“From the moment that man submits God to moral judgment, he has killed Him in his own heart.”
~Camus
The thing about God is, He couldn?t really exist in any fashionable sense could he? I mean, no one in their right mind could actually claim the Dolt is useful.
Religion may offer solace to those who find uncertainty disturbing, but beyond that, the only thing it creates is bigotry, inflated egos, wars, prejudice against freethinking, and the illusion that some omnipotent being is actually watching over us, and that furthermore?despite this mess we call mankind?this big good guy actually cares about us.
I?m being a bit harsh. Surely there must be something more redeeming about theism but, in light of the recent events, I?m sincerely beginning to doubt it.
Let?s examine a close friend of mine. He?s a religious boy?a very religious boy. He believes that good and evil can have something to do with coffee and naked breasts. This Sunday, he dozed off during Conference and awoke with enthusiasm to find MTV. Yes, indeed, a very religious boy.
But the disturbing thing about him is that he didn?t want to watch the news. We had just bombed Afghanistan, yet my pious little friend couldn?t care less. It was either Gordon B. Hinckley or Willa Ford for him.
When I brought this to his attention, he responded confidently, “What do I have to learn that the news can teach me?
?Those are temporary concerns. President Hinckley was talking about much more important things.”
Or, more precisely, things that may or may not even exist.
Furthermore, in this most recent Conference, the idea that only God-revering people can behave morally was again perpetuated.
Neal A. Maxwell said, “If there is nothing beyond death, then what is wrong with giving oneself wholly to pleasure in the short time one has left to live? The loss of faith in the ?other world? has saddled modern Western society with a fatal moral problem.”
While Russell M. Nelson also claimed, “Satan wants us to be miserable just as he is. He would animate our carnal appetites, entice us to live in spiritual darkness and doubt the reality of life after death.”
And in 1996, Gordon addressed the 78th National Convention of the American Legion and announced that a new battle must be forged?against atheism.
It seems that theists, by implication of these and other statements, seem to be under the mistaken notion that without a belief in the “afterlife,” men would have no reason to behave morally.
This idea was announced by Gordon, who interrupted his preachings to report that America was dropping bombs on Afghanistan because certain theists in that country seem to believe so ardently in an afterlife that they appropriated a plane full of families and slammed them into buildings full of other families.
Man, Gordon sure was right. Only a belief in the afterlife can prevent people from doing atrocious things.
Or, as the American Atheists promptly responded in 1996, “I fail to envision how the scapegoating of Atheists is an honest attempt at solving [social problems].
Oh, that’s right. I forgot. Atheists are responsible for all the world’s problems. Atheists are responsible for the attacks on women and doctors.
Atheists are responsible for the attacks on libraries, science and our freedom to learn. Atheists are responsible because a few priests can’t keep their hands off little boys.
Atheists are responsible because insane militia groups are grounded in biblical fantasy. Atheists are responsible for terrorist attacks and bombings such as Oklahoma, the Olympics and the tragedy of TWA Flight 800.
And of course, Atheists are responsible for all the filth, poverty, crime and corruption in South America and the Philippines, all staunchly Christian nations.
Might it not seem a bit obvious that perhaps theism and its orgasmic faith mongering is responsible for more evils in the world than any non-theistic attitude?
As Morris Cohen said, “In regards to the terrors as well as the superstitions and immoralities of religion, it will not do to urge that they are due only to the imperfections of the men who professed the various religions. If religion cannot restrain evil, it cannot claim effective power for good.”
Religion continues to beg the question, ignore the issue and solidify beliefs as if they are worth as much as a person, a rock, as manure.
In our supposedly enlightened age, why do we continue to console ourselves with illusions? Why must we continually deny our complete and absolute responsibility for the construction of notions such as “good” and “moral?”
When will we admit that these constructions cannot be defined by commandments or popes or prophets, but are perpetuated by each and every one of us? And that, as such, these constructions must be amended, allowed to evolve so that they do not in fact prove useless when we come face to face with the dilemmas that confront them.
Morality is man?s most noble creation. But it isn?t polished by any means.
To consider it absolute and in the hands of some superhero in the sky is an affront to its evolution.
As Nietzsche so harshly insisted, a belief in the afterlife is nothing other than contempt for this life. It turns out to careful minds and sensitive hearts that people who love gods, afterlives?in short, people who love ideas more than the concrete truths of flesh and blood?are in fact behaving immorally.
God. That stupid and vague notion which continues to ail us and hinder a true understanding of the human condition and, therefore, true moral behavior.
“Whatever power such a being may have over me,” said John Stuart Mill, “there is one thing which he shall not do: he shall not compel me to worship him. I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply the epithet to my fellow creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go.”
Until we understand the pure beauty of loving any one person, any rock, any slab of manure more than this vague and stupid deity, morality itself will remain a withering and useless endeavor.
Chris welcomes feedback at: [email protected]