In an interview with Bill Maher, who is an athiest, Barak Obama agreed that there are hardly any Representatives or Senators who do not profess to have a religion, and that it would be difficult to get elected if that was the case.
The discussion also touched on the heirarchy that exists when those of us who are athiests are considered lesser people, because we don’t have faith in the existence of an almighty being. The mainstay of that is faith. No-one has yet proven to me that there is a God, that such a being exists.
As with all my ramblings, this is about challenging the beliefs that were instilled in me from an early age, so I am going to concentrate on my experience, which was as a Christian. Christened in a white dress, and off to Sunday School as soon as I was ready, aged about 5, I was singing Jesus Loves me with the best of them. Even at that age we were put in our Sunday best, and had to keep quiet for the first half of the service before heading out to learn about the boy Jesus. In church time was consumed by counting the organ pipes, adding up the numbers of the hymns, looking at the bald man at the front of the choir and trying to guess when he became one hundred years old. It was dull. But there was never any discussion, debate, enquiry about the actual existence of this God. It was all assumed, and if you did dare to challenge, well anything, that was you heading to hell.
Meanwhile, while I was at a service, my football pal, Michael Gilligan, was at a mass. I had a minister, he had a priest, he was in a chapel, me, a church.
At about 15 I had had enough. By then we had endured five years of the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. People from different branches of Christianity killing each other. My best friend Michael and I were never to talk again. The church/chapel division now too serious. Violence was daily, shootings, bombs, riots, beatings. In the name of religion disguised as a political persuasion. But I was still influenced in almost every emotional response to the violence as a result of my upbringing. We were right, they were wrong. When the Army killed someone, we didn’t celebrate, but neither did we care. When the IRA killed someone, we were shocked saddened and horrified. Christians all.
And in Church was the Minister telling us every week that Love Thy Neighbour meant love thy Catholic neighbour? Nope. Not a word on that topic. Transsubