STEPHEN M GRANT

I’m often asked, if not challenged, to explain why I’m atheist - or even how I could possibly be atheist.

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Personally, I find it difficult to comprehend how someone with the benefit of a modern western education and ready access to the vast body of knowledge we've gained could be theist, but to counter the question with another is simply evasive.

 

Less evasive perhaps is to point out that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and so it really isn’t up to non believers to disprove the existence of a god or gods, but rather the task of adherents to the various religions to demonstrate that he, she, they or it exists. So often, the argument proceeds along the lines of

 

Believer: We believe in (insert entity here) and know in our hearts this is true.

 

Non-believer: We do not believe in this because we cannot find any evidence whatsoever to suggest that it is true, no matter how strong your faith may be to you.

 

Believer: So prove it is not true. If you can't prove it, then it MUST be true!

 

It may seem ridiculous when stated thus, but that is often how the conversation goes.

However neither point, no matter how valid, address the question directly: why atheist?

 

To me at least, it is clear, and I have compiled and explained ten reasons for my atheism. Each one is in itself a direct and logical challenge to religion, often using statements and tenets from the religion itself. Why ten? Simply because it's a nice, round number that we humans like, as Josiah's priests realised way back when they wrote the commandments. There are more, I can assure you.

 

Just as a defendant’s entire case is ruined by a single piece of contrary evidence, so each reason is surely evidence enough to cast serious doubt on the case for supernatural deities.

 

My contention is that the combined weight of these ten reasons is undeniable, and takes the case against religion well beyond any doubt that one could possibly describe as reasonable.

 

So let us try to find a God or indeed, Gods.

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1. The preponderance of deities
 

The first thing that becomes apparent is that there is a bewildering number of gods and religions. When asked ‘do you believe in god?’ it is not at all unreasonable to ask to which particular god the questioner might be referring. The god of the Jews? The Muslims? The Christians? Perhaps one or all of the Hindu gods? Or any one of the vast number of African gods? Or aboriginal gods?

 

There are a great many problems in counting gods, but the most reasoned number we seem to have arrived at for current deities (i.e. deities that are worshipped now) is 28 million2. This seems at first to be ridiculous – it certainly did to me - but it does bear scrutiny. As an interesting aside, it means that a monotheist differs from an atheist by just 0.000036%.

 

For the purposes of this section, I’ll go with the one with which I am most familiar – the Christian god.

The very number of denominations and interpretations is to my mind compelling evidence that religion is man made. Apart from the Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican Churches and their many national and interpretative manifestations, there are the pre-Lutheran Protestants, Protestants, the Lutherans, the Calvinists, the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Anabaptists, Baptists, Methodists, Pietists, the Brethren, and Apostolic churches, the Pentecostalists, Charismatics & Neo Charismatics, the United Churches, the Quakers, Restorationists, Millerites, Adventists, Witnesses, Sacred Name Groups, Universalists, Mormons, Christian Scientists and dozens upon dozens of ‘minor’ churches and movements.

 

That list may seem pretty exhaustive, but it is just that of the main groups. The Baptists, for example have around 93 sub-denominations that I could find. The Pentecostalists over 70. To be fair to both, a great many of the sub denominations are in almost complete agreement. There would be little to choose between the two protestant churches The (Original) Church of God, Inc. and The Church of God (PKG) – except of course that each declares itself to be the only true church. Some of these denominations hold what can only be described as bitter hatreds for others. The Free Presbyterians, (founded as a result of conflict in a single Presbyterian congregation) are a good example.

My reasoning is that if there were an omnipotent god, it would not be beyond his wit to have prevented this dangerous anarchy, or at least to resolve it. The fact that ‘he’ hasn’t is hardly grist to a believer’s mill. To accept that the differences, disagreements and unspeakable segregation, persecution and violence generated by these patently human interpretations and movements could be the result of a benevolent deity that has our interests at heart is to me, a completely untenable, not to say ludicrous, position.

 

Thus the sheer preponderance of deities is my first reason.

 

2. Realities Suspended

 

In order to believe in a god or gods (for the sake of clarity, I’ll simply use the term ‘god’ to refer to all deities), you have to put aside a great many facts and realities and then pick and choose from the vast body of scriptures and writings available.

