JOHN THE AGNOSTIC

WARNING : If beliefs contrary to your own offend you, please refrain from reading the following. I will NOT enter into any debate about my views.

I have previously touched on the subject of faith or rather, my lack of it. Religion is such a fundamental and controversial aspect of human life that I think I should try and discuss it more broadly as it relates to me. By now you’ll have realized that I am a non-conformist, misanthropic and solitary sort of person. I don’t follow anyone’s leads and treat all I hear with deep distrust and skepticism before examining and accepting or rejecting it. I was brought up in a churchgoing, Christian home and I believe the social tenets of my life were based on Christian teachings, as had been those of my parents. I regularly heard about aspects such as sin and the necessity for one to engage in behavior which was devoid of sin, if one wished to escape some awful fate. It soon appeared to me that virtually anything you did could be construed as being sinful and to the kid I was, this was an overwhelmingly tedious concept. I learned about prayer and how via prayer one could be excused for having committed sins, by confessing them and asking for forgiveness. I was not an unduly naughty kid but I did my share of mischievous things, got angry with people, used bad language, thought naughty thoughts etc etc but so many of the “sins” I committed were so basic and everyday, that I doubted that they were sins at all. Frankly, I quit worrying about sin as I could not see the point of confessing it and being absolved – a stupid system I thought.

The Bible was in my life from Sub A. Dad was obliged to buy an Afrikaans Bible for me so I could learn to parrot psalms along with the other kids. I can still recite Psalm 23 in Afrikaans but am still as blissfully unaware of what it means as I was back then. We had regular spells of “religious instruction” at school though they might as well have been called, “Ancient Jewish history” for all the issues of faith the lessons contained. It was always drummed into us that the Bible was the actual word of “God” set to paper for convenience but paging around a bit in the Old Testament soon revealed the book in which there were endless lists of “begats” so I had to wonder just what one was supposed to make of such lists. If the Bible was the word of God, was this an example of some kind of religious tenet which only priests could understand or did God also waffle a bit and could one safely avoid such areas of the Bible? It didn’t take long, because I was such a voracious reader from an early age, to encounter a prehistory contradiction – the dinosaurs. Those creatures knocked about millions of years ago, while Adam and Eve go back only a few thousand years. Once I doubted the first chapter of the Bible, the rest of it became a historical account and nothing more.

The church insists on the Ten Commandments but the Old Testament is full of “laws” which are just ignored today – the embargo on pork is just one of many which most people ignore. Surely, if the Bible is the word of God, all the laws in it apply, not just the 10 Commandments? Perhaps the priests and Popes and such, have special knowledge which enables them to decide what to believe and what to ignore. I won’t deny that the Bible has profound wisdom in it but so do many other books written over the centuries and we don’t necessarily ascribe all of them to God as well.

Christians will be quick to point out that they follow Jesus Christ of the New Testament and as He was a part of the Godhead, the NT can be ascribed to Him. I guess it means that the OT is not as hugely important after all unless you’re a dyed in the wool creationist. I have been exposed to the story of Jesus as much as any other Westerner and I have no doubt at all that He existed and was spectacularly special to many people of His day. Just WHAT He was is where I lack understanding. The story of the Holy Trinity just makes no sense to me and while I can happily accept Jesus as an exceptional, influential, historical figure, He is no more than just that. The whole religion which has grown up around Christ smacks of superstition and even paganism. For instance, what is the practice of Mass if it is not a ritualized form of cannibalism? A good Catholic will no doubt recoil at the suggestion but how can it be denied? Way back, pagans cooked and ate parts of their enemies, to acquire their strength. The modern churches have simply ritualized the act but the intent is still there.

As I have stated elsewhere, I think the desire to worship a Higher Power is something genetic. I think that some people have a diluted version of the gene which causes them to be lukewarm followers of a faith while people like me, don’t have it at all. The people with the gene proper, tend to be zealots who find non-believers abhorrent. Although I’ve been to church and have belonged briefly to prayer circles at school and in the army, I never felt as if there was ANYTHING or ANYONE out there who required me to worship them. I really believed prayer was an exercise in futility, even when at times a prayer might seem to be answered. The Bible promises that ALL prayers are answered but I’ve never experienced any evidence of this. So often prayers are offered for sick people who die anyway and one hears that “it was God’s will”. Well then, what the hell difference does my and all the millions of other prayers make, if God has already marked the patient for termination? It seems to me that if all prayers are answered, we’d have no wars! If the Jews were “The Chosen People” how come we lost 6 million of them, despite the millions of prayers which must have been sent heavenward when Hitler started eliminating them? If prayers are always answered, how come the world lost 50 million people to the Spanish flu? Did NONE of those bother to offer up a prayer or what?

Why then also call upon millions to WORSHIP God? Why would a Creator who made a universe so vast and incomprehensibly old have a NEED to be worshipped by some allegedly intelligent species on a most nondescript little planet orbiting a very average star in the Milky Way galaxy? I honestly have no idea what the word worship means. I’ve never worshipped anyone or anything. “Praise the name of the Lord” is a favourite catchphrase endlessly spewed out by the converted but I have no idea how to do it or what exactly doing it achieves. Christianity has an endless list of such phrases : “Jesus loves you,” “Washed by the blood of Christ” etc Even Facebook, a uniquely modern innovation, is constantly crammed with little phrases and homilies which I suppose are a comfort to some but are a meaningless irritation to me.

But let’s leave Christianity for a moment and consider the followers of other religions such as Islam, Hinduism, Shintoism, Buddhism etc. If Christianity’s tenets are to be believed and accepted, there is a huge chunk of humanity following these “false” religions, which is doomed. Islam is the biggest and for a good reason – their prophet laid down rules which ensure followers are inculcated from an early age. Yet those rules are some of the most abhorrent, inhuman inventions the human mind has ever come up with. Moslem women are barely human chattels, created to serve their male masters and bear them children and little more. Followers are so brainwashed that they go into battle unafraid because a Heavenly reward awaits them in the afterlife, which includes a healthy supply of virgins. I have no idea how Hindus figure out which god is responsible for what because they have a veritable panoply of gods. They seem at least, to be a lot less gloomy than other religions because their practices are brimful of light, colour and noise. To boot there are lots of statues of their gods which must make it easier to focus one’s prayers and get them to the correct ears.

The trouble with these religions is, they have a built-in self preservation clause, which makes ALL other religions, heresy and abominations which must be avoided at all costs. Even within the main religions, there are sects within sects where some zealot has decided on a new take on things and gathers a bunch of the dumb and gormless around him and decries all other interpretations as false. I am totally bewildered by how such messianic personalities gain power over their followers and can only think the religion gene is so powerful that it sometimes overrules common sense in some people.

I can go on about the subject but I think I’ve achieved my aim which was to explain why I do not ascribe to any religion. I’m not a deep person who sits worrying about how my behavior might affect my chances of getting on in the next world. I have in fact given up trying to decide whether there is a “next world” or not. I quite often consider the question of an afterlife and what format it might take. I don’t subscribe to the “heaven and hell” versions or any of the others which seem to abound. I sometimes like the idea of reincarnation because it eliminates the awful vision of self extinction one always returns to no matter what else you might look at. Spending eternity sitting around doing nothing does not appeal to me but if you’re not idle on “the other side” what ARE you supposed to be doing. Religions are either very vague about it or else ridiculously graphic as some branches of Islam are.

So, am I an atheist in the true sense of the word? No I’m not but I do consider myself an agnostic. This is the definition of an agnostic :

Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist."

I’m not pretending that this is exactly my point of view but it is damn close. I look out on a universe which is unfathomable, on stars more numerous than grains of sand on all Earth’s beaches, in galaxies just as numerous and really, it takes a bit of cheek to believe yourself to be in touch with Whoever or Whatever created this immensity. I’m often witness to incredible permutations and complications when looking at ANYTHING natural in depth and am astounded and somehow can’t ascribe it to Evolution. I can look anywhere and everywhere, backward and forward in time and come up against infinity. Just when we think we’ve found the most elementary particle with our Hadron collider, that speck will prove to be further divisible in some way we’ll never even begin to understand. It’s just not reasonable to suppose all this immensity and complication has always been there – our puny brains demand a start of some kind to it all and for a “creator” to have started it. I think most people believe something vaguely like this but then they spoil something awesome and wonderful and beyond understanding, by compressing the Creator and all His Works into some ridiculous religion. They find old books to dissect endlessly and come up with building blocks for their religions in these tomes. They build up huge monolithic churches like the Roman Catholic one, immensely powerful and wealthy and speak on behalf of the Creator, as if He’s too busy to manage alone. It’s comical the way they create and demote Saints – often people long gone. How can man decide on behalf of God, who is fit and who isn’t? It’s so obvious that religions are for mankind by mankind and for extracting whatever desirable practices are needed from them. I don’t believe God has had any hand in the establishment of ANY of the world religions,

I don’t begrudge devout, churchgoing people the comfort of giving themselves up to the tenets of a religion. By all means follow in the footsteps of millions more who have had their belief and thinking done for them and have accepted the full package with steps like being “born again” and so on. Go ahead and be a good Christian or Muslim or whatever – I don’t begrudge you the satisfaction you gained by following the creed of a faith. Just don’t proselytize me or pity me in my state of “being out in the cold”. I’m happy and contented the way I am and I don’t fret about the accumulation of “sins” which must be weighing me down by now.

After writing the above, I found the following on Facebook a while ago. It says what I have tried to, so much more succinctly and pertinently.

When Einstein gave lectures at U.S. universities, the recurring question that students asked him most was:

- Do you believe in God?

And he always answered:

- I believe in the God of Spinoza.

Baruch de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher considered one of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, along with Descartes.

(Spinoza) : God would say: Stop praying.

What I want you to do is go out into the world and enjoy your life. I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I've made for you.

Stop going into those dark, cold temples that you built yourself and saying they are my house. My house is in the mountains, in the woods, rivers, lakes, beaches. That's where I live and there I express my love for you.

Stop blaming me for your miserable life; I never told you there was anything wrong with you or that you were a sinner, or that your sexuality was a bad thing. Sex is a gift I have given you and with which you can express your love, your ecstasy, your joy. So don't blame me for everything they made you believe.

Stop reading alleged sacred scriptures that have nothing to do with me. If you can't read me in a sunrise, in a landscape, in the look of your friends, in your son's eyes... you will find me in no book!

Stop asking me "will you tell me how to do my job?" Stop being so scared of me. I do not judge you or criticize you, nor get angry, or bothered. I am pure love.

Stop asking for forgiveness, there's nothing to forgive. If I made you... I filled you with passions, limitations, pleasures, feelings, needs, inconsistencies... free will. How can I blame you if you respond to something I put in you? How can I punish you for being the way you are, if I'm the one who made you? Do you think I could create a place to burn all my children who behave badly for the rest of eternity? What kind of god would do that?

Respect your peers and don't do what you don't want for yourself. All I ask is that you pay attention in your life, that alertness is your guide.

My beloved, this life is not a test, not a step on the way, not a rehearsal, nor a prelude to paradise. This life is the only thing here and now and it is all you need.

I have set you absolutely free, no prizes or punishments, no sins or virtues, no one carries a marker, no one keeps a record.

You are absolutely free to create in your life. Heaven or hell.

I can't tell you if there's anything after this life but I can give you a tip. Live as if there is not. As if this is your only chance to enjoy, to love, to exist. So, if there's nothing after, then you will have enjoyed the opportunity I gave you. And if there is, rest assured that I won't ask if you behaved right or wrong, I'll ask: Did you like it? Did you have fun? What did you enjoy the most? What did you learn?

Stop believing in me; believing is assuming, guessing, imagining. I don't want you to believe in me, I want you to believe in you. I want you to feel me in you when you kiss your beloved, when you tuck in your little girl, when you caress your dog, when you bathe in the sea.

Stop praising me, what kind of egomaniac God do you think I am?

I'm bored being praised. I'm tired of being thanked. Feeling grateful? Prove it by taking care of yourself, your health, your relationships, the world. Express your joy! That's the way to praise me.

Stop complicating things and repeating as a parakeet what you've been taught about me.

What do you need more miracles for? So many explanations?

The only thing for sure is that you are here, that you are alive, that this world is full of wonders.

- BARUCH DE SPINOZA

And finally, one of my favourite authors. Robert Heinlein, had this to say :

The most preposterous notion that Home Sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant of He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest and least productive industry in all history.

ROBERT HEINLEIN – Time Enough for Love