God didn't understand women because men didn't understand women. Dumas said,
"The Bible says that woman was the last thing that God made. Evidently he
made her on a Saturday night because she reveals his fatigue."
To me this misunderstanding of women is one of the most important pieces of
evidence that man wrote the scriptures. Man couldn't understand women so he
ignored them and/or maligned them, subjected them to his will without their
consent.
As
we travel through those biblical times we find accounts of prophets speaking
with God. All we have as proof that those messages from God were valid is the
say-so of the so-called prophet. When Moses saw God in the burning bush there
was no other witness. God never revealed himself to more than one person at a
time. In reality the only "evidence" we have of the existence of such
an important being is hearsay and you know how much validity hearsay carries in
a court of law. If a man sees what no other person sees, and if he hears what
no other person hears, then we must speak of a derangement of the senses.
It is impossible to pin down two people who agree on what God is (was) because
too many people spoke with God and did so out of their own imaginations.
Voltaire said, "If there was no God man would have created him." Of
course you have to realize that if people in Voltaire's day said blank out that
there is no God he was in danger of being invited to a necktie party, or worse,
to a roasting and he was the roast. Voltaire wrote with humor and satire. I
suspect when he made that statement he was doing so with tongue in cheek. I
will paraphrase Voltaire and say, "All gods are man made and that's why
the workmanship is so shoddy that it can't stand investigation."
It took many years of investigation, the hashing and rehashing of yeahs and
nays before I ever reached that conclusion.
By the time Christ came along the Jewish religion was steeped in ritualism and
petit laws. Theologians say Christ brought love into the world. Love was in
existence long before he ever showed up and if this world is ever to be saved
from total destruction love of our neighbor will have to be more than a pretty
phrase.
Very little is known of the historical Jesus but the one fact comes loud and
clear. He was a rebel. He rebelled against the rigid rules of his culture and
he rebelled against the rule of
The idea of a sacrificial being was an idea accepted by the Sumerians and
Babylonians who believed that man was created by the sacrifice of a god or gods
who were killed that man might live. Lamba-gods (carpenter gods) were killed so
that man might be given life with their blood. Over the eons of time scriptures
change by creative writers taking old legends and putting them in up-to-date
clothes.
The collectors who finally put together the New Testament chose only those
writers who said what the collectors wanted them to say. Those books were
written when people began to ask "Just who was this Jesus you talk
about?" Two, three, four hundred years after the events were supposed to
have happened. It wasn't one person's deliberate attempt to falsify things but
one small lie (an unverified statement) embellished by the next person, added
to by the third person, added to or subtracted from by the fourth person. The
same process
Then came the big sell-out.
The Catholic Church had grown powerful in the cities, especially in
Everything was given and taken in the name of God. God blessed whom the church
blessed. God cursed whom the church cursed. The Pope blessed the wars of the
Emperor. Armies marched to protect the Pope. The costs of feeding, and arming
the armies was on the necks of the peasants. The costs of building the enormous
cathedrals and filling them with works of art landed on the necks of the
peasants. Man was forbidden to read the Bible by which his life was governed.
Priests of the church were forbidden on penalty of death to teach the peasants
to read. The dark ages descended on
The only changes that were made for the benefit of man came from the few in the
lower echelons of the church who went against the rules. Those who taught
people to read in spite of the rules, who opened hospitals in spite of the
rules, who resisted the collecting of fortunes by the clergy in spite of the
rules.
Wycliffe gave his life to translate the scriptures into English so men could
read for themselves the rules God had set down. Martin Luther tried to right
the wrongs he could see which were perpetrated by greed among the clergy of the
Catholic church, but he did it in the name of God. The idea of God and Jesus
Christ by that time had grown so strong very few people could think beyond it.
Those who tried to bring logic and rational thinking to the minds of men were
shut up, burned at the stake, or hanged, dragged and quartered. Fear reigned
everywhere, even among the elite. One never knew when an enemy would point a
finger at him and cry traitor, heretic, atheist.