It is my experience that the religious are able to do this easily by simply moving the goalposts of any given argument – goalpost A being absolutism (it is written, therefore it is) and goalpost B being relativism (it is written, but is not literally true: it may simply be instructive or allegorical). As knowledge expands, so religion shifts its position between the two – generally from A to B – and redefines itself.

 

Indeed – on talking with believers, I have found that many people simply don’t consider the question at all. Science and religion seem to occupy completely different and thoroughly segregated areas in their world view.

 

A geologist, certain in the knowledge that a particular rock is in the order of some 3 billion years old, has to maintain his belief in the Abrahamic god by saying that the story of creation is a story which explains that god created the universe, and should not be read literally. The day referred to in the Bible is obviously a period of time of geological proportions, not literally the 24 hour period.
This is relativism.

On the other side of the scale, there are many who demand that creationism should be taught as science and be given the same empirical weight. In Cincinnati for example, there is a creation museum in which there are displays such as a child in a primitive brown tunic feeding a squirrel with a dinosaur towering above the pair.
This quote is from ‘The New Answers’ book 1:

When a scientist’s interpretation of data does not match the clear meaning of the text in the Bible, we should never reinterpret the Bible. God knows just what He meant to say, and His understanding of science is infallible, whereas ours is fallible. So we should never think it necessary to modify His Word. Genesis 1 defines the days of creation to be literal days (a number with the word “day” always means a normal day in the Old Testament, and the phrase “evening and morning” further defines the days as literal days).

This is absolutism.

 

The number of established facts and realities that must be suspended varies greatly, depending on which religion one pursues and on which school or branch of the chosen religion one settles upon. Taking Christians as an example, it will vary from taking stories such as creation, Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark and the virgin birth as literall truth, through to accepting what we have learned from scientific endeavours and regarding the bible as a source of allegory and thinly-coded yet divine instruction. In some faiths, such as Islam, such breadth of interpretation is not available.

 

So second among my reasons is that belief in a God requires me either to suspend, re-interpret or simply ignore the vast body of knowledge that we have gained over the last two thousand years, and most particularly during the last 200 years.
So – I think it fair to call my second reason ‘realities suspended’.

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3. The accident of geography

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The third reason is, to my mind, an overwhelming argument against the existence of gods. The God you believe in and the religious framework used to worship him is almost certainly dictated by where you were born. If you are Japanese, your religion will almost certainly by Shinto or Bhuddist. If you are a child of Egypt, you will very probably be Muslim. If you were born in New Mexico, you will probably be a Catholic, but in Illinois, you will probably be a Protestant of some kind. In Salt Lake City, probably a Mormon. In Russia, Eastern Orthodox.

And so it goes on – sometimes to ridiculous degrees.

 

It would be too easy to use Jerusalem or Teheran as examples, so I’ll turn to modern, cosmopolitan Glasgow instead. To live as a Protestant in Royston Road would be ‘uncomfortable’. To live as a Catholic in Bridgeton would be similarly ‘awkward’. The Scottish Executive and officials of the City deny this, saying such things are now consigned to Glasgow’s history. However the facts speak differently, as any Glaswegian football fan will tell you.

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The Scottish Executive had to publish an Action Plan on Tackling Sectarianism3, and Scottish law amended twice in 2003 and then 2009. This was to deal with criminal offences aggravated by religious prejudice4. In 2010, there were 629 charges of offences aggravated by religious prejudice under this law – just under 2 per day. In 2003, there were 272 charges, and in 2004, there were 479. This would at the very least indicate that the problem is by no means historical. The number of incidents – i.e. those incidents that didn’t result in a criminal charge, would be very considerably higher. Being snubbed in a supermarket or spat on in the street simply wouldn’t get anywhere near the statistics, but they are everyday experiences for those living or just walking in the ‘wrong’ place.

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It's unbelievable, but true. This is an excerpt from the Final Report of The Advisory Group on Tackling Sectarianism in Scotland – April 2015:

"As with our interim report, which was published on 13 December 2013, the breadth of views, opinions and experiences expressed to us has been striking and left us with the complicated dilemma of how to work through these to provide advice on the future development of work to tackle sectarianism in Scotland."

