told that when the question appeared they needed to press the space bar otherwise a glitch in the computer software would make the answer appear on the screen. They were told that nobody would know whether they pressed the space bar or not, but they were asked not to cheat. The results showed that those who read the text which stated that there was no such thing as free will cheated more often. The researchers also found that the amount somebody cheated correlated with the extend to which they had rejected free will in their survey. Doesn't bode well for us if we don't have free will!

Which leads me to believe there must be some choice somewhere, but I've no idea where.

Now, what made me write this blog?...I guess I just couldn't help myself!

Help, I'm a rock!

It'll Never Last

I don't know when I first took an interest in music, but my first memories are of my parents listening to the radio. This was in the 1950s and the radio and the gramophone were the only sources of music in our house. My folks were lovers of the classical genre of music, the heavier the better. Music like Wagner (have you heard the screeching sirens bellowing their way through arias in his operas?), Beethoven (much nicer), Tchaikovsky (even nicer) and Bach to name a few. I neither liked or disliked this music, but certain items in my father's record collection were more interesting. After wading through the heavy stuff, I came across gems such as Sparky's Magic Piano, Eamonn Andrews telling the story of the Giant's Causeway, Danny Kaye telling the musical tale of Tubby the Tuba, and a particular favourite of mine, Life Get's Tedious. I don't know who sang/recited this little ditty, but it had some wonderful lyrics which I can recall to this day: "Old hound dog, he's so forlorn; Laziest dog that ever was born; He's howlin' 'cos he's sittin' on a thorn; he's just too tired to move over". My father, however, forbade me to listen to Don't Mention Wives to the Sultan which of course I did, but couldn't understand then why I shouldn't listen to it.

We used to go every year for our holidays to a little fishing village called Ardglass in Co Down, to a house my grandfather owned. I loved this place which was a child's paradise, beach beside the house, the sea just over the backwall (on a stormy day, the waves would crash into the backyard) and of course no school. One time my cousin Tim and myself were in Charlie's shop which had a jukebox. Tim put some money in and we choose Elvis Presley singing Jailhouse Rock. Don't know why we choose that particular number, but the effect was electrifying. I had not realised there was such pounding, uplifting, exciting and mad music. "Play it again, Tim," I cried when it ended. He did and we must have listened to it till most of his money was gone. Naturally I got the blame for spending all Tim's holiday money when I got home, but I didn't care. I had discovered Elvis Presley. Roll over Beethoven, my musical education was beginning.

My father wasn't exactly over the moon when I told him about what I had found although to be fair my mother didn't seem to mind so much. "It'll never last," he said emphatically and that was that. I didn't know what he meant by that remark. Not till years later when I realised he was right, although not about Elvis. He has lasted and why?...because he is one of the greatest rock singers of the last century. So called cultured musicians like to sneer and say Presley was rubbish and I should listen to the original Hound Dog recording by Willie May Thornton. I have and I have to say, it's crap. I can genuinely say there is no better version that the Elvis Presley recording.

But other than the jukebox down the road, where else could I hear this music? Apparently nowhere. I was 9 when I heard Jailhouse Rock and didn't know of any other radio stations other than the BBC and Radio Eireann and they sure as hell didn't play this sort of music. So I was stuck for a year or so until one day I found Radio Luxembourg. Here I found a program with a guy called Jimmy Savile who played nothing but Elvis. So I was introduced to a whole wealth of this singer's music. Now the next step was to get my hands on an album by Presley and managed to convince my mother to get Rock 'n' Roll No 2 as a Christmas present. Magic to this day!

