The world seems dangerous and often depressing place these days, but I wonder if there is a different, and better, way to look at it. There is little doubt battle lines are being drawn in every culture, between nations, dividing up societies, and across economic classes. Political parties are divided against each other and often, fracturing from the inside. Something has shaken human kind to its core.
I think all of the chaos is largely the result of one discovery, the knowledge of which is sweeping into human consciousness at an ever increasing rate. This discovery so drastically alters our understanding of the universe that virtually all of our social norms and power structures are challenged and undermined. Somewhat abruptly, in just the last 100 years of so (three generations at most) we discovered that none of our ideas about a god as proclaimed by any of our religions, are true.
Dismiss completely the "god or not god" fight, of theism verses atheism. Concede that there may be a fundamental, even self-aware, cosmic motive force somewhere out there. The fact is that none of our religions describe a god that is consistent with the universe. All the gods of mankind are human-centric. The cosmos, clearly, is human-couldn't-care less.
All of our religions are false. None of our gods exist. And we are just now starting to realize it.
None of the religions have any foundation on which to base their claim to power. There are no god made rules about women being subjected to men, gay people having sex, little girls going to school, kings ruling by divine right, or life beginning at conception. The Pope has no special relationship with a god and thus no elevated standing among people. Nor does any other religious leader. No religion has any basis for holding title to its property or claims on land and territory. Every action and every dictate of every religions person made on any day of human history, insofar as it invokes a god for justification, is utterly without merit. Most of human history is little more than a fraud. Most of our social norms and power structures are built on sand.
Reluctantly, ever so hesitantly and confused by the implications, the reality that we have been wrong about gods all along is, nonetheless, sinking in. But it is impossible to overstate how fundamental a shift in human history this will be. There is no guarantee that we will survive it at all. Everything around us is being undone.
So reluctant are we to admit to our place in the universe that people on both sides of the battle lines, even those on the side rejecting the claim that this or that is god's will, still cling to a god belief. For example most gay rights advocates insist that god didn't make the rules about gay sex that the other side claims He did make. Rarely does the gay man simply dismiss the "god said it" claim as utterly immaterial. The same "He said," "He didn't say" bickering goes on over contraception, abortion, women's rights, poverty, immigration, foreign policy (particularly when it comes to the middle-east); in fact across every battle line there is.
It is long past time to make the line clearer. Those on the progressive side should simply stand up and state, "your claim about what god says is bull-shit. I will not buy your claims to power if it is based on one of human kinds religions. If that is the only argument you have then you have no argument at all."
Then the lines should be drawn even more clearly. Religion is most often used to justify acts that would clearly be criminal if done without the claim of a god. But even with the claim those acts are still criminal acts. Discriminating against women is illegal in modern, first world societies, except inside the Church. Catholicism, and many Protestant fundamental groups, insist that god discriminates against women so men must as well; while women are supposed to accept their inferior statues. (This all based on an utterly ridiculous myth of Adam and Eve.) But invoking a god doesn't make discrimination any less a criminal act. Discrimination against gays, minorities, immigrants, even other religions, is also an act of lawlessness.
The big crime in religion though, is murder. Religiously instigated mass murder is an every day occurrence in the world today. Only criminal organization make murder an option for someone leaving the organization. Only street gangs and drug lords use murder to build empires and protect profits. And no street gang has ever sunk so low as to have among its ranks someone who, in the name of that gang, shoots a little girl in the face for going to school. Religion can't make that same claim.
No corporation or company has ever made murder a response for someone taking another job. Corporations don't send out suicide bombers to kill those who work for other corporations. Corporations often use the phrase "cut-throat" as a metaphor describing market place competition, but no throats are actually cut. But religion can't make that claim either. Indeed, all religions find room in their respective ideologies in which murderers easily hide. No other lawful human organization does the same.
Somehow religion continues to get a pass for masking criminal actions as something that doesn't really do any harm to people and societies. But part of the knowledge that comes from realizing that none of gods of human kind actually exist, is the knowledge that religion often acts as a criminal organization.
The battle lines are real, the battles are real. On the one side is a increasingly aware segment of the human family. Even if they don't reject religion altogether they realize the gods of old are no gods at all.
On the other side are the criminals.
One can only hope the criminals are loosing.
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