I found it fascinating to watch the zealots following the rules.
This human need to believe in gods goes way back into our primitive past. The tribal elements are manifest. We commit so much of our time, wealth and emotional state into these religious systems.
Just think if all that time, energy and money had been directed to say – removing poverty or green issues.
I saw lots of fervent belief or display. I didn’t see god anywhere.
Rule number 1 – create tribal allegiance. Our god is right. Their god is wrong.
Rule number 2 – our god rewards us when we do things right and punishes us if we do wrong.
Rule number 3 – if you believe you will go to heaven. If you do not believe you will be tortured for eternity.
Rule number 4 – we need to punish the unbelievers.
Rule number 5 – our leaders are sanctioned by god. We must obey.
Rule number 6 – stealing from our leaders is a crime against god.
Rule number 7 – violence towards our leaders is a crime against god.
Rule number 8 – you may feel ill-treated, abused and exploited but you will get your rewards in heaven.
Rule number 9 – your bosses may be greedy, spiteful, cruel and oppressive but they will be punished at judgement. It is easier to get camels through needles, Karma and so on….. Leave it to god.
Rule number 10 – be meek and mild and you shall be rewarded.
Rule number 11 – your appointed leaders know what is best for you.
Rule number 12 – these wars, crusades, pogroms, purges, are sanctioned by god.
Rule number 13 – put on this suicide vest to show you really believe and you will wake up in paradise with all those virgins.
Rule number 14 – god sees all and will judge you.
Rule number 15 – we decide what god wants us to do. We alone can interpret the holy scripts – do as you are told!!
More But Not Enough
More galaxies than grains of sand on every beach.
More stars than can be counted or imagined.
More time than has ever been.
More space than can be crossed.
More dreams than can fill a head.
More awe than we could ever wonder at.
More than enough mystery to last forever.
Yet not enough life to even risk a guess.
Opher 9.6.2017
I wrote this after watching a programme about the beginnings and beliefs of the Islamic Death Cult of ISIS and their literal acceptance of selected texts from the Koran. They interviewed one of their Jordanian architects. He recited texts and called them the word of Allah.
He disgusted me.
He sanctified slavery, butchery and torture using words from the Dark Ages. He claimed, unflinchingly, that they were god’s instructions and superior to any laws of man, that humanity and compassion counted for nothing.
I wondered how any mind can accept these words without doubt as to their origin. I wondered at what brainwashing had taken place to create such blind acceptance.
The Koran, Bible and all other religious texts are artefacts from an ignorant, uneducated age. Those books were written and compiled by people, not god. They come from cultures who were misogynistic, nomadic and tribal and it shows.
The world is full of mystery. It is an adventure of great wonder. To use moribund texts from the Dark Ages to justify misery and horror is obscene. Life is short. It should be a journey of love, music, happiness, friendship, dance, art, nature and writing, not of hatred, division and violence.
These people, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu and whatever, who put their faith in relics from the past are missing the mystery of life. Theirs is a waste of a life; a journey of death. True meaning lies in discovery and wonder.
The Answer
Answering grievances with bombs –
Settling scores.
Defending beliefs with guns –
Instead of love.
Proving points with power,
Threats and murder.
Dividing and demeaning,
Fighting and hating,
Despising and killing,
Controlling and enforcing,
Instead of arguing our case
And allowing others to weigh it up
For themselves –
Demanding, destroying and subjugating –
In a merry-go-round
Of politics,
Religion,
Race,
Nationalism
And economic greed
Where war is always the answer.
Opher 30.10.2016
The Answer
There are rare occasions where war is the only answer – when an evil is too great to ignore. But those times are few and far between.
Wouldn’t it be better if people talked about their dreams and beliefs, argued their case and, no matter how strongly they felt, were able to accept and get along with those whose views are different?
Yet this seems not to be the case.
Politics and religion stir up division and hatred and unleash war and violence. People are forced to comply.
War is a terrible thing. It invariably stirs up more hatred. It makes matters worse.
It is not necessary that all people agree or believe in the same thing. How many religions, professing love, peace and harmony, seek war or strictly enforced customs, to enforce their views on anyone who doubts their validity? How many countries seek to increase their power or gain wealth through war and stoke up racism, division, fear, hatred and nationalism as an excuse?
Righteous Arrogance
There is a righteous arrogance
That is only matched by ridiculous ignorance,
As we give our allegiance
To the indoctrinators of innocence.
And they betrayed us with impudence
With child-molesting expedience.
They did not even believe their own penitence
As they exploited with diligence.
From the portals of time
When all was complete mystery;
When conjecture was prime
And truth lost in the history,
They devised the excuses
For ‘what was’ and ‘what would be’;
They devised scriptures
To explain earth, sky and sea.
Without instrument or knowledge
We scanned heaven and earth
And gave ‘holy’ men a pledge
Of what their status was worth.
With their tall hats and rich cloaks
They ruled the warm hearth.
While we toiled in the fields
And they watched us with mirth.
In this time of great understanding
We can now clearly see the story;
Based on the evidence we are handling
Of the battles so gory
And the parts that ‘they’ stand in
As they assumed the glory.
Heaven and hell they were peddling
Fear the currency so hoary.
We find that the Ark does not hold water
The stories were fable
To ensnare sons and daughters;
Tales for dark nights round the table,
Not facts to take to the altar
Or Gods on which to hang a label.
For we have intelligence that does not falter
And knowledge that makes us more able.
It was all a pretence
That should remain past tense.
Opher 10.8.2015
Righteous Arrogance
I am an antitheist because I do not believe there is a ‘god’, I believe the scriptures were all devised out of the minds of men and religion does more harm than good. So I would like all religion to end.
That does not mean that I would actively persecute religious people or that their beliefs should be mocked. I believe that as the evidence stacks up and the scriptures are revealed as medieval products of superstition – belief will wither naturally.
I have respect for anybody who chooses to believe in whatever they want.
I will oppose anyone who wishes to indoctrinate children or force their views on others. Religion should be a free, personal choice.
I would oppose any fundamentalism or theocracy. I do not see religion as having any place in schools or governments. That is dangerous and reprehensible.
Modern history has clearly demonstrated the hypocrisy in religion. The priests who abuse children clearly do not believe their own doctrine. The Jihadists who kill, torture and rape clearly have a perverse view of religion. The drunken, fornicating monks and cardinals, the Borgias all flouted their own doctrine. If they had really believed in what they were spouting they would have lived quite differently. Then we have the intolerance and viciousness – inquisitions, pogroms, crusades, Jihads, genocides, witch burnings and torture.
It is still going on today.
Our knowledge of how these scriptures were put together by primitive Middle Eastern cultures clearly shows that they are contrived.
Religion has its basis in the ignorance of men exposed to the mystery of life and the universe. The viewpoint and intuition of thousands of years ago does not hold any truths for me. It was superstition not wisdom.
I decided to put these personal views of mine into a poem.
We used to worship
The lesson of the past is that things come and go. So many gods who were universally worshipped have toppled into oblivion. Gods and Goddesses thought so powerful that they constructed the universe and ruled all things, and either gave or withheld their assistance to humans, have been long forgotten. Where are Hrouda, Rura, Tiwaz, Vercana, Amon, Ash, Hu, Ket, Mut, Ptah, Aife, Blai, Clota, Cred, Ixtab, Mudu and a million others. People put their faith in them. People willingly died for them. Prayers, rituals, costumes and sacrifices were conceived to satisfy these deities. Their assistance was sought and praise was heaped upon them when it worked, and excuses found when it failed (we were not following the instructions were we). So many forgotten tribes were the ‘chosen’ ones.
So many religions waxed and waned.
Yet the ones we presently subscribe to are the real ones; the only real ones. They will never wane.
For one who does not believe, such as me, the prayers, costumes, rituals and entreaties, look silly.
If there is a mystical force it is within all of us, all the fabric of the universe, and not embodied in some human created god. There is no such thing as such a human construct as paradise or hell.
I cannot wait for the waning, for an awakening. We have life, an incredible universe and we live in the midst of great wonder and majesty. We are surrounded with astounding wonder. That is surely enough.
We used to worship
We used to worship the sun and moon;
We thought they were gods,
But now we understand what they really are –
Only rock and gas –
And the mysticism has dissipated on the solar breeze.
We used to worship trees, rocks and streams
And pray to the spirits that resided within,
But now we understand the molecules
Possess no spiritual qualities
Other than the wonder that resides in our own minds.
We used to worship Zeus, Apollo and Baal;
Make sacrifices, follow rituals
And offer up our prayers.
Now they, and the thousands like them,
Are banished to the past.
Their universal power no longer of consequence.
How many virgins?
How many sheep, goats and cattle,
Had their throats slit
In a futile attempt to curry favours
From a human god?
No lessons from the past
Seem to impact upon us now.
Our beliefs in Jesus, Mohamed and Moses
Will last for ever.
The will not eventually
Follow the sun.
Will they?
So I will sit in awe and thrill to a sunset,
Lie beneath the stars and absorb the majesty,
Smile with soft eyes at the spectrum of life
And relish the warmth of love and friendship.
It is the closest to worship I can achieve.
It’s enough for me.
Opher 22.6.2016
Zeus.
Belief
What is this thing we call belief? Where does it come from? Why do we need it?
I cannot help thinking that if I had been brought up in Saudi Arabia I would be a Sunni Muslim, if in Iran a Shia Muslim, if in India a Hindu, if in Brazil a Christian Catholic and if in Mississippi a Protestant Christian.
If I had been born in Greece a few thousand years ago I would have worshipped Zeus as the god of all gods. If I had lived in Britain three thousand years ago it might have been the Green Man or the Sun. If in Egypt it might have been Isis.
I could list a thousand Gods and Goddesses that mankind has worshipped, sacrificed to, prayed to and beseeched. The forgotten Gods and Goddesses are ten times as numerous.
Belief is built into our genes.
I am fortunate. I was brought up in a loving family with no attempt to indoctrinate me into any religious belief or political persuasion. I was left to investigate myself. My adolescent obsessions with mysticism and belief were tolerated without opposition or ridicule. I was left to think.
I went through my ‘religious phase’ and came to the belief that all religion originated in the minds of men, prayer was pointless and worship a psychological prop.
I believe that religious belief is mankind’s attempt to come to terms with an infinite universe, the mystery of life and death and a purpose for what we do. It comes from a psychological need and a brain that is hard-wired to seek patterns, purpose and a reason. We cannot understand a system with no beginning, no end and no reason.
Do we need belief? No I don’t think so. We can create our own purpose and appreciate the wonder and awe around us.
We certainly do not need religion in order to have morality. We can make a far better code of human rights without the hypocrisy and contradictions present in all religions with their obscure pronouncements. We can make a clear code of ethics without the ambiguities.
We can do without belief. Perhaps we have evolved enough to start to do without.