My study was only about the Christian world. Similar dramas were taking place
world-wide in other religions; In 1982 I visited the Orient. At a Buddha shrine
I saw many small boys running around. The tour director told us that in the
Buddha religion the belief is that the first born son belongs to the family but
the second born son belongs to the church. When the second son reaches four
years of age he is given to the monastery for them to educate and care for him.
The parents are allowed to see their son once a month. At the age of 18 years the
boy is given a choice of returning to the outside world or remaining a monk.
After 18 years of brainwashing it is doubtful that many are inclined to face
reality and a life in the real world.
Is the faith of that Oriental mother of lesser quality than the faith of the
Christian woman who is following the teachings of her church? They are both
doing what they have been taught since birth, to obey without debate. Most
every organized religion asks for devotion by faith, acceptance, obedience.
Our VCR travels take us through the times of John Knox, the vital force of
British Protestantism against Catholicism. John Calvin, Wesley, the Huguenots,
the Albeginsians, the Moors. Oceans of blood shed in the name of God and for
God. The blood of the Catholics shed when the Protestants gained the power. The
blood of the Protestants shed when the Catholics gained power. All of them
claiming to be the bastions of morality, carrying out God's wishes.
To have to accept a whole world of beliefs forced on us by our environment,
without a chance to choose or build our own world of beliefs, would mean a
thousand fold frustration even if all that is forced on us were based on
painstaking research. But soon we realize that people will lie to us whether
they know the facts or have not bothered to determine the validity of them.
Religion makes man a stranger in the universe. It raises a thirst in him that
cannot be quenched. It doesn't teach man to be at home in the world and be part
of the animal kingdom but rather separate himself from it and make the earth
his temporary abode and thus relieve him of any worry or concern as to the
earth's final demise. To all theologians the dragon that must be slain is
reason. The idea of God has its roots in the opinion that the world and the
universe are artifacts and as such have had to have an intelligent designer.
The conclusion sounds plausible "Therefore some intelligent being exists
by whom natural things are directed---and that being must be God." But
that simple explanation is given by those who do not understand the
complexities of nature.
Religions are NOT the bastions of morality. Morality is imbedded in societies.
Religions' first and greatest immorality is in professing to have perfect
knowledge when there is none. Churches and dogmas have value only so far as
they assist societies in the building of morality but not at the expense of
intellectual development, honesty and truth. Few of them can meet that
criteria.
Nature doesn't rule discord. Nature is discord, a survival of the fittest. The
struggle for existence is not an evil. It is a reality. There is no hidden plan
of God or nature. God forgives. Nature doesn't. You have to adjust, cooperate,
or die. In truth the world is neither with us or against us.
This is the conclusion I came to as I studied the times when religions were at
their peak, God is a cop-out, The idea of God takes responsibility off the
shoulders of man and puts it on some mystical being. The idea of God relieves
man of the guilt of his failures because he is offered forgiveness. Sophocles
said, "Wonders are many and none is more wonderful than man." The
only salvation of man is man.
This isn't a philosophy I whipped up but one I've labored over for many years
Every statement I have made here has been substantiated and corroborated by
many sources. The wonderful mind of man, which took him out of the tree tops
and flung him into the skies, is the world's most marvelous resource. It makes
man the supreme being of the universe. It is the most maligned, the most
stifled, the most denied, the most enslaved, and the most misused of all
resources.
What is it about man that pulls and holds him to this mostly senseless
mysticism? Let's focus our VCR on today and see what happens.
"Change and decay in all around I see. O, thou who changes not, abide with
me." So the old church hymn goes giving voice to man's continuing search
for permanence. Man wants something that is constant, something that he can
depend on. Everything around him is in a state of flux. As Shakespeare said,
"First we ripe and ripe and then we rot and rot and thereby hangs a
tale." We don't like the continual changes. We want the wheels to stop and
let us stay where we are. We are egotistical enough to believe we are creatures
which are above that constant change and eventual death. This world is not our
permanent home. We want to think that this life is only one step in an eternal
plan.
