Happy winter solstice

Yesterday was the darkest day of the year. Today we have started the journey towards lighter and brighter times. That’s good.  Also, my best friend is gone, for a while, and Christmas is coming up soon. That’s not so good. This perverted commercial-religious holiday is the time of the year that I dislike the most. Whatever, I will probably survive, once again. It’s just about switching the brain off, do what people expect me to do, and wait till it’s over. January, please come as soon as you can.

Happy winter solstice >:)

(I have never understood why we chop down trees and put them into our houses with lights and glass balls. They look much better in the forest where they belong. Picture from my collection) 

Crowded

It's so crowded on the mountain today.  It's the annual ski testing weekend, and the Alpine Racing World Cup is visiting.  Last weekend was much better. We even got a day of powder skiing. Some days are great. Some are not so good. That's life.

(Picture taken in the powder one week ago.  The skier is Little Boy)

Wet shoes

I'm out traveling again. Tonight I was out drinking a dark beer with two good colleagues and friends. Last night I had even better times with an even better friend. tonight the rain is pouring down. My shoes got soaking wet when I was walking along the streets. I should remind myself that there are bigger problems in this world than a pair of wet shoes. They probably dry up by tomorrow, or the day after >:)

(Picture taken last night, when the clouds were coming in, but before the rain. Good times.)  

Not too bad

I'm out traveling for a couple of days, to the capital. I don't like it very much so I don't go there very often.

After work I checked into the hotel. Then I went for a walk in the city center, near the King's castle and the parliament building. For a while I walked behind a fat and cute girl. She was more sexy than the skinny girls I met.

I went into a bookstore and bought two books, by Stig Sæterbakken and Michel Houellebecq. Then I went to meet a friend. We had a good dark beer (porter).

It was a nice evening in this city that I don't like very much. Not too bad >:)

(Picture taken tonight when I was out walking. That's the King's castle at the end of the street.)

The lesbian bishop

Tonight I heard in the news that for the first time ever a lesbian priest has been nominated to the position as bishop in our state church. That's cool. I hope she will get the job. She will probably meet resistance from the conservative branch of the church, as usual.

I became a member of our state church at the age of 2 months. Nobody asked me, so I had no choice. Now, I'm an atheist, but I have kept my membership in the church. The main reason for this is to support progressive forces that challenge conservative religious doctrine.

I cant' see any reasons why women can't be priests or bishops, and I see no reason why lesbians can't be bishops. Probably you wouldn't notice any difference when she's standing by the altar or on the pulpit. 

Priests rarely exercise sexual activities in church, and hardly ever during mass, neither heterosexual nor homosexual This is something they eventually do on their free time, at home, or in the forest, like the rest of us. So then, what's the problem?

I think that professional positions in general should be awarded based on qualifications and skills, not on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social position or balance on the bank account. 

If God created everything (some insist He did), he also created the gays and the lesbians. He probably did with a purpose, for instance to promote some of them to bishops. Nobody knows what God thinks about this anyway, He's apparently such a revengeful despot. But I bet Jesus would a approve a lesbian bishop >:)

(I found this cartoon on the Internet. Though some groups in our Protestant state church may seem to be quite conservative, they are at least a lot more progressive than the Catholics.)

A-Z Challenge: Reflections

This was the 2nd time I did the A-Z Challenge. The first time, the theme was random. This year my theme was religion. It was a nice theme because it's it's quite interesting and challenging, and a source of an endless number of posts.

I tried to approach my theme in different ways; with humorous, sarcastic, provocative and serious posts. Sometimes it triggered interesting discussions in the comments. I appreciate that, and also that people were respectful and decent. Not net-trolls, although the theme as such may sometimes trigger strong feelings.

Unfortunately, April was a somewhat busy month. I spent 1 week on Easter vacation, skiing in the mountains, with no proper Internet connection (only cell phone), and one week business travel to the Arctic. Sometimes I had a hard time getting my posts published in due time, and I definitely got too little time to visit other participants. however, I found a few cool blogs that I followed throughout, in particular Write with Fey, Square Pegs and Tamara Narayam. The theme of the atter was one of my favorite subjects; mathematics. Maybe I'll pick that theme next time.

That's all for now, but as Arnold Scwarzenegger said: I'll be back >:)

(Skiing season ended yesterday. Now I will spend more free time in town. It's nice a this time of the year, when it hardly gets dark at all. That's great. I like the light summer nights in the north, but I will miss the snow and the skiing. Picture from my archives, taken in my hometown on a night in May a couple of years ago.)

A-Z Challenge 26: Zero or one

I you asked all the people in world how many Gods they believe in, more than half of them would answer zero or one. That would be the Muslims, the Christians, the Jews and the atheists.

Some statistics indicate that today atheism is the third biggest "religion",  after the Christians and Muslims. The number of atheists is not precisely known, because it depends on how you count and what you include (atheists,  ir-religious,  non-religious, agnostics). Also, many atheists, including me, count as Christians because we never bothered to formally cancel our membership in the church.

Zero or one is not the only option. There are lots of gods  around. Just pick your favorite. Hinduism counts 33 gods, and the ancient Greek, Roman and Norse mythologies offer another 100 or more. My favorite among them is Ullr, the Norse god of skiing.

