This has been a common theme through the ages but in our enlightened times you would hope that this biblical zealotry would have died out, to be replaced by a more civilised and conciliatory approach.
How did things go so wrong? Well…..
We are living in the age of woke and “progressive” socialism you know, which positively encourages people to split themselves into myriad groups on the basis of race, colour, gender, shoe size, you name it; then verbally, and sometimes physically, abuse and cancel everyone who disagrees with them.
So, why would religious bigotry and persecution feel the need to lead the way to the promised land of reasoned debate and compromise.
I’m not religious myself. I don’t believe in God, but I can understand why some folk like to place a bob each way to cover the uncertainty of “what happens when I die”.
I realise I’m in the minority here, although there are considerably more like me than at any time in the past few thousand years, so that’s some progress at least.
Anyway, it got me thinking, and I’ve decided to do my own layman’s critique of religion and its development over the ages. I’ll attempt to answer some of those curly God questions that have always niggled most of us, if we’re honest.
I thought it might also provide a welcome “bigger picture” distraction from the media circus that is our election, and the inevitable aftermath of wheeling and dealing that always goes on, lasting for many weeks if Winston’s involved.
So, here goes.
In the beginning…..!
Hold on, that sounds familiar. I’ve definitely read that somewhere. Probably Stephen Hawking’s book on Space and Time, I expect. Or was it The Very Hungry Caterpillar …I can’t recall.
As I was saying, in the beginning humans have worshipped beings and objects of all descriptions. I kind of like this multidisciplinary approach, dividing things up into specialist subjects - it appeals to my scientific way of thinking.
It also makes much more sense from a workload management point of view.
Way back in Egyptian, Greek and Roman times, and countless other civilisations in the BC era, they had a raft of gods, each assigned to their own area of expertise - war, peace, love, fertility - it was endless. There was even a deity ranking system, much like a company management structure… or the Maori tribal elite.
Many of the middle management gods did bugger all, in my opinion, and should have been amalgamated, with those surplus to requirements laid off, but there was a lot of nepotism back then, not to mention incest, and “jobs for the gods” was common practice.
As a poor miserable human, who could hardly expect to live to 30, this did involve a fair bit of learning and committing to memory regarding which god did what.
But when an issue arose, like your crops failed due to disease or a plague of locusts.…. again, you knew exactly which god to sacrifice your last emaciated animal to, while politely enquiring why last year’s sacrifice hadn’t worked, and whether this year’s came with a 12 month guarantee.
Then about 2000 years ago, it all started to change. An extremist fringe idea up until then really began to gain traction.
Like some massive Labour government state centralisation project, all the gods were combined into one SuperGod who was responsible for everything.
Now I’m certainly not an expert on these things - exactly like that pink-haired lady who told us all that shit about Covid - and I don’t pretend to be - unlike that pink-haired lady who…. you get my drift - but this was never going to work, in my view.
Nothing good comes from a monopoly.
And it did take many hundreds of years to really catch on, but would you Adam-and-Eve it, catch on it most certainly did and that’s what we’ve largely got today.
To show the impracticality of this SuperGod approach, a good analogy would be going straight to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and asking him to personally fix a burst water pipe in your cottage on Stewart Island. He’s going to be far too busy buggering up much more important stuff in multiple languages, to be bothered with your problems, and who can blame him.
As a result, you’re left hanging for ages, with only faith and prayer, and a plastic bucket, keeping you going. And that’s exactly how modern religion worked out too, minus the bucket.
I understand that God, singular, is meant to be all-powerful and all-knowing and all-over-the-place, all at the same time, but give the guy a break. His old time-sheets show it still took him 6 days to create the Earth, with Sunday off to watch Praise Be.
Back in the day, when humans imagined themselves at the centre of everything, which wasn’t really very much at all based on what little we knew, that was undoubtedly impressive but now we know different.
We are an insignificant speck in an expanding Universe containing hundreds of millions of galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars and planets. That’s many, many billions of places God has to manage, unless he’s contracted the work out. Even using remote monitoring technology, he’s still going to be a very busy boy.
You’ll notice I’m referring to God as a male and that’s because all of the ancient literature confirms he is, and even today he’s affectionately known as the Holy Father. The fact that these books were written solely by men may have a little to do with this but even in the movies he’s a guy - well, Charlton Heston actually.
Not sure what women, or these days other genders, make of this. It does strike me as sexist and a clear put-down to just under half the human race (49.8%). I’m sure neo-Marxism will correct this tout de suite, after they’ve reassigned everyone else’s gender for them.
So, in summary, you could say God’s an elite minority within a scant majority. A real conundrum for our woke progressives, there!
Jesus, I'm rambling on!
