God, Hitchens, and the Harry Potter stories

Reality is Never an Illusion

A person argued on google said, “One person’s reality is another person’s illusion.”
I said that’s nonsense.

Proof –

You should really have proof for whatever you say, unless of course you’re writing fiction. Even in a fiction story, the reader will only swallow one “unbelievable” or “incredible” idea. (This isn’t my idea, but I had read it somewhere, and the credit is due to whoever said it or teaches it. Probably it is something taught in writing school, too.)

In Harry Potter stories it is that magic is real. If you added other incredible things the viewer or reader must also believe, the story’s plot and twists becomes burdensome or disappointing. The setting and characters, though not real, are part of the story, and prove the main idea, so are not a problem; we know such things don’t exist, but in the story they do, so they enhance the idea about magic being real (in the stories at least).

Superman’s only weakness is “kryptonite” (okay, and maybe Lois Lane, but that’s not an incredible leap of the imagination, or something which takes away from the storyline)

Can you think of other examples?

People can fly, with pixie dust, in Peter Pan. Or, a man shrinks his kids with an invention, in “Honey I shrunk the kids”.

You get the idea.

Even in real life, how many lies can someone swallow, before they have to admit that something is not right? For example, couples fight all the time, especially if one of them is being unfaithful. Exposing infidelity is likely the “straw that [breaks] the camel’s back”, in many relationships.

Defrauding the company, or insider trading, will get one fired, at work, or arrested in the real world; also in movies.

I was really happy when the guy (The Informant) played by one of those famous actors (think he was one of the earlier “brat pack” of the 80s) who was insider trading and claimed to have bi-polar syndrome was imprisoned. The judge didn’t believe that having bi-polar syndrome would cause someone to defraud his company, steal and cheat, or work as an informant for the FBI, lying to them as well as his company (and his wife) also ruining the good reputation of an FBI agent.

Reality is reality, illusion is illusion. There is no in between, either.

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‘The man of her dreams’

A woman might search for the man of her dreams but she doesn’t know if he really exists.

I watched movie, years ago about a man who finds his true love, only to learn that she is a ghost, and in another one, a woman finds her true love, only to learn that she is dead, or something like that.

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In the novel by Frederick Forsythe, “The Day Of The Jackal”, he wrote on pp. 25-26, “It occurred to [Rodin] as he trudged back to the humble rooming house that some might think he too was chickening out, disappearing from the threat of kidnap or assassination by the Action Service. He shrugged to himself. Let them think what they wished, the time for lengthy explanations was over.

He lunched off the boarding house Stammkarte, the meal of the day…By mid-afternoon he was gone, bags packed, bill paid, departed on a lonely mission to find a man, or more precisely a type of man, whom he did not know existed.”

Rodin wants an assassin, but for his plan to work, the man can’t be just anyone. His mission is so important to him he doesn’t include anyone else or even care what others think. But he believes he will be successful. Whether or not he will find a perfect assassin or ‘the perfect man for the job” is not at all certain, except we know that man is already boarding a plane, on p. 26, in the following paragraph. In books, if you have patience, everything will be revealed. Sometimes, in life that is also possible. At least, many people believe they know everything, or the most important things.

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When Allah wanted a prophet, He chose from the best type in the era or place He knew that person would be victorious, or who He wanted to single out for this specific favor and honor. Not all the prophets’ missions were highly successful, but they were good men, the right man, and it was only the lack of good people they sought, calling to the true religion, who were hard to find. Some prophets had many followers, Musa, A.S. did, others had few, or even none. Muhammad, pbuh, said he would have the most followers on the Day of Judgment. It appears that prophecy is coming to bear fruit, and God knows best.

I realize it is annoying to many people that religious folks think they know it all. Well, they don’t know everything do they? No. But maybe many of them have a pretty good idea of what reality is? Since this isn’t something any one can prove with an easy litmus test, that’s why belief in God is called “faith”. But it takes real study to be firm in one’s belief or convinced of one religion’s truth over the others.

Many Jehovah’s Witnesses are leaving because they have learned unsettling things about their religions’ teachings or other things. There are channels on YouTube devoted to the Jehovah’s Witnesses or exposing wrongs in the Witnesses’ teachings or community.

Debating God:

In the video debate between Christopher Hitchens, the late, and William Lain Craig, Hitchens doesn’t want to say he’s an atheist, because he knows the burden of proof will be on him, to prove that God doesn’t exist, just as the burden of proof is on William Lain Craig to give “sufficient” evidence that God does exist.

In the subbing for the video I watched, which is on YouTube, and I added to a few of my playlists, like “Debunk This”, Hitchens says that Lain Craig’s proofs must be “magnificent”, but that isn’t true.

By a simple equation we know why, “Atheism = true”, “Theism = false”, and “Theism = true”, “Atheism = false”. Both have to prove their point sufficiently, in order to win.