There are more  than 100 gods that non of us believe in. The atheists believe in only one god less than the Christians and Muslims. That's great. Then we have a lot in common. 

By the way, guess how many blogposts I'm gonna write tomorrow; zero or one? 

Appendix:

In a previous blogpost, written some days ago, I tried to answer the question: Why do people believe in God? A natural follow-up question is: Why do some people not believe in God? My simple answer is this:

Because some don't see the need for a god.

But there's more to be said, to elaborate on this:

Some people have grown up with religion being around, in school or at home. They find religious scriptures and doctrines unlogical and irrational, and in conflict with science and modern understanding of the world. Some find a solution in a more abstract concept of God. Others don't need any replacement.

Some people, or at least one, rejects god on scientific grounds. There's no need for a supernatural creator. This is what he said, the one, Stephen Hawking:

"When people ask me if god created the universe, I tell them that the question makes no sense. Time didn't exist before the big bang, so there is no time to make the universe in"

Science cannot explain every detail of this yet, but we will eventually get there. That's what some believe, and it's as true as the belief in the one and only God; a subjective truth that exists in humans minds >:)

A-Z Challenge 25: Yatzy

Yatzy, or Yahtzee, you probably know the dice game. Everybody has played it, except God. That's what Albert Einstein said:

"God doesn't play dice"

The reason for Einstein's famous statement was that he didn't like the probability aspect of quantum mechanics, this somewhat fuzzy theory of physics which was developed in the early 1900s.

According to quantum mechanics, you can never know exactly where a particle is. You can only know the probability of observing it here or there. Once you measure, you will know, but then you don't know the speed of it.

The opposite is also true. If you park your bike in the yard, and you know it's standing still, you don't know where it is. That's what quantum mechanics says, Fortunately this effect is too small to be an issue for bikes or anything else in the world we experience in our daily lives.

But this is how it works on the scale of atoms and smaller. You can't know both the position and speed of a particle at the same time. This is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Even God has to obey it.

God may be almighty, but Heisenberg is mightier >:)

Appendix:

Classical physics is deterministic, in the sense that the effect can be calculated if the cause is known.

In quantum mechanics this principle is apparently lost. But this is only apparently.The probability distributions (wave functions) of quantum mechanics are deterministic. It's only our observations that have an element of randomness. The probability distributions contain everything you may want to know about a particle, and if you know the probability distribution at present, you can calculate it at all times in the future (and the past).

The laws of physics work in the same way every time we apply them, fortunately. Otherwise it would be difficult to build skyscrapers and bridges, and it would be very risky to fly on an air plane. Also, it seems like the laws of physics have worked the same way in the past, as far as we can observe from geological processes an remote galaxies, millions of lightyears away (that's how we can see the past).

This means that either there is no God, or He has chosen to never use His almightyness to change the laws of physics. Or maybe He just couldn't defeat Heisenberg?

A.Z Challenge 24: X is unknown

This is the equation, 

ax+b=c,

and x is the unknown. Find x; that's easy,

x=(c-b)/a.

Now, let's put in some real numbers, a=2, b=6, c=14, or a=II, b=VI, c=XIV. The answer is x=4 or x=IV, in Arabic and Roman numbers, respectively. Which do you prefer? Today we use the Hindu-Arabic number system, because it's logical and makes it easier  to perform calculations.

There are a few exceptions, in names of popes and kings, and for making the production year unreadable in Hollywood movies.

It wasn't always like that. In earlier times, the Pope's clers did the bookkeeping in Roman numbers. The change from Roman to Arabic numbers did not happen without controversy in the Catholic part of the world.

It was argued that Arabic numbers made it easier to perform fraud. Just add a zero at the end to turn 100 into 1000. Also, it made the clers less exclusive. With Arabic numbers, anyone could do math, at least simple calculations, without being trained on the abacus.

Then there's the religious part. The Arabic numbers came from the Muslim world, the Christian's enemies who conquered the Holy Land. Some Christian scholars even claimed that the Arabic number system was an act of Satan.

In Satan we trust, at least when doing math. >:)

There's an alternative saying regarding math; God made the integers, the rest is Man's work.

Appendix: 

Many years ago I read a cool book called "Number Theory and It's History" (by Øystein Ore). That’s were I learnt most of the stuff above. I also learnt that there's a simple logical reason for our base-10 number system. Many cultures developed their number systems based on the number of fingers on one hand (African tribes), on two hands (modern system), or the total number of fingers and toes  (Mayas). 

The exception is the Babylonians who used base-60. That's why we have 60 minutes in an hour. 60 was a magic number. It's the only number that divide into all the integers from 1 to 6. Also, the Babylonians, who didn't know about Pi, discovered that 6 equal-sided triangles with 60 degree angles fit into a circle. That's why we still count 360 degrees around the full circle.

A-Z Challenge 23: What we worship

So, the Christians and the Muslims and the Jews worship their respective Gods, which may actually be the same God, Abraham's God. But never mind. 

Whatever they worship, it's fine with me, as long as they keep it between themselves. But, they don't, and that's where the trouble starts. Some places in the scriptures there are verses that refer to all or everybody, for instance Corinthians 15:22:

"For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive."

