Godheval.net

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For those of us who grow up in religious households, we are taught our parents’ beliefs, go to their church, temple, or mosque if they have one, and are saddled with our parents morals, ethics, and any baggage that might come with it.  We take what we are given at face value, accept it as truth, due to the trust we place in those that have proven themselves by caring for us.  But unlike our natural inevitable journey into adolescence, many people never push beyond the beliefs instilled in them during childhood, they do not dare to venture out on their own, to establish their own personal religious identity.

More often than not, those who do not “progress” beyond this stage are the fundamentalists of any given theology, the hardliners, the literalists.  These are people who retain their childhood stories but never learned to look at it with grown-up eyes, to appreciate things like subtlety, nuance, multiple interpretations – like only appreciating poetry where it rhymes, rather than being able to read between the lines.

For those that do move to the next phase, however,  some rebel violently against their former beliefs and institutions – or at least the most vile version or perception of those institutions.  Perhaps they rebel due to a falling out with a parent or preacher or other authority figure.  Perhaps because of some major discrepancy between what we’ve been told to think and what we’ve reasoned for ourselves or even directly experienced.  This discrepancy usually has some noteworthy psychological impact, forcing a person not just to let go of their beliefs, but to run away from them screaming and yelling.

These are people like the militant atheists and agnostics – those for whom it is not enough to simply disbelieve, but who feel compelled to attack those who do believe. Not all atheists fit this description as I’ll explain in the third phase below. Far from simply establishing themselves as individuals “free” of religion, they feel some pressing need to return to their old beliefs and institutions with venom and fire, to criticize and belittle them.  In this way they are just as tethered to those old institutions as they always were, their identities as atheists dependent upon there being a religion against which to rebel.

Just as angry teenagers do not listen to their parents’ reasoning, their attempts to defend their choices, militant atheists do not listen to the more rational believers, the liberal theologians.  They are too busy screaming and yelling.  They need to cast religion and religious people as villains against whom they must stand in opposition.  The ironic thing is that they become the very thing that they are trying to rebel against, like the worst nightmare of any rebellious teenager – to become just like their parents.

The new atheists, who attack a repugnant version of religion, use it to condemn all religion. They use it to deny the reality and importance of the religious impulse. They are curiously unable to comprehend those who found through their religious convictions the strength to stand up against injustice…The new atheists, like all fundamentalists, flee from complexity. They can cope with religion in its most primitive and abusive form. They are helpless when confronted by a faith that challenges their caricatures.

America’s New Fundamentalists pp. 33-34

My experience with this involved some evangelicals and their implication that my mother, for her experimenting with Buddhism and other religions, would be condemned to Hell.  Another example can be seen in the movie The God Who Wasn’t There, which presented itself as a critique of religion and the Jesus myth, but by the end revealed itself to be one man’s personal vendetta against his religious upbringing and parochial school.  Much like a teenager finally getting to tell her parents all the things they did wrong in raising her.

Finally, though, the incendiary passions of militant atheism, like adolescence, are tempered through a sort of rational – rather than physical – maturity.  We learn to read religion like poetry – to understand subtlety, nuance, interpretation.  We learn that no one interpretation is necessarily right or wrong, but that they simply are.  This is not to say that we become believers again, but we no longer categorically deny the possibility – or legitimacy – of believing again.  And should we choose not to believe, we are able to make peace with religion, to reconcile our disbelief with others’ belief, to accept that disbelief is merely another interpretation of our experience.

To clarify, I do not mean to imply any qualitative difference between people at the different stages of belief or disbelief.  I do not think that people at any given stage are better than any other, no more than adults are better people than teenagers, or teenagers better people than young children.  They all simply have different ways of viewing and interpreting the world and their experiences within it.  I do contend, however, that just as adults tend to be better educated, better adjusted, and to possess greater wisdom for their length of experience, those who have progressed to the “third phase” are also wiser and better adjusted.  They are more capable of higher order thinking, more rational, more objective, and more established and comfortable within their identities.

