There Was Never a First
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Random 11.22.05 Zealotry 11.26.05 Fear 11.29.05 Genesis 11.30.05 Redemption 12.05.05 Rudolph 12.08.05 Jingoism 12.12.05 Clemency 12.15.05 Commercials 12.16.05 Television 12.20.05 Dover 12.23.05 2005 01.13.06 Ethically |
Rantings 01.17.06 Theorems 01.20.06 Abortion 01.22.06 Proofs 01.25.06 Meaning 01.27.06 Consistency 01.31.06 Fiction 02.05.06 Commandments 02.08.06 Morally 02.12.06 Complexity 04.14.06 Eoster 04.18.06 Semantics 05.04.06 Discrimination 10.03.07 Epiphanies |
Deluded überzealot Jerry Falwell blames the terrorist attacks of 11 September 42001 (or 12001 H.E.) on those "who have tried to secularize America" (yes, the batshit crazy bastard really did). The secularization of America? Ah; we can wish, and I for one can think of nothing better. A nation free from the institutionalized superstitions of the Christer-cult, the last of a dying breed that dominates more than three-quarters of this supposedly advanced population. A nation purged of fanciful fairy tales about mythical saviors, because as Carl A. P. Ruck and Danny Staples wrote in the World of Clasical Myth: "Our own myths we call reality." Let's face facts: all religions are as equally right as they are equally wrong. They're like six-year-olds with nuclear weapons demanding with utter conviction that two plus two equals twenty-two, and threatening to annihilate anyone who disagrees. Consider: what makes the most devout Muslim more right than the most devout Christologist, or the most devout Jew, or the most devout Buddhist, when all of them believe undeniably in the truth of their unproveable, untestable faiths? Every religion preaches that it is the one and only "true faith," and yet not one presents a single piece of sufficiently reliable evidence to support that assertion except for its own self-reflexive claim to veracity. Trying to sort out which religion is "right" or "true" or "real" is a waste of valuable time. They are all fanciful inventions constructed by humans with no empirical basis in reality. Picking a religion is like deciding whether you'd rather date Dana Scully, Olivia Benson, or Catherine Willows. It doesn't matter, because none of them are real. And the ultimate problem with religion is, of course, the most fundamental of all; they are all, every one, built on the faulty premise that some kind of supernatural deity exists. Most religions go even further by attributing various characteristics to those deities, including but not limited to: consciousness, omnipotence, omniscience, an intentional hand in the formation of the universe, and an special interest in the activities and welfare of human beings. Unfortunately, in the tangible reality in which we participate, there is no evidence that any gods exist; the idea of a creationary force that controls the universe and doles out everlasting paradise or eternal damnation is a manmade delusion with no basis in fact. The notion of gods is, at its core, the product of fear and ignorance; when an event cannot be explained by existing means, and those who want an explanation are too ignorant to find this new explanation, gods are the go-to answers that get credit. The highest parts of our brains have conceived of the microprocessor, the solar-panel, the Hubbell Telescope, and the nuclear reactor. And yet the lowest parts of the human brain are still entrenched in the mire of superstitious mysticism, still seeking answers that don't exist to questions that aren't really questions. I cannot, of course, entirely renounce the notion of gods, because the idea itself does exist. It exists in the same way that the idea of unicorns and elves exist; in the same way that the fictional ideas of a J. K. Rowling novel exist within the pages of the book. It exists as an idea, which was concieved by primitive human minds, and still clings like a barnacle to the hull of the human psyche. Of course, the notion of novels and fiction brings us to the Christological bible, which is, quite possibly, the worst novel ever written. The book -- written by more than 60 men over a thousand years -- is replete with self-contradiction and narrative inconsistency; just within the opening book, the character of "God" is shown to be insecure, prejudiced, inept, and most certainly not all-knowing. Any novel written today that demonstrated as much internal inconsistency and contradiction as the Christological bible does would, rightly, be deemed an abject failure. And yet this anthology of poetry and short fiction -- and it is fiction, because countless evidence has established that too much of it is grossly historically inaccurate -- seems to persist despite the fact that it is quite clearly not inspired by a divine creator, but rather simply the creative efforts of a group of marginally-talented men  |