How life emerged from non-life has been a central question, puzzling scientists and theologists. A new theory could answer the question – and throw out the need for God.

A writer on the website of Richard Dawkins’ foundation says that the theory has put God “on the ropes” and has “terrified” Christians.

It proposes that life did not emerge by accident or luck from a primordial soup and a bolt of lightning. Instead, life itself came about by necessity – it follows from the laws of nature and is as inevitable as rocks rolling downhill.

The problem for scientists attempting to understand how life began is understanding how living beings – which tend to be far better at taking energy from the environment and dissipating it as heat – could come about from non-living ones.

But a new theory, proposed by a researcher at MIT and first reported in Quanta Magazine, proposes that when a group of atoms is exposed for a long time to a source of energy, it will restructure itself to dissipate more energy. The emergence of life might not be the luck of atoms arranging themselves in the right way, it says, but an inevitable event if the conditions are correct.

“You start with a random clump of atoms, and if you shine light on it for long enough, it should not be so surprising that you get a plant,” England said.

Paul Rosenberg, writing this week on Richard Dawkins’ site, said that the theory could make things “a whole lot worse for creationists”.

As Rosenberg notes, the idea that life could have evolved from non-living things is one that has been held for some time, and was described by the pre-Socratic philosophers. But England’s theory marks the first time that has been convincingly proposed since Darwin, and is backed by mathematical research and a proposal that can be put to the test.

Andrew Griffin
The Independent

« Christianity was invented by a little known family of Roman Caesars, the Flavians; and they left us documents to prove it. »

Caesars Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to invent Jesus
Fritz Heede, Nijole Sparkis, USA, UK, Australia, Italy, 2012, 84 min

Synopsis via covertmessiah.com:

The origin of the Christian religion has been a subject steeped in mystery for nearly 2000 years. Who was Jesus? Is he an historical character? Who wrote the Gospels? Why are they written in Greek? Why did they have a pro-Roman and anti-semitic perspective? Why was the religion headquartered in Rome? Caesar’s Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus is a documentary based on the best‐selling religious studies book by JOSEPH ATWILL. ATWILL is one of a number of scholars today from all around the world, who are questioning the historic facts behind these mysterious origins of Christianity. When examining the actual history of this era, many of the answers provided by the Church do not hold up to rigorous scrutiny. No doubt, Christianity has done a lot of good for the world, but a lot of bad has come from its most dogmatic believers, who create wars, hatred, and other harm under the disguise of religion. In studying how Christianity emerged, the seven controversial Bible scholars featured in this film agree that it was used as a political tool to control the masses of the day, and is still being used this way today. For example, support for the wars in the Middle East is preached to Evangelical Christians as a way to speed up the coming of the End of Days. Maybe we need to expand the possible answers about how Christianity originated, and deeper questions need to be asked. Maybe we need to examine what political motives were behind the formation of the Christian religion?

The documentary begins with a brief history of the political and religious climate of Judea in the first century CE – the era during which Christianity emerged. Judea was occupied by the Roman Empire, which required them to worship Caesar as a god. The Jews found this blasphemous, and they waged constant rebellions against the Empire. Their religious scriptures prophesied that a militaristic warrior Messiah would defeat the Romans and lead the Jews to liberation. A string of numerous Messiahs presented themselves to lead the people in war against Rome, only to be defeated and crucified – a customary Roman punishment for insurgents of the day. However, the Roman government was growing weaker from over a century of increasingly corrupt rule by the Julio‐Claudian dynasty — the last emperor of this lineage being Nero, who was bankrupting the Empire with his self‐indulgence. In their greatest victory, the messianic Jews finally succeeded in burning Rome and driving the Romans out of Judea. This caused Nero to call upon his best military men, the Flavians – Vespasian and his son Titus — to crush the rebellion for good. The Flavians succeeded not only in destroying the Jewish towns of Galilee and their temple in Jerusalem, but after Nero was deposed and committed suicide, they seized the throne through a military coup and took over reign of the Roman Empire itself. Under the Flavians, the Empire flourished, and many great monuments were built including the famous Coliseum. In order to pacify the Jewish rebellion, they captured and burned all the Jews’ scriptures. It is around this time that a new literature emerged with the story of a very different Jewish Messiah – one who preached “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”, “turn the other cheek”, and “love your enemy”.

