I’m going to start this by saying that I am under no illusions about how privileged I am. I have grown up in a stable loving home, been well educated and had no onus on me to be anything other than a good person. No expectations for me to follow a specific career path, hold particular political or social views or – most relevantly here – follow a certain religion. Or any religion. Of course my parents and peers hold views, and those close to me have influenced throughout my life, but only ever vicariously. In short I have never been ‘indoctrinated1, 2’ into anything. I’m not even baptised, as some of my brothers are. Fairly easy then for me to become an atheist; in my eyes, if presented with all the evidential facts and provided they are free of bias, atheist is all anyone would become. I am incredibly thankful for this opportunity and relish every wonderful, godless day for what it is. A fucking miracle. And not a boring Jesus miracle3, I’m talking statistically, in terms of pure probability – the chances of life existing at all are infinitesimally small. Yet here we are.
1. The process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology. It is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned.
2. And before anyone says something along the lines of ‘But being taught to believe in science? That’s just another form of indoctrination’, NO! It really isn’t. The whole point of science is that it is intended to be questioned; it LOVES being questioned! That’s the only way it can develop, and there is no doctrine in something that is constantly changing in light of new developments; science is the ‘anti-doctrine’ if you like.
3. Big deal, you cured a leper. Alexander Fleming used good science to discover penicillin, which has since cured a number of people that is literally impossible to count – but it’s BILLIONS. Out of academic interest I wonder if this single discovery of science has saved more lives than have been slaughtered in the name of god – or rather what god was the ‘in’ deity at the time – throughout the ages.
I say all this because I recently experienced a brief insight into the lives of some young people who haven’t had the impartial perspective I have been given, and it brought two things to the forefront of my mind. One was the humility I should – and perhaps now more than ever DO – feel (as I hope has come across so far) and the other was the realisation of just how unremittingly evil and subversive organised religion can be.
I haven’t been to church – or any religious gathering for that matter – since probably Christmas carol services between the ages of 6 and 9 when, lacking any kind of perspective4 on theological matters, religious ceremony was simply a boring nuisance. During my adult life, when I now have my own informed opinions, I have avoided all such experiences like the plague5,out of a fundamental disagreement with what I understand them to represent. Because of this lack of tangible experience, I don’t think I have been fully aware quite HOW profound and fundamental my disagreement is6. Until now, that is.
4. My prime concerns were probably Angel Delight and the question of why Barbie is so interested in an overtly metrosexual, ascot-wearing tit when my Action-Man has a submarine and a gun!
5. During which, incidentally, Christians all over Europe took to burning entire Jewish communities to the ground and murdering all the inhabitants under the unimaginably deluded assertion that they we’re causing the disease by poisoning wells.
6. To quote Einstein “The only source of knowledge is experience”. To REALLY know something, you have to witness it first hand.
My girlfriend and I were walking through Liverpool yesterday when an enthusiastic young guy presented us with a flyer for a free “Drama” show. The flyer was pretty ambiguous; the show was called ‘The Thriller’, the imagery on the flyer was dark and brooding and it had a ‘Parental Advisory’ mark – the sort you find in the sale of music – in the bottom corner. I’d go as far as to say I found it a little intriguing, and we were going for a drink pretty much next door to the venue shortly before it was scheduled to start, so we had a “fuck it!” moment and decided to go.
Upon arriving it became quickly apparent what we had let ourselves in for. The show opened with an MC taking to the mic and demanding of the audience: “give me a ‘J’ ”. I’m sure you can assume the rest7. It turns out that the flyer neglected to mention that the show was, for lack of a better – or real – word, ‘Jesustastic’. On the contrary it was deliberately misleading8; a liar-flyer9 if you will. At first it was more or less innocuous; there were songs, raps and dances all praising ‘The Almighty’, kind of like a contemporary Hip-Hop Sunday service. Then the ‘Drama’ of which the flyer spoke began and things took a turn for the kind-of-fucked-up.
7. He spelled Jesus…
8. Which seems to be a staple of the faith it was attempting to gain support for.
9. Groan if you please.
Ostensibly, the story centred on a young girl of about 16 who, during the play, is pressured by her friends into loosing her virginity to her boyfriend of 3 years. She does so, making herself ‘impure’ and leading the boy – having ‘got what he came for’ – to leave her10, which ultimately reduces her to a suicidal wreck and she is only able to escape her self inflicted demise by listening to a friend who informs her of ‘Gods Love’ and they all live happily ever after. Interspersed among the demonization of young men, the repression of sexuality and the truly horrible and tasteless depiction of the leading lady’s desperate, suicidal thoughts, were testimonials from the real life ‘saved’ girls who comprised the cast, and who’s combined experiences formed the plot of the play.
10. Wow. Three years for one sex. He’s certainly determined I’ll give him that!
Quite frankly, it made me fucking sick. These young, vulnerable girls had the destructive double whammy of being both underprivileged, and indoctrinated into the Christian faith. Their beliefs – or rather their inherited beliefs – teach them that sex – the natural biological urge teens often get when the puberty hormones are rife – is inherently sinful outside of the institution of marriage. Because it is regarded as ‘sinful’ by the community that supports them (their parents/church/school), ideas of sex are either educated poorly, or not at all, and what we get are sexually confused young girls existing in a part of society where sex among the young is particularly prevalent, having sex, getting pregnant, having abortions all the while thinking that their god sees them as impure murderers who aren’t worthy of his love, and who are going to burn in hell for eternity. And they’re supposed to NOT feel suicidal?!?! The main deterrent of suicide – if you subscribe to the Christian faith – is that you end up in hell. If you already feel like you’ve ticked off everything the list of shit to do to get there, what have you got to loose!?
And the MOST messed up thing about the whole situation is that it is at this moment, when these girls are broken, empty and vulnerable, screwed up inside because their natural human behaviours conflict with what they have been falsely convinced is acceptable, that Christianity swoops in to save the day. “Hey girls, you know that guy who thinks that pretty much everything you have ever done or thought about doing is evil? Yes, the same guy who tells you that for doing those things, you’re going to spend the rest of eternity in perpetual agony? Well, it turns out he actually loves you.” And they buy it. They’re at the lowest they could ever get and Christianity poses them a “quick-fix” for all of their problems; why wouldn’t they?
That’s what religion does11. “Nature abhors a vacuum”, and it fills with falsehoods any vacuums that it can get its grubby little hands on; from the void of knowledge of the world around us to the empty space in a hopeless heart. It comes along and offers simple, digestible12 solutions for those without the ability, support or determination to find their own.
11. Among many other things, some far less, some far more abhorrent than this.
12. Not to mention WRONG.
From here, the resounding cry usually comes; “If people find solace in their beliefs, why not let them?” Until recently I found it hard to argue with this point of view, as to do so seems to contradict the ideas of freedom of expression that civilised humans live by, however, I have come to realise a couple of things.
First, is that I don’t think it is the beliefs that ‘heal’ these broken people; I believe it is other people. The valuable thing about turning to organised religion in times of hardship is not the beliefs themselves – if it were, organised religion would be pointless; individuals would have their beliefs and that would be enough to fulfil them – it is the network of support that such a community offers. Surrounding yourself with people struggling with similar problems for the purpose of repairing one another is wonderful and uplifting in itself; why the need to complicate it with dogma13? Group therapies for victims of things like drug addiction and sexual abuse do without14!
13. RHETORICAL!
14. I was going to put Alcoholics Anonymous in there, but upon further research, it turns out that AA is tied up with Christian dogma. Why? Just WHY?!?!
Second, is that the truth15 of world we live in, the true answers to the questions religions explain away with supernatural, superstitious, reductive hokum, are infinitely more interesting, fascinating and – given that they don’t contradict themselves and actually make sense – satisfying than anything anyone could ever dream up. Nature is beautiful perfection begat by billions and billions of years of trial and error. Anything in nature that exists today is, by definition, perfect at doing what it does; if it weren’t, it simply wouldn’t BE. I fail to grasp how the pure and simple divinity of that fact alone, if fully understood, could not be preferable to inconsistent and flawed ramblings of the minds of primitive men.
15. As in the facts as we understand them based on evidence gained through empirical study, not the proverbial “Truth”. That’s exactly what I DON’T mean!
Which do you find more interesting: A solar system formed nearly 5 billion years ago, from clouds of gases over 13.5 billion years old and the contents of 10 billion year old exploding supernovae flattening, compressing and rotating under the weight of their own enormous gravity OR God put it there?
Which sounds more feasible: A young earth, created around 4.54 billion years ago; oxygen-less and molten, swirling with volcanic activity and bombarded by cosmic bodies before cooling and forming land and oceans around 4 billion years ago OR God put it there?
Which penetrates the fibres of your being more: The Earth, just a billion years after it’s formation, surrounded by a violent, primordial atmosphere bombarded present gases with UV light and electrical discharges creating a soup of simple organic compounds which, over the course of further billions of years react, combine and create the complex amino acids necessary for the formation of DNA – the building blocks of life – which then, over the next couple of billion years, gives rise to single celled organisms, then multi-cellular organisms, then – eventually – us, OR God put us here?
No contest.
If reading this is making you feel insignificant then WAKE UP! You ARE insignificant! You are, as Douglas Adams once put it, “An invisible dot on an invisible dot; infinitely small.” But there’s no shame in it! The Universe is a fairly big place16 with lots of space to fill, and worrying about your context in that is stupid. Everything is relative and that includes the worth of individual humans; to think that accepting that we live in a godless universe leaves us without purpose is in the same vain school of religious thought that suggests everything around us was created for us. Simply, if you matter to just one other person, then you matter. Acknowledging and embracing this fact is far more profound than anything any religion has to offer; it liberates you and present’s you with one pure goal: MATTER to people; be good, and do it not for desire of reward17 or fear of punishment18, but because it’s right.
16. About 46 billion light years across at last count.
17. Heaven.
18. Hell.
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” – Marcus Aurelius
The closest things we atheists have to heaven and hell are being remembered well, and being remembered badly. Preying on the uneducated, naïve and hopeless and providing them with lies and false security in exchange for control is not right, and I say, as an atheist, if you are propagating such a system, you are probably going to hell.
Please do read my short follow-up to issues raised about this post that can be found here…