Astronomy for the Layman: Reality Before Belief [Paperback] Zimmerling, Carl

Excerpts
Excerpts, Quotes & CHAPTER HEADINGS from "ASTRONOMY FOR THE LAYMAN - AN AGNOSTIC'S VIEW" ...(children) often purposely misinformed...as well as through "inheriting" a religion from their parents and forefathers... All the facts of nature are before us...our present knowledge is a mere drop from the well of total potential scientific wisdom..."what has religion done for mankind, what is scientific knowledge doing for us?"...mankind has seen the consequences of acceptance as "fact" of religious "legends" and "belief"...reports of superior knowledge by ancient civilisations...long before our major religions misinformed humanity about creation and the universe...due to lack of scientific knowledge, humanity had to BELIEVE in...the Bible and the Koran...no opportunity to verify or discredit religious teachings until recently... The same material...within the earth and our sun is also present everywhere else in the universe. The same laws of physics and chemistry apply everywhere... Today, religious believers still spread the misconception that evolution teaches [that] man came from apes...40,000 year old skeletal remains have been found here [America]. Biblical history seems to ignore these facts by concentrating on the Middle East only... ancestors of homo sapiens have been around...at least five million, maybe even fourteen million years... Religion has taught us, that only man can think; this assumption has already been doubted by the inventor of the computer himself [1946], Allen Turing... Our prehistoric ancestors HAD TO USE their hands to make primitive tools and had to use their brains in order to survive,...the more they used their brain, the more their bodies deteriorated... An eagle can spot a mouse from a distance of one and a half miles...many insects can lift 30 - 300 times their own body-weight...elephant seals can dive to over 3,000 ft. depth and stay there for several minutes...a flea can jump 150 times his own body length,...vultures live mostly on decaying flesh...Nature's law of survival of the fittest and the most adaptable has been and still is at work for ALL creatures... (Natives) look upon other animals as their brothers and sisters...until modern men of many major religions forced their belief unto them... 3000 years ago...nobody knew about life 10,000 ft. below sea level...did not know about the existence of polar ice caps...the importance of micro organisms to [human] life... Our sun will continue to shine...for at least another three to four billion years...religious fundamentalists WILL have their long awaited "Armageddon"....no-one knows who the authors of the Bible [really] were...and excellent science fiction book at the time...few of the contents are based on scientific reality or logic... ...domesticated animals will get restless before an earthquake, "God" has never warned us of volcanic eruptions or earthquakes... ...people have reported seeing Christ, God, the Virgin Mary...there was never any scientific or physical evidence left behind... ...[if] the believer relied on a "guardian" angel, [he] WILL DIE in the same variety of ways as non-believers...today we know that brain functions stop after BIOLOGICAL death, no evidence of the power of the mind working thereafter... ...[in Lebanon] religious civil war...possible as many as 250,000 lives lost...in the name of conflicting religions...religious fanaticism has taken thousands of lives so far...men and women are not born as Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists, they are born as "homo sapiens", a primate... Thomas Jefferson wrote a biography of Jesus...he discarded most Gospel passages...the Dutch catholic theologian Edward Schillebeek stated that the "new testament" is the testimony of "BELIEVING" people only...The Romans rounded up dissidents frequently and executed them by crucifiction without trial [Jesus]. ALL LIFE IS REALLY "VICTIM" OR "BENEFICIARY" OF NATURAL OR MAN-MADE CIRCUMSTANCES... [a] child born in Bosnia lost [its] father in battle, [the] mother was raped by "Christian" Serbs...Religious belief was no help - it was the CAUSE of the tragedy... ...the use of animal body parts for experimental transplants[to humans]... even less acceptable to most religions than transplants from one HUMAN to another, survivors are "beneficiaries"... ...to illustrate blind religious faith: ...one out of five victims of the Mississippi floods in 1993 were convinced that "God wanted to punish sinners"... ...a balanced diet and certain supplementary vitamins and minerals will prevent diseases and will...extend our life. More than we can say about PRAYERS... victims are known to have died during an earthquake right inside a church while others survived outside... ...Fact of nature is: nothing exists forever...- why do we believe our "soul" to be different?... The idea of "heaven" and "hell" is simply unproven myth. Nobody has come back after "BIOLOGICAL" death..."FACTS ABOUT DEATH AND DESTRUCTION IN THE NAME OF RELIGIOUS FAITH"...."CRIMINAL LAWS - TOO OFTEN INFLUENCED BY RELIGIONS" ...Since an "embryo" is not NOT a baby, we [pro-choice] are not killing babies through abortion...- Religious fundamentalists and anti-abortionists do not provide food, shelter and (later) employment for unwanted children...believers reject [human] genetic engineering as "man playing god", what is their priority, saving lives or worrying about "ethics", [altering] the future...or knowingly giving birth to a carrier of defective genes?... Only 41 out of 100 people lived to be 65 in 1900, by 1990 it was 79 out of 100, NOT thanks to religious belief... have "faith healers" ever cured a person dying from malaria (or aids)?... Nature is continuously trying to catch up to adverse conditions...inefficiency [of nature] is most evident...billions of sperm cell take a run to fertilize ONE egg...Plants drops thousands of seeds to grow one seedling...why would a"creator" want millions of creatures to be born, only to be eaten by predators?... ...Hinduism may have come closest to reality...correctly estimated mankind's existence at (about) 4.32 million years and the age of earth at 4.32 BILLION years... ... The Koran states: "Mohammed...firmly BELIEVED that he was messenger of God (Allah)"...One man about 1380 years ago had a strong BELIEF and probably good intentions...hundreds of millions of followers of the Islamic faith accept [it] as "Truth", when will (Christian/Islamic) believers start to separate fact from fiction?... from "Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine: "each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief...[Jesus] he could speak but one language (Hebrew) ... Chapters on UFOs' and the [African] Dogon tribe. Part two:" FACTS AND THEORIES OF ASTRONOMY...COMPARED WITH RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS" , the creation and aging of a star, quasars, black holes, "MYTHICAL RELIGIOUS CREATION VS. COSMIS CREATION", Chapters on each planet, the sun, radiation [sources], asteroids, OUR NEIGHBOURS BEYOND THE SOLAR SYSTEM, - THE FUTURE, and the "final choice".