The Triumph of Titus (1885) by SIR LAWRENCE ALMA-TADEMA

The second half of the documentary focuses on the documents the Flavians left behind which prove their authorship of the Gospels. The Bible scholars deconstruct the Gospels and the character Jesus, showing that they are based on archetypes found in the ancient pagan mystery schools and in earlier Jewish literature. Much of the teachings of Christianity are traced back to the writings of Philo of Alexandria — who was combining Jewish scripture with Greek pagan beliefs — and Stoicism, a philosophy promoted by the Flavians. When the Flavians seized control of the Roman Empire, they needed to legitimize their rule, so they had their Jewish court historian Josephus (originally Yosef ben Matityahu who adopted the name Titus Flavius Josephus) create a large body of work which became the only official history we have of the Jewish-Roman War.

Bible scholar JOSEPH ATWILL noticed many parallels between this historic account of the war and the events in the life of Jesus in the Gospels. Through his study of the ancient Greek texts and his discovery of an antiquated Hebrew literary genre, he found dozens of parallels between the Jesus story and the war history that occurred in the exact same sequence. This shows that the events of Jesus’ life which supposedly took place forty years earlier, were actually all dependent on the events in the military campaign of the Roman Caesar Titus Flavius. Ancient texts were much more allegorical, multi-layered and complex than today’s writing, and when you read the Gospels and the histories of Josephus side by side, a new meaning arises which reveals the authors of the Gospels to be the Roman Flavian Caesars, their co-conspirators, and their literary team.

Along the way, the Bible scholars show how the Roman Imperial Cult — set up to worship Caesar as a god — formed the basis for the Roman Catholic Church, and that some of the Church’s first saints were members of the Flavian court. ATWILL also shows how the “second coming of the Christ” referred to a historical event that already occurred.

Featuring scholars JOSEPH ATWILL, ROBERT EISENMAN, JOHN HUDSON, KEN HUMPHREYS, ROB BLACKHIRST, ACHARY S / D.M. MURDOCK, and TIMOTHY FREKE, this ground-breaking documentary not only gives us a revolutionary new understanding of the origins of Christianity, but shows how the political use of religion is still affecting our personal lives today. We currently live on the brink of an immense paradigm shift, and this modern time is very parallel to the era in which Christianity emerged. Studying this ancient era can give us the much-needed perspective for coming up with solutions to today’s problems, so we can create the better world that we envision.

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5 reasons to suspect that Jesus never existed (September 1, 2014)
Ancient Confession Found: ‘We Invented Jesus Christ’ (October 9, 2013)
The Holy Bible Contradictions (August 21, 2013)
Religious people are less intelligent than atheists, according to analysis of scores of scientific studies stretching back over decades (August 13, 2013)
(The) Untold History of the Bible (2009) by CHRISTIAN J. PINTO (February 23, 2013)
La névrose chrétienne (1976) par le Docteur PIERRE SOLIGNAC (May 25, 2012)
Religulous (2008) by LARRY CHARLES (September 24, 2010)
Le cerveau mystique (2006) de ISABELLE RAYNAULD (January 4, 2010)

Francis goes against Benedict XVI’s apparent support for ‘intelligent design’ – but does hail his predecessor’s ‘great contribution to theology’

The theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real and God is not “a magician with a magic wand”, Pope Francis has declared.

Speaking at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Pope made comments which experts said put an end to the “pseudo theories” of creationism and intelligent design that some argue were encouraged by his predecessor, Benedict XVI.

Francis explained that both scientific theories were not incompatible with the existence of a creator – arguing instead that they “require it”.

“When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so,” Francis said. He added: “He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfilment.

“The Big Bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the divine creator but, rather, requires it.

“Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.”

The Catholic Church has long had a reputation for being anti-science – most famously when Galileo faced the inquisition and was forced to retract his “heretic” theory that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

But Pope Francis’s comments were more in keeping with the progressive work of Pope Pius XII, who opened the door to the idea of evolution and actively welcomed the Big Bang theory. In 1996, John Paul II went further and suggested evolution was “more than a hypothesis” and “effectively proven fact”.

Yet more recently, Benedict XVI and his close advisors have apparently endorsed the idea that intelligent design underpins evolution – the idea that natural selection on its own is insufficient to explain the complexity of the world. In 2005, his close associate Cardinal Schoenborn wrote an article saying “evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense – an unguided, unplanned process – is not”.

Giovanni Bignami, a professor and president of Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics, told the Italian news agency Adnkronos: “The pope’s statement is significant. We are the direct descendents from the Big Bang that created the universe. Evolution came from creation.”

Giulio Giorello, professor of the philosophy of science at Milan’s University degli Studi, told reporters that he believed Francis was “trying to reduce the emotion of dispute or presumed disputes” with science.

Despite the huge gulf in theological stance between his tenure and that of his predecessor, Francis praised Benedict XVI as he unveiled a bronze bust of him at the academy’s headquarters in the Vatican Gardens.