The next great step was finding Radio Caroline. By this time I was 16. As we didn't have a television set, I was forced to go to friend's houses to see BBC which had a program called Top of the Pops. Around the same time the Beatles exploded on the scene. I didn't like them at all, but they were quickly followed by the Rolling Stones who were so much better. In later years the Stones went downhill while the Beatles improved immensely. However, it wasn't long till a new phenomenon began to emerge. I first became aware of this when I noticed an intriguing album cover a colleague had tucked under his arm and I asked him who it was. Cream he said, a blues band with Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. I'd never heard of the blues let alone a band who played them. I don't know what prompted me (maybe it was the album cover and I've bought other albums based on their covers alone, some with great results and others disastrous) but I went out and purchased the album. It was like hearing Jailhouse Rock all over again with new ears. Tracks like N.S.U. and I'm So Glad simply burst from the record player. Sublime, ethereal and grounded. Shortly after I found John Mayall and his Bluesbreakers. While both these bands were blues based they were the beginning of the progressive music scene. Artists like Pink Floyd, Santana, It's A Beautiful Day, The Doors began to appear. Others who weren't bagged in the progressive genre were Bob Dylan and the Greenwich Village folk scene with artists like Peter, Paul & Mary, Tom Paxton and Joan Baez. I'd like to mention Joni Mitchell also, but I don't think she was part of the Greenwich Village scene.

Then one day I picked up the New Musical Express, or was it Melody Maker (a doubt crosses my mind), the premier weekly music papers from the UK. They had a review of the first album, Freak out, released by The Mothers of Invention which was Frank Zappa's band. I wish I could remember the name of the guy who did the review but it was the worst review I had ever read. He basically said the music was worse than awful and named some of the song titles: Who are the Brain Police?, Hungry Freaks Daddy, Help, I'm a Rock, Return of the Son of Monster Magnet. Well, of course, I was so intrigued I had to hear this album. In those days, the only place to get your hands on records was the record shops (even Richard Branson's Virgin mail order wasn't around). So I traipsed through all the record stores in Dublin. Nobody had heard of this obscure American group. Even the International Record Store (at least I think that's what it was called) in Tara Street had never heard of it. So I had to give up or maybe take a plane to London and try there (very expensive then, Michael O'Leary was still in short pants). However, about a year later I happened to be in the record shop in Tara Street, and there was Zappa's second album, Absolutely Free. Naturally I snapped it up and once again this music of sheer genius (at least to me) exploded into existence: Plastic People, Call Any Vegetable, and Uncle Bernie's Farm. One track, Invocation and Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin had a blistering guitar solo backed up by flute which clocked in at 7 minutes and raised the music above anything else I had ever heard. There is simply nothing produced by our modern musicians which can equal it. Really, I'm not joking.

In 1970 came the album which probably defined a generation, Fill your Head with Rock, with the eponymous cover of the demonic looking violin player from the band Flock. This was a sampler of various New World artists, introducing us to the likes of Leonard Cohen, Johnny Winter, Chicago, and Blood, Sweat & Tears. So with such a wealth of music to choose from, I, being young and foolish, began to feel the vibes from my friends who had also adopted this music and soon Rolling Stone magazine was telling us who it was cool or uncool to follow. Poor old Zappa didn't get a word in and Presley was decidedly uncool. I don't know how long afterwards that I read somewhere about Bob Dylan paying a visit to Sun Studios in Memphis (the home of Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison to name a few). He reportedly knelt down and kissed the floor with the words "This is where it all started". Now whether that story is true or not, I suddenly realised he was right and it wasn't up to the hip types to tell me or anybody else who I could and couldn't like. I followed my own preferences and found that Presley and Zappa sat very well together, thank you. I liked them both and you could argue as to who was the better, and even if Zappa was the better musician and Presley the better singer/showman, it didn't matter. They both spoke to me and their music moved me in different ways.