To the idea of inevitable death humanity imposes the image of life continuing
after death. Therefore the human mind turns toward mysticism to identify and
describe the post-death existence and to give comfort as death approaches.
Religion is a reaction against this fear. It was not in the first place a
belief in deities. That evolved as there was consolidation of the many gods in
mysticism into one god. The theorizing minds tend to over-simplification, which
becomes the root of all the one-sided dogmatism which gives religion a sense of
certainty, puts it down where even the most naive souls can grasp it.
Religion is humiliating for human intelligence, yet humanity clings to its
absurdity and error. It is bewildering that the most crass superstitions have
long been regarded as a universal fact. Man is the only creature endowed with
reason yet he is also the only creature who pins his devotion and hopes on
things unreasonable.
Karl Marx said religion was the opiate of the people. It softens the blow of
death of a loved one. It boosts the courage of the dying. It may put regret for
his actions in the breast of a dirty, rotten sinner. But then it may not,
because that person is given the option of repentance if he believes in god,
and therefore he has an out.
Religion often serves as an opiate to those who live under hopeless oppression.
By being humble and accepting their lot the oppressed are building up 'brownie
points' with the celestial score keeper who will pay up--sometime. They are
proving themselves strong to themselves as well as to others. "I can take
it" a sort of victory to those who have won no victories. This is why
women are frequently the backbone of churches. Forced into roles that are often
intolerable they live the good life in spite of their burdens. The promise of a
better life in the world to come helps them endure what they can not change.
"Teach your children in the way they should go and when they are old they
won't depart from it." So says the Bible. But so say all those who wish to
indoctrinate others. Hitler said "Give me the child until he is twelve and
I will give you the man."
The Bible also says: "Lean not unto thine own understanding." Thus
giving the death blow to curiosity and debate, putting the responsibility of
ones behavior on the authority, thereby taking ones destiny out of ones own
hands and putting it into the hands of someone else. That's a very dangerous
thing to do if one values his freedoms. Religion an opiate? Definitely. But
like all opiates it threatens to enslave its user.
God cannot be proved by the intellect. He can only be known through the
emotions. Martin Luther said; "You have to kill reason to know god."
But if you kill reason you kill the intellect and leave man defenseless.
When a child is trained to think in the mystical modus that God is watching
over him, directing him and will punish in some nether world all who disobey
him, or reward him for good things done, then he begins to regard the world as
down a long corridor. He thus falls prey to all sorts of holy excesses,
fanaticism, self torment, prudery, gullibility and a morbid inability to meet
the world. The healthy mind, the one which is free of all fetters of mysticism
doesn't need to be born again. He sees life for what it is and can accept it.
It is only the warped mind, the sick soul who needs to be born again to be
happy.
The pretense of religious belief when one really believes otherwise is one of
the greatest forces that keeps organized religion active and alive. A fear of
ostracism if the family finds out a member is in rebellion from the things that
person was taught as a child. There is a social need to belong to a group, or a
political reasons (it gives a sense of worth to be affiliated with a popular
religion), reasons of expediency, (I can make profitable connections belonging
to this group). There is usually a fee, tithe, required to maintain ones membership
in such organizations.
As custodians of offerings, tithes, contributions, church is BIG business. The
greatest fraud of that arrangement is that the church is accountable to no one
but the nebulous God who seldom if ever considers bank accounts, investments,
embezzlements, misappropriations and plain stupid mismanagement.
Churches won't let churches die. There is too much money involved.
When a person spouts a mysticism and money begins to flow in then it solidifies
and grows. The more money a church gets the more power it has and the more it
promotes mysticism. Such wealth puts much power into the hands of those who
want to strengthen the church for political management. Power gives up nothing
unless it is forced to give it up. Changes in churches come about not from the
top but by insignificant people gathering together, realizing that changes are
needed, putting pressure on leaders until they force changes at the top.