Hitchens hems and haws, before he finally agrees to the statement “I am an atheist” because if he says he is only an “agnostic” he cannot argue strongly, if at all, for the side “God doesn’t exist”. He must argue against God, so he must say without hesitation (which proves harder for him than one might have thought, considering this is “The Hitch”. Anyway, he can’t do it with any great success and WLC appears to win the debate.

Many atheists thumb down the video, about one third of that thumb up the video, but as one comment points out, “thumbs down don’t prove that God doesn’t exist”, any more than Hitchens did.

Atheists and also agnostics, argue against God with logical fallacies, like “I can’t see or touch God” so He doesn’t exist, or “since cultures all over the world believe in God and their stories don’t make sense, or their beliefs don’t make sense, so God isn’t real”.

If I die tomorrow, and in one hundred years there is no record of my having been born or died, and no one remembers me or even heard of me, and no internet search even will show that I was ever here, does that mean I never existed? No.

The video gives a much better explanation of what happens in the debate, and I highly recommend others to watch it who are interested in “the God debate”.

Peace



How Christopher Hitchens Inspired Me

One Truth – many ‘realities’

How he would flap on and on; sometimes going off into small roads of intellectual monologue, which we should inevitably try to understand, if it were really relevant to the whole discussion; did everything he ever said in a debate, have importance to the wider discussion? He was well read, and also intelligent, but he was not right.

Seeing him in a debate in which he still had hair, and then what he says about Australian writer, and the film On the Beach, served to highlight for me what the writer of On the Beach and perhaps director of the movie showed quite well with the sign that reads, “There’s still time to repent, brother” which belongs to the church at the end of the apocalyptic final scene, after the beaches are empty and the sign is left (for no one to read or answer its call) blowing uselessly in the wind, for no one is there - that message is that we are all dying, and our own end is perhaps very near. It doesn’t have to mean how Christopher Hitchens interpreted it, that the sign was completely useless all the time, but that its uselessness came (in the movie) and religion’s usefulness ends when we end. Yes, God gave us religion to serve us in this world as a guide by which to live. But once we are gone, religion is in fact not for this world any longer. That doesn’t negate religion’s importance to us today.

Religion is the most important fact which we cannot just ignore, or carelessly interpret based on the final ending to a movie, which perhaps the writer didn’t even intend to be interpreted so vehemently against religion or faith in God or the Supreme Being. We find that many writers are actually quite religious and have strong belief in an Afterlife, or at least in the sacred and religious for living according to a moral code, which is necessarily based on respect at least for religions. I know Christopher Hitchens says the exact opposite and many atheists of course also have that opinion. But to say that it is the only way to go is complete and utter arrogance.

For example, does the Astronomer Royal, Sumatria, whom Hitchens quotes, who seems to be a staunch “evolutionist” believe that when the Sun dies in 6 billion years, and we are no longer here, that the human species (not race, Christopher, or whoever reads this) will have died long ago or that we might be replaced by other life forms - certainly, this doesn’t prove that God intends for this, our species, or any other species on earth even, to evolve into different forms through evolution? These are too many assumptions or too much speculation. No one, except God knows what He plans for this planet and creatures in the next few “billion years”, if anything besides climate change and eventually the Day of Judgment when we humans will all be raised up to face our Creator and account for our actions in this earthly life. Too many assumptions don’t make a convincing argument, to me.

Just the use of the word “experiment” to describe this life, means that Hitchens in his heart of hearts, even without knowing it, supports the idea that there is an “experimenter”, that someone or something besides us in the Universe, or probably beyond (religious ppl think, beyond or outside of, not in - though they cannot explain the “how”), suggests skepticism in his own position, by the use of this very telling word, without his conscious realization. I know many Hitchens fans would be angry about this analysis on my part. But that’s just too bad I guess. If he had wanted to, or thought of it a little bit, he could have avoided using that word “experiment”. Did he secretly believe in aliens but was too respected to tell anyone? I don’t believe so, but one never knows what happens in another person’s mind, without evidence. His use of the word “experiment” does point to something, even though it was done subconsciously. I don’t believe he was a mere follower, and only said or used diction that others commonly use - or was he trying to talk down to his audience? Was this one of the common characteristics of his in his speeches? I don’t believe that either, but being quite arrogant, one cannot rule out he would perhaps have done such a thing.