So, who will last and who won't? In this piece I'm ignoring the modern classical world as I know nothing about it. Obviously the old classical music has lasted and I expect it will last for many more generations to come. I also haven't mentioned the world of jazz, much of which will last and much of which won't. Other than ethnic music I concentrate on what we can loosely call pop music (which includes rock, country, metal, progressive (a snotty term really) and all their offshoots). Any of the boy bands will not last. Nothing they have done can stand against the sheer might of the far superior music of the sixties and seventies. Even the great U2 (except for their classic album The Joshua Tree) won't last much longer. In fact I can't think of any new artist who has come along in the last 30 years who will last much beyond the next 30 years. But the really great will last: Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Frank Zappa, Bob Dylan. Elvis had a magic voice, charisma, charm and he could really sing, a showman who could hold his audience in the palm of his hand. The Beatles in the persons of John Lennon and Paul McCartney were songwriters of the highest calibre. Frank Zappa was pure genius even though he had a ridiculous and childish side (his dirty lyrics were funny but ultimately boring). Bob Dylan whose lyrics were unrivalled and had a unique way of singing them (at least on record, some of his concerts have been disasters, no showman he!). Others mentioned above, like the Rolling Stones and Leonard Cohen will last a bit longer but not much more than the already mentioned 30 years. Some greats have even now gone. Where is Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears, two powerhouse bands?

You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned Jimi Hendrix. This is because, in my opinion, even though he was great in his day, he was not as good a guitarist as many seem to think. Clapton for one was better. I think he still lasts today through some diehards. Fair enough, I guess.

The one thing however that sort of bothers me about writing this article is the fear that I'm totally forgetting about somebody who deserves to be listed among the greats and he or she hasn't sprung to mind. Ah well!

So what is the future for some potential megastars who might be around today or tomorrow? I greatly fear that they won't get much of a chance as long as the music industry is being run by the businessmen who wouldn't know an A minor chord from a G string! Seriously, does anybody think that Simon Cowell would have put Bob Dylan through to the next round? Not on your nelly! As Zappa said many years ago, "no commercial potential". I think the rot started in the seventies when disco came pounding through our headphones. Punk was a non-music, most couldn't even play their instruments properly. Rave, rap and such are plain awful. The only people playing today who don't mime on stage are metal. So the future does not look bright. But I just hope there is some promoter still around who won't be afraid to take a chance on some new real talent. They are there, just hiding!

Should We Avoid Talking to the Aliens?

Recently the well known astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has warned that, while aliens almost certainly exist, we should make every attempt to avoid them. Why?

Basically he says that if aliens visit us, it might be to raid Earth for resources and then move on. If aliens visit us, the outcome could be compared to when Columbus arrived in America and the decimation the white man left after him on the Native Americans.

He continued that we only have to take a look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might change into something we wouldn’t want to meet and therefore we should do everything possible to avoid contact with extraterrestrials.

Naturally I don’t agree with him and set out some of my reasons below.

Astronomers are pretty much agreed having analysed the types of stars and star systems, it’s unlikely that there would be intelligent aliens anywhere within 90 light years of us. There probably is life but it could be microbial, or at a different stage of evolution than us. An astronomer called Frank Drake came up with an equation in the 1960s called the Drake equation. He was the guy who started Project Ozma which listened for signs of intelligent radio signals coming from a number of different star systems. Nothing was found. However, the answer to the Drake equation was the number of civilisations in our galaxy with whom communication might be possible. This took into account the average rate of star formation, the fraction of those stars which have planets, the fraction of those planets which actually produce life, the fraction of those life forms which develop intelligence and the faction of those which actually develop radio communication and finally the length of time such civilisations continue to exist. Multiplying these fractions together gives the number of civilisations. Depending on the value given to these unknown fractions has resulted in answers ranging from 1 civilisation per galaxy to millions.

It obviously can’t be millions as that leads to the famous question as to where are they. Some people believe that they are in fact already here and some go further and say they are in fact, dangerous. Alien abduction, mutilation of cattle are frequently cited. Sure there are lots of reports of UFOs in the skies but mostly from people who are untrained in looking at the sky. Most of the sightings are of Venus when low in the evening sky (a beautiful sight), weather balloons, even the common airplane. And surely a lot of the Nevada sightings are of the stealth aircraft being put through their paces before they were even announced to the American public. And frankly, I think anybody who believes they have been abducted are deluded. Think about it. An advanced civilisation crosses space and perhaps time to reach Earth and what do they do? Buzz aircraft, abduct people and mutilate cattle? Besides if there are so many aliens around, how come there is not one single incident where a piece of alien technology has been found? Roswell, among others, may be cited but no evidence has been forthcoming. Besides, the pieces of debris found at Roswell were from a weather balloon.