And there is Matthew 28:18-19, the verses we learnt by heart in school:

“And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”

So the Christians sent their Knights Templars to conquer the Holy Land, and missionaries to baptize the heathens.

Islam is apparently more pluralistic or relativistic, for instance  Sure 18:29:

“… let those who wish to believe in it do so, and let those who wish to reject it do so.”

But in practice we know that most Islamic regimes are far from tolerant when it comes to criticism of Islam, which is often equivalent to blasphemy, which is heavily punished by Sharia.

There are traditions, views and rules that cannot be disputed, not matter what.  They are valid for everybody and everywhere. This is referred to as universalism (as compared to relativism).

How about us, in the secular part of the world? We have our own twist on it. We have replaced God by other “holy” principles; freedom of speech, human rights, democracy. We sometimes call them our values. That’s what we worship. That’s our universal indisputable truth.

So, what happens when we encounter cultures where the top values are religion, honor and traditions, where freedom of speech and democracy don’t even make it to top-ten?

Then it’s time for war.

Let me close it with this little W-poem:

Worship
Whatever
Weird
Witchcraft you
Wish but
Wrangle in
War 
With
Words >:)

A.Z Challenge 22: Virgin and extra virgin

Virgin is apparently an important word for those who are into olive oil or religion. In many cultures, virginity has been highly valued, and associated with purity and virtue and high sexual moral.

Islamic law and scriptures are quite funny in the sense that sexual activity is very restricted in the earthly life, but Paradise is quite erotic. Personally, I think it might be better to do it the other way around, but I didn’t write the Quran.

In Paradise the men who are admitted will meet 72 virgins who are ready to provide them with pleasure. The 72 virgins may get quite busy because, also according too Islamic scripture, the men in Paradise have eternal erection. In earthly life, this is a painful medical condition (priapism). But we all know that our world is not always a paradise.

Our most admired virgin is Mary, the mother of Jesus. There has been debate among scholars if she stayed virgin forever, or if Jesus had a bunch of brothers and sisters. This is basically a discussion about ambiguous translations of old Hebrew and Greek texts.

In our new 2011 translation of the Bible, Mary is not a virgin anymore. The word which has traditionally been translated to virgin can also mean young woman. And that’s what she has become in some of the verses (Isaiah 7:14).  That’s not too bad either, becoming a young woman after all these years.

Regarding women, I have no strong preference, but when it comes to olive oil, I usually go for extra virgin.  

A-Z Challenge 21: Urban II and W on crusade

Pope Urban II is best known for initiating the first crusade in 1095. He got the message from Byzant that Muslims had taken over the Holy Land. Urban gave a speech to the citizens of Rome, were he convinced them that the Muslims were threatening the Christian civilization, and possessed weapons of mass destruction. Urban’s speech was very effective. He got strong support for sending a Christian army to defeat the Muslims, and win back Jerusalem.

President George W is best known for initiating the last crusade in 2001, the crusade against terror. Later, he tried to convince us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He hoped for the entire world to support his actions against terror.

That's fine. Just one little detail, George W: If you want the Muslim part of the world to support you, it isn’t very wise to use the word “crusade”. Didn’t your advisors warn you?

A-Z Challenge 20: The tenth plague

In 1933, the poet Arnulf Øverland wrote the essay “Christianity, the Tenth Plague”. The essay was first given as a speech to the Student’s Association. The full text in English can be found here.

Here are a couple of cool quotes from the essay:

About baptism:

“Baptism isn't just regular water, but it is water which is confined by the command of God and united by the word of God. What it means, no living man can comprehend, but the children are bound to understand!”

About the communion:

“Later on we eat the body of God and drinks his blood. This disgusting, cannibalistic magic is practiced till this day. But if one have the stomach to participate in this ritual, then one is saved. Then one can allow oneself almost any disgracefulness, if only one prays to God afterwards. If only one believes and is baptized.”

About sinful feelings:

“Practically all the church fathers have agreed to denote erotic emotions as sinful, beauty and grace as the devil's delusion and the woman as Satan's gateway. This aversion to women and female charm, that is so loudly expressed by the church fathers, is a homosexual characteristic. It is this, which is called moral purity.” 

Øverland gave some pretty bold statements for his time. The bishops and scholars were furious, of course.  The author was taken to court, accused of blasphemy. He was acquitted.

The decision of the court was a victory for the freedom of speech. However, there are also things to learn from the reaction of the Christians. They were offended, but only used words to express their anger. No one was killed, and Øverland didn’t have to live the rest of his life with a fatwa thrown at him.

A-Z Challenge 19: Secularism

Secularism is the principle of keeping government and legislation separate from religion. I a secular system, political decisions are more or less independent religious belief. Those who want can be free from religious rule.

Most western democracies are in practice secular. In secular systems freedom of speech, including the right to make blasphemic statements and religious freedom are important principles.

Only secular systems give religious freedom. With religious rule all religions except one (the one that rules) are repressed, more or less. That’s an interesting paradox, I think.

