I
worry about a lot of stuff, mostly because it is the 21st century,
and we have plenty to worry about, or so we are told, ebola, Isis
(not the goddess, or the Bob Dylan song, or even this
unfortunate post-metal band) and the ever present threat of
global meltdown from an unruly oil based economy. There's a much
longer list, but those 3 will do for now. Today I am worrying about
people who take allegory literally. Those who believe that the Bible
(or whichever holy book of choice they have) is a literal account,
written by God, and thus infallibly true, gospel, if you will. Even
Jesus gives us a few hints that you might not have to take it
literally, with his parables, which are not actual truth, but nice
little stories, which help us to live better lives. It is a shame
that he doesn't go so far as to explain that Genesis is most probably
an allegory as well.
Fundamentalism
is rarely pleasant, and usually practised by those who refuse to see
that at best, the words of any holy book are the words of God as
interpreted by man (and this includes the recent spate of Atheist
fundamentalists who treat the God Delusion as a holy text). And the
amount of time that passed between the events written of and the
actual writing down of them is more than enough to have changed the
original by some considerable amount. This is not blasphemy, this is
simple logic. At best, the first gospel was written down in 70AD, a
good 40 years after Jesus' death. It is now nearly 40 years since the
Sex Pistols played the Manchester Free Trade Hall and if all the
people who said they were there actually were, it would have needed
to be a much bigger hall. Exaggeration happens over time, think of
the amusing stories your Grandad told you, and how they would become
more embellished and better every time, and further from the truth.
Think of the even more unlikely version of the tale that you now tell
to your children. Now multiply that by lots (the oldest KNOWN copy of
the Bible (the
Codex Sinaiticus) dates from 350 AD, the 70AD date came from a
bible-proving
source, for balance, and relates to a Gnostic
Gospel left out of the final edit) and imagine how the details
have changed as they are handed down from generation to generation
before being written down.
Now
at this point, I have to admit my atheism, it is a well studied
atheism, and I do not deny people their right to have any gods they
wish. I was brought up in the wishy-washy anglican tradition by
eminently sensible Christian parents. At any time when I questioned
the madder parts of the Bible, like Adam and Eve, or Jonah and the
Whale, my Dad would tell me it was an allegory, and not meant to be
taken literally. Which is true, any way you slice it. Once I had
realised the whole thing was not for me, I wondered why a sensible
man like my Father would continue to attend Church every Sunday
against all reasonable evidence. It is a conversation I am still not
brave enough to have with him, however, once I had presented a cogent
and reasonable argument for my own lack of belief, they stopped
making me go to Church every week. As I said, eminently sensible, and
reasonable Christians, and I thought they were all like that for a
long time.
I
have since met many others, who try and convince me that Genesis is
literal, and not allegorical at all. They will not even enter into a
debate about the problems with oral tradition and the fact that God
has dubious biographers, and a fairly crappy publishing approach. As
far as they are concerned, every thing in that book is the word of
God himself (not withstanding the fact it has been written by men, a
fact that cannot ever be debated, it is very much true) and I don't
know how to argue against that without resorting to belittling
sarcasm. Faith is an intransigent thing, and if I'm honest I am
faintly envious of those who still have it, it is comforting. But I
cannot disprove it, any more than I can disprove Russell's
teapot. So I have stopped trying.
I
can still remember the euphoria I experienced at enormous Christian
gatherings, where we all sang the same songs as one voice to a higher
power, and felt the tremendous power of the spirit come over us all.
Unfortunately, I then experienced exactly the same thing at Donington
Park in 1991 watching AC/DC, as we all sang with one voice to the
higher power (or high voltage if you like a good pun) of Angus
Young's cherry red Gibson SG. It was the same feeling and I find it
unlikely that the Holy Spirit was endorsing Highway to Hell by
blessing us all. Not to detract from the experience of the religious,
but it is the act of people coming together and sharing in the same
thing that brings the rush and joy, in my experience, rather than any
holy spirit. This is not a bad thing, humanity together can achieve
wonderful things, and it is good to know that when we all come
together as one then euphoria ensues with or without chemical
enhancement. Maybe we should try it more often as a species.
I
have no problem with those who have a God, whatever brings you
comfort is good for you, personally I prefer the waily guitar
stylings of Steve Hillage for my religious experience
You're
welcome, sorry if you were hoping for AC/DC.
But
I know that plenty of other people don't, and that is okay. What
happened to the wishy washy allegorical Christians, who agreed with
Darwin and God? Evolution was all part of the great plan they said,
and I liked the way they altered their perception of the world and
their God to fit in with the new information. Ironically, some of the
greatest scientists the world has ever seen were part of the original
Islamic Caliphate, and their scientific discoveries were celebrated
as proof of God's benevolence. I am not sure at what point religion
stopped trying to understand the world that we have been given (which
after all is exactly how religions begin, as a way to understand the
world we live in) and decided to stop, in case it found out more than
it wanted to inside Pandora's
box. Why do otherwise reasonable and intelligent people scoff at
the Norse model of the Yggdrasil
world tree, and yet fully accept the garden of eden, snake and
all?
I
am in no way denigrating religions, and the religious experience,
spirituality is a fine thing, and there are indeed more things in
heaven and earth than science can currently explain. That doesn't
mean it won't though, and the good thing about the scientific method,
is that it admits it is wrong. In fact, it goes out of its way to
disprove itself whenever possible. The misunderstanding
of the word theory has led to far too many religious dinner table
arguments about the theory of evolution being just a theory. Not so
many about relativity though.
As
I mentioned earlier, I was brought up in a very Christian household,
and it was a lovely place to grow up. We had friends we knew through
church, many of my oldest friends are people I met in sunday school.
The community aspect of the Church is the thing I like about it best,
a place where you can go and be welcomed, and from what I know of it
mosques and temples are the same, though living in the middle of
nowhere as I do, my experience is limited. I was probably much older
than expected when I realised that very few of my school friends went
to Church every sunday, and I was actually in the minority, whether
that had any bearing on my eventual loss of faith or not I cannot
say. But very probably. They are nice places, like Pubs, but without
all the drinking and fighting. Though there is wine (and tea and
coffee afterwards) and a good old singalong every week, which is
nice.
I
do not want any of this shared and quoted by the “lets all laugh at
the stupid religious people and their primitive beliefs” brigade,
as they are no better than the religious fundamentalists who refuse
to believe in dinosaurs. Dawkins has gone too far in his crusade, and
before you tell me about all the wars waged in the name of religion,
I can stop you by pointing out that religion was the excuse,
territory is pretty much always the reason. God is often a convenient
excuse for psychopaths. Even if we had no religion, we would still be
dreaming up exciting reasons to kill each other in new and innovative
ways. Kids fight over their favourite music, let alone anything
important (mods and rockers, ravers and rockers, goths and pretty
much everyone else) why blame the one thing that actually tells you
not to kill people? Interpretations are everything, and usually miss
the point.
I
spent much too much time in my youth trying to argue with people of
faith, using logic, science reasoning, occams razor, anything you
like to change their minds. This was misguided, and as bad as the
religious types who were trying to convert me. Once I had stopped
(though I still invite the jehovah's witnesses in for a chat, I don't
argue as much now though) I realised that tolerance is really the key
to everything. Live and let live, if their beliefs bring them
comfort, then let them keep them. Plus faith, by its very nature, is
often unshakeable, stop trying to shake other peoples, and check your
own instead.
Those
who are defining atheism as a movement with Richard Dawkins at its
head are really missing the point, an absence of belief is not a
belief system. They are probably the same people who take the
wonderful, tolerant, inclusive texts of the Koran, and twist it into
the awfulness that is ISIS, and militant Islam. It bears no
resemblance to the teachings of Mohammed, any more than the Westboro
Baptist Church represent the teachings of Jesus. Underneath this
article in the guardian which manages to miss the point by a
fairly wide mark, a commenter called unretrofied wrote:
“Atheist
movement? Thats your problem right there. I just don't believe in God
or gods, I'm not joining a fucking club about it.”
Which
kind of summed the whole thing up nicely for me.
Enjoy
your God, enjoy your faith, but accept the failings of it's prophets,
who wrote in the context of the world they lived in. Adapt to a
changing world, the World tree can not possibly exist in the universe
we now know of (although maybe it does in a parallel dimension, as
we have to accept those now as well, if we want to understand
string theory, and we do want to understand string theory) but maybe,
just maybe, the guy who wrote down the world tree theory meant well,
but was not listening to what his God had told him properly. Man is
fallible, and we only know of God through the words of men. I for one
think this is proof that there is no God, as surely he/she could
clear all of this up without too many problems without all of this
“do not test the lord your god” and “have faith” stuff. But
that's just my opinion, and I am allowed it, as you are allowed
yours. But maybe just accept (like my Dad did) that Evolution was
part of God's great plan for the universe, rather than wasting so
much energy trying to disprove it.
“Tolerance
implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it
condemns the oppression or persecution of others.”
