Alan Duff: Creation myth a galactic fallacy

Scientists say The Milky Way could have 100 billion stars. The universe has 400-500 billion galaxies, probably more. Photo / Beau Elton

Humans invented God — not vice-versa — as handy tool for manipulating others.

The Milky Way tells me there is no Creator of the universe.

Unless he got carried away and made way too much. Our own dot of a solar system says the Creator made the seven other planets just to be rocks orbiting the sun for tens of billions of years and die in a spiteful sun's last fiery embrace - which includes us.

That's not the work of an Intelligent Higher Being. It's just the random nature of the Big Bang's cycle. Scientists say The Milky Way could have 100 billion stars. The universe has 400-500 billion galaxies, probably more.

Religious folk are telling us that the Being who created all this wants us to worship Him, get down on our knees 5 times a day to pay Him homage, build churches and edifices to glorify Him.

How does He spot miscreants, the briefly unpious jaywalkers? How would one lousy human individual bother Him so much that, upon death, He'll remember the person and punish him/her?

I don't get this. Half a trillion galaxies is a lot of stuff to be occupied with, most of them billions of Light Years away. Yet He notices an insincere believer, spots a missed prayer or two? Nah.

Why has the extreme Muslim version of God given orders to kill all those who do not follow Muslim beliefs? How did white Christian church-goers in America attend church every Sunday and the same - or any other - day dish out corporal punishment to their Negro slaves?

Why is the death penalty in the USA carried out by the most religiously minded states? Why did the Church of England approve capital punishment for children as late as Victorian times?

I remember getting into quite a heated discussion with an elderly Christian fundamentalist many years ago. As she started to get nastier I said, "I thought Jesus said 'love your enemy'."

She hissed back, "If Jesus was around now, he'd not love you, young man."

So I am not trying to mount an argument, not with stones. To use a Trumpism: You don't argue with a live terrorist. You bury him. Or in the case of the little old lady: Don't engage.

YouTube has ample videos of the non-believer and atheist arguments. Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, both British, are two of the best.

To see either of these guys up against a Muslim or a Christian is a lesson in logic, rationality and calmness versus its complete opposite.You should give it go.

This Sunday back in Bayonne, I walked down to the bakery and the scaffolding around the cathedral says restoration has some years to go yet.

I'm glad to see it being restored. I've been in this church many times, either drawn by a choir singing, or to pay tribute to my late mother-in-law who was a true believer.

But I am not sorry to say I feel nothing, zero, spiritually while I'm in that magnificent construction. Quite the opposite.

I can't wait to get out of there as I feel such a hypocrite with thoughts of wondering how on earth Jesus Christ not only got away with his preposterous ideas but that they went on to become one of the great religions of the world.

If someone like Jesus turned up now, declaring himself the son of God, he'd be declared mentally unwell and given help. Except in America where they'd be hostile and the guy would be homeless. In a Muslim country he wouldn't last two minutes.

The Sunni and Shia Muslims of today are still locked in apparently eternal, violent conflict over a disagreement on the Prophet's successor after his death in 632. Who was it said, "The problem is, everyone thinks he's right." So much so they're prepared to kill for it.

We've heard the pious from any religion ask how could such a beautiful, perfectly unified universe not have been created by a God. It isn't that beautiful. The sun's temperature is 5505 (Be careful of all those 5s, Alan.

They mean something. Yeah, spook-y.) centigrade and only gives life to one planet. Venus goes from 465C to -185C on the cold side. Uranus is -224C. The largest known star, Canis Majoris, is almost 2 billion km across. A galaxy just discovered is 6 million light years across.

Why did God make the other planets in our solar system? Why does He want half a trillion galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars and yet the most important thing to Him is our homage, missing the odd prayer session?

These are the words of men of course, manipulating others in their own selfish interests.