It is common to hear people lament the "divisive" nature that religion plays in our world today. Voiced by John Lennon's "Imagine" and Vladimir Lennin's "Russian experiment," people blithely accept that if we can just get rid of religion life will be a shining utopia. Recent events in India or the vast embarrassing history of humanity make such visions seem like a good idea. If only we could figure out how to get people to stop believing in God and start believing in one another life would be grand.
There is of course a catch to this though; and it is not God I can assure you. It is the human problem. "Imagine philosophy" and "Bolshevik politics" do not believe in a God. If there is no God, than it is humans causing all the suffering and pain in the world. If that is the case, than are human beings really worth saving? I mean, we are nothing more than carbon blueprints that only appear to "know" things. We don't even have ourselves. Indeed any rock we excavate or log we burn has just as much value as we do; this deduction seems preposterous and I have an hard time believing it.
However, even if I were to ignore that glaring flaw, how can I really love creatures as deeply troubled and messed up as myself. We do not share. Lennon lived in the Dakotas while the poor died on the streets of New York. At the same time in Russia, the Communist elite lived like kings while others were being dragged off to Siberia. Therefore this is not a religious problem, but a problem with humanity. Human beings have to be free to do the right thing, something that the Judeo-Christian religion has stated right from the beginning. To be forced or coerced into doing the right thing makes the allure of doing evil seem like a virtuous rebellion.
Meanwhile people kill because ... well, why? Borders are crossed and religions are offended? Folks Christianity has never backed any country and we can all say that Christ "humbled himself and became obedient to death -- even death on a cross." Translation, first, God has been mocked and is big enough to handle our little slights and second, I doubt God really needs us to avenge him. So while we kill in the name of God, we should note that God died for our "good" name.
This leads me to my main thought. There is nothing laudable about humanity. Even if we aren't unfortunate enough to be in places where our lives are in constant danger, we do live in a world where our wills butt up against other people's wills. The subtle anger and malice of people eats away at everyone's soul day in and day out. People kill in so many ways be it behind the back comments or sarcastic put downs that there really is nothing do be said in our favor. In fact I often wonder why God even bothers keeping us around and if there is no God, why not just be done with us all together. We have done nothing to commend us.
The answer is, I am afraid, an unpopular one even with me. I was ransomed and saved. I like to think of it like this: There are some very awful cars that cost a great deal of money. They break down a lot and have extremely high costing replacement parts, but people pay a fortune to own them. My little Geo Prism is a great car but isn't worth nearly as much. Why is that? Simple economics: People ascribe higher value to things that aren't necessarily worth the cost. In this regard, God has made a serious blunder. He offered his deity as sacrifice to creatures who don't deserve it.
I know it is pointless or foolish to actually love people for their intrinsic value, there is nothing really lovable. I just happen to love that which is perfect, and that which is perfect sets an unusually high price on humanity, so I am stuck loving this beautiful mess. In other words, if there were no religion, there would be no people worth living for. This option is something not worth imagining.
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2 comments:
This is a desolate view.
The fact of the matter is, we cannot know anything about God, and there is nothing in any of the supposedly divinely inspired religious texts that could not have been written by a human being of the era, without any special help. I don't know anything about God, and you don't know anything about God. Therefore we cannot rely on our received religions to lead the way for us.
The truth of this leaves us with a God that is either a mirror or a blank slate: Something that we can either look into to exalt ourselves, or to draw our most fanciful dreams upon. Upon neither of these versions of God is it practical to build a religion.
Aside from the natural law--which is amoral--there are no observable intrinsic values for us to adhere to. Yet we create them. It would be so easy for us to simply observe and mimic the natural law in our dealings with each other. Most of our atrocities come from just this sort of spencerism. Yet in spite of our apparent best interest, we've added all kinds moral roadblocks to following such a path. There are religious and scientific answers for why we do this. Maybe it says something about God. Whatever reason we created morality, it has been--on the whole--a good thing, and one that is constantly evolving. I think religion was an important step in the evolution of morality, but I don't think it's the last step. So there is something laudable about humanity: In the midst of all of this fuzzy information, we try to find meaning in our lives--be it through religion or otherwise--this is absolutely endearing. God or no God.
I don't know if the world would be a better place without religion. I think it would be a better place with a little more freely admitted uncertainty and humility. I'm sure there are plently of religious texts that would back that assertion up.
You're a good person. Whatever you hate about yourself, and whatever it is that you see in other people that makes you feel so negatively towards them; it's not the whole picture. People are not so hateful and destructive as you've described. You too have intrinsic value. I don't need to look for a God in you to see that. You are a perfect case study of the kind of humanity I am describing here: You strive to find meaning where none is offered. You create patterns. You are capable of compassion. By means of your religious belief you find a way to love a people in spite of all the bad things you observe about them, and in spite of the bumps in the road that you experience. There is much to be loved and empathized with in the condition of mankind.
Your glaring flaw isn't so glaring when you consider the fact that mankind has had to try to create a better world without any confirmable instruction from above. It's akin dropping a crate of paper, a pair of scissors, and some tape in front of a three year old and saying, 'reconstruct the Louvre.'
The kid has to be like, 'what the hell is a louvre?'
So, we don't know what the 'ultimate truth' is. That's okay. It's okay to not know things. It's okay to not be perfect, and it's okay to experience urges and thoughts and feelings that we are not proud of. It's okay to be in the dumps from time to time. Being a human being is a hard job, and it's all on-the-job-training.
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