We're not moving to Earth 2.0 any time soon

There has been a great furore about a new Earth (dubbed Earth 2.0) deep in outer space. People are excited about this scientific discovery but for all the wrong reasons.

Are we moving there soon?

Since the discovery, I have witnessed many an internet meme discussing the possibility of moving the human population to this new planet. Some even entertain the idea of it being a safe haven for when this planet goes to the dumps.

Our precious planet, this pale blue dot in the great vastness of the universe is precious to us. It is the only planet we currently live on, and more importantly, earth is where I keep all my stuff.

To our best scientific knowledge, planet earth is the only planet that can sustain life. For a planet to sustain life as we know it, it needs to pass some important criteria.

The planet needs to have liquid water which exists inside a very narrow range of temperature from 0°C to 100°C. A planet too close to its star will be too hot, a planet to far away from its parent star will be far too cold.

So a planet at just the right distance from its star is just right to host life as we know it. No wonder the zone where such a planet needs to exist is called the Goldilocks Zone for conditions for life that are "just right".

Like our home planet, Earth 2.0 is found to be in such a region and other analyses have found other similarities to our home planet using nothing else but thousand-four-hundred-year-old light.

Being so far away, going to the planet is out of the question. So, what is so great about an earth-like planet that is hopelessly out of our reach?

Well, it helps us edge closer to answering the question of whether we are indeed alone in the universe and to understand how this, we need to understand the process of looking for these planets in our galaxy.

Basics of planet hunting

Looking for planets in other solar systems isn't easy. No planet outside our solar system has ever been directly photographed so other means have to be used to find it.

A small telescope orbiting earth called the Kepler Space Telescope, looks toward the stars to spot the shadows of planets orbiting those stars. The task is equivalent to spotting a fly passing in front of a flood light from a few kilometres away.

In order to detect the fly, it needs to pass directly in front of the flood-light so that it is between the lamp and your line of sight and you need to be somewhat lucky to see it.

We were lucky enough to find this planet using this method and in order to understand the significance of this discovery, we need to consider another analogy.

Imagine you had to find a mango tree in a forest as the one (earth) you are currently at has been depleted of its fruit. Say, you take a few minutes look for another in the dense forest and find and another.

You would assume one of two things. Either you were very lucky to discover the only other mango tree in the dense forest or you are not so lucky and mango trees are abundant throughout the forest.

The latter would make better sense and give you hope in the abundance of more mango trees and therefore more mangos ripe for the picking.

That is the same idea we can apply in the search for another earth-like planet. The existence of this earth cousin increases the likelihood of other planets in the Goldilocks Zone which also increases the chances of the existence of life as we know it all over the galaxy.

Moral of this story

It is a good thing that people can get excited about science stories but what people discuss needs to be accurate.

'Coming out' as a Zulu atheist

I would like to tell you the story of how I came out to my family and community as an atheist. I would, more than anything, like to tell you what a difficult transition it was and how I can now put it all behind me. I would also like to tell you how accepting the Zulu culture, my culture, is of atheists and other free-thinkers.

I would love to tell you all these things, but I have learned that the truth is far from being rosy. Imagine being the only kid you know who did not believe in God when everyone you have ever known did. Now, imagine being an adult always defending what you (do not) believe in.

The trouble with telling people that I am an atheist, in isiZulu in particular does not sound as romantic as it does in English. Now, “I do not believe in God” sounds pretty straight forward to anyone who understands the language.

The same exact statement in isiZulu makes you sound like a crazy person or someone telling a sick, tasteless joke. “Angikholelwa kuNkulunkulu”, makes moderate and ‘advanced’ Chritians think you’re a lost soul or the spawn of the devil. I have even been invited to my very own exorcism by a prominent ‘prophet’ in the small suburb of eSikhawini.

While atheism may be accepted as an alternative religion in some contexts, I must stress here how the nature of atheism (opposite of theism- a belief in God or a deity) is the absence of belief in God and it is in its nature nothing else. It is as much a religion as “off” is a TV channel.
This is very hard to explain in isiZulu, not because my native tongue is backward in anyway, but because of the entrenchment of (ironically) Western religions in many of my fellow Zulus. You see, prayer and the acknowledgement of God makes up almost every family you will ever encounter in the Zulu nation.

“A family that prays together, stays together.”

There comes this Rasta-looking young man talking all this rubbish, by the grace of God, he will one day see the light and repent from his ways, they say. The irony of the statement is uncanny.