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And these are Christians in the modern, cosmopolitan, inclusive, tolerant and oh-so politically correct Britain of the 21st century.  

 

Various sets of Christians and Islamists positively despise one-another, and aside from discrimination and persecution that often stretches back for generations, they all too often resort to killing each other. Sunnis and Shi’ites, Protestants and Catholics, Hindus and Moslems and so on. And  on.
The question is very clear.

Either these religious groups are the product of God, or they are the product of men.
 

So not only are there a great many religions worshipping a great many deities, but the chances of a particular human being belonging to any one of these is, in the vast majority of cases, dictated by the accident of where he or she happens to have been born. This is not conjecture: religion is clearly and demonstrably regional and cultural. Indeed as explained: in some places, it is defined at street level.

This I present as evidence to the statement that Gods and religions are the product of man.  My third reason is therefore the accident of geography.

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4. Restrictions to locale

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All religions feature their creator – the being or beings that made the universe and all that is in it. On planet Earth alone, the creator is responsible for the Arctic and its polar bears, for Australasia and its marsupials, for the majestic Amazon and the vast rainforests, for the lofty Himalayas and the Grand Canyon – the entire, wonderful and truly, genuinely awe-inspiring place we share.

 

Yet these Universe-capable Gods have the peculiar and contradictory habit of confining their scriptures to very specific regions, which in every single case coincide perfectly with both the understanding and physical & geographical limits of the people of the time.

 

Christians hold that God created the universe. To be clear: that’s the entire universe, which we know extends at least a mind boggling 12.72 billion light years away from any olive grove in Israel. A light year is the distance covered in an earth year by something moving at the speed of light. One light year is a phenomenal 6 trillion miles. We have detected a galaxy (that’s an entire galaxy) that is 12.72 billion times that far away. These are distances that defy comprehension and certainly defeat mine.

 

God created all that it contains – the countless galaxies, the innumerable solar systems, and as we now know, the infinite number of planets. Yet he confined his greatest work to a planet in a small solar system on the edge of a minor galaxy, concentrating on a small, parched geographical area and choosing a fractious group of its inhabitants to reveal himself and his works, indeed stating that they were his chosen people and that the rest were variously available for conversion, slavery or slaughter - with his blessing and often with his explicit instruction.

 

By Acts and by Paul’s missionary journeys, the geography had expanded generously to include most of the eastern Mediterranean.

It is not unfair to observe that the geography of the bible doesn’t just correspond with the known horizons of the age in which any specific part was written, but expands in perfect step with the expansion of these horizons over time.

 

Nowhere does this God, who proclaims he is the one and only, the creator, the omnipotent and all-knowing, the Lord thy God and so on (i.e. not a being without an obvious – one could say ‘human’ - sense of ‘self’ and ego) mention any of the far more remarkable lands, peoples, flora and fauna from overseas – where his most majestic and perfect creations lie. Not a word. Not even the merest hint.
 

So we have a God that, having created the entire universe, chooses to commune with one incomprehensibly tiny part of his creation whilst taking some care not to let it slip that there are other wonderful peoples and animals very close by who were also made in his image. Indeed – since the only way is through him and he is the one and only God, he consigned the rest of the peoples of his creation to oblivion. An Indian of North America simply could not be admitted to heaven not because of his life, work sin or absence of sin, but because the only way to heaven is through Jesus Christ their Lord.

 

Note that this approach is common to all the ‘old’ religions.

 

Surely to any rational mind, this is compelling (not to say overwhelming) evidence that the writings were those of the men of the time - and place.

 

My fourth reason is the restrictions to locale.

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5. Omniscience & omnipotence

All the world’s major religions make the claim that their God is omniscient. Many Christians today are back-peddling on this point, having realised the inherent contradiction in this claim. I read recently that some Christian theologians are trying to argue that God chooses to limit his omniscience so that he can preserve the dignity and free will of his creation – i.e. us.  It is plain to them that what has been preached for millennia cannot be true, and so they struggle and wriggle to find a way of rationalising to irrational.  

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It is this claim of omniscience that gave rise to Calvinism, the inescapably logical and perfectly awful proposition which holds that since God knows and controls everything – literally everything – he already knows who’s good and who’s bad: who is going to be good and going to be bad, who is destined for Heaven and who is destined for Hell. Thus the Calvinists go through their entire lives doing the very best they can to live by the scriptures and in so doing, please this omniscient God, whilst accepting that their fate is pre-ordained.