A-Z Challenge 18: Ramadan under the midnight sun

Ramadan is the Muslim month of fasting. Food and drinks can be consumed only before dawn and after sunset. Ramadan goes back to pre-Islamic times, just like Christmas (winter solstice) dates back to pre-Christian times.

The Islamic Ramadan is the month when Muhammad received  the Quran. This happened in the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which doesn’t completely agree with the astronomical calendar.  Therefore Ramadan moves around the year.

I just came back from the Arctic, where the sun is up from mid-April till late August. There were no Muslims around. They all died out one year when Ramadan was in the middle of the summer.

I’m just joking. The Muslims have found practical ways to deal with this, like they have done when Soccer World Cup coincides with Ramadan. You can’t expect the Algerian or Iranian national teams to perform on top level without regular meals. In a similar way, they have found ways to survive the light summers of the north. During Ramadan, the Muslims living in the Land of the Midnight Sun are allowed to eat according to the sunrise and sunset in Mecca.

That’s fine with me. It remains to see if God agrees. He’s known to be a tough guy from time to time.

A-Z Challenge 17: Questioning the Quran in Qom

No, you shouldn’t do that. It’s not recommended. not even allowed. You can question a lot of things I Qom; the Bible, Das Capital, and even Einstein’s theory of relativity. But you shouldn’t question the Quran, in Iran in general nor in Qom.

Qom is an educational center. It’s also a holy city for Shia Islam. Therefore, it has a lot of religious schools and seminars.  Many famous imams and ayatollahs have been teaching in Qom, including Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian revolution. 

The seminars in Qom were central in the Iranian revolution. They focus on the role of politics in religion, and vice versa. Then offending the president becomes the same as offending God. That’s an efficient way to rule a country.

(Yesterday was gay day in the ski resort. I hope God and his scholars don't mind if homosexuals go skiing. It's fine with me. Some of them were good skiers too. There's no gay day in Qom, I think.)

A-Z Challenge 16: Prostitution in accordance with the Quran

Wherever there are horny men, there is a market for prostitution, the world's oldest profession. Islam in general doesn't approve nor structly ban prostitution.

The problem with prostitution is sex outside marriage, which is not allowed by the Quran. But there's a way around this,. The justification can be found in Sure 4.24:

And all married women except those whom your right hands possess Allah’s ordinance to you, and lawful for you are (all women) besides those, provided that you seek (them) with your property, taking (them) in marriage not committing fornication. Then as to those whom you profit by, give them their dowries as appointed; and there is no blame on you about what you mutually agree after what is appointed; surely Allah is Knowing, Wise.  

So, the practical solution to the problem is short - time marriage. Just marry the prostitute, get the services you pay for, and then divorce her. This kind of marriages can last from an hour to a few days (Mutah).

There's some dispute between Muslim scholars about this interpretation of the Quran, but some Shia and Salafi countries approve it. Bahrain has even turned this into big business. 

What about the women who are misused by brothels and pimps? That's not a big issue. Women's rights don't exit in Islamic countries. They should just stay inside their burkas  and niqabs and be honorable and silent. Then the reward comes in Paradise.

God is great.  Really?

(Picture from my collection, taken some years ago when I visited Qatar, where I first heard about this pragmatic way of organizing prostitution in Muslim countries.)

A-Z Challenge 15: Opium of the people

Carl Marx was a great thinker with some original ideas. He wrote a heavy book about the importance of capital, and the difference between does who have it and those who don’t. Unfortunately, his ideas didn’t fit with human nature, and didn’t work very well in practice.

Marx also had thoughts about the role of religion. His most famous statement is that “religion is the opium of the people”. Here, I think he has a good point.

Most species of animals manage quite well without gods. Even the most intelligent animals, such as monkeys, dolphins and parrots live happily without religious practise (as far as I know). So, why do the humans believe in God? I think there are three main reasons:

1. Because we needed to explain observations that were difficult to understand. In ancient times, this incuded thunder and lightning and earth quakes, things that are currently well understood by science. But there are still questions science has not yet been able to answer.

2. Because we are taught to believe in God, by our parents, in school, and by the authorities in our society. In the Islamic part of the world, the latter is still a very effective force. This is where the statement by Marx applies.

3. Because of our collective fear of death. At some point in the evolution, humanity developed such and extraordinary intelligence (compared to the other species). It’s hard for us to accept that we only have this short earthly life. There has to be something more, something that lasts forever.

I have always refused to take the opium. I rather drink a dark beer >:)

A.Z Challenge 14: Nature

’ve spent the last few days on an archipelago up in the Arctic, and I’m still there, at 78 degrees north. I’ve been here before. The last time was in August 2013. It’s fantastic, and April is the best time to visit. There is still cold snow and winter conditions, but with the light of the Arctic summer. The midnight sun lasts from 19. April to 25. August at this altitude.

Today we went on a 5-hour snow scooter trip. Normally I’m not too fond of snow scooters. They are too noisy. I prefer to use skis. But up here I make an exception. The area is so huge, one and half the size of Denmark.  There are hardly any roads, and the only way to get around is by snow scooter in the winter and by boat in the summer.

