The power of suggestion is a widely used tool in the advertising world it is also the means by which confidence tricksters, hypnotists, salesmen, and peddlers of religion, ply their trade. The human mind is a powerful and logical tool, but the human psyche is not particularly logical. We allow ourselves to believe things that logic tells us are not true or at least not proven, and we defend our right to believe certain things even when the evidence, or lack of it, should bring us all to the same conclusions. If a person is truly touched by the Almighty and has experienced physical or mental contact with Jesus or Mohammed or Moses etc, they are obliged to believe. If however, as I suspect, they truly want to believe but have never actually met, been spoken to or been visited by an apparition of God, their belief is based purely on suggestion and self delusion.
I am an atheist and I believe in atheism because I have no reason not to. God has never visited me. To be honest, I have lived in England for nearly fifty years and have not yet met the Queen or any other Royal person, so I suppose I could argue that I don’t believe that they exist either; but images on television, in newspapers and first hand accounts by people that I know and trust, convince me that the royal family do actually exist. Apart from some vague stories about having out of body experiences, or dreams of a person telling them, probably what they want to hear, I find it hard to substantiate any accounts from people that I have met, who speak of their encounters with God. No one can describe what he or she or it looks like, or if they do it is easy to suspect them of invention as the images described come dangerously close to those images dreamed up by renaissance artists in the 16th and 17th centuries at a time when imagery and art were notorious for glamorising the portraits of vain but wealthy patrons who would not have taken kindly to, nor paid money for, a painting that showed them in their true light, warts and all.
Why has he chosen to speak to you but has chosen not to speak to me? Why, in some Islamic countries does he appear to speak to virtually everybody, yet in the West he hardly reaches out to 50% of the population? Why does he tell one nation or section of society, to dress in a certain way, to pray in a certain way, to treat their animals and their women in some appallingly inhumane ways, to kill or abort their offspring if they happen to be female, to declare holy war on anyone who does not dress, think or pray as they do. And yet he treats others in a completely laisse faire manner allowing them to dress as they wish, promote women to the highest positions in their governments, value daughters as much as sons, he doesn’t seem bothered if one prays or not and allows democratic freedoms to even the most heathen of his flock (like myself).
More’s the point, we in Britain, are virtually immune from poverty, famine, pestilence, earthquakes, volcanoes and most other manifestations of the power of the almighty, yet the most pious and religious people of the world are the ones that seem to suffer the greatest wrath from 'acts of god'.
Perhaps he is trying to tell them something? Perhaps they are just not listening? Perhaps there are two gods? Although all the major factions tend to agree that there is only one. Perhaps… (and I may be philosophising out of my tree here), But just perhaps... There is no god at all!!!
The only apocalyptic wrath, that we seem to suffer in Britain, is at the hands of Islamic terrorists determined to carry out the will of Allah and wipe us ‘infidels’ from the face of the earth. Or could it be that they are jealous of the wealth, health and lifestyle that we enjoy and are full of vengeance for the sins of our forefathers who went to their lands, hundreds and hundreds of years ago to wage war on them in a similar way? If this is the case, isn’t it time they grew up?
We have virtually forgiven the Germans and the Japanese for the atrocities they bestowed on us only last century. We allow Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, and even Roman Catholics! to come to our country and in most cases are glad to have them here. We allow them to build their places of worship, pray to who ever they wish, drink alcohol or not drink alcohol, as they desire, marry our sons and daughters for the reasons of love and not duty. But still some want to kill us because a few misguided, self deluded, morons from the 10th century, under the banner of Christ, The King and St George, went to their countries and tried to convert them to a slightly different flavour of religion. Is it worth getting killed for? I for one think not!
If there is only ONE god, one creator, one all-powerful, almighty being; then it stands to reason that there can only be ONE word of god. And as, some people believe, our lives on earth are all predestined and the prophecies of the ancients are part of his great plan, then this ‘word’ this ‘plan’, must be unchanging and unchangeable. How is it then that God chose to change his will, his ‘testament’, at times when the prevailing needs of small sections of the earth’s population desired it?
The Jews, at the time of Moses, were told to go out into the world, kill, maim, disfigure, rape and pillage as many people as they could. Then he sends his son, Jesus, at a time when half the population of the small town of Bethlehem were getting a bit fed up with being bullied by the Romans, and he told them to go forth and spread peace, love etc. So, the Christians go out into the world and carry the message of this new religion. Everything seems fine. So why does god then start talking to Mohammed, via an angel, in a cave and tell him that he has got everything wrong and he needs a new religion to wipe the old one off the face of the earth?
Some old cynics like myself, might start to suspect that the rise and fall of different religions is deeply rooted in the ambitions and needs of a few, politically motivated individuals. Individuals who have the power to influence vast numbers of globally, gullible, and delusionary, sheep, who will believe anything they are told so long as they are told it by a celebrity!
You must have noticed that ‘Celebrity’ is the new religion of today. If David Beckham gets his hair cut, thousands of idiots, rush to the nearest barber to get it done too. Footballers, movie stars, singers and even some politicians, Tony Blair and George W Bush are prime examples, only have to open their mouths and thousands of outwardly sane people are hanging on their every word and believing everything they say. Notice I said ‘outwardly sane’, but who knows what goes on inside their minds? Only the people who can manipulate them and who can hold power over their thoughts, can say what it is that makes people believe. But it is a strange phenomenon that more people seem to want to believe what they are told than wish to question it. It is the same with religion, the presence of God and Jesus and Mohammed etc. are all just figments of peoples imagination that have been planted into the brains of the susceptible, by the unscrupulous. Religion is a form of psychological power that some find hard to resist. Open up your mind, let it escape and never let it back in until it has proven to you in a physical, accountable, measurable way that it deserves to be let back in. Stop being a deluded fool and let yourself be a free thinker, then, perhaps we can all start living together in real harmony and actually achieve true peace.
The world cannot wait for the prophecies to be fulfilled. We are on a collision course of our own self-destruction, brought about by man’s greed and lack of consideration for his environment and his fellow man, in the vain and impossible hope that everything will be okay on the day of judgement. Stop deluding yourself and start thinking for yourself. That seed in your brain that tells you that there is a god and that Jesus or Allah will save you, has been planted by a culture that desires only to control you and your thoughts. For god’s sake, claim your life back, before it’s too late.
The Phucked-Up Philosopher: March 2006