They are independent enough to think for themselves, to make their own choices, and wise enough to look deeper into things rather than taking them at face value.  They are secure enough that they no longer need to prove themselves against the standards or norms of another.  They are grounded enough to no longer need to fly to the attack on others’ beliefs, or the defense of their own.

In short, they have grown up.

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It only took one incident. I was talking to one of the group leaders, and he “informed” me that people who don’t accept Christ as their personal savior go to Hell. I asked him “What about the people in third world countries who never hear about Christ?”. He said that that’s what missionaries are for. As for the people those missionaries didn’t reach – well, it was unfortunate, but they too would be going to hell. I’m sure the progressive Christians out there reading this are shaking their heads. I know now that this view misrepresents the religion, but as a pre-adolescent, none of that mattered. You see, back then my mother was exploring other religions, and was practicing Buddhism.

I asked the group leader if my mother was going to hell since she was a Buddhist, and he said yes, and that I should work to “bring her back”. Can you imagine what went through my head? My mother at that time was the single most important person in my life. One negative word about her usually made me ready to fight someone. As I thought about what this guy was suggesting, I weighed the influence of God vs. the influence of my mother in my life. My mother was a reliable constant – a tangible being who had been there for me since the very beginning. There was never a time that I felt I couldn’t depend on her. God, on the other hand, while “he” represented an ideal that I had been willing to subscribe to, did not have that kind of real presence.

So let me get this straight, I thought. Because my mother doesn’t follow your (the Christian) belief system, she’s going to be condemned to an eternity in hell, despite being a kind, compassionate, and selfless person? My hackles were up. I almost hit the guy. Any god who would do such a thing would be a monster, and surely not worthy of my devotion. Fuck your god – that’s how I felt in that instant. That was the impetus for my challenge of Christian doctrine, and from there my skepticism only increased, reinforced again and again by my own personal research. I don’t remember at which point my skepticism turned to cynicism, and my distaste turned to something very close to hatred, but that’s where I am right now. You never tell a boy that his mother’s going to hell. That one guy, in all of his idiocy, planted the seed for a new antichrist.

That was only the beginning. As I grew older, I became an increasingly rational, logical, and analytical person. The beliefs, practices, and rituals of Christianity, as well as other organized religions no longer had a place in my mind. They became ridiculous. Who was it that ascribed divine status upon Jesus, declaring him the “Son of God”; if he said it himself, are we to take it literally or figuratively? It has been convenient throughout history for religious adherents to exalt their figureheads to divinity as a means of justifying power. Another example would be the Egyptian pharoahs, who were obeyed as rulers, and worshipped as gods. Jesus’s divinity was a decision – made by whom I couldn’t tell you – but most likely made for the purpose of either establishing or sustaining a power structure.

Susan Blackmore, in her book “The Meme Machine“, mentions something called the “altruism trick” for spreading memes. If I make it a habit to do nice things for you, to be kind to you at all times, and to go out of my way to help you, won’t you be more inclined to listen to what I have to say? Will it not be easier for me to convince you of something which may at first even be counter-intuitive? In a sense, you will feel as though you owe it to me to give my argument the benefit of the doubt. So consider missionaries, who travel to places only grazed by the technological boon, and therefore are not privy to the wellspring of information available to the people of the industrialized world. If the people in a given region are suffering from disease or famine, and these “messengers of God” come bearing gifts of food and medicine, then surely the least the people can do is listen to the ideas that allegedly inspired this good will, right?

What if you lived in a culture that subscribed to a religion involving ritual sacrifice, and as part of the commoner class you were subject to being “offered to the gods”? Along comes a group of strangers, and they tell you that your sadistic gods are false – that there is in fact only one god. Furthermore, not only would he never sacrifice you, he sent his own son to be sacrificed in order to absolve your sins. Changing your beliefs in this case result in immediate benefits, as you no longer accept “divine justification” of ritual sacrifice. When presented with this new information, you suddenly seem to have options that maybe you never considered before. And this guy, Jesus? He died for YOU. There can be no greater form of altruism. There is the trick at work once again. Of course none of this invalidates the genuine acts of good will that religious proselytizers perform in the name of their faith, but intricately nested within all of this is a mechanism for spreading that doctrine. You can even see how this mechanism was at work in that youth group I mentioned earlier. They shared with me their facilities, their resources, and showed me a good time, which made me open to listening to what they had to say.