The landscapes here are awesome. This is my temple, if any. We are surrounded by fjords and white mountains. No people around, no bosses around, no gods around. Just the mighty mountains, the way they were shaped and carved by the forces of Nature.

(Picture taken today on our snow scoother trip into the wilderness)

A.Z Challenge 13: Monks and monasteries

I have always been fascinated by monks and monasteries. Many years ago, I read the novel The Name of The Rose by Umberto Eco. It takes place in an Italian monastery, and the heroes of the story are the Fransiscan monk William of Baskerville, and his novice Adso of Melk.

Some years later, I was in Vienna, Austria on vacation. I took the opportunity to visit the Melk Abbey. The monastery is an awesome building, on a hilltop by the river Danube. It takes an hour or two (if I remember correctly) by train westward from Vienna.

The monastery had a real Gutenberg Bible, printed by Johann himself, on exhibition in the museum. When we visited, there was a summer camp for kids going on. The boys were playing football outside the monastery, with a monk in black robes blowing the whistle as ref.

 

I find the life of a monk quite attractive, in some ways It would fit nicely with my introvert nature. I could enjoy hours and days in peaceful silence, studying books.

However, I also see a few problems. First, I would probably read the wrong books. Second, I don’t believe in God (most monks do). Third, the counter-natural obligation of the celibacy would probably drive me crazy.  I guess this happens to some monks from time to time.

Let me summarize it in this childish M-poem:

Meeting

Mary

Magdalene in the

Monastery is

Mecca for a

Monk  >;D

A-Z Challenge 12: Latter Day Saints

I’ve been to Utah 3 or 4 times, mostly to see the nature, and the great national parks, such as Arches and Bryce Canyon.  Once I also spent a week in Salt Lake City, the capital of the Latter Day Saints, the Mormons.

I went to see the Temple Square and the Tabernacle (they won’t let you into the Temple, unless you’re an LDS of high rank).  A young woman came over to me and asked where I was from, and which language I spoke.  She said they could do guided tours in 150 languages. Not bad. 

The woman on Temple Square also gave me the Book of Mormon. I have read a fair part of it, but It didn’t work the way it was supposed to. The more I read, the less I believe. The same happened when I read the Bible and the Quran. 

I find the Mormons’ religion a little bit odd. It’s like they wanted to correct God’s misunderstanding of putting Abraham, Jesus and the Holy Land in the Middle East. The almighty God should have known better; America is the center of the world. That’s were religions should be initiated. Dear God, just give it a restart, in the right place this time. Joseph Smith is ready down on the beach. Just send him some gold plates, like you did with Moses.

One day I visited the Mormon Museum. In the gift shop I bought a book: The Basic History of the Mormon Church. I read it with great interest. I’m not too impressed by the Mormon’s religion, but I’m impressed by the way they have organized things. Here are two examples:

When Joseph Smith had been lynched in Indiana, the Mormons decided to move westward to Utah, to be able to live in peace and safety. They had a winter camp in Nebraska. When spring came they started a huge operation, led by Brigham Young. They first sent a pilot team, with craftsmen, engineers and scouts. They built camps along the route across the Rocky Mountains, one camp for each day-trip. When everything was ready, they sent a scout back to Nebraska to initiate the main trek. In this way they got thousands of people across the Rockies in one summer.

When the Mormons settled in Utah, they basically invented sustainable development, a hundred year before anyone else. To be able to survive in the dry desert of the Salt Lake Valley, they made rules for how much timber each family could take out of the sparse forest, and how much water they could take from the rivers (you can’t drink the water from the Salt Lake).

Hey guys, what the Hell are you doing? You’re sharing things! This is socialism. In America, you’re supposed to do things the capitalist way; competition and maximum profit. No wonder the Mormons were taken to be communists in the McCarthy era in the 1950s.

A-Z Challenge 11: Kansas

Today is K-day. Unfortunately both Canaan and the Cathar Crusade starts with C in English, so I need to find something else.  So, I'll write a little bit about Kansas. Why?  Because Kansas is the new Jerusalem, sort of.  It's the place where new religions are born. What I have in mind are the Westboro Baptist Church, and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. 

The Westboro Baptist Church is known for its extreme views and actions. We have seen the banners during their demonstrations:

“God hates America”

“Fags eat poop”

I don’t want to spend more words on this crazy bunch.

I find the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster more interesting. It came to our knowledge through an open letter to the Kansas school board. The letter expressed concerns regarding the teaching of Intelligent Design as an alternative to Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

You can read the letter here

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was concerned that Kansas would only teach one version of Intelligent Design, and wanted their version to be taught too. To me all of these Intelligent Design theories are equally good >:)

A-Z Challenge 10: John 3:16

We learnt it by heart in elementary school. The teacher rehearsed  it over and over to make sure we didn’t forget, and I never did. John 3:16. We called it the “Little Bible”.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Ahead of time, it was the Bible made for Twitter, just 130 characters, including punctuation and spaces.

We were even supposed to believe in it because John 3:16 said so. The teacher didn't accept any doubt.  Amen. 

A-Z Challenge 09: Idols

Idols; that’s Elvis, Justin Bieber, Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, Christiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

But idol also means a false God.