 

Just to drive the point home – and I’d ask you to pause and consider this for a moment - the Calvinist tradition holds that for a vast majority of us, an eternity of punishment, torture and pain is awaiting us before we are even born.

 

It is then little wonder Christian apologists are trying to find a way round this. It was one thing to state with absolute conviction to the populations of old that God is omniscient, but quite another to get away with it in the twenty first century.
 

Just by way of clarification, the medieval Rabbi and scholar Moses Maimonides put it best way back in the 12th century. This is not a new question. “Does God know or does He not know that a certain individual will be good or bad? If thou sayest 'He knows', then it necessarily follows that man is compelled to act as God knew beforehand he would act, otherwise God's knowledge would be imperfect.” 

What follows from this is that you and I for example, must be exactly what God intended, and that he has full knowledge of what I am and indeed knew that I would sit at a computer and write this piece refuting him. In other words - if God made me an atheist, who are you, as a Christian, Moslem, Jew or Hindu, to argue?

 

As with omniscience, so omnipotence. You have to indulge in a degree of intellectual acrobatics to consider a being having both qualities, because they are mutually exclusive. If he is in fact omnipotent, then he can’t be omniscient because he can’t know everything – including the future - if he is going to use his powers at some point to change something. 

 

If God is omniscient, then he knows everything. All that has been, all that is, and all that will be. He knows when every leaf of every plant on the planet will die. He knows which way every sardine in every shoal will dart throughout its entire life, and he knows that about every sardine that ever existed, and about every sardine that ever will exist.

He knows what each of us has ever done, and what each of us will do in the future, and he knows that about every person that has ever lived, every person alive now, and every person that will ever live. You may think that I am overstating this, but I am not.  Even the very hairs on our head are numbered and the bible makes this very point twice; in Matthew 10:30 and Luke 12:7.

 

A sixteenth century theologian called Luis de Molina saw this contradiction and wrestled with it for some time. He came up with different types of knowledge to cope with it – necessary truths, contingent truths and middle knowledge. These three categories of knowledge could be invoked to explain away every set of circumstances and all events. They rest principally on the need to resolve the inherent contradiction, and conclude that as well as knowing everything, he also knows what might happen if, at some point, he chooses to act differently. Thus he can be both omniscient and omnipotent because his knowledge is infinite. This is usually the position of the faithful in this debate – they simply dismiss the arguments by stating that he is both.
 

So God doesn’t just have this knowledge, but it is compounded by his knowing the results of any change he might make. Not just all knowledge of the universe past, present and future, but all knowledge of every possible alteration to the universe caused by his free will, and the free will of every lifeform that has, does or will exist. This is the only logical resolution, and it is clearly ridiculous because it begs the question – why both? Omnipotence at least would give God something to do. A perfect knowledge of everything must mean his work is done. 

 

The concepts themselves belie their origin. They are glaringly human.

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6. The convenience of devils

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The contention of atheists is that Gods and religions are man-made, and I cite the concept of the devil as further evidence to support this. The religious have always had to face the constant fact that bad things happen. People do bad things. Nature does ‘bad’ things. Even the most pure and pious of us have ‘evil’ thoughts. Good people die terrible and painful deaths. Innocent children are blinded, crippled and killed.

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So how can this be the work of a God that loves us?

It can’t be, of course – no matter how mysterious his ways may be, even a staunch and fatalistic believer has trouble explaining how visiting a child with leukaemia could possibly serve any purpose a loving God might have, mysterious or otherwise.

 

Another culprit is needed. And so enter the devil, stage trap.

 

There we have it with a few strokes of the pen – the reason for all the world’s ills. God exonerated, a target for hate and a bogey man to instil fear into believers of all ages, all in one character.

But god created everything, so surely he must have created the devil too?

Well so he did – the devil is a fallen angel.

And just look what happens when you turn away from God?

 

But God must have known that Stan would fall and cause all this trouble?
And doesn’t God has the power to smite the devil and put an end to all the world's ills and the suffering of the innocent?

Well of course he does – so there is only one possible conclusion that can be drawn from this.