How about desperation? Imagine being in a situation that seems hopeless, from which there seems to be no escape – such as slavery. You’ve seen many people attempt many different solutions – running away, hiding, or fighting back – only to incur even greater penalties. The government has laws that forbid these conditions but these laws only apply to human beings, and you have been relegated to the status of only a little better than an animal, and disposable property. No help to be found there. If no worldly solution presents itself, it follows in short order that a person would turn to forces greater than themselves, greater than those that enslave them. Pray to god, and perhaps he will come to your aid. If not, then at the very least you can take solace in the idea that when this earthly suffering has ended, your devotion will guarantee you a place in a world of beauty and light. All you have to do is acknowledge god’s son and his sacrifice for your sins! Nevermind that these ideas were passed on to you by the very people who enslave you, and who by this same idea can find a place right alongside you in that wonderful place, despite the fact that they subjugated you mercilessly. Apparently this “god” has no sense of justice, or a cruel sense of irony.

Considering these things, and the inherent contradictions and hypocrisies in every organized religion, it is easy to see how someone would question them. Afterall, if you’re not a skeptic, then you’re a sheep. If this wasn’t enough, I would later learn more about the history of organized religion, namely their origins in the Indo-European invasions of 6000 years ago, and how they propagated behind the power of conquest. If presented with the choice of remaining loyal to your own gods and being murdered, or converting to the religion of your invaders and surviving, which would you pick? If by some measure of idealism you’re thinking you’d stay true to your faith, consider that that may be because people today are more resourceful, more educated, and recognize The Individualy options available to them. Also, people today are not often faced with such a ridiculously black and white situation.

Finally, since this is becoming long-winded, there is the issue of mythology vs. history. Every religion began as a collection of stories passed on by oral tradition and often co-evolving as they were shared amongst increasingly larger groups of people. Out of the thousands of religions that once existed, only a few still remain, and even fewer have a reach much greater than their land of origin. Those “obsolete” religions have been relegated to the status of “myth” or “legend”, because that was the decision of the dominant, who insisted that only their own religion was the “truth”. Most of these old stories that have made up religions are recognized as untrue or highly improbable, and yet some – like those of the “Big Three” (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) are regarded by many as historical accounts. The more progressive followers of these religions, being more rational, have adapted their interpretation of the old texts so that they are merely symbolic. That’s pretty convenient. How many times will adherents have to “change their interpretations” of their religions so that they remain relevant?

This brings me back to the question of “What am I?”. A few terms come close to explaining it, but don’t quite hit the mark. Atheists believe that there is no God. Some of the best cases for atheism I’ve found come from those scientists and philosophers who subscribe to the idea of an evolutionary algorithm, that is, who believe that Darwin’s idea of natural selection can be used to explain the “mindless” development of our universe. They argue for the “accumulation of design” as opposed to the religious view of “argument by design”. The actions of various mindless “replicators” (e.g. DNA) copying themselves – that being their only “impulse” – and with random copying errors, can explain all the complexity in our universe.

It is a fascinating theory, and I’d recommend that people read more about it on their own. Richard Dawkins’ “The Selfish Gene“, “The Extended Phenotype“, and “The Blind Watchmaker“, as well as Daniel Dennett’s “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” are good references. As provocative as these ideas are, there is something rooted deeply within me – perhaps even some remnant of my religious past – that will not allow me to accept it. Perhaps it is a lingering sense of romanticism which cannot be reconciled with this extremely grim possibility. My personal stance on natural selection, unlike the “Dawkinsians”, is that while it can account for much of the world’s evolutionary processes, there must be some other mechanisms at work. I cannot offer any scientifically valid alternative, but my intuition cries out in opposition. Also, even if the so-called evolutionary algorithm is responsible for creation, that doesn’t disprove the existence of higher entities. While its simplicity suggests that it does not require intelligence, would not such an amazing system be a real credit to divine architects?