Etymology tells us that the first use of the word is related to the second. Admiring the idols of music and sports, we violate the first commandment, strictly speaking, if you care about such things.

False gods are all the gods that compete with the true God. The false gods are the alternative gods. They threaten the authority of the true God, and his scholars, not the least.

The Atheist believes in only one god less than the Muslim, the Christian and the Jew. And Messi is only two letters from being Messiah.

A-Z Challenge 08: Hell

Many religions have some kind of Hell-like concept.  Hell is probably at least as important as Heaven and Paradise. Religious leaders need this scary place full of suffering in the mist by the hills to make people stay loyal with their Gods and with their religious authorities. The latter is probably the most important.

Different people have different perceptions of Hell, and I have mine. Hell is a place with geology field trips at day time, black metal concerts in the evening, and … yes, you know what I think of … at night.

Hell is probably a place where it’s easy to sell ice cream.

Hijab is

Haram in

Hell >:D

A-Z Challenge 07: God

When man made God, he mad Him with different faces in different parts of the world. Some believe in many gods (Hindu), some believe in the one and only God (Abrahamic religions), and some believe in none. The ancient Roman, Greek and Norse religions had a myriad of Gods. The Norse religion even had a God for skiing.

I’m fine with any. Some believe and some don’t.

What I find harder to understand is the belief in the one and only true God. If God is almighty (some claim He is), He could easily show up in different disguise in different parts of the world.

Also, if God is almighty, He’s probably the best of all teachers and pedagogists. He probably understood that talking to Abraham about cosmology, quantum mechanics and the theory of evolution would make no sense. Genesis was a convenient and easy-to-understand metaphor.

By the way, is there any reason why God is He? God could equally well be She, or It.

A-Z Challenge 06: Free thinking and free speech

Free thinking and free speech have always challenged religion, and continue to do so. I bet God don’t mind, but men with big beards do.

How do you dare to challenge the scriptures, and the scholars who know the correct interpretation?  It’s blasphemy, a crime that qualifies to jail, whipping, and maybe death sentence in parts of the world.

You can control and rule over people with physical power and arms. But it’s much more effective if you can make the control to settle in people’s minds; get it internalized. Then people will control themselves, and each other.

That’s were religion is so brilliant, and free thinking and free speech is equally threatening.

A-Z Challenge 05: Easter

Yesterday was Easter Sunday. Easter time means a lot to many people. It means different things to different people.

The Jews have their Passover, celebrating Exodus, the escape from the slavery in Egypt.

The Christians celebrate the resurrection of the man who climbed out of the grave.

In Winterland, Easter is about skiing in the white snow - covered mountains.

We all have our temples >:)

A-Z Challenge 04: David

David is all over the place. Messenger of God.  King of Israel.  Prophet of Islam. As far as I know, we can even draw David without getting a fatwa thrown at us. Well, I’m not quite sure. To be on the safe side, we should only draw Santa Claus.

In his early years, David had an androgynous look, and wrote songs about spiders from Mars … sorry, that was David Bowie.

Back to our David.

When the men of Israel faced the mighty giant Goliath, David said he wanted to fight him alone. David picked up some stones from the ground and threw them in Goliaths face with a sling (1. Samuel 17).

In the 1990s, he was king of the midfield, master of curved free kicks, and star of hair styling commercials … sorry, that was David Beckham.

Back to our David.

David was successful in many battles and became commander of the army. After circumcising 200 enemies, and bringing the cut-off foreskins back as a trophy, Saul offered David his daughter for marriage (1. Samuel 18; if this makes my blog AC, so is the Bible).

For many years, he worked for BBC, making programs about natural history … sorry, that was David Attenborough.

Think I need to stop this mess, before I get to David Hasselhoff  >: D

A-Z Challenge 03: Communion

When I was a kid, I was amazed by the communion. My parents were hardly Christian, and never took part in it. But I saw it a couple of times when we happened to go to church, for a baptism, or on Christmas Day.

When I was in elementary school, and learnt what the communion means, I thought it was pretty bizarre.  Eating the flesh of Jesus.  Drinking his blood.  What the Hell are you guys doing there by the altar?

When I was a teen, my friends and I once sneaked into the priest’s dressing room behind the pulpit. The huge coat hangers for his robes were quite impressive, flesh and blood of Jesus were disappointing.  The wine and the biscuits which were stored in a cupboard in the corner, tasted like sour juice and pieces of paper (respectively).  It was my first and last communion, kind of.

There’s such a long list of funny stuff on the letter C. Too much for one blogpost. So I rather summarize it in this childish C-poem:

Crying
Catholics
Craved for
Crusade when they were
Circumcized during the
Communion. But the
Cardinal
Cured them with
Celibacy >:)

A-Z Challenge 02: Baal

When I was a kid, my father taught me how to carve wooden men out of birch branches. They were  easy to carve, these small men with a rounded head and a long robe.  My father called them priests of Baal.

According to the Old Testament, Baal was a false God, an idol.

As far as I can remember, I learnt three things from my father: skiing, fishing trout, and worshipping a false God. Now, he’s teaching the same things to his grandchildren.