Which reminds me, getting back on track - on 25 December 1AD, there was a sea change. Multiple gods were no longer overwhelmingly a la mode. This was the dawning of the new-age, slicker, trimmer, one-size-fits-all God.
Maybe people, without slaves, just got sick of carrying screeds of papyrus around with them, listing all the different gods and their job descriptions. Or, the Big Man himself with the deep voice and white beard allegedly put in an appearance and explained how things really worked.
If it’s the latter, it begs the question why us humans had been worshipping all these multiple gods for millennia before that.
He created us all didn’t he, so why wait so long to put us right?
Now, I've got a theory on this. As I’ve just demonstrated, God has a shitload of work on his plate managing an ever-expanding Universe. Distances keep increasing so commuting times get longer leaving less time in the day for productive miracles.
After God finished creating Earth, he glanced at his massive to-do list and realised he didn’t have time to write the Monotheistic Religion-101 instructions down for us on a set of stone tablets. He trusted us to figure it out by ourselves. After all, he had given us the gift of thought and reason. Ha, more fool him!
Humans being humans couldn’t agree, so looked to the heavens and decided more is better. If you don’t like what one god says, ask another, right?
So, I’ve established that for you true believers out there God possibly, may have, finally got round to visiting us. Don’t thank me - I think it’s tosh.
Not just that though. To ensure his unreliable and flawed creations kept on task this time, he left his son behind to supervise. A bit like a Global Sales and Marketing Manager, based at Head Office in Nazareth.
He was to oversee the roll-out of the new improved religion, come up with a snazzy logo (ouch, that made him cross) and convert as many new customers as possible.
In the event, his contract was terminated early by the competition who resented him stealing their market share, but he got a resurrection golden handshake out of it.
And apart from the odd, completely unsubstantiated, minor miracle since then, like a crying statue of a reputed virgin, we’ve seen neither hide nor hair of either of them, despite promises of a second coming-home tour.
Again, I would put that down to God’s horrendous workload. It could easily take him another couple of thousand years to work his way round to our galaxial backwater so don’t hold your breath.
He’d be shocked to find that we’ve taken his basic single religion concept and split it into several major different forms, which in turn have split into many sub-forms, all claiming to be the only truly right answer. Ridiculous minor rules and observances have evolved to differentiate similar groups, like not eating certain foods, or having a sacred animal, or never cutting your hair, or wearing a weird hat, or doing no work on a particular day or after a particular time.
Each large group imagines itself to be the chosen ones and everyone else can literally go to Hell, and each sub-group imagines itself at the head of the queue of the large group, with advance seat selection and priority boarding to the afterlife on Good Heavens Airlines.
Just like when God allegedly came back the first time and found that us humans had made everything way more complicated than intended, I suspect he’s going to be very annoyed next time he visits and finds the world divided by different religions which still cause wars and much suffering. I wonder who he’ll leave behind to sort out the mess this time.
One thing’s for sure, us humans just can’t be trusted to follow a simple plan.
Now, I want to explore the psyche of the average believer.
Most religions have a shocking track record of intolerance and persecution of non-members. Dare to disagree or question and they’ve been more than willing to coax repentance from you by torturing your mind and body to save your soul, or what’s left of it.
I do have to hand it to religious people, though. They can be incredibly forgiving…. but only when it comes to God!
It’s easy to praise and thank God for every good thing that happens to you.
Like winning Lotto, or tweaking that tornado to run through your neighbour’s house instead, or finding your lost car keys in your undies drawer.
It’s another to suffer a terrible calamity or loss but calmly chalk it up to “God’s Will”. Even the nicest, kindest believer who has devoted themself to his service seems perfectly happy to adopt this position in the face of tragedy, despite endless praying to avert said disaster.
What I don’t get is this. If really bad, nasty, terrible stuff “is God’s will”, then what does that say about him. His followers would no doubt justify it with something like “God is testing us”.
By inflicting awful emotional and/or physical pain and suffering on you and your loved ones, you mean?
That’s not the mark of a benevolent, merciful supreme being in my view.
But what do I know? I’m an atheist and clearly not long-suffering enough.
Personally, I like the test-tube creation theory. I don’t believe it any more than the biblical version but when it comes to plausibility it’s at least on a par. It goes something like this.
Our Universe is an experiment inside a test-tube. The lab technician - God, I suppose - has chucked in the reagents, started the whizzer (effectively the Big Bang) and left us to our own devices while he’s at lunch. Everything is spinning round, warming up and reacting nicely, with all kinds of unintended side-effects.
When “God” comes back, who knows what’ll happen. He might think “sweet” and keep us, or flush us down the sink. Time operates on a different scale in our test tube, which is obvious I guess, since our creator has been at lunch for a staggering 13.7 billion of our years.
This is clearly ridiculous …or the lab is state owned and run by public sector staff.