My coming out as an atheist to my family and my community has not been smooth at all. I suppose, all the years I have spent contemplating my decision, as I went on parading like a regular Christian should have prepared me for this backlash.

Church members who have looked up to me as a humble and respectful boy, can now barely spare me a second glance at the local mall. How very Christian of them. Respected former pastors today tell me how mistaken I am in my view and how I should do away with reason and replace it with unquestioning faith instead.

Some concerned Christians have even tried to gauge whichever traumatic experience in my past has led me to this path. Others are even claiming that “it is all these books you keep reading”. Perhaps I should tone it down on the Douglas Adams and company.

This makes me wonder, though. Having not been exposed to this ‘Western idea’ of atheism, would I be a devoted Christian instead? Well, even when the bible was read to me in isiZulu, I found it very hard to reason how a man could turn water into wine, how two people populated the earth, or how God created the earth only to drown almost everyone for some reason.

Now, do not get me wrong, I am not an atheist because I do not like the Christian God’s personality, or that I am not overly excited about spending three hours at church every Sunday (and falling asleep half the time); I am an atheist solely because I am sceptical of the existence of God.

How do I explain that in isiZulu so that I do not offend anyone in doing so, or make myself seem like a devil-worker?

I have not yet figured that one out.

Why a photo of cats fighting with light-sabers? Because cats don't believe in God and they are freaking awesome. I like cats better than people.

The analogy of the windowless room

In a discussion I had with a pastor who wanted to understand my decision to announce my atheism, I constructed an analogy which I think explains the difference of opinion between him and I: The Analogy of the Windowless Room.

I was a member of a church in my township which is a 15 minute walk from my home. I have been attending the church since 2007 and I have participated in the church until I was elected youth leader last year, after holding a few important positions in the youth section of the church.

My decision to leave the church and express my scepticism and atheism has come as a great shock to some including my former pastor. My atheism stems from an inherent seed of doubt for everything I have ever learned ever since I was eight or nine years old.

Now, as I was trying to explain to the man of god that my scepticism is based on the lack of objective evidence for the existence of god or the validity of the Christian religion (or any of the religions for that matter), I was trumped by his refusal to acknowledge the facts.

He explained to me how the order of the universe is evidence of the existence of a loving creator. He then proceeded to undo the science of astrophysics and biology through evolution. His facts lacked a true understanding of science and this only served to support the widely excepted idea of believers in god and practitioners of religion being close minded.

This sparked an image in my mind during the discussion of a four-sided room with a roof completely disjoint from the outside room. In this room of the imagination, I conjured up a room where god exists and the walls and the roof are belief and indoctrination.

Inside this room (which is neither big nor small but merely finite in size) is where all those who believe without question reside. This room is as big as those who reside in it believe it to be but the room is still limited it its dimensions. Outside the room is the real world full of facts and wonders that are waiting to be discovered.

Having created this setting, I put my sceptic self on the outside, in the real world. In this real world that exists outside the room, there are things we know to be physical, things that are supported by facts and there are more things that are unknown but waiting to be discovered. The pastor understood my way of looking at things and he pointed out how it was ironic that this world view was in fact narrow minded.

He reminded me how there are professionals such as medical doctors and intellectuals who are theists besides their worldly education. This forced me to change my room and put small windows on it that lets believers have limited glimpses of the real world, the world outside of blind belief.

As we went our separate ways, he promised to pray for me and I nodded in appreciation. Anyway, I continued to modify the room, or at least what the occupants thought they saw. From outside the room, the real world, the room does not in fact exist, or rather the walls that hold the inhabitants back.

You see, the walls of belief, dogmatism, indoctrination and community acceptance are as real as the barriers that keep football players within the field of play. In reality, in my world of the imagination at least, these lines are drawn on the ground, and as the football players are conditioned to never cross their barrier lines, so are the believers bound by mere lines in the ground.

So, there are no walls; this means the inhabitants of the non-existent room can see everything, the real world they find themselves in, but they are not allowed to cross the lines drawn in front of them.

This is an imaginary world as you know and analogies can only stretch so far but this is how I see things as they are.

“Atheists are intellectual idiots”

This is a response to my How can we teach morality without religion opinion column published in the Stanger Weekly newspaper.

“IS it not obvious that we should do unto others as we would like to be done unto us?”

