I’m going to innaugurate this section with a fairly controversial topic, but one which just doesn’t seem to go away. I was debating calling this blog “Why God Won’t Go Away?” but then that’s probably a bit too bitter to start off with.
This is a topic which I first had a “spirited” discussion over with my mom several years ago… right about the time when I was kind of getting my own senses. For what seemed like three days (it was literally over a couple of days as far as my recollection goes) she tried hard to argue about the existence of god (intentionally spelt with a lower case g….) but I could not logically accept such a conclusion. And for the longest time that was the end of it. I accepted the fact that I do not have to believe in any such entity. Though, I have to admit that it takes more will power not to belive than it does to believe… it is easy to believe as IMHO (in my humble opinion) believing in an omnipotent, over-arching entity is equivalent to giving up responsibility… now someone else is to blame for our plight as well as for all the stuff around us and some divine power is going to show up and like the little elves working hard over night will magically make everything better. Right! I believe that. Not.
But recently, I seem to uncannily uncover people who have rather strong beliefs on the topic! I definitely try to ensure that I can remain somewhat distant in order to ensure people their own space, their own beliefs. To each their own, but I’ve now come across so many people that I just had to write about it.
Personally, I believe that belief in a “higher power”, religion and God are all purely man made creation devised with the explicit intention of controlling human behavior. I’m not sure where I read it now, but I subscribe to the statement: God did not create Man. Man created God. Applying a somewhat sociological anf anthropological rationale, wouldn’t it seem reasonable that as early man came across phenomena that he could not explain… things as simple as thunder and lightening which we now have perfectly rational scientific explanations for, they were attributed to being supernatural. The inability of man to be able to control his environment, essentially gave birth to the fear, uncertainity and doubt (FUD) which led them to devise a belief system to placate their fears, uncertainities and doubts. Man created God.
Even today, there are phenomena which we cannot explain fully explain on the basis of physics, chemistry, biology and any other of the natural sciences. One such question that was pointed out to me recently was gravity. We know what it does. We can quantify and calculate the effect of graviational forces, but to date I have not heard any rational explanation of what causes two objects in space to develop a force of attraction. Okay, so yes, there are things that we do not understand yet, but does that mean that just the fact that we cannot explain certain phenomena that they have to be supernatural? About as supernatural as thunder and lightening were to early man, I suppose. But wouldn’t it seem more logical that human knowledge just has not reached the level where it is possible to explain more of these un-explainable phenomena?
Jared Diamond, in his book Guns, Germs and Steel talks about the evolutions of human civilization and he examines why certain parts of the world developed in ways different than others. But as I read the book, I wondered about a different thing. As man began to grown food instead of hunting and gathering, as man settled down into living in groups without mocing around too much, the population grew. With the growth in populcation within a localized region, it probably became difficult to live what we now cosider a “civil” life. Humans inherently possess both virtues and vices. And some vices such as greed, envy, anger, lust are always present. Some just learn how to control them better than others. But in early civilization, you had a large number of people with really no “laws”, no sense of “right or wrong”. Kind of like a free for all. So doesn’t the establishment of a belief system that subliminally brings order to chaos make sense? I’ll explain further.
It starts at home. Kind of how it probably did with me and kind of how it probaby was for millions of generations before. Parents want their kids to behave in certain ways. Do certain things and not do others. For this one of the age-old devices that has been harnessed is fear. You tell a child, oh, if you go outside alone, the monster will come eat you up. Okay, so in really early days when people lived in the wild, I could buy that, but for a parent in todays world to inculcate a fear of a non-existant monster into a child seems irrational. The only monsters out there are other human beings in our society. Santa Claus is irrational. But I digress, the point is that fear has for the longest time been one of the best ways to control human behavior. Fear is a powerful emotion. It can make us do things and it can make us not do things.
Margaret Singer in her book (I’m tempted to call is a seminal work… reference intentionally omitted) made a point which really struck home — “…imprisonment and overt violence are not necessary and are actually counterproductive when influencing people to change their attitudes and behaviors. If one really wants to influence ohers, various coordinated soft-sell programs are cheaper, less obvious and highly effective.” Correspondingly, I would argue that at some point in tme, some really smart guys figured out that “hey, you know what, I can beat the crap out of one person or 10 people into submission to doing things my way, but if I really need to control 10,000 or a million people… I don’t have the resources to do it using physiological manipulation and so how about this cool new way of using psychological manipulation!” And voila, what emerges is what we know in modern world as religion…
Religion is something which just keeps getting passed on from one generation to the other with very little questioning. Things which made sense 2000 years ago and probably have no bearing in modern life continue int he form of tradition, convention, rites and rituals. Just because that’s the way it’s supposed to be done and with no regard whatsoever as to why that way was devised at the time that it was! Religion is the perfect avenue for mass mind control. Mass mind control which affects how you behave, how you dress, how you eat, when you sleep, who you associate with and pretty much every other aspect of life. Wow… they talk about nuclear warfare, chemical warfare and biological warfare… but the most powerful weapon of all has been around for time immemorial in the form of religion. The perfect answer to disabling the logic circuits.
When I was in college, I used a rather crass and unfair analogy to justify my desire to do something on my own – that I didn’t want to be a sheep and be led to working for some big company. I’ll find my own way. Well, the same analogy which was a bit extreme and in hindsight not respectful of my classmates own right to do what they want to in life, seems to apply well here. Most contemporary religions are aimed at turning people into obedient sheep. (I don’t know enough about the bible and christianity, but isn’t there some connection with sheep in there too?)
Of course, the same way that you train any good puppy, you must have a system of rewards and punishment to create appropriate behavior. Well, in comes heaven and hell and the concept of the final judgement (these concepts span all kinds of religions) and there you have it! If you do x you will go to hell, if you you do y you will go to heaven. Gee… doesn’t this sound familiar? If you go out the monster will come eat you up! oooh. Better yet, introduce re-incarnation and then you will be caught in the endless loop and you’ll become some lowly being if you screw up. Hats of to some people who can see through this molasses of gunk that seems to permeate the very being of human society. To those skeptics who can hold their own view points and follow themselves, I tip the proverbial hat to you.
I accept that human beings are inherently insecure. I am and almost every person I’ve come across has always been. There is always something. We’re never satisfied with what we have, always coveting what we don’t have and always afraid of what others might do, say or think. And you know what, I don’t have an answer for it, since I do it too (no shame in accepting the truth!). But does that really mean that we allow our insecurities to manifest themselves in the form of beliefs which are highly illogical? If you haven’t figured it out by now I hold logic in high regard. And I’ll go as far as saying that as I grow older and hopefully wiser, the thing I fear most is losing the ability to think logically. I’d rather be dead than lose the ability to think rationally.
That said, beliefs, religion and god do play some positive psychological role for some people and I have nothing against that. And hence to each his own. If it works for you, more power to you. But if you try and apply impose your thinking on others, then be aware that there are people like me out there who won’t put up with that. Leave us to our own beliefs as well please, thank you.
Anyhow, enough rambling for now. The bottomline is that for me, beliefs, religion and god are all created by man for man and to accept them without inquiry is tantamount to going and jumping in the well, simply because you were told to.
