About 7 years ago, i had a blog on which i posted my musings of that time. Someone at that time had asked me "how can an atheist have any morals or ethics?" I found the question LAUGHABLE, considering the abysmal level of the average ethical behavior of tbose who DO claim belief in a god, but i decided to addres it. Of course, this is ME, and i can't say 'hello' in less than a paragraph, so such a meaty topic required a series of posts to fully answer, and in fact i never actually finished the series. But i'm going to post what i did get done here over the next (some period of time). Here we go...
I don't think much of the Western world's three major religions. I recognize that much good has come from each of them, and that each of them today still have some good, righteous people among their memberships. But IMO each of them need some serious work when judged by their overall fruits, because those good righteous people have sat back and allowed the bigots, xenophobes, and ethnocentrists among their membership to shape the modern face of their religions into something that isn't exactly 'Godly' by any measure i could recognize.
For every Jew who fights for issues of social justice, it seems that there is another who considers the Palestinian people to be less than human. For every Christian Mother Theresa selflessly serving the needs of the poor, there's a Pat Robertson or a James Dobson hustling their faith-based products and encouraging homophobia. For every Cardo Sulhav and the many other Moslems i have met who remember that the word Islam MEANS (among OTHER translations) "peace" there's an imam whipping his flock into a frenzy of hate and murder. That these religions contain people at both ends of this spectrum and that each of them, the righteous and the bigots, finds full justification for her/his views within the overall umbrella of their religion tells me that these religions have all become ineffective at pointing anyone unambiguously toward a righteous life.
I'm told that the popularity of all the new age cults comes from people's yearning for a spiritual connection but failing to find it in their churches. Its easy to see why, but i think that most of the crystal-rubbers and astrologists that they flock to in their place are also charlatans and equally worthy of contempt... possibly more so in most cases. These folks take some aspect of quantum physics which they DO NOT really understand, and then base a bunch of (as someone else has said) "Unicorns and rainbows" silliness that shouldn't appeal to anyone except an 11 year old hopelessly naive girl. But... in fact there are many 'adults' of both sexes (though it IS primarily a female domain) hawking their wares.
The three older religions are sometimes called the 'religions of the book'. By this phrase, the speaker seeks to find unity among them because of the historical connections they share and the overlap in some of their sacred texts. While scholars may note those common ancestries, the modern faces of these three religions have each been shaped by the subsequent evolution of each of their memberships, and i don't find much common ground in their basic tenets.
Further, IMO the basic principles upon which they appear to be based are themselves not just incorrect, but morally and ethically ***evil***. Two of them propose a view of a God who holds some fairly ethnocentric ideas. The other one envisions an arbitrary and bloodthirsty God who seeks to keep us as children instead of allowing us to become spiritually mature.
Oversimplifying, i reduce each of the three faiths to the following principles, each of which i reject totally. We'll take them in historical sequence:
1. Judaism. Based on the premise that God has favorites among all the various people's on earth. Not coincidentally, they identify themselves as the favorites.
2. Christianity. Based on the premise that God blames us for something we didn't do and that God needed a blood sacrifice to attone for it. Based further on the premise that we are fundamentally and irrecoverably flawed and that we can't do anything about it on our own, and that it is our duty to convince other people of the correctness of this self-defeating attitude.
3. Islam. Based on the premise that the behavior modifications necessary to bring peace to one set of warring nomadic people back in 500AD must be imposed upon the rest of the people's of the earth, by force if necessary.
Now i'm sure that many members of each of those three faiths may take exception to those characterizations, and i understand that this may not be what these faiths mean to you personally. But, as an outsider of all three of these religions, this is what i see as the driving premises behind the nonsense and shenanigans perpetrated by the less spiritually mature members of your religions, and unfortunately for the rest of the world i don't hear enough of you speaking out against these things to keep your bullies and hooligans in check. Worse, i suspect that many of you do adhere to the above notions as well, though you may not allow them to inspire you to personally harm people in the name of your God.
These religions do have a common core, and it's time that we as a society see it for what it is and reject it. Each of them was established over a millenia ago, in the days when people didn't know much about biology, history, sociology, psychology, or physics. They all spring from societies that had rigidly defined roles for men and women, and which had major conflicts with the people's who lived near them. To put it more bluntly, the folks who started these religions were fairly ignorant about most things we know today. We don't feel compelled to follow their beliefs about most other topics, so why do we feel compelled to limit our spirituality to what they believed?
It's not a surprise that these religions consider God to be a male, but that notion is more an expression of male dominance in the cultures from which they sprang than any deep insight into the nature of God. How can the concept of male exist without the complimentary concept of female? The earliest roots of the Jewish faith appear to give Yahweh such a mate (Shekinah), but she was fired as his partner fairly early in that process by his adherents as Judaism evolved, leaving the male God Yahweh to rule the heavens alone. Does this Yahweh God have a penis? If so, what would he do with it? And if God is instead a purely spiritual being, why have a notion of male or female associated with it?
These religions served their purposes when human society was in its infancy, but it is long past time that we put such ideas behind us and start fresh, because the continued adherence to these spiritually immature notions is slowly but surely sapping the spiritual health of the entire world. When we were children it was Ok to believe such simplified theologies, but if we ever hope to become adults we must put these childish things behind us and begin again.
We are all one people, all one family, and we share this globe among us. We have a responsibility to live respectfully in peace with each other and to do well by those among us who are less fortunate then we. I reject any belief that does not explicitly and forcefully acknowledge these facts as being of much greater importance to both us and to any 'God' which may exist than how we prepare our food, how we choose to pray, sexual acts among cosenting adults, or what arbitrary name we choose to use for this 'God'.
I don't know much about the nature of God, and i'm very skeptical of anyone who claims such knowledge. IMO any being that was actually like the God that most folks envision would be so far outside of our ability to comprehend that any such attempts would be futile. But i do know that most of what is said about God is really just self-serving propaganda from those who espouse it. I reject it on that grounds, and stand against it explicitly.
The three major western religions served as rallying points for the groups which derived them, and were fine for that purpose when those groups operated autonomously. But today's world is fully connected, and IMO they have outlived their usefulness to society as a whole. They provide a spiritual outlet for their righteous members which they could also get elsewhere if they really tried. I believe it would be a good thing for them to do so, because their groups have also become a haven for bigots, the intolerant, and just plain fools.
I am a US citizen, living at a time when the fundamentalist Christian movement is gaining way too much influence in my society, so i am more frequently subjected to the shenanigans of Christians than those of Jews and Moslems. Because of that situation, most of my subsequent posts on these topics will focus on the abuses wrought by Christians instead of those perpetrated by Jews or Moslems. Were i living in Israel among the Jews my complaints in these areas would probably focus more on unacceptable actions by Moslems. If i were living among the Palestinians they would focus more on unacceptable actions by the Israelis. Unforunately, folks who use their religion as an excuse to treat others improperly are not limited to one specific group or religion, but i will limit my posts to the things that i know the most about.
Thanks for reading this far. Assuming you are a member of one of the big three, perhaps now you have a better understanding of why i do not share your particular religion?
