there is no god
“God is regarded as true by the ignorant, false by the wise, and useful by those that rule.”
Seneca, 4-65 CE
Caging innocent minds so they cannot explore or imagine, question or learn, think or create – all those wonderful gifts that allow them the liberty to become the remarkable beings that nature intended – is nothing less than abuse.
Deliberately hijacking those minds – demanding that they live within the oppressive walls of ignorant dogma, perverse traditions, and unintelligible beliefs – is criminal in it’s intent.
Convincing them that those imposed restrictions on their only life is their identity, is a manipulative lie. It is not theirs, it has been forced upon them, obliging them to perpetuate the same mistakes, injustices, and divisions that has brought all of humanity to the brink of self-destruction.
If we are to survive, we need to change, and we have to be free to do so, because submitting to the ongoing totalitarian authority of archaic religions is the most serious threat that prevents us from responding to that urgent need.
Secularists substitute a belief in god for a belief in themselves. Neither god nor the self can be defined other than in abstract and meaningless terms, because neither actually exists. Worshiping the self – that indulgent obsession with ‘me, myself, and I’ – and the pursuit of short-term, self-gratification with no regard for anyone else, or for the future, is as equally fatal for our species as believing in a god.
Until we let go of religion, stop valuing culture and tradition, and stop making ourselves slaves to an arbitrary identity, we will not be able to change.
Religion is to god, as identity is to the self
The idea of god, and of the self, served as useful explanations for creation, and for the experience of being, when our understanding of the universe, and life, was less consummate. However, it is now evident that neither are appropriate nor necessary terms to describe the mechanics that underpin what we accept as existence, both as a physical reality and as a mental interpretation. God, and that which we imagine as the ‘self’, are simply abstract inventions.
God is only made ‘real’ by religion: the architectural monuments, the traditions and customs, the ceremonies and all the paraphernalia that accompanies them, the ‘sacred’ texts and stories, the dogma, the theatre and costumes, the symbolism, the fear, the hierarchy, the patriarchy, the control, the overt lies, hypocrisy, contradictions and inconsistencies, the guilt, the bizarre promises, the praying, and of course, that trump card, blasphemy – the very real threat that faces anyone who dares to question the validity of that imposed authority – together they make up the substance of religion. Take those away, and god ceases to exist, because god is just an irrational and unexplained feature of this man-made contrivance, used to divert the truth of it’s oppressive agenda onto something that is beyond examination.
We want to fit in, and we have been encouraged to have a clear sense of identity. Religion only exists because it continues to take advantage of those vulnerabilities. Anyone fearful of questioning god need only turn to science to realise that there isn’t one there to administer any punishment – it’s only the religious authorities who do that. We are vulnerable because we are denied the opportunity to grow up and benefit from our intellectual potential. Religions (and other systems of hierarchy) overtly suppress our development to maintain that vulnerability so that we don’t acquire the knowledge to question them, and therefore remain obedient to their authority, quietly acquiescing to those ridiculous and unsubstantiated beliefs, and being preoccupied with the myriad of childish distractions they burden us with.
Our ongoing quest to find the ‘meaning of life’, is testament to our vanity, hubris and stupidity…
✦ The meaning of life, ✦
is life itself
Reducing life to something we want it to be, something outside of what it actually is, not only alienates us from ‘life’, and hence meaning, but corrupts our understanding and appreciation of it.
JoeN
The cornerstone of all monotheistic religions is that we are coerced into believing* that a fantasy super-being is a real entity, one who created the universe and everything within, along with the somewhat bizarre notion that he resides in another dimension beyond this physical universe, and when we die, an intangible aspect of our bodies will magically be transported there, and will reside with him for eternity – or some variation on that theme. And we somehow justify going to war and killing one another, all because we actually believe that the version we’ve been fed is the only true one.
* There is a clear distinction in us believing something because it makes sense, and just accepting something that we’ve been told…
Russell expects the sun to rise tomorrow. He cannot be absolutely certain, but given the consistent behaviour of nature throughout his life, it’s a reasonable belief grounded in evidence. However, if Russell were told that a talking teacup had been elected president, he would not believe it. Such a claim runs counter to everything he knows about the world. Without extraordinary evidence, it would be irrational to accept it as true.
For a belief to be meaningful, it must be grounded in substance and supported by reason. In matters of religion, we should not abandon our natural capacity for critical thought by mindlessly accepting the claims of those who assert authority. We have one life, and with it, the right – and the responsibility – to question both the validity and the intentions of anyone who tells us what to do, or what to believe.
The universe: something genuinely unbelievable in it’s magnitude, where god supposedly put all life, including ourselves, on the tiniest of planets at the tail end of an insignificant galaxy, one of around 50 galaxies that are known as the local group, which together with two thousand other galaxies form the Virgo Supercluster, in a universe that is host to around 10 million of these super clusters. In total, there could be up to two trillion galaxies in the universe.
Our own planet orbits one star, the sun, out of a mere 100 billion that make up our galaxy, the Milky Way, a tiny fraction of the 200 billion trillion stars – that’s 2 with twenty-three zeros after it – which are dotted around the unimaginable expanse of the universe at large. But we won’t question the rationale behind such extremes, because god works in mysterious ways.
Religion is perhaps the oldest and most enduring form of ‘herd branding’ – demanding loyalty to self-appointed authorities who exploit faith for their own power. In return, it offers vague and unverifiable promises of love, salvation, or paradise, encouraging trust without evidence, and submission without understanding.
Sept 2023