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He chooses not to.

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Religions are full of such contradictions, but the religious are not encouraged to explore them. Indeed, they are actively discouraged from doing so.

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And so my seventh reason is the convenience of devils.

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7 Hell

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Again – a concept shared by the major religions. It comes usually bound with the concept of eternity, and it is in that light I will explore it.

 

We are to believe that the damned are to suffer eternal damnation. This variously includes endless and constant torture, being roasted in fire and brimstone for the rest of time and an eternity too terrible to contemplate. Forever. A reading of the Koran and some of the details in which it seems to relish is worthwhile in order to understand what the religious think some of us have in store. It's worth noting that eternity has also been defined as 'timelessness', where past, present and future do not exist, or do not mean anything. I think that the fact that theologians have been arguing about this is for centuries in itself instructive.

 

However if we really are to be judged and consigned to Hell for the rest of time, one is forced to the conclusion that any god that would mete out such punishment must be the very pinnacle of malevolence. I say this because in terms of eternity, our conscious lives here on earth are less than an attosecond, more brief than the merest twitch of an electron.

 

Yet the rest of time is spent in punishment for any transgressions made during this fleeting ‘nanomoment’. If one doesn’t accept his word and believe in him during this impossibly short span, then this is your fate.

 

But if it were true, which religion is correct? Which denomination? How is one to know?

 

Is it the Sunnis or the Shi’ites? Is it the Jews? Is it The (Original) Church of God, Inc? Should we drink in the Falls Road or the Crumlin? Should we celebrate Diwali or the Dormition?

How is one to know?
How can one poor, potentially pious and goodly soul possibly avoid eternal torture and damnation?

It really is easily see how the Calvinists reach their conclusions.

 

The ridiculousness and impossibility of this concept betrays the fact that it is just that: a concept. It betrays the plain and obvious fact that it is man-made. However I do not cite it as my eighth reason, though it would do very well.

 

I cite instead its incomprehensible  malice and cruelty.

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8 Heaven

Again– we’re talking about eternity. An eternity of bliss and happiness. No more pain. Nothing to struggle against. Nothing to be achieved. A glorious place or state in which the lion will lay down with the lamb. Again, there are various kinds of heaven according to which creed one looks at, and they share geographical and cultural roots just  as one would expect, given the restrictions of locale and accidents of geography.

 

The afterlife for the good and gracious is common to most of the world’s religions. The Hindu faith has six heavenly plains including ultimately Swarga Loka, where the 330 million Hindu Gods dwell. Against these six, there are 28 hellish plains.

 

Judaism also has numerous heavens, from the first heaven and abode of Adam & Eve, to the seventh heaven where God sits and where all the unborn souls are kept in the Guf. When the Guf is empty, the Messiah will come.

 

The Catholics – who say the Messiah has long been and gone - have a heaven that differs from the Protestants, which differs from the seventh-day Adventists’ and so on – the interpretations differ, but the basic concept is the same.

 

Of the various heavens of which I have read, the Muslim heaven is, for me, the best although Valhalla and Folkvangr sound pretty cool, but the rather more interesting deities to which they are attached are no longer so relevant. More's the pity, I say. 

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Muslims do not believe in original sin, and hold that all people are born innocent. This particular point is to my mind an important one, not least because it kicks the troublesome Calvinists - and indeed the Catholics - into touch. The Koran holds that heaven is a place of perpetual happiness for the immortal, a place without hurt, sorrow, fear or shame. It also describes a little of what actually goes on in heaven, including the presence of pure consorts with whom carnal joys are shared – ‘a hundred times greater than earthly pleasure’ – in order to achieve an ecstatic awareness of god.

Can it be coincidence that a creed with so many sexual proscriptions promises its faithful an endless orgy?

 

An eternity of blissful worship, with nothing to fight for, nothing to achieve, nothing to create, nothing to strive for or hope for is to my mind as good a definition of hell as one could conceive. I start to get restless after two weeks on Cephalonia. My personality is such that I need purpose, something to work towards, a sense of achievement. I need to create. I need to communicate. I need a little struggle and some adversity. Above all, I need to learn and to express myself (hence this 'ere site). Take these things from me and I would quickly become something else. Be someone else. 

