A letter to Richard Dawkins regarding the existence of God.

20:08 6th July 2008 (Whilst on a flight from PVG to HKG)

Dear Richard,

I am currently reading your delightfully atheist book The God Delusion, (to be honest I am only up to page 177) and I feel compelled to write you a letter. As this plane that I am sitting on shakes with turbulence as I begin, I can't help but think that it is being caused by his letter.

As I read your book, I can see that you are putting forward an extremely strong argument against the existence of God however, in considering you evidence (and the lack of evidence for the existence of God) I am coming to a conclusion that is slightly different to yours.

In your book you extol Darwin to a level that sounds similar to the way those who are passionately religious extol figures such a Mohammad or Jesus. As the prophet of Science, Darwin's theory of Natural Selection seems to provide an answer for all the existence of life on Earth far better than the theory of an omnipotent creator who created life by design.

I am not a scientist. I am merely a speculator (and a frequently misinformed one at that) but my understanding of natural selection is that throughout the history of life on Earth living creatures have adapted to the environment around them to survive. Those who did not adapt simply did not survive. The human species however has reached a level of adaptation where we are no longer adapting to the environment around us but changing the environment to adapt to us. As a result, the evolution of the human brain has evolved in such a way that theoretically, no further evolution is required. It is true that chimps use tools, and there is some evidence of herding in nature but nowhere to the levels that the human species have evolved from being hunters and gatherers to being farmers. We have reached a stage of evolution where we manipulate animals in such a way that we have bred animals and plants that make for better consumption and harvesting.

There are much more unsupported claims that I can make to say that as a species we are no longer evolving but the one thing that makes me think upon reading your book is that we as a race are looking at God all wrong.

God is not something that was always there. God is something that we evolved. As our brains evolved so that we could split an atom, or work out the best way to cook an egg so that the egg white is cooked but the egg yoke is still runny, our evolving minds also developed the God concept. This evolution is something that came about, not because we could not explain how nature was too marvelous not to have a creator but because we have simply evolved too much so that Natural Selection is not working. We can see that it is so by the abundance of happy stupid people in the world. (I make this assumption because your book pretty much attacks those who are irrationally religious so I am assuming that you also hold this to be true.)

According to natural selection as I understand it, those who are least fit to survive really should not survive. Be that people of low IQ, or people with disabilities or people who are just too fat to leave their couch. The fact is though, these people are surviving and thriving. The existence of religious zealots, by their definition of people acting on the irrational belief of a personal God is actually proof that natural selection does not explain everything.

Given this I postulate that both Darwin and Theists are right. God does exist. God exists to enable the Darwin's theory of Natural Selection to be right. The concept of God is a mechanism in which our evolved brains have developed to choose what segment of our species to exterminate. Because we control our environment, adaptation for survival is no longer relevant and so the extermination of sections of our species can be achieved through an arbitrary method. That method is the manner in which we believe God. Be it Islam, Christianity, Judaism or the followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, through this debate of what happens after you die, provides reason enough for our species to kill or be martyred.

This simply means that the only thing wrong about the God Delusion is that most believers believe that God came first. In reality, Natural Selection was there first and as a result of the human species developing into a dominant organism, God evolved in our collective consciousness as a means for us to be culled and hence keep a balance in nature. Without God, there would not be enough food in the world, pollution would be far worse than it is already is and there would be no ozone layer to speak of. If we all thought like you you, Richard, there would be no human species to speak of because we would be like mold growing on a piece of stale bread until there was no bread left to grow on.

I hope that this clears a couple of things up for you, because I know you put a lot of work into your book. Perhaps next time you will think things through more thoroughly before publishing a worldwide best seller. Feel free to call me if there is anything else you'd like to clarify with regard to the origins of life on earth. I must sign off now because my plane is either about to land in Hong Kong of crash into the side of a mountain.

Religious Olympics

I guess Hollywood got it wrong. Monk's are not bulletproof. (I know, I know, it's in bad taste to write about something like this when people are being oppressed. It would be like writing "if you don't want to be run over by a tank...don't stand in front of them". Doctor, Doctor my arm hurts when I raise it. What can I do? Don't raise it!)

So first Myanmar, now Tibet. It seems that Buddhists have caught the "putting themselves in harms way" bug. Honestly though I can't blame them. Buddhists for centuries have been the Steve Wozniak of religions. The Hindu culture was thought to be linked to Buddhist origins, There is speculation that Jesus even spent time with Buddhists during his biblically absent years. (Turning water to wine -----Absent----- trashing the synagogue). But where is Buddhism today?

Gold - Christianity
Silver - Islam
Bronze - Hindu

And the wooden spoon goes to....

The pope has his own piece of land in Rome. Gets to go through the diplomatic lane at the airport, and he's a religious leader. Why can't the Dalai Llama get a passport with his own logo on it?

The fact of the matter is, in this day and age, there is no separation of powers. This seems to be the trend. Gone are the days when God, Queen & State were separate. Henry the VIII would be rolling in his grave now. You can't teach religion in US schools but the US banknote has "In God We Trust" written on it. (Really it should be "In <<insert your deity here>> We Trust"). Anglican is just another way of saying "Church of England". Islamic moral ethics are law on Islamic states in Saudi, Iran, Afghanistan and even Malaysia. So why not a Buddhist Independent State. Why should Buddhism be the only non-hypocritical religion?

I am sure that if this violence keeps up, the number of Buddhists around the world will increase to the point where Hindu's will be knocked out of third place in the Religious triathlon. (Individual events being self mutilation, waging war and oppressing sexuality.) Because we all know what all religion is about. REAL ESTATE.

And let me say to all the Hindu's out there today... You only have Gandhi to blame. (Yah yah, I know Gandhi is not strictly Hindu but I am writing to the ignorant. Gimme some poetic license here.)

P.S. Whoops forgot the Jews. But that's an article for another day. "God and Network-centric warfare"