It is possible that we are actually unique and are the only form of intelligent life in the universe or even in our own galaxy. I believe this is highly unlikely and as the heroine in the film Contact said, if this is true it seems like an awful waste of space out there. And looking at the Drake equation again, we have already discovered in excess of 300 planets orbiting stars other than our own which implies a fairly decent rate of planet formation which is one factor increasing the odds in favour of life elsewhere. Also on our own planet we have found life existing in the most inhospitable places where we never expected to find it. For example, microbes living miles underground, some frozen in ice which revive when heated up, life existing without light or heat in the very deepest places in the oceans.

Now that it’s beginning to look like ET surely exists somewhere, let’s consider the question of whether they could reach us if they wanted to?

In order for a civilisation to cross the vastness of space they would have to be incredibly advanced technologically. And not only that, I believe that such advancement in technology also comes with advancement in their understanding of themselves and other creatures, so much so that they would surely have long ago realised the senselessness of violence and killing. At our present level of technology our fastest spacecraft could probably cover the distance to the nearest star in about 80,000 years. So an incredible leap in technological sophistication is required to overcome that daunting timeframe. If Einstein is right about the speed of light being a limiting factor, then we may never meet another alien race face to face. However, I’m convinced that there must be ways around this problem but these advances are not going to come anytime soon. However things turn out, only an incredibly advanced race will be capable of making such journeys. Aggression or violence would be a thing of the past with such a race. Certainly if they haven’t learned to control such behaviour then it is unlikely that they would have survived for so long. Besides, what could we have that they would possibly need?

So now that we know ET is not here yet and unlikely to be for some considerable time to come, our best option to talk with them is by radio or optical communication, or maybe by some other method we haven’t discovered yet. On Earth we have been communicating by radio for the last 90 odd years and as radio waves travel at the speed of light, this means that our signals have already traversed space out to 90 light years. So if there are intelligent aliens with radio capabilities within that range, they know we’re here already.

Now going into the digital age and away from normal radio communication analogue technology, some say that digital signals would look like noise to aliens. I don’t understand this. It’s nonsense! A signal is a signal and it just needs deciphering. Maybe they mean that digital signals from earth are weaker and more earth directed and so eventually when our technology has advanced sufficiently our signals won’t leak into space at all. Advanced aliens will probably use similar technology which is another reason we don’t spot them in our radio searches. The chances of finding a civilisation at the exact same point of evolution as ourselves is about the same changes of winning the lotto. Fairly low. So most civilisations out there are probably far superior to us and there’s no chance of our finding them (unless they want to be found) or far inferior to us in which case there won’t be much in the line of signal to find them.

I mentioned above that during Project Ozma nothing was found. Well, during a later SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) search in the mid seventies, one signal was found and they called it the Wow! signal. This bore all the hallmarks of artificial origin (any hint of it being manmade was ruled out), unfortunately it was never seen again. To this day some still insist it was of extraterrestrial and intelligent origin.

Frank Drake sent a message from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico (the largest in the world) in 1974. Because this telescope can only point in one direction as the Earth rotates, the message was sent towards a dense group of stars called Messier 13. Messier 13 is the name given to a particular globular cluster which lies along with many other similar clusters on the outskirts of our galaxy. Unfortunately it will take about 25000 years to reach it’s destination, so we won’t be getting a reply anytime soon. But, what the hell, it was a first shot and maybe an alien spacecraft will pick it up first.