Contrary to popular belief, it is not freedom of religion which has made this
country great, but freedom from religion. Religion can go just so far and then
political action contains it. One particular case was the Mormons and their
practice of polygamy. After more than fifty years of legislating against
polygamy and having the Mormons thumb their noses at all laws concerning
marriage, the Federal Government put all the church's property into the hands
of a receiver in 1889. Officially the Mormons gave up taking several wives
each. Unofficially it kept going on even by high church officials until there
was another confrontation in 1905. Polygamy is still being practiced by
fundamentalists to the embarrassment of the present day Mormons.
If religious zealots can defy civil laws with polygamy because it
is their religious belief there is danger of any kind of "kookiness"
coming under the umbrella of religious freedom.
Historically the church, especially the Catholic Church, has wielded so much
power that mankind was literally held in intellectual bondage for over a
thousand years. Thousands of people killed during the Inquisition in the name
of religion. Many others deprived of their human rights. Any changes which came
about were through heresy and individual disobedience. Yet in the face of such
a history the church, all churches, claim to be the bastions of morality, the
keeper of morality, the guardian of morality.
They announce this often and long and loud trying to give themselves a purpose
to remain in existence. They claim that belonging to an organized religion
guarantees that their members will have moral training. The role of churches in
morality is a point to be debated. In actuality morality is imbedded in
societies. Almost all moral codes tell of the necessity of caring for your
neighbors, reverencing your parentage, loving your children, taking nothing
from the earth unless you return something of equal worth to the earth. But
those are social laws. They are not divine laws, laws revealed by God. They are
universal laws which must be obeyed if the human family is to continue.
The greatest immorality of religion is that it teaches as truth things which
have no basis in truth: The existence of God, a God who directs the universe.
God speaks to men. There will be life after death. You will be punished in an
after life for contributions to the church which you have withheld, all kinds
of punishment for all kinds of sin.
None of them are honest enough to teach, "What I am telling
you may not have any basis in fact. Go out and find out for yourself." In
my opinion it is child abuse to fill a child's brain with half truths and whole
lies until when he comes of age to think for himself he has no brain to think
with. You are not excused of child abuse as a parent if you haven't established
that which you are teaching him is the truth.
Even the greatest thinkers fumble and stumble when they try to deal with the
idea of God, not because they are slow of speech or inadequate to deal with
mystical subjects but because God does not exist and they are trying to make a
falsehood a truth and that is impossible.
Man should display moral behavior because he is nature's greatest creation and
should respect every other human being as of equal worth as himself. That which
is good for his neighbor must also be good for all men and by arbitration all
conflicts shall be settled. The same moral concern should be displayed to all
of the earth's creatures and even to the earth itself. God doesn't demand it.
Nature demands it. If man does not heed this moral code then nature will exacts
its toll. Nature does not forgive man his trespasses. Spinoza said, "If we offend the principles of
reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous."
I have this passion to reflect and I
enjoy the delights of sustained reflection. I abhor the safety of a
sluggish intellect even though it is seldom that honest inquiry leaves a
question unscathed. When religion serves as an opiate to influence a
person to accept less than is his just desert, then it is evil. When
belief in a certain religion fosters pathological guilt complexes which
keep a person from enjoying natural pleasures then the so-called beauty it
brings into a life is no fit substitute. When religion makes a
person give up this world's opportunities and his money in favor of some
"eternal rewards" then it is selling a person something under false
pretenses. It is fraudulent. Is a person who teaches such
things innocent? No! He becomes a perpetrator of a
fraud. Is that morality? Not in my book.
Many people might ask, "If the
God idea brings so much comfort, beauty, and tranquilizes so many people why
roil the water? Why remove the rose colored glasses? Why
take away the security blanket? Why deny the sick soul his
opiate?"
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
4
3
3