“No one could ever say of him that study and science made him and his love for God and his neighbour wither,” Francis said, according to a translation by the Catholic News Service.

“On the contrary, knowledge, wisdom and prayer enlarged his heart and his spirit. Let us thank God for the gift that he gave the church and the world with the existence and the pontificate of Pope Benedict.”

Adam Withnall
The Independent

The second blood moon of 2014 is approaching. The first appeared April 14-15, and this week’s is the second in a ‘tetrad,’ or series of four.

Skywatchers across much of the world will have the chance to see the moon glowing with an eerie red pallor during a pre-Halloween total lunar eclipse (tomorrow).

The « blood moon » total lunar eclipse will rise during the full moon of Oct. 8 just before sunrise in North America, but red might not be the only color people see during the total eclipse. Weather permitting, it’s possible that some sharp-eyed observers might be able to see some blue in the moon’s glow. The event will be the second of four consecutive total lunar eclipses in 2014 and 2015, according to NASA officials.

On the East Coast of the United States, totality starts at 6:25 a.m. EDT, but stargazers on the West Coast of the United States will have an even better chance of seeing the rusty glow of the moon during totality. The eclipse will occur between 3:25 a.m. PDT and 4:24 a.m. PDT Wednesday. Observers in Australia and countries along the Pacific Ocean will also have the chance to see the eclipse.

« It promises to be a stunning sight, even from the most light-polluted cities, » NASA eclipse expert Fred Espenak said in a statement. « I encourage everyone, especially families with curious children, to go out and enjoy the event. »

A total lunar eclipse tetrad

(Tomorrow)’s eclipse is the second in a so-called total lunar eclipse tetrad, a series of four consecutive eclipses that began earlier this year. The first total eclipse tetrad occurred in April. The next total eclipse in the series will occur on April 4, 2015, and the fourth eclipse will rise on Sept. 28, 2015.

During total lunar eclipses, the moon passes into Earth’s shadow, causing the planet to darken the face of the moon, according to NASA. Instead of making the moon go completely dark, the moon shines with a rosy hue during a total eclipse because it reflects light from the sun coming through Earth’s atmosphere.

The color of the moon during a lunar eclipse actually depends on Earth’s atmosphere. For example, a lot of volcanic activity on the planet can pollute the atmosphere and make the moon seem very dark in color during an eclipse, according to NASA.

« Despite some recent eruptions that look spectacular from the ground, there have been no large injections of volcanic gases into the stratosphere, » atmospheric scientist Richard Keen of the University of Colorado said in the same statement. « In the absence of volcanic effects, I expect a rather normal reddish-orange lunar eclipse similar in appearance to last April’s eclipse ». READ.

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Welcome back Jesus? Christians say ‘Blood Moon’ signals End Times (April 15, 2014)

A growing number of scholars are openly questioning or actively arguing against Jesus’ historicity.

Most antiquities scholars think that the New Testament gospels are “mythologized history.” In other words, they think that around the start of the first century a controversial Jewish rabbi named Yeshua ben Yosef gathered a following and his life and teachings provided the seed that grew into Christianity.

At the same time, these scholars acknowledge that many Bible stories like the virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, and women at the tomb borrow and rework mythic themes that were common in the Ancient Near East, much the way that screenwriters base new movies on old familiar tropes or plot elements. In this view, a “historical Jesus” became mythologized.

For over 200 years, a wide ranging array of theologians and historians—most of them Christian—analyzed ancient texts, both those that made it into the Bible and those that didn’t, in attempts to excavate the man behind the myth. Several current or recent bestsellers take this approach, distilling the scholarship for a popular audience. Familiar titles include Zealot by Reza Aslan and How Jesus Became God by Bart Ehrman.

But other scholars believe that the gospel stories are actually “historicized mythology.” In this view, those ancient mythic templates are themselves the kernel. They got filled in with names, places and other real world details as early sects of Jesus worship attempted to understand and defend the devotional traditions they had received.

The notion that Jesus never existed is a minority position. Of course it is! says David Fitzgerald, author of Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All. For centuries all serious scholars of Christianity were Christians themselves, and modern secular scholars lean heavily on the groundwork that they laid in collecting, preserving, and analyzing ancient texts. Even today most secular scholars come out of a religious background, and many operate by default under historical presumptions of their former faith. READ.

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Ancient Confession Found: ‘We Invented Jesus Christ’ (October 9, 2013)
The Holy Bible Contradictions (August 21, 2013)
Religious people are less intelligent than atheists, according to analysis of scores of scientific studies stretching back over decades (August 13, 2013)
A Lamp in the Dark: Untold History of the Bible (2009) by CHRISTIAN J. PINTO (February 23, 2013)