With reference to the column written by Sibusiso Biyela published on 20 February [2015]: since you referred to the Bible, I have a few things to say. What you referred to here is from Christ’s Golden Rule but the Bible contains and is so much more than that.

Some have accused Jesus of “borrowing” the idea of the golden rule from the Eastern religions, which you seem to imply by saying you don’t think you need the Bible for that. However, the texts for Confucianism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, cited below, were all written between 500 and 400 BC, at the earliest.

Confucianism: "Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you" (Analects 15:23). Hindusim: “This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you” (Mahabharata 5:1517).

Buddhism: “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." (Udanavarga 5:18).

These sayings are similar to the golden rule, but are stated ‘negatively’ and rely on passivity. Jesus’ golden rule is a ‘positive’ command to show love proactively. The Eastern religions say: “Refrain from doing”. Jesus says, “do!”

The Eastern religions say it is enough to hold your negative behavior in check; Jesus says to look for ways to act positively.

Conclusion: I consider atheists to be intellectual cowards who choose simplicity over complexity and difficulty. They too have a religion (which they deny) where they are the gods because they feel that   they can do everything themselves and prefer the theory of evolution (non-scientific), basically saying that morality was refined in animals before animals evolved into men and women. 

Sue Naidoo.

Related: Jesus Heals Today (letter)

How can we teach morals without religion?

I have often wondered how atheists and secular people go through life without god. I have asked myself what hope you have for the future without a supernatural being in your corner looking out for you. And I have wondered even more what morals mean to someone who is godless (god free?).

The first decade of my life was quite turbulent as my family consisting at least four children at a time and my mother never really stayed in one place for more than a year or two. In this way, I do not remember that we settled and subscribed to any church as a result.

I really got exposed to the life of church much later in the decade and only then was I smart enough to ask myself some questions. If memory serves me correctly, I think I was nine and suffering the pain of my first (of many) wisdom tooth. I asked myself, who is god?

From what I had seen at the time I concluded that god was there to keep human beings in order and to try to keep them from killing each other. Satisfied with my answer I reasoned that since I was a good person at the time that I did not need god and that I did not need religion.

As time went by and listened to priests from all manner of church, I started to realise that all that stuff they were saying from that black book made a lot of sense. In fact, I thought that all the good things the book said such as "do not steal", "do not kill another human being", e.t.c. were so obvious that I thought it a bit redundant to attend.

But attend I continued as by virtue of my mother, I did not have much choice in the matter. As time passed and I slept under the benches at "cross-night" overnight church services I noticed that every time the preacher man said these things, he promised the grownups and the other kids that we would go to heaven if we did these good things as god demanded.

This confused me quite a bit (existentialism can get very interesting for an adolescent). I mean, is it not obvious that we should do unto others as we would like to be done to us? Why the promise of bliss to add to it? And why perpetuate the promise of being branded a child of Satan if I am naughty?

I have always kept a cynical view of religion for these reasons. Anyway, when I first learned of atheism, I had this idea that they were devil-worshiping

freaks despite my own skepticism about god and religion. How can you seriously be a good person without having god guide you?

Through pop culture that I had witnessed from my more-than-fair share of television, I saw good deeds from people who did not acknowledge god in any of their works and trying this out myself I realised how much more pure it was to do good without the promise of heaven or prosperity.

Now, do not get me wrong, I am not goodie-two-shoes (this phrase always confused me), I have just been lucky enough to not get in a lot of trouble (relatively speaking) but I think I have a good grasp of what makes a good person good.

So, how do you live without god? How do you dissuade your children from evil without sending them to Sunday school? I think that you can be a good person by loving those close to you (and everyone else) and remembering to do to others what you wish to be done to you.

I don't think you need the bible for that.

Why I love to read and write

From childhood, I have been found escaping the boredom of chores while I busy myself with reading. I read everything from news stories to comic strips of an old paper used as cupboard lining.

This was noticed by my aunt when I was 11 or 12 years old while I was in her home in iNanda, near Durban. I was supposed to be washing dishes and I was caught with my head in the cupboard under the sink reading a Madam and Eve comic strip.

I don't know how long they had been standing there, but my mother and aunt were smiling when I realised I was being watched. They were proud my enthusiasm for reading but that did not exempt me from finishing up with the dishes that night.

As a result of this, I was given permission to read one of my late aunt's books from her collection in her room at my grandmother's house. Sliding my fingers  on the spines I perused which book I should engulf myself in I finally settled on the weird of them all called Gobbledigook.

