by Scott Kaelen
• “God hates…” – According to the Bible, God ‘hates’ the following, all of which are wide open for interpretation:
○ A proud look
○ A lying tongue
○ Hands that shed innocent blood
○ A heart that devises wicked plans
○ Feet that are swift in running to evil
○ A false witness who speaks lies
○ One who sows discord among brethren
It can be said that certain religious figures cast a proud look from their pulpits (or wherever they are preaching from) including far too many ‘public figures’ in the United States of America. Certainly any and every country leader has a proud look. Even the everyman will occasionally accomplish something deserving of a little pride, so why shouldn’t he show it if mixed with a modicum of modesty?
As for lying: Come on, every politician lies. That’s not even open for debate. It’s a fact known worldwide. And when it comes to the clergy of every branch of the Abrahamic faiths, and also preachers and cult leaders and public figures, I say the vast majority of those are liars and that they know they are lying; the minority are too lost in their faith to realise their beliefs are erroneous. And, of course, show me a child who has never lied, oar at the very least told an embellishment or a half-truth; to my knowledge, there isn’t one, and if you think there is then the chances are that you’ve had the wool pulled successfully over your eyes by your own offspring. Don’t feel too bad about that; it is during childhood that we learn how to avoid the truth as much as we learn how to formulate sentences. And avoiding the truth is how surrogate deceptions are formed – namely, religion.
Orthodox Jews still practice genital mutilation. Every time this deed is done because of the dictates of a child’s parents’ religion, it is innocent blood staining the parents’ hands as well as the hands of the religious representative who commits the atrocity. When a child is decapitated because a mentally unstable Islamic State member or supporter decides that a little girl or boy is an infidel, that depraved zealot is drenching his hands in the blood of innocents and deserves nothing short of death.
The ‘wicked plans’ clause has been warped to include the hate of homosexuals and atheists, along with anyone else deemed to be ‘wicked’ and ‘sinful’, which all too often tends to include Christians, if you listen to TV preachers and their like.
The ‘running to evil’ clause is the hand-holder of the ‘wicked plans’ clause. Together they strengthen one another, or, to put it more frankly, they allow closed-minded, bigoted followers of the Abrahamic deity to cast their own hates upon people whose ideas lie outside of their little bubbles of acceptance. In my view, ‘running to evil’ could be tacked on to those who believe the words of the white-toothed, tanned, Rolex-wearing, Cadillac-driving preachers who are allowed to roam rampant throughout not only certain major countries of the world but also throughout the social media of global cyberspace.
A false witness speaking lies can be attributed to anybody and any topic. I’m atheist, so in the eyes of a Christian, Jew or Muslim I’m speaking lies when I say God (or Yahweh or Allah) does not exist. A Hindu would be speaking lies if they told a Christian that God does not exist, but that Brahman does.
Discord among brethren… Take a field of white sheep and call them Christians. Now paint one of those sheep black and accuse it of destabilising the harmony of the flock. God doesn’t want his followers getting wise ideas that could unsettle the rigid religious hierarchy. Except, such discord always happened and always will, due to the many branches of religious and political belief within Christianity.
Sadly, there are Christians claiming that “God hates fags [homosexuals]”, and that “God hates atheists”, “God hates niggers” and “God hates wicked children”. Hell, why not just go with a generalisation of “God hates sinners”? That’s about as broadly stated as it could possibly be, and it covers all of the above. The bottom line is that a bigot was always going to be a bigot with or without religion. But the presence of religion just enhances the negative aspects of both the bigot and his or her chosen faith.
• “God kills…” – And finally, God kills, and he uses the hands of men to do his bidding. You try watching a brainwashed Muslim extremist take his scimitar and slice backwards and forwards through a child’s neck as if it were nothing more than an animal in a slaughter house. You try witnessing that, and then tell me that it was Allah who did it and not some fucking human abomination. I don’t even need to mention the countless wars and battles and genocides and sacrifices and cleansings done in the name of one or other god. I don’t need to list the unsung billions throughout history who died because of their faith or lack thereof. Every one of those deaths was committed by a human, in the name of their god or on the presumed commandment of their god.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the power of religious suggestion at its very worst: causing a bunch of sick individuals drunk on their faith to slaughter people in a fevered, brainwashed blood-lust, dismembering children in front of their parents, raping the women to death in front of their already grief-stricken husbands, and forcing the broken men to change their faith… right before killing them anyway.
If a heaven and a hell did indeed exist, I have no doubt as to which would be the fuller.
LOVE & GOD
(NEUROLOGICAL SIMILARITIES)
A neurologist could prove the presence of love (or the lack thereof) within an individual by measuring detailed neural and physical patterns, and by testing the individual’s responses to both extrinsic and intrinsic influences, then comparing the results with proven formulae.
The same neurologist could also prove the presence of God as a catalytic concept within an individual, by employing similar tests. But the neurologist could not prove the existence of God as an entity, because God, beyond being a concept, is an unsolvable paradox with absolutely no testable foundations.
The result is that both love and God are neurological conditions, and their presence as such can be tested. God can not be proven to be anything more than a complex neurological phenomenon, but the phenomenon’s effects can be tested by its ability to endure the millennia, and to sweep through a rapidly growing human civilization with the strength of an unchecked forest fire, or, for a somewhat more accurate metaphor, a deadly pandemic.
THE REPLACEMENT GOD-EGO
(EXPANDING FREUD’S PSYCHIC MODEL)
Consider Freud’s psychic apparatus model of id, ego and super-ego. The id is the primal behaviours. The super-ego is the construct of moral codes. And the ego is the moderator; the balance between the desires of id and super-ego.
The hypothesis exists that “God” is a substitute for the super-ego of those who believe their life and death to be governed, commanded and judged by such a being. Perhaps, in some cases, rather than a substitute, “God” is a gap-filler for those with no inherent capacity to build a set of moral and ethical values of their own. I would give the hypothesis an extra angle, with the suggestion that some of those who believe in a god can be in possession of their own id and their own super-ego. For such an individual, the super-ego is not replaced by a divine deity. But, in this model, the area of the psyche that has been taken over by “God” (in part or completely) is the ego – this is where morals are balanced, choices are weighed, and all angles proposed by and between the primitive id and the self-constructed super-ego are considered. This means that for such individuals, “God” is personified by the words of the Bible, “Allah” is personified by the words of the Quran, et cetera.
The id possesses no religious influence, and the super-ego contains characteristic attributes like the desire to commit inhumane acts. It is the influence of these two on the replacement God-ego, and the mirrored influence of the God-ego back onto the id and super-ego, that determines how an affected person will behave, and what choices they will make.
The God-ego substitutes free will and replaces moderate thinking, caution and consideration. It is capable
of giving the desires of the super-ego permission to roam unchecked. It is a green light for atrocities to be committed in the name of religion, without a shred of compassion falling onto a conscience which either does not exist or is too repressed for its voice to be heard.
I posit that “God” is a neurological disorder, and perhaps an option ought to exist for treating it as such. After all, believers in the Abrahamic faiths have been saying much the same about atheists from long before the dawn of Judaism to the current global surge of the Islamic State, and the treatments for the purging of atheism have ranged from individual torment to horrific mass slaughter.
My counter-proposal to give religion a taste of its own medicine would not enforce psychological assistance upon an unwilling person, but rather it would exist as a barrier to stop such individuals from passing their disorder to others. It would stand as a protection for those whose psyches are the more likely candidates for allowing the God-ego to slip in and take over with little or no resistance; such people do need to be protected against harmful influence. And, of course, the main reason for the protection against the influence of a god on the ego must undoubtedly be the children, especially the children of individuals whose egos are already taken over by God.
I believe unindoctrinated free will is the key to a peaceful future for humanity. The one thing that separates humans from other animals is the presence of free will.
Or is it…?
THE FREE WILL OF SENTIENCE
(CHOICE, REASON & INFLUENCE)
If a human’s will is shackled to a purely instinctual force – a culmination of extrinsic elements and our own reactionary impulses on a molecular level – is there still wiggle-room for the outcome to be manipulated?
It starts with base animal instincts: fight or flight, nature or nurture. But we’ve evolved, and our reactions have become much more complex. Even so, a palace is only as strong as its foundations. As complex-thinking, sentient lifeforms, where does that leave humans? Do we have any free will whatsoever, or is it all just wishful thinking?
Picture the scene. You’re crossing a field, out on a peaceful afternoon stroll, when suddenly a bull comes charging towards you. What do you do? You’re faced with a momentary choice, something you scarcely register on a conscious level: do you run, or do you confront the bull?
Imagine there are two near-identical fields, each with a charging bull and each with a version of you. The instances are playing out simultaneously, right up to the point of you making a fleeting decision. The you in field A might choose to run, but the you in field B holds its ground and confronts the bull. Why is that? And how is it possible? What happened to you before this instant in time to nudge your subconscious reactions one way or the other? Perhaps something occurred prior to the bull appearing in the field, but it’s equally likely that your decision-making process is nothing more than electrons in your brain shooting down limited but arbitrary pathways.
Your choices may be nothing more than chance results on a roulette wheel.
In the first reality, you ran as fast as you could, and hurtled over a fence before the bull reached you, landing right on top of a set of harvester blades and dying almost instantly.
In the second reality, you stood your ground, facing the bull and remaining still, and the bull veered off, realising you weren’t a threat, leaving you safe and still alive.
Causality is far from linear; nature is full of random chances, instantaneous minutiae whose divergence one way could be the catalyst for drastic results further down the line.
As humans, we have a deeper pool of choice than that which mere animal instinct provides, and as such we can reason our way to and past an obstacle, conundrum or quandary. We have developed such neurological tools as critical thinking; the Socratic method; the limited ability to alter our viewpoint to that of another person, in order to tackle the problem from another perspective. We can use our wealth of knowledge, intellect and understanding of the world around us to achieve a much broader spectrum of options and opinions. In short, we can reason and deduct our way to an outcome. This is what separates us from most other animals. It is our self-awareness that elevates us above them all.
But does our superior mind give us free will?
Our unique non-linear and intricate way of thinking is a boon that has led us to the greatest of scientific discoveries and inventions. But where there’s a boon, there’s also a bane. Humans are more subject to external influence than any other creature on the planet, because of our greater pool of knowledge.
We are each born a tabula rasa – a blank slate ready to be etched upon by a world of influence. Even our base responses are affected by the way we perceive the world around us. To run or to stand, to leave a fellow creature to fend for itself or to take it under our perceived protection – these choices are also affected, sometimes drastically, by how random elements of existence have carved an influence into our psyche. Such forces as culture, family, friends, religion and social media affect the way we respond to situations we’re faced with.
The intrinsic decision-making process is a culmination of extrinsic influences.
To non-sentient life, there is natural reaction. To sentient life there is also natural reaction. But to possess sentience means the ability to reason and to steer our lives with varying levels of control. For some of us, there is negligible control, for others it comes in abundance, but most of us are in possession of at least a modest amount of logic and reason, as well as morals and ethics. These aspects broaden our options and provide a resistance to influence. A much deeper pool of choice is at our disposal.
The ability to resist influence, to withstand the natural impulse or the nurtured response, may be what, for some of us, keeps the monster within at bay. But the power of resistance can also be a double-edged sword.
An atheist could tell a theist that the theist possesses within them the will to ignore the lure of religion. Equally, the theist could tell the atheist that the atheist has the choice of ignoring the logical reasoning that leads to godlessness.
And here we hit on a major stumbling block in the pursuit of free will: indoctrination into organized religion. For someone to be consumed by the tenets and doctrines of a faith system only impedes whatever passes for their will, regardless of exactly how free it really is.
Atheists are often creatures of logic and reason, but they can also be creatures possessed of passions equal to those of any theist.
Regardless of your faith or lack thereof, your influence on the charging bull is limited to two choices: to anger it or to calm it down. At this time, the bull’s only relevant instincts are fight or run, protect or ignore. Although mentally you are capable of much more than the bull, its imminent threat to your life severely limits your options, and exponentially shortens the available time to make use of your higher reasoning skills. In short, the animal threat almost reduces you to an equal animal instinct to that of the bull. But your accumulated knowledge and influences still play tangible parts in the decision-making process. Do they help, or do they hinder?
Perhaps you’re an atheist. You know that this bull could end the only life you’ll ever have. You could choose to flee, but you gauge that the distance between you and the fence is greater than the distance between you and the bull, and therefore running is useless. You realise that standing still will probably mollify the bull and slow its charge, but such a likelihood is not guaranteed. You consider taking off your jacket and waving it like a matador, but you realise that facing a Spanish fighting bull would be a wholly different scenario to the one you’re facing now. For a split-second you wonder how the bull might react if you started reciting some Shakespeare at it. And now it’s too late; you’ve dithered, you’ve stood there turning this way and that. You haven’t been thinking critically at all; you realise this as the bull strikes you and you hurtle into the air with your side torn open, blackness replacing vision as you plummet towards the ground. And, mercifully, you’re dead before the bull
begins to maul your body like a cat playing with a mouse.
Maybe you’re a religious person. Your faith tells you that if this bull kills you now, you’ll soon be with your chosen deity and your family in the afterlife. But then you realise that this could be a test given to you by your deity – a test you must pass. You glance to the fence, but realise that the god you worship doesn’t like those who flee from their challenges. You face the bull, but you lack the conviction in yourself to stand up to it, and so you begin to pray to your god for strength. As you’re muttering prayers and platitudes to your deity, the bull’s horns dig into your ribs and it tosses you into the air, and you realise your prayer did nothing at all, then you reason that it must be your god’s will to have you die here and now, but the unbearable pain is not dulled in the slightest by the sheltering cloak of your god, and at the last moment you wonder if you’re heading into the light or sinking into the darkness. And then, with the last beat of your heart and the last conscious thought of your brain, it no longer matters.
In both of the above scenarios I’ve played Devil’s advocate, but of course the results could vary greatly. One thing’s for sure: worldly knowledge, when viewed and implemented from the standpoint of logic and critical thought, rarely has deleterious effects.
It may be that some psychological elements occur regardless of extrinsic factors. Whether or not this is true, it cannot be doubted that certain neurological desires – inherent likelihoods – are enhanced by outside influences, and as such play a part in the limitation of will.
An old man, by his wife’s bedside as she dies, cries tears of sadness at her passing, but is joyful in knowing she has gone to a glorious place of eternal wonder under a loving God. But might the man for a moment doubt his faith, and in doing so weep instead at the bitter possibility that his loved one has gone forever, that her consciousness is utterly and eternally snuffed out? Or would he always believe in the perpetuation of life beyond the body, even without the extrinsic promise from a man-made faith system containing an afterlife?