Truth cannot come from “desert revelations”, he ‘jokes’ or from “epileptics” or “schizophrenics”. I don’t know which Prophets or Messengers of God he is referring to (except for the obvious “desert” attack) but his humour to me is racist, and totally unfounded - unhealthy, even. Perhaps he was laughing at himself; wishing that if it weren’t for his mere completely fallible and weak human nature (some people are not weak; they have faith which grounds them, they don’t go off on drinking binges, or sexual orgies and then try to repent - to their legitimate wives, not God), he could have been a “superman”. Admittedly, Christopher Hitchens wasn’t a person grounded in religion, only whatever he chose to believe dictated to him what to do or his feelings; if he felt something evil in the pit of his stomach, he wouldn’t do some of the really “bad things” that many of his less than “grounded” human followers or the majority of atheists and agnostics might do. To rely on mere “feelings” or logic, like the fear of eating a poisonous root, such reliance on “whatever happens” or “probabilities” alone, heretics might fear more than anything like a lightning bolt from on high directed at their black souls - to ruin oneself by the wrong choice, or “chance” (another of those words that means something, but isn’t supposed to mean “God” is involved in any way, though it quite does). No wonder that the more atheists alive on the planet today, the more mental illness is ruining peoples’ lives and utterly controlling them. They need pills just to survive; the evolving mind Hitchens speaks of might not advance his theories further, if a majority of the species will be all but addicted to the advanced drugs for depression, bipolar syndrome, psychiatric disorders, mental illnesses, and other. Not to mention the physical ailments and drugs for these, which no doubt will arise sometime in the future. We are possibly making our last stand, within this and the next century, as Homo sapiens. But we will not evolve into other forms.

Belief systems

The banners, the religions are calling as always, it’s not too late, brothers and sisters. What is the real “chance” that God does indeed call you to something better than what atheists are calling you to? As the atheists always like to point out, the numbers of followers doesn’t prove that what they are following is correct. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world today; this shows something about the nature of Islam, as opposed to other religions. For Muslims Islam is the Truth, without a doubt. The great number of atheists today shows something about societies today; the fact that many people believe science can tell them anything if they can just hang on for the answers. This unfortunately is the most dangerous assumption that they stubbornly hang onto. Faith in nothing is the absence of faith. Everyone’s time is coming, but the science which atheists and agnostics rely on changes with time and there are no assurances. Science is a study, it is not anything other than collective wisdom, and many more theories or hypotheses which have yet to be proven by people. People are the recipients as well as the proponents of always new theories in the different scientific studies; therefore they are relying on their own selves to prove the meaning of life; or the absence of any meaning. Life is just to be here, and then we die, they say. If the brain has not yet evolved to a better state, or improved, even maybe leading to perfect brain function, since we now use so little of our brains, according to scientists, then how long before we finally get to know the “final truth” of what we are supposed to know?

The Best Option

What if evolution never gets that far? What if we die before then, as most of us will, who are here on the planet now, according to analysis of changing weather patterns and the fact that society has people, such as atheists, who see the “other” as a grave threat and might not allow Muslims, or others the right to speak their minds for fear of extermination in this century, or half century. They are even sometimes referred to as militant atheists - which is a label not altogether peaceful sounding. Well then, science will have not proven or disproven the existence of God, as it was never equipped for that; most rational people even the atheists realize this; if you just read their comments and the language they use on YouTube, or other places on the net, they admit that the onus is on the believers in God to prove that God does exist. They are admitting that they cannot disprove God, or that there will be an Afterlife - is the next part of that statement. It almost is admitting that they don’t want to think about it, though they are always saying that we must “think” for ourselves. I want them to also think for themselves. An informed choice is better than relying on speakers like Hitchens to mesmerize you into atheistic compliance. A person who doesn’t think for her/himself doesn’t really deserve the brain that s/he has got. Nor does s/he show any sort of thankfulness (there is another word which all people use, it represents the notion that we owe something to “someone” or “something”, or a force, even an event, or an idea.) where do we get thankfulness, and where is it really directed? Or where should we direct it? Even human speech and symbols thus far evolved, still point to the Creator. Our intellects have not evolved past the point of using language which contradicts what we (or atheists) mean to say; one’s own heart or mind sabotage “disbelief”; the part of us which forces the belief in the immensity that there is a reason we are here. The idea that we are here only to evolve, as the atheists promote, is always less than satisfactory to everyone who ponders the cosmos with an open mind to the greatest of possibilities. Theists know this to be true. Atheists feebly deny this by mere contradiction with the theists. Merely contradicting long held and universally known beliefs don’t negate or weaken those beliefs. As I said, in another space, atheism cannot weaken one’s faith, religious people doubt their own faith in their chosen religion, and then sometimes they convert to another religion they believe is better. But theists never jump from “red hot” belief in God to “ice cold” disbelief, or atheism. It is one’s own disbelief in his religious scriptures or explanations of scholars, usually Christianity is the example we use, or the Bible and Biblical exegesis, or religious leaders i.e. the Pope, or church leaders, whether Protestant or Catholic, etc., which causes doubt in that particular scripture, sect, or religion, but not in the greatness of the belief in God Himself; that is almost never the way disbelief in God begins. Then we find many people disbelieve in God because they cannot themselves reconcile their loss of faith in a scripture or church dogmas, etc with the reality that they haven’t yet found God. He has not “shown” Himself to them.

When I have seen conversion stories, some are long tales of woe, wherein the person looking for God, first goes through periods of doubt, even sometimes disbelief in a God, then turns back to God, or sometimes, always searches for God, in different places (often others’ places of worship)until s/he finds a satisfactory answer to her/his questions. Maybe people sometimes also settle for a less than perfect answer, because it is better than being with no answer.

But I believe God would guide people to Him eventually if they remain steadfast and honest in their desire for Him.