02.03.06

This past Sunday morning, I was absently channel-surfing through the standard mindless morning chatter when I chanced across a televised church service conducted by my local proprietor of Western mysticism, a man who calls himself a "pastor" because he wasted a few years of his life and money studying one of the worst novels ever written at "Bible college," but a mystic nevertheless.
       I stopped momentarily, knowing full well that I only had to tune in for a couple of minutes at most in order to catch a full whiff of the ripe bovine excrement he was peddling. And he didn't let me down. After quoting passages from an inherently self-contradictory compilation novel for a minute-and-a-half, he claimed that "for all of the good deeds we do here, we reap eternal rewards in Heaven;" he finished his diatribe by posing the question, "Is there any better reason to do Good?"
       Well, quite frankly, yes. The particular brand of Goodness being espoused in this presumptuous sermon is nothing more than sanctimonious selfishness masquerading as generosity. The balding sweaty mystic had let slip one of the underlying precepts of Christianity and laid bare -- accidentally, I have to assume -- the true motivation behind the "goodness" or "morality" of the believer. Following his logic, we can surmise that theists only do Good in exchange for something else; in short, the real reason that believers do Good is because they get something in return for it.
       On top of this self-centered bartering, the believer heaps upon himself the illusion of superiority based on the preposterous notiong that doing Good deeds in turn somehow makes the believer better than other people. But we already know that these self-serving "Samaritans" aren't going to Heaven, because there is no such place as Heaven -- they're going into the ground, like everyone else; or into the kiln, like me -- so the notion of "doing Good to get to Heaven" really only serves to provide psychological comfort to the believer.
       The natural implication that follows from doing Good deeds because "god says to" is that the individual himself is internally and inherently amoral; his morality, after all, is imposed by an external force under the name of "god." The believer does good deeds because he is told to, often with the threat of an associated punishment for a failure to comply; thus, the "good deeds" of the believer are not only not genuine or personally motivated, but they are actually being carried out under duress.
       Ironically, the charge of inherently lacking a moral compass is a standard argument leveled by believers against atheists. How, they propose, can an individual make any kind of moral decision if he rejects the notion of an imaginary supernatural authority figure? Of course, this argument breaks down on several counts, foremost of which is the supposition that morality must be external to the individual.
       Further, the argument erroneously assumes that the perceived "morality" of the believer, based on his imaginary supernatural authority figure, is in any way applicable to pragmatic human society -- which it has repeatedly proven itself not to be, with the Christian doctrine systematically condoning slavery, murder, war, genocide, and the continued oppression of women, homosexuals, and indeed anyone who disagrees with that arbitrary doctrine, to this day. Clearly, the supernatural "morality" of the believer deserves far more scrutiny than the pragmatic ethics of the atheist.
       Contrary to theistic discourse, morality is not a divine edict of human behavior handed down by some mythical Man in the Clouds. Morality arises as a natural consequence of the social nature of the human animal; therefore, morality as we understand it as part of human interaction exists nowhere else in nature, because it is entirely dependent upon our own human consciousness. If the human species had never evolved, morality likewise would never have come about.
       True morality, as eloquently set forth in an article from Ebon Musings about Universal Utilitarism, can be described in a single sentence. To summarize the piercing 23-page article:

"Always minimize both actual and potential suffering; always maximize both actual and potential happiness."
Because there is no "god," no "soul" and no "afterlife," we must act in this life toward the betterment of the planet and the human condition because it is all there is and all we have. Because there is no mythic father-figure looking out for us, we must look out for each other and work, not pray, for the end of injustice and evil. One constant among humans -- and in only that way is it in any sense "universal" -- is the desire for happiness.
       Because we are social creatures with no other externally imposed set of guidelines, we must thus act on this planet and in this lifetime in a way that minimizes suffering firstly, and maximizes happiness secondly. As described in Ebon Musing's essay, "the very highest and most valuable method of gaining happiness is that pure form of empathy that requires nothing for itself but the observation that others are happy." That anyone could call atheists "immoral" or "bleak" is truly staggering.
       In contrast, doing good to earn reward in a fictitious afterlife is actually immoral, because it does not serve the betterment of the planet or the human condition; it is actually a dangerous pseudomorality motivated by unmitigated selfishness. Additionally, the actions that qualify as "good deeds" are not clearly defined as those which decrease human suffering and increase human happiness; instead, they are listed as the arbitrary and often meaningless set of rules claimed to have been handed down to humanity by the fictitious character of a "god," and have little if anything to do with the actual planet or human condition.
       Similarly, the Golden Rule -- to "do unto others as you would have others do unto you" -- is an inherently self-centered "moral" code. This supposedly "Golden" Rule does not describe what the individual ought to do, but what the individual ought not do, and is nothing more than a way of appealing to the individual's own personal desires in an attempt to prevent him from acting negatively toward others. Thus it is not a moral code at all, but a method of removing morality from the process altogether by allowing the individual to act in an entirely selfish manner.
       The "Golden Rule" is predicated upon asking the individual to imagine any potential action as being committed toward them before committing it toward someone else; if the individual finds that action to be unpleasant to themselves, the "Golden Rule" suggests that they might not want to do it to anyone else. A far better rule might be stated as "do unto others what would make them happy," because the selfish desires of the individual are removed from the equation and demands that the individual think selflessly and consider the desires of the affected parties.
       Ultimately, we are forced to accept that even if a "god" did create the universe 13.7 billion years ago and does somehow still exist, that particular "god" is entirely unnecessary to human morality, which can be derived from solely secular sources, not the least of which are the inherently human desires for happiness and freedom. In fact, if we examine the many baseless propositions of Christianity, we find that the Judeo-Christian character of "God" is actually a rashly immoral agent unto Itself, guilty of widespread war, genocide, and the endorsement of the morally repugnant institution of slavery.
       Moreover, all unsubstantiated claims that any "god" has given any direct "commandments" as to the daily, private, or consentual conduct of human beings are deeply detrimental and dangerous to actual human morality, because they inevitably lead human beings into actions -- such as war, oppression, and slavery -- that increase human suffering and decrease human happiness, thus proving the actions, and in turn often the commandments themselves, to be patently immoral.


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