The God Who Wasn't There

This is a great documentary which isn't available for sale in Singapore due to our strict censorship laws regarding taboo topics such as religion. Generally, anti-religious books are easier to obtain in Singapore, but movies or documentaries are usually no-nos. It is great that some one has uploaded this documentary on YouTube.

If you do not know what this documentary is about, there is a good write up of it in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Who_Wasn't_There

Part 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cioXrHanjXc

Part 2 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MweSy-61lU

Part 3 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8Ouy9W8RkE

Part 4 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04hzgMjPRtk

Part 5 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJd1kWlLjPs

Part 6 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re2HtQ0n9W4

Google Maps and Google Earth

I just learnt that Google Maps can now be embedded like YouTube videos within a HTML page. That is quite useful. Below is a Google Maps embed of my home street (Yishun Central):

View Larger Map

You can click and drag the mouse to navigate within the image, or zoom in and out using the "+" and "-" buttons on the left panel.

The "Map", "Sat" and "Hyb" buttons shows the plain map, or the satellite photo, or a hybrid combining both the map and the satellite photo.

Click on the "View Larger Map" link to go to Google Maps directly where you can search for other locations.

Besides Google Maps, which runs in a web browser, Google also has a more powerful standalone desktop application called Google Earth. Google Earth now even includes an astronomy feature (called "Sky"). The new "Sky" function of Google Earth is introduced here:

Google Earth (version 4.2) can be downloaded from here:

http://earth.google.com/sky/index.html

Isaac Asimov's "The Tragedy of the Moon"

I found this great video on YouTube that lists several famous atheists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdVucvo-kDU

I am often surprised that many scientists like Francis Collins and Michael Behe, with their knowledge of science, still cling to their belief in the supernatural Judeo-Christian god as the creator of the universe. Although I too believed in a god when I was a child, when I first learnt the scientific explanations for life and the universe, I realised that science offered a much more elegant and satisfying explanation for our being as compared to the religious explanations.

As a child, I had read the bible stories in my school library, and I felt that the stories were like fairy tales (Adam and Eve and a talking snake, Noah and his titanic boat, Moses and the killing of all first born children in Egypt etc). However, my adult teachers say these were facts that really happened as they are written in the bible. Luckily, I was also brought up on stories of Chinese and Hindu gods, and I immediately realised that all their creation stories of how the world was made conflicted with one another. By the time I was 13, I already knew that since none of these religious creation stories are the same, the religious explanations were probably all wrong, and the stories are really myths, just like all the other fairy tales I have read.

In 1979, I read a book by Isaac Asimov called "The Tragedy of the Moon", which was actually a collection of his science essays. The main essay, that is also the title of the book, gave Asimov's explanation on why he think it was a tragedy for Earth to have a Moon, and speculated on how much better it would have been for humankind if the Earth had no Moon.

The main premise of that essay is that because of the Moon, which does revolve around the Earth, the ancients were led to the belief that the Sun must also revolve around the Earth, and similarly for all the stars in the sky. Earth must be the centre of the universe, and humans are special and must be created by god since god has put humans to inhabit the Earth.

Asimov argued that if the Moon did not exist, humans would have realised much earlier that the Earth actually revolved around the Sun, and that science and astronomy would not have been set back by thousands of years because of the wrong belief of an Earth-centric solar system instead of the correct helio-centric solar system.

In that essay, I learnt about Christianity's horrible treatment of scientists like Galileo Galilei and Copernicus because they had dared to question the belief that the Sun revolved around the Earth, and to raise doubt that the Earth was not the centre of the universe. I subsequently learnt how harshly the Christians have treated scientists for speaking about science that conflicted with the bible, condemning innocent people for witchcraft, forcing people into slavery, or forcing religious conversions on people of other religions. Christianity certainly did not earn my admiration.

In the following year, I watched Carl Sagan's enormously fascinating "Cosmos" series on TV. By then, I realised that good scientific explanations could be offered for many questions on the aspects of life. There was no need for any recourse to a magical being for explaining why things were so. The religious explanations for life were so insufficient and lacking in so many ways.

From then onwards, I would reply my Christian friends who tell me that "man is made by god " that they were wrong, and that instead, it is god who is made by man.

"Planet Earth" Documentary Series

I was recommending the BBC documentary series "Planet Earth" to a friend who didn't know about it, and thought maybe I should share it with the rest of you.

"Planet Earth" is the most expensive documentary series made to date, and Singaporeans were extremely lucky that Arts Central bought it and screened it a few months back (the telecast ended in June). This documentary series boasts of incredible visuals filmed with High Definition cameras. Even though Arts Central only broadcasts in Standard Definition, the HD quality seeps through the telecast, and the images were simply astounding even when viewed on a normal Standard Definition TV.

To understand what I am raving about, Amazon.com is hosting a trailer for the "Planet Earth" documentary series in their promotion for the DVD. This trailer shows several of the breathtaking visuals from the series, and you will know why I rave about this series once you see them:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/2379

Actually, someone has uploaded some episodes (complete episodes) of the "Planet Earth" series on Google Video. However, these uploaded videos are compressed, and much of the visual quality is lost. However, the documentaries are still excellent for their informational content.

The following link is for the "Caves" episode:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4535193000141776798

One segment of this episode shows how Bird's Nest is made by a bird called the Swiftlet inside a cave in Borneo (Sarawak) called "Deer Cave" ("Deer Cave" is among one of the largest caves in the world). If you are interested in how the Bird's Nest you consume is made, then this video is a must-watch.

If you like this particular episode, you can use the "Related Videos" link to follow other uploaded episodes of the series.