Nobody knows if he’s just left the building or is on his way back. How exciting!!
If I’ve offended anyone with my untutored observations you have my sympathy but that’s the danger of allowing freedom of speech and opinion, something many religions throughout the ages called heresy, which they crushed and punished, mercilessly.
Our brief modern-day love affair with freedom of speech may be about to end with calls from our new "progressive" elites for control and restrictions, yes and punishments, for saying and thinking the “wrong” thing, as defined by them.
Jacinda Ardern is a modern day inquisitor, ready to extract every last disinformation confession out of us, while smiling sweetly as she turns the rack and applies the thumbscrews.
And if I’m wrong about all this stuff, and there does turn out to be a God, I ascribe to the position that he’s really not that interested in us and that’s why he’s only put in one appearance in the last two thousand years and is pretty tardy at responding to all those prayers which are building up on his answer-phone.
Who can blame him with millions of other galaxies to visit.
Ultimately, you’ll have the last laugh when I pop my clogs, only to find a light at the end of a long tunnel, leading to a twin-horned, fork-tailed chap with a sharp trident and an evil grin.
Whew, it’s hot down here!
Alternatively, here’s one out of left field. I’m banking on God being all-forgiving amongst all the other all-things he is. Which means, if I’m wrong about all this religious stuff, he should still welcome me up to the celestial ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with a wry smile and a wagging finger.
I can just imagine your faces when you turn up on a Sunday afternoon and there we are, sitting on a cloud, having a good laugh at how crazy, workwise, Monday’s diary is looking for him.
Maybe I’ll see you there!
Derek Mackie is a former geologist with a keen interest in current affairs and a penchant for satire.
7 comments:
Fair light-hearted comment with regard to the Abrahamic religions, but the Far Eastern ones operate according to different sets of rules. The Indian Supreme God Vishnu (as per Vedanta tradition) doesn't care enough about our opinions to throw a tantrum and not rest until some poor sod is being tortured for eternity for having questioned the existence of the Godhead. Stuff you, says Vishnu about people who don't live right, you'll just have to be reincarnated and try not to make a hash of it next time.
The Abrahamic God has the mentality of a spoiled brat with a low IQ. His human avatar (the one he sacrifices to himself to atone for the stuff-up he made of project Earth) was a hippyish sort of dude who made himself out to be some sort of messiah but who was considered a dangerous fraud by the experts of the day, the Sanhedrin.
Then there's Buddhism which is an interesting one as the classical variety has no God - some textbooks on comparative religion do not even classify Buddhism as a religion. What started as a life philosophy was made into a religion by many people, though....... after all, people create gods in their own image, not vice-versa.
It's fear, ignorance and indoctrination that fuels religion with a small dash of hope.
There was a large element of being afraid to deny the existence of God because of the disapproval of peers so that people would not admit to not believing. We have moved beyond that thankfully.
Religious people love to reach out to save you but they never listen to what you think. I like to ask them why they are all convinced that they have the one true religion?
Rugby is just better.
MC
Russian proverb: "God is in his Heaven and the Tsar is far away." Chinese proverb: "Heaven is high and the Emperor is far away." In other words: don't wait, fix your own damn toilet. Both these countries (with shameful exceptions) have been very tolerant of other tribes and religions. The Hasidic funny hat men are a cult. The Hebrew poetry of the Old Testament is very high IQ. Alan Davidson.
This war has nothing to do with religion. Hamas wants to wipe out Israel altogether.
Barend, your comments only reveal your total ignorance of the one true God. But you'll find out the truth soon enough!
Anon, this war is the result of Zionism in the sense that this ideology is based on the idea that the Hebrew tribal god declared the lands that Israel has expanded into to be a Jewish birthright.
As for the "one true god", they all say that and they all mean a different one...... change the record.
I do wish that those who know zip about religion wouldn’t arrogantly spout screeds of nonsense from their imagination. Actually, the idea of one supreme God goes back thousands of years, not merely 2 thousand. And the conflict between Hamas and Israel is much more about real estate than religion - and their religions are not the same either.
Tut tut! Using your imagination, also known as thinking for yourself. What a cheek!
As opposed to blind faith and unquestioning obedience, which is what characterises religion.
As for nonsense, well that's a matter of opinion. But you'd be hard pushed to beat religion for fantastical nonsense - Adam & Eve, walking on water, loaves into fishes, rising from the dead, Noah's Ark, virgin births.
It's so believable!!!
As for Hamas only caring about the land, you might want to check out their "mission statement". It's a whole lot more than that.
And if you read the article again, you'll see that at no time do I say their religions are the same. What I said was they effectively worshipped the same God, which many theologians also agree with.
Also, if you read the article again, I do mention that the single God idea already existed prior to 2000 years ago.
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