That’s life, for kids in Winterland >:)

A-Z Challenge 01: Abraham

Abraham is the father of three major religions, no less. The so-called Abrahamic religions are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. There are some more, but the big three are the major ones.

Since Abraham’s death, there has been some disagreement in the family. It’s not your fault, Abraham.  It happens every family, after a few generations, when there’s a significant heritage to take care of.

Abraham was a good man, faithful to his God. Abraham’s youngest son Isaac was born when he (Abraham) was 100 years old. Not bad;  this was long before Viagra. God required Abraham to sacrifice his son on the top of a mountain (Genesis 22:2-8). In the last minute, when Abraham had bound Isaac to the altar, God stepped out and said: “Sorry, Abe. I was just kidding”.

That’s a Hell of a God. Not the kind of God I would recommend.

By the way, the Russian Tsar played a similar joke on Dostoyevsky in 1849, when he was arrested and sentenced to death for political radicalism

Writing a blog post with cold fingers

I'm sitting on a rock in the mountains, writing my first blog post outdoor and above timberline. I had to search a little bit to find a spot with cellphone signal.

It's such a nice day, in this bowl where you can just ski everywhere. Mountain men (like me) know of course that this beautiful landscape can turn into an inferno when fog and blizzards come in. But today it's just paradise, with blue sky and white snow. 

Its the white gold.

My hands are getting a little bit cold while typing, cold as heaven. Time to get my gloves and my skis on and get back to the offpiste slopes >:)

(Picture taken 10 minutes ago with my cellphone camera. The pictures get a little bit random because it's hard to see the display in the strong sun. But if I take a  lot of pictures, I always get some good ones.)

Summertime in Winterland

There's something about staying up late. I like that, but it sometimes makes me tired the next day.

Yesterday, I had a great day of skiing. It was nice and sunny. It was the kind of spring-winter when you can feel the sun is warming, even above timber  line in the mountains.

I spent last night reading and writing in the cabin, and then chatting with a good friend on Internet, while enjoying a cold beer.

I didn't stay up very late, just about an hour past midnight.  But this was the night we changed the clocks to summer time, and lost one hour. So today I'm a little bit tired.

Time to finish my coffee and get out on the slopes again. Then I will wake up, for sure.

(Picture taken yesterday. Little boy was skiing with a buddy in the snow park, and I was enjoying the company of my shadow while skiing in the high zone )

A-Z Challenge: Theme reveal

 

It’s time to reveal the theme for the AZ-Challenge. I have picked a theme which is interesting, fascinating, fun, crazy, entertaining, and maybe even provocative.

My theme this year is religion.

I promise to treat all religions equally and fair. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Satanists;  I have no personal preferences.

But I will not draw Mohammad. It’s too dangerous. I don’t want a bunch of angry men with big black beards running after me for the rest of my life. Nobody knows what Mohammad really looked like (obviously, since it’s strictly forbidden to draw or picture him).  Therefore, just drawing a man with a beard can be risky, unless it’s totally clear and beyond doubt that it’s Santa Claus.

So, I will write about religion, but I will only draw Santa Claus >:)

(That’s my drawing of Santa Claus. I'm very bad at drawing hands, so I always draw people with the hands in the pocket. Sorry about that.)

Money

Today I tried to go shopping without money. It didn't work very well.

I tried prayer.  It failed, as usual.

Then I went home to get my wallet. It solved the problem.

Money rules >:)

Gold rush

Yesterday we had a crazy storm coming in from the west, with strong winds and lots of snow. Today the wind had calmed down. It was time for the gold rush.

The white gold; tons of it. Awesome!

Little boy and I took our skis and went out in the mountains. We had a full day of off-piste skiing in the powder. It continued to snow all day. Great. Best day of skiing so far this season.

(Picture taken today. The skier is little boy, and the photographer is me.)

Signed up for the A-Z Challenge

I signed up for the A-Z Challenge again this year. It's gonna be fun. This year I will go for a theme, but not sure which.

Today, I took a day off from work, and went up to the mountains with little boy and a couple of his buddies. The boys are already out skiing in the snow park, jumping on the big jumps.

I'm sitting in the cafe drinking a cup of fairly good coffee (not the best), and reading some work mail. We have another two days of skiing ahead of us, so I think I will skip the skiing today. I will try to get some work done, and think about a theme for the A-Z Challenge.

I should find a theme which is interesting, and doesn't provoke or offend anyone. No, I think I will reduce my ambition. I'll find a theme which is just interesting. There are som nice options in the sub-heading of my blog:

"about science, mathematics, skiing, drumming, black metal, opera, sex, summer, winter, Heaven and Hell"

Science would be a cool theme, with plenty of topics to write about: astronomy, biology, chemistry, dinosaurs, evolution, Feynman, gravity, Hubble ...

Maybe I should go for mathematics, which also has lots of topics: asymptotic analysis, Banach space, complex numbers, divergence theorem, error function, functions, Gauss distribution, Hilbert space ... Might be fun to write about, but maybe interesting to only a few readers.

Opera could be a cool topic, with posts about Aida, Bizet, Carmen, Donizetti, ...