My problem with atheism is that it too is composed of “beliefs”. They believe in the nonexistence of God. Their often self-righteous and bullheaded approach to convincing others of this “truth” does not differ much from the aggravating proselytization of Christian evangelists. While I am always willing to engage in conversation with people, and share my personal thoughts on these transcendental issues, I would never declare my ideas as “truth”, and nor would I attempt to “convert” someone to my way of thinking. The only thing I ever try to push on anyone is open-mindedness, and I often insist that people just take the time to examine their beliefs.

Meanwhile, there are the agnostics, who don’t claim to know whether or not God exists, and don’t think that it can be proven one way or the other. This doesn’t quite fit me, because I encourage all efforts to explain the workings of our universe or to uncover the truth about higher presences, even though I am not too confident that these efforts will ever be successful. So, I guess the difference between agnostics and myself is that I am not as apathetic. It is actually quite important to me that there be something out there greater than myself – and all of humanity for that matter. I have to believe that. Another group with which I identify with is the deists, who like I do reject the idea of faith, and think that the existence of God can only be discovered through scientific rationalization. The difference here is that deism, like the other majority creeds, seems to imply the existence of a singular all-powerful god.

This is not an idea that I subscribe to absolutely, but nor do I reject it. I simply don’t know, and so I don’t claim otherwise. Also, the idea of multiple “gods” suits me better for some reason. I put “god” into quotes there because I don’t place much stock into the word itself. I like to entertain the idea of many “higher beings” operating on some level above human perception. If “god” status means that a being is omniscient or omnipotent, then that’s the part I’m less inclined to accept. A popular question asked by people who are skeptical (like myself) is “If God is benevolent, why does “he” allow bad things to happen?”. An easy answer would be that god (or the gods) are not all-powerful, and are not infallible. Where else in the universe do we witness perfection? Nowhere. So is it in anyway realistic to hold “god” to such a standard? I suppose then, that these higher beings – if they exist – cannot be called gods at all.

I also have this vague sense that “truth”, if such a thing exists objectively, is being subverted by humans’ insufficient powers of perception. Sometimes I think things like “If there is a god or gods, how must they feel having their identities, work, or very existence warped by human beings?” A sort of sadness comes over me when I think that these “gods”, through religious perversion, are being grievously misrepresented. As a hypothetical example of what I mean, let us suppose for a moment that Greek mythology is the actual truth, and that the prevalence of later religions – like Christianity – has distorted their roles in the universe, even so far as to invalidate them completely. That would be tragic, wouldn’t it? So, in a way, I feel that by remaining skeptical, by challenging everything, I am leaving an opening for the “gods” to communicate. Established religion, in purporting “truth”, cuts people off from this possibility.

My ideas about these “higher beings” are abstract – ephemeral even – changing constantly as I learn and experience new things. I hesitate to give them concrete form, and in fact cannot, because beyond some vague intuition, I cannot offer any solid evidence to myself or anyone else of their existence. The best I can offer are theories of metaphysical processes which may explain the nature of existence. I can only imagine where these higher beings fit into this scheme. If you’re interested, some of these theories are available here:

• The Existential Wave Theory
• The Universal Will Theory

What do I believe? The simple answer is nothing. Once a person “believes” something, then it is no longer subject to examination, and their mind is closed to truth. Belief is the root of the kind of dogmatic systems that I regularly condemn, and so I choose to only entertain various ideas, all of which are subject to falsification.

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I will concede that I do just that on a regular basis. I do tend to think of Christians as stupid, or at least misguided people. Of course this view is not simply because they do not adhere to my “superior” philosophy. I have quite a few reasons, but most of which are an argument against biblical literalism and fundamentalist points of view, which do not represent the gestalt of the Christian ideology. Plain and simple, I think that anyone who takes the Bible literally, i.e. considers it some kind of historical account, is an idiot. All it takes is the bare minimum of knowledge about the underlying structure of the religion, and its origins, to realize the folly in taking the Bible at face value.