So why bother listening or trying to make contact? In my opinion, the importance of communicating with them is that we would have so much to learn from them. But maybe they don’t want to share? If that’s the case, it’s a pity, but I would think they would want to share. The more a civilisation advances intelligence wise, the more understanding they would have of the universe and all that’s in it. The more they might want to reach out and help struggling civilisations to come to grips with everything. Even looking at ourselves, many people want desperately to reach out and help others. Otherwise there wouldn’t be the outpouring of humanity when disaster strikes as seen recently in Haiti, for example.

So rather than trying to hide away, let’s announce our presence to the rest of the universe. And let’s keep listening to try and find a signal from them. One way or the other it would surely be the most significant discovery we have ever made to find out that we are not alone in the universe. Or equally that we are alone.

The Shroud of Turin

The Shroud of Turin is supposedly the burial cloth of the man Jesus Christ who was crucified by the Romans outside the walls of Jerusalem in approximately 30 AD. There are many reasons why this might be the actual cloth which I'll go into below, however, all speculation was stopped dead (except by a hardcore of believers) in 1988 when radio carbon dating showed that the cloth came from the medieval period sometime between 1260 and 1390.

The shroud depicts the faint outline (front and back) of a man who had been wrapped in it. In fact, it was only when a photograph was taken that the negative showed much more clearly the detail. And indeed the detail turns out to be fascinating. Examined by many experts over the years (medical and others), it can be positively stated that the portrayal is of a man who had been crucified, bore the marks of a heavy item across his back, spots of blood around the head indicating a crown of sharp spiked objects (such as a crown of thorns), the marks on the body of a severe lashing with a very nasty whip and last but not least, the clear mark of a wound created by a lance like object. Reading the gospel accounts this could only be the shroud of the man called Jesus or a forgery to try and fool others to believe this was the shroud of this man. And of course forgeries were a booming business in medieval times.

So, if it is a forgery, who could have done it and would he have the technical ability and knowledge during the middle ages to pull it off?

First of all, we haven’t a clue who might have forged it. Some say Leonardo da Vinci, but as he was born in 1452 and we know there are definite historical records of the shroud during the 14th century, he couldn’t have been involved.

Second, the knowledge is unlikely to have been available in the middle ages to portray the figure as it is. The shroud shows the nails were through the wrists and not the palms as depicted in many paintings through the centuries. While we know little or nothing about the Roman method of crucifixion, other than that it was a horrendous and cruel death (from reports by 1st century writers such as Philo and Josephus) twentieth century experiments show that a body could not have been supported if the nails had been placed on the palms. There are two blood flow directions from the wrists which indicate that the crucified man had to keep pushing himself upward to relieve the incredible pain of his arms and wrists only to allow himself to fall back down due to the pain in his feet. This and other incredibly precise detail would hardly have been known to a medieval forger.

Furthermore, how did the medieval forger actually carry out his work? There is no trace of pigment on the cloth itself, so it couldn’t have been painted. Some have suggested a very early form of photography was employed, but these techniques were quite unknown in the middle ages. Further, the forger would have to have known something about negatives as much of the detail only comes out in this format, so he would have been trying to create an effect which could only be seen hundreds of years after he forged it. An unlikely scenario I would imagine.

Before moving on to the radio carbon dating results, I should mention something which was discovered on the shroud some years before. During the 1970’s some sticky tape was applied to the surface of the shroud and taken away for analysis. To much surprise one of the many items discovered on these tapes was pollen. But more interestingly, some of this pollen originated from the Middle East. This particular band of pollen does not grow anywhere in Europe.


This radio carbon dating test was finally allowed to take place in 1988. One of the reasons it took so long for permission was because in order to carry it out, a section of cloth would have to be cut from the shroud and destroyed during the analysis. The section chosen was from the top left corner and a three inch by half inch piece was cut off. This was subsequently divided and a section was given to each of the three laboratories which were to carry out the testing, one in Arizona, one in Zurich and the last in Oxford. When at last the disappointing results came back, the cloth was dated between 1260 and 1390 as noted above.

