Beyond Religion

God

I guess anybody writing a piece about religion can be said at the very least to still have an issue with the concept of religion. Wether the issue is doubt about the existence of (a) God (I’m going to write God with a capital G, just to be on the safe side… Also, for convenience sake, I’ll call God a He, or a Him), or about why OTHER people apparently believe in God, clearly religion plays a role in my life, as I feel it does in everybody else’s.

In my case that role is not one I like. Personally, I do not believe (a) God exists. More the opposite, I believe God does not exist. But maybe it makes sense to briefly define God. I use the word (or name) God in the sense of the traditional middle-aged man with a beard, sitting on a throne, or a cloud perhaps, seeing all, knowing all, and controlling all. Omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. God always was and always will be.

Some people define God as nature, or as a concept that comes as close as makes no difference. If this is God, then God as an entity is irrelevant in my view in the sense that I cannot appeal to Him for any direct or indirect action, I cannot hold Him responsible for anything (even a hurricane or an earthquake, as God is clearly not sentient), He would be completely unpredictable, and He would be amoral. So if God equals nature, it doesn’t really make any difference what I do or fail to do, and there are no consequences or repercussions when I die. I may not be able to hold this God responsible, I don’t have to worry about Him holding me responsible for anything either.

Some people see God as the One responsible for creation and everything in it. God, after having done all the hard work, decided to give everything and everyone free will, from amoebae to mankind, and refrained from any further interfering. Whatever happens, Earth, and we humans play the hand we’re dealt, and again, at least in this life, there will be no consequences for any bad or good deeds as far as God is concerned. There may be an afterlife, and depending on the rules you adhere to, there we may be made to suffer for any trespasses against those rules. Free will clearly comes with a large responsibility if you believe in this God.

I think however that most people who believe do so in the traditional God. He could do wonders if he so chose, He could destroy the Earth in an eyeblink, he could heal the entire planet and everyone on it if he decided to in a divine heartbeat.
Omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent.

This is the God I believe does not exist. With the same certainty that I believe gravity will still be there tomorrow. So I don’t have a problem with the sins I commit, like not being baptized, or eating pork, or cursing, having sex outside of marriage (although my wife may feel differently on this one), lying, stealing, even killing. Some of these sins I never commit, most rarely, but no matter how bad I would be, I would not worry about being punished by anyone but the law of the land. Now or in an afterlife.

So what’s your problem, I hear you ask. Well, there are many people on this planet who do believe in God (the traditional one). He may have different names to different groups, but the basic tenet is the same: He is a domineering Man with very rigid rules and an outright jealous outlook on life. This God insists He must be the only One, He must be obeyed or else, and usually, those who already believe in Him must do all they can to make sure those who do not believe in Him soon will.
I don’t blame God for his desires, needs and wishes. After all, I say He does not exist. The trouble therefore does not lie with God, but with those who follow His rules to the point where they encroach upon the space, interests and lives of unbelievers like me. It’s a bit like smoking: Smokers are not bothered by the fact that I don’t smoke (and I don’t bitch about it much either). But smokers of course are a nuisance to me when they engage in their filthy habit near me.

I’m not saying believing in God is a filthy habit, although some religious people clearly succeed in making it one. The analogy lies in the fact that, providing I’m a decent human being (which to me does not depend on believing in any God), I don’t bother anyone, whereas a person prohibiting me to fly an airplane on Saturday because his God says that’s not allowed, or another person throws rocks at me for making photographs on Sunday because HIS God says I should be at home stting still with a pained expression on my face (even though I don’t believe in Him) is clearly restricting me in my choices in life, while I am not in any rational sense of the word impeding on his.

Where ever does it say: On the Nth day you shall rest and look solemn, and not only you but everyone, even those who do not believe in Me?

I’m deliberately using petty examples here. Things a person like me could get around without much trouble, even though the principle holds. It stops being a fun kind of nuisance and becomes an actual threat however when a small but significant group of believers take themselves and their God so seriously that they’re willing to enforce their ways upon others, and take this willingness to its lethal conclusion if need be.

Homosexuals have been murdered by people who believe in a God that forbids killing, because somewhere in the rulebook it says that homosexuality is wrong, and the penalty for it should be death. Some believers clearly feel called upon to act as judge, jury and executioner, even though the same rulebook also says not to judge.

Doctors who perform abortions have been murdered by people who believe in a God that forbids killing, because somewhere in the rulebook it says that killing is wrong (Yes, there’s an irony in there somewhere).

I don’t necessarily agree or even sympathize with gays, or doctors who commit abortions, or anyone else who happens to offend the religious sensibilities of believers. However, there can be no understanding or tolerance for those who kill or threaten to kill and draw their justification for murder from a book THEY happen to believe in, or from a person who holds a particularly riveting sermon.

But it gets worse.

Some rulebooks clearly and explicitly make a distinction between those that believe in God, and those that believe in ‘other Gods’, or worse, no God at all. The people mentioned above, who kill gays, or doctors or other offenders are exceptions. When tragedies like this occur, they are rare, and invariably make the news. Society does not tolerate them, and the perpetrators are arrested and prosecuted, treated as the criminals they are.
But the worst kind of religion is that which teaches its followers that non-believers are in fact a little less human (or sometimes hardly human at all). Killing them is not wrong, and sometimes even very right. Dying while in the process of killing them will earn you a place next to Him, or some other reward that alone would already constitute quite an incentive. And if the rulebook is sometimes ambivalent about the attitude towards those who do not believe in the One God, then often humans take it upon themselves to ‘clarify’ things for those less educated in the ways and manners of God. Moreover, one of the first things any self-respecting God will have put down in writing is a demand for total and complete respect. This automatically creates a vicious circle, because criticism of some or all of the rules in the book equals criticism of God, which is intolerable. After that, it is only the degree of fanaticism of the believer which decides what course of action is chosen next. A strong protest. A nasty e-mail. A boycott. A discussion. A death sentence. Take your pick.

All because a person believes in God, the rules He laid down, and the absoluteness of it all.

And then to think He doesn’t even exist.

Crossposted from GoIsraelGo.blogspot.com

posted by D @ 1:27 AM