Two examples: the suppression of the Goddess religion by the Indo-Europeans, and the subsequent demonization of the feminine and her serpent symbolism, from which stemmed the Adam and Eve myth; the co-opting of the story of the Great Flood in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which became the story of Noah’s Ark. This story came out of Mesopotamia, a region trapped between two rivers and prone to flooding. For people of that time, for whom the “world” was quite small, such a flood could be devastating enough to be chronicled as an exaggerated myth. And speaking of Noah, who wasn’t an exceptional man, how could he possibly have known enough to collect two of every animal on the planet? How could he, having no zoological expertise, have identified the different sexes of each one? Can you even imagine the amount of TIME this endeavor would’ve taken? Ah, but then again, according to the Bible, people back then lived for several hundred years. Maybe also he was guided by the voice of God? Yeah, sure.

The idiocy of biblical literalism alone is not enough to spark my hatred, though. It usually comes as a parallel to the kinds of human behavior and world views that stem from it. When I hear a woman say that a man is the rightful head of the household, and Eve condemned herself and all of her kind (women) to live beneath the heel of men because she ate the forbidden fruit, I feel a burning anger swell up in my chest. While I’m talking about that asinine story, I also have an extreme dislike for the mere idea that God forbade Adam and Eve from acquiring knowledge.

Should I mention the Crusades? That the Christian institution hated alternative worldviews enough to justify long bloody wars to suppress them goes hand in hand with that idea of forbidding knowledge. Just as religion was for the conquering Indo-Europeans, Christianity was as much or more of a political weapon as it was a medium for spirituality. There is all kind of speculation out there as to the motives of the Jews in victimizing Christ which revolve around politics, and the alleged fact that he was descended from King David. I really don’t want to spend too much time talking about my specific points of contention, because I’ll never get to my real point. Returning to fundamentalism, the same kinds of problems are being bred from ignorance today – such as wars with an underlying religious motive fought under false pretenses; they suggest a return to a Crusader’s mindset.

As our civilization advances, so do humans’ proficiency and innovation in developing methods to destroy each other, particularly on the grounds of differing ideologies. Now politics and socioeconomic manipulation serve as some of the most powerful weapons. Racism, classism, misogyny – all of these things are propagated through the fundamentalist worldview. It is these things that make me hate Christianity, but also Islam and Judaism, and every other rigid, archaic, ritualistic institution.

Now, I couldn’t call myself open-minded if I believed that the fundamentalists of any religion represent the ideologies of all adherents. I acknowledge that some people merely use religion as a moral guide, or as a loose set of principles by which to live their lives. They “interpret” the Bible in such a way that enables them to reconfigure archaic ideas and apply them to present day situations. Some of these people may say that Jesus as the son of God was merely symbolic, and that all people are ideological “children” of God. Whatever. Here comes my main point. If in order to take anything meaningful or useful or practical from the Bible one has to analyze and reinterpret it – and probably in a way that its authors could never have anticipated, what value does the original text really have? The moral ideals in the Bible are nothing new. Be it human nature or a matter of balancing the conceivable benefits vs. the risk of harm within the context of self-preservation, we know on some innate level that murdering other people is wrong. There is probably no culture in the world that doesn’t condemn stealing, simply because no one wants to be a victim of theft themselves. These ideas existed long before the Bible, and continue to exist well outside the realm of religious ideology.

Whether it be moral guidelines or some sort of transcendent spirituality, what is it that’s specific to Christianity or any other religion that makes people choose to believe them? It seems to me that the answer is NOTHING. If a religion has to be removed from its original historical context, transformed, interpreted, and adapted to fit modern times, does it even keep enough of its original form to be viable? I could choose to worship Shakespeare and adapt The Individualy interpretations of his works to create some kind of framework for living. Does that make Shakespeare holy? So why Christianity? Why Islam? why Judaism? Is it cultural self-identification? Is it to achieve a sense of belonging? It seems to me that there is nothing that institutionalized religion offers that cannot be found by way of other philosophical ventures. Worse, it creates an opening – through literalist interpretation – for the propagation of archaic, counter-progressive, and ultimately destructive ideologies. That, for me, establishes institutionalized religion as unfit for survival in a contemporary world, and provides the grounds for its complete abolition.

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