So, the Shroud of Turin was a medieval forgery. Everybody could go home. End of story, or was it?

Of course, there are always those who refuse to accept the evidence and maybe that’s a good thing. While most people turned to other things, some refused to accept that this was the end for the Shroud of Turin.

One theory is that the cloth used for the radio carbon dating was taken from a section which was invisibly sowed onto it in order to tidy up burn marks from fire. We know that in 1532 a major fire broke out in the Sainte Chapelle in Chambery, France where the shroud was badly damaged. Molten silver from the casket where the shroud was housed seared through one corner of the folded cloth. Fortunately the main image on the shroud was hardly touched. In order to repair this damage, two years later Poor Clare nuns carried out some repairs stitching a strong backing cloth onto it and sewing patches over the worst of the burn marks. However, this scenario has been refuted fairly forcibly by textile experts who say that the section of shroud taken for analysis was of the same composition as the rest of it. This was backed up by Dr Flury-Lemberg who performed a major conservation job on the shroud in 2002 and who is one of the people who have the most hands-on experience of the shroud alive today.

However, there is now a lot of controversy over the radio carbon dating analysis itself. For example could the shroud have become contaminated sufficiently to make a 1st century item appear to be from the 14th century. Some scientists say that it would take something like 60% contamination for this to occur. Over the centuries the shroud was exhibited on numerous occasions and often with a lot of incense burning as it was reverently shown to the public. Besides this, there was a fire as mentioned above where smoke particles surely got mixed into the material of the cloth. And on top of all this, the shroud was handled by many bishops and clerics who typically showed it by holding it in their hands by the edges, particularly the corner from where the sample for radio carbon analysis was taken.

Another problem for the radio carbon testing was that the three laboratories chosen all used the same technique. It would have been better (as advised at the time) to have at least one other laboratory which used a different technique. The laboratories have also been accused of inadequate preparation of the samples (in order to minimise the effect of contamination).

Assuming new radio carbon dating shows the cloth to date from the first century, there are still a lot of questions to answer. For example, our first known records of the shroud being shown to the public come from 1355. Where was the shroud kept before that? Surely such a sacred relic could hardly have remained hidden for over a century? One intriguing answer to this is provided by the writer Ian Wilson who puts forward a somewhat convoluted argument that it is the same object as the Image of Edessa, a cloth with the likeness of Christ on it whose records do date from the 1st century but was lost around 1204.

Of course, I have to mention that for every positive theory mentioned above there are other scientists and experts who say entirely the opposite. For example, some say the anatomical aspects of the body are wrong, the nose is too long and the head is too big for the body. Also some say there is paint pigment on the cloth. Also John’s gospel points out that the shroud was not one piece, but included a part which was separately wrapped around the head (John 20:7). So what chance does the layman have when the so called experts refute each other. Whoever may be right I’m sure the truth will out one day. But is the truth not already staring us in the face after the radio carbon test? Well, that’s one big question which has raised it’s head once again.

And now with the Shroud available to view this month and next (April and May 2010) in Turin, maybe the time is ripe for another shot at radio carbon dating but this time with much more control in place than previously.

Even if the test does show that the shroud comes from the 1st century, it does not show that Jesus was the son of God or actually arose from the dead. It probably shows that it was the shroud of a man called Jesus Christ who was scourged, nailed to the cross, a crown of thorns rammed into his head and a lance thrust into his side. After that anything else has to be based on faith.

Max Ernst and The Virgin Chastising the Infant Jesus

In Ireland especially we are well used to seeing pictures of the Holy Family, Jesus, his mother etc. Usually these pictures are scenes from the birth of Christ depicted in a stable with mother, child, stepfather, shepherds, a cow and an ox, and maybe an angel or two in the background. If you wait till the feast of the Epiphany (6th January) which celebrates the revelation of God in human form in the person of Jesus Christ then you'll probably have the three wise men thrown in as well.