 

These traits are by no means peculiar to me – I share them with just about everybody I know and most certainly with those I respect.

Heaven and hell have been very effective in cowering and controlling the simpler folk of old, but it is self-evident that they are man-made concepts from the infancy of our civilisations.

 

My eighth reason is that heaven is self-evidently a human concept.

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9 The female of the species

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“Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent” 1 Timothy 2:11-13

 

"Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property for the support of women. So good women are obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great". 4:34

 

With the notable exceptions of Sikhism and Hinduism, women are treated abominably in mainstream religions. Even today, the plight they endure in many religious communities (including the UK) is intolerable and in some cases beyond belief.

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In almost all creeds, women are judged inferior to men, ranging in status from mere property to be used and abused at will, through to the more subtle, ‘civilised’ hypocrisy of the Anglicans. The attitudes and rules are written into the various codes of the various creeds, and there is hardly any need to list or detail the endless crimes visited by religion on women by religion here – they are already well documented.

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My point is that these religions are held up to be the words of various Gods, and there is a disturbing and revealing consistency that means that when you boil it down, there can only be one of two conclusions.

The first is that one of these religions is indeed the true religion representing the true God, and so women are indeed inferior beings who should keep house, be used for breeding and generally stay out of the lofty affairs of men – much less minister to them or hold office in the church, synagogue, mosque or temple. 

 

The second conclusion is that the various creeds were not written or inspired by a God or based on the word of a God, but by various men over the ages whose interests were served by the servility of women.

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It can only be one or the other.

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10 The commandments

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I've left the ten commandments for last, because for me they are absolute written evidence that the entire edifice of Judaism and therefore Islam and Christianity are the product of men's minds.

 

The ten commandments were compiled by King Josiah's priests to help him centralise and consolidate power in Jerusalem. The Jews worshipped a number of Gods and Godesses, know as the Baal pantheon, and each had their own temples, their own high priests and tribal loyalties. Trying to unite these peoples into a single entity was impossible while such practices persisted. So Josiah ordered the renovation of the temple in Jerusalem and during these renovations, his high priest, Hilkiah, found the book of law as given by God to Moses. Wouldn't you know it? This book of law underlined the very reforms Josiah was making to unify the land.

 

All the high priests were called, and Josiah outlawed the worship of any God other than Yahweh. Any priests that persisted were executed and even priests long dead were exhumed and burned so that nothing remained. Their temples, writings and statues were destroyed, and the entire pantheon eradicated using the newly 'discovered' book of law not just as justification, but as instructions from God himself.

 

This book of law contained ten commandments. Remember that these are not interpretations or the result of stories passed on form one generation to the other, but written into stone by the hand of God himself as the commandments by which mankind should live for evermore. These are given as the product of the most superior intellect there is.

 

So how can it be that the first three commandments are essentially the same? They would not make it past a paralegal trainee. Essentially, he is God, you shall have no other gods, and if you do, not only will you be punished, but so will your children, your children's children and their children too.

 

He goes on to instruct you not to take his name in vain. Now, given that you've just been told by God himself no less that you and you family are well and truly up shit creek for the next hundred years or so if you do anything other than worship this one God, who also freely admits to being a jealous God - a peculiarly human emotion - in the next commandment he goes on to instruct you not to take his name in vain.

 

As though you would.

 

Some of the commandments are useful and socially cohesive. Don't steal, don't kill and so on. However he tells us not to covet anything belonging to your neighbour having commanded us not to steal – as though you would steal something you did not covet in the first place.

 

Similarly, we are commanded not to covet a neighbour's wife, and in another commandment, not to commit adultery. Surely one almost invariably precedes the other?

 

We're also told not to covet our neighbours slaves. Right there in the ten commandments is just one of the justifications that was used by Christian slavers and slave owners for hundreds of years.

 

Elsewhere in the book of law, it describes how you should drive an awl through the ears of your slaves; “then you shall take an awl and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever. Also to your female servant you shall do likewise”. 15:17

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If the preceding nine reason's weren't enough, then the obvious piece of propaganda that is the ten commandments surely demonstrates that religions and Gods are the product of man - not the other way round.

 

I've covered the subject of the commandments in greater detail under Josiah the remarkable.