What I can recall from the book is that it was a science fiction novel made for young adults about aliens that mistakenly abduct a boy and his friends and taking them to their planet or something of the sort.

I dug into that book and I was transported to another time, another country and to another planet. It made me forget my surroundings and even hunger failed to interrupt me from my journey.

The first full novel I had ever finished took me four days and I was impressed then seeing as I went through 50 pages a day from three or four hours' reading. My best friend, who goes through all of 600 pages Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in a day and a half (without sleeping) puts me to shame. I don't know why I still keep her around.

After I had finished with that adventure of a book, I quickly discovered that my avid reader of an aunt was a fan of the Archie series of comics and I went through her whole collection in a matter of days laughing at old humour and enjoying the adventures of a cartoon I had absolutely no connection with.

Archie saved me from many chores during my visit at aunt's as she would defend with my mother with muyekeni usafunda! (leave him be, he is reading) and I'd pretend to be none the wiser.

From there, I have since buried my head in many books of all genres and subjects until I came across a science book about Space and Time. Having not known that there was a connexion between space and time before, I dived into the unknown and came out the other end confused.

The book had illustrations and text explaining how time and space are actually manifestations of the same thing and how they can be manipulated by gravity to create blackholes which can be used to traverse vast distances in no time.

Half of the things I read at the time made little sense to me but they stuck with me. I started seeing answers in different places such as on the television and other books. Synapses lit up in a flurry of activity in my brain with every 'aha' moment and I proceeded to smile like a retard with each new discovery.

I soon discovered that human beings wrote these books that took me on adventures, told me things about the universe and about people who once lived. I realised that these writers were speaking to me from beyond the grave; in a way, their thoughts live on. I do not know of a better way to live after death than leaving your words behind.

And this is why I choose to write essays and columns most of which are published in newspapers and in this blog. I guess it is my attempt at living forever and a way of tracking what I have done with my life.

My words will stay forever in cyberspace and I want them to be things that will make people think and let some of my ideas be known or rejected. We all leave a digital footprint in cyberspace with the use of social media platforms and with the power of publishing your own words as blogs.

What are you leaving behind with your status updates, your tweets and Instagram photos? What will people think of you? Will they see the real you, or the you you chose to publish?

Just remember that whatever you put on the internet stays forever and becomes part of your online identity.

These days, when I am home and the chores are waiting to be done by me, I escape with "I'm writing something important for my blog". How things change as they stay the same.

Taken 3 took me nowhere

WITH many an internet meme suggesting that Bryan Mills' (Liam Neeson) daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace), stay home for a change, following the much anticipated release of the third (and hopefully) last installment of the Taken series of films, I could not agree more.

In what seemed like an attempt to revive a long-dead story, the producers decided to kill Bryan’s ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) and frame him for her death. I guess, this time round, the title ‘Taken’ is used in the figurative sense. Much of the movie’s plot centres around Bryan running from the cops and finding his wife’s killers as he is being hunted down by detective Frank Dotzler (Forrest Whitaker).

The first Taken movie, I thought, was one of the best action flicks I had seen in a long time as it revived the ‘sterring’ (sic) persona so many of us grew up with and admired in other sterings like Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, and various other members of the expandibles. I especially liked it for how clever it was made, how raw the action scenes are and the witty one liners:

               … I don’t know who you are,

               But I will look for you,

I will find you,

And I will kill you.

Okay, maybe that’s four lines, but my point is that the first movie was amazing only to be crapped on by Taken 2. Admittedly, I didn’t see the second one but I hear that everybody hated it.

One scene that really killed what little tolerance I had for the film; is where Bryan hijacks a cop car like a bad ass and veers into on-coming traffic (because no car chase scene is complete without going the wrong way on an already dangerous highway). Gone are the days when action movies crashed real 18-wheelers for the enjoyment of the audience.

The scene with the jack-knifing truck was so fake that I involuntarily face-palmed the rest of the scene and all I could hear were the sound effects of that typical wheel-squeak from a jack-knifing truck. I also hated the rudimentary user-interfaces that Bryan used on every computer and cellphone which were designed to show what he was doing with the computer in case it was not obvious enough to the audience who have never used a computer before.

 I can count so many things wrong with this movie but all I want to say now is: do not go watch it…but you will because you’re rebellious and I’ll say I told you so.