There are lots of great pictures of the Holy Family painted by many gifted artists through the centuries. Some of these portray the Holy Family itself, some with Christ's birth, some dealing with the flight to Egypt, and some dealing with later times. One of these is the picture by the surrealist artist Max Ernst, The Virgin Chastises the Infant Jesus before Three Witnesses: André Breton, Paul Éluard, and the Painter. A bit of a mouthful, but it is shown above.

I only came across this picture recently and was taken aback by it. It is not often you see the mother of God spanking her son. He must have been pretty bold as you can see his halo is on the ground. And the more I looked at this portrait, the more intrigued I became as it shows the deep humanity of not only Christ, but his mother also and certainly raises a number of difficult questions on the whole idea of God-become-Man and I suppose the issue of corporal punishment. Frankly on that subject a kick in the arse from my father never did me any harm and today there are a lot of spoilt brats running riot who badly need the hand of their parent. Anyway, I'm not going to get into that now.

I write as an agnostic who rather hopes the whole thing (or at least certain aspects of it) are true, but I think for the purposes of this article, we should agree to suspend disbelief for a moment and accept that God came down as a man in the form of Jesus some two thousand years ago.

Of course Jesus wasn't exactly accepted as fully God and fully Man initially and controversies raged in the early church for the first four centuries as to exactly what the nature of Jesus was. It was clear that he was the son of God, but what did this mean? Was he actually God or just the son of God? Was he created by God or did he always co-exist with God? Some even said that he was a divine being who took on human appearance but not flesh. It took a couple of church councils to clear the matter up, not without a lot of bitterness on opposing sides. In fact some of this bitterness led to downright murder. Certain bishops in those early days weren't averse to bumping off their opponents in the name of their beliefs. The most widely accepted definitions on the nature of Christ were made by the Councils of Nicaea, Ephesus and Chalcedon, this last in the year 451 AD.

Based on these council decisions, Jesus was now fully God and fully Man. However, even though he was a man subject to all the usual temptations, fears and needs of a man, because he was also God he could not commit sin. Which means that Max Ernst's portrait couldn't be true. Jesus couldn't have been bold as a child and there would have been no need for his mother to smack him.

From the new testament we know practically nothing about the early life of Christ as a boy, except for his getting lost in the temple (which was somewhat careless of his parents, he was missing for three days and they didn't even realise he was gone for about a day!). In fact we only meet him again at around the age of 30 when he appeared at the river Jordan and was baptised by his cousin, John the Baptist.

The new testament has four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John which are very familiar to most people. However, these were only the gospels which made it into the bible. There are lots more which were considered by the early church to be non-canonical, i.e. they were suspect and were not considered to have been inspired by God. In fact the early church did their best to suppress these gospels and nearly succeeded. Many of them we knew only because the early church fathers mentioned them in their writings in order to condemn them, others were discovered at various times and places since then. In fact one of the great finds was in a place called Nag Hammadi in Egypt around 1945 where a number of lost manuscripts were found in an earthenware jar by some local farmers.

One of these gospels is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (not to be confused with the Gospel of Thomas made popular by the film, Stigmata, some years ago) and wasn't one of those discovered at Nag Hammadi. In this gospel we find the boy Jesus up to all sorts of shenanigans. In one episode he makes clay birds and then brings them to life. Another time he was playing with some other boys on the roof of a house. One of the children was pushed off by another and he fell to the ground and was killed. All the children ran away except for Jesus and when the dead boy's parents heard of it and arrived on the scene, they thought that Jesus was responsible and accused him of their child's murder. At this, Jesus leapt down from the roof and said to the dead child to arise and tell who had thrown him from the roof. Accordingly the dead child arose and told his parents the truth.

However, in a more sinister vein, on another day Jesus struck a child dead because he threw a stone at him. It is not recorded whether he brought this kid back to life or not.

Maybe that is why his mother spanked him.