No, I think I go for the last two options: Heaven and Hell, or some variety of it. Just wait and see till April >:)

(Picture taken today, when I sent little boy and his buddies off in the chair lift)

In the time of sanctions

The morning in Moscow was nice and clear, but cold, as cold as the relations between Russia and the West right now, a new Cold War emerging. In Moscow things appear to be normal, business as usual. In the streets, people commute to and from work in their fur-collared winter jackets and fur hats. My commute from the hotel to the office is quite short, just a 10 minute walk.

The conflict in east Ukraine is not resolved, and probably won’t be for a long time. Russia is under sanctions, from USA and its allied. The goal of the sanctions is to hit the Russian government and the rich oligarchs who support it. The exchange rate of the Ruble is down 50% compared to US dollars. Consequently, the cost of imported goods has increased a lot.  The sanctions hit ordinary people too. That’s what my Russian friends and colleagues tell me.

I doubt the sanctions will work. Russia can’t be forced in any way. The Russians don’t give in to external pressure, and never did.  They didn’t give in to Napoleon. They didn’t give in to Hitler. They certainly don’t give in to Obama. They will rather perish.

The Russians like to criticize their government, the bureaucracy, the misuse of power and corruption in their country. However, they don’t want to be criticized by foreigners. What happens when sanctions are imposed is that Putin becomes more popular than ever. He is gathering the Russian people against a common external enemy; USA, EU and NATO.

From the western point of view, the Russian annexation of Crimea is unacceptable. It violates international rules and laws. The Russians see it differently. They have bad experience with laws in general, from past and present corrupt regimes. The laws are obscure and ambiguous, and can always be twisted and interpreted in favor of the mighty and powerful. Law doesn't imply justice. For the Russian government, the same logic applies on the global scale; USA is an aggressor, supported by international regulations, which threatens Russian rights and interests.

The Russians have a good, but quite subjective, sense of justice. And justice says that Crimea belongs to Russia. When Leo Tolstoy was a young man, he served in the Tsar’s army during the Crimean war. He wrote about it in the Sevastopol Stories (a good book). Crimea was given to Ukraine by Khrushchev in the 1954. At that time it was only an administrative formality within the Soviet Union. Then Crimea drifted away when the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine became independent. However, many Russians still see it as a part of Russia.

That’s what they say. I just say that different people see things in different ways. The politicians in America and Western Europe don’t understand the Russian mentality. That’s for sure.

(Picture taken in Moscow this morning, when I was walking from the hotel to our office, and crossing the bridge over the frozen Moscow River to Krasnye Holmy.)

Charlie is back

Last week, we were shocked by the acts of terror in Paris. This week, Charlie Hebdo is back with a new issue. That’s great.  The artists and cartoonists are brave.  

I think duck liver is a hype, but I always liked the French cheese, and the French attitude to freedom of speech. Charlie Hebdo’s satire offends the Muslims. That’s fine. They just have to learn to live with it, like the Christians, Jews and Satanists have learnt.

What’s holy for you is not holy for me.  Mocking the gods and prophets can be fun, for sure. But blasphemy is more than entertainment. Blasphemy is an important part of the freedom of speech. Religion mixed with a political agenda is a bad combo, because it makes the agenda indisputable. Who are you to challenge God?

• Imagine Obama coming to The House proposing a new law received from God, and the Republicans could do nothing to stop it. 
• Imagine the Labor party coming to the Parliament with a political program given by God, and Cameron had to approve it right away. 

The French and the Americans (I think) were the first to develop a secular constitution. This is very important, splitting governing, legislative and religious power. Turkey is Muslim-secular, but develops in the wrong direction. Many Muslim countries are stuck in their political-religious swamp. The list of ridiculous laws and rules coming out of religion is endless:

• Women are not allowed to watch football games (Iran)
• Women are not allowed to drive cars (Saudi)
• Death penalty for blasphemy (Pakistan)
• Separate ski lifts for men and women (Iran)
• One-hour marriage with prostitutes (which makes prostitution compliant with the Quran; Bahrain).
• Men can’t sit next to women on airplanes (orthodox Jews)
• Women can’t become priests (Catholics)
• Priests must live in celibate (Catholics)
• Ban on condoms (Catholics)

None of these rules come from God. They were invented by powerful people as tools to control people. When rules can't be justified by rational arguments, the easiest solution is God. No wonder religious authorities  who make up such laws and rules (and their Prophets and Gods) become subject to satire and blasphemy.

The French author Michel Houellebecq once said that “among all ridiculous religions, Islam is the most stupid”. He was taken to court in Paris for this statement, but was acquitted based on freedom of speech. They are all about equally bad; I dislike religion in general. 

I have plenty of religous books in my shelf; the Bible, the Quran and the Book of Mormon, and I have read a fair part of them (but far from everything). Sharia is mostly useless as legislation for the modern world. But taking the worst of the Bible, it would make a pretty bizarre law too.

Some of the religious texts can be quite entertaining. Once we had fun drinking beer and reading load from the Quran in a pub up north. I think the pub was a safe place for our blasphemy. It's an unlikely place to meet jihadists and inquisition.

In Satan we trust >:)

(Cover page of this week's issue of Charlie Hebdo; link to WIkipedia. The text above Muhammsd's head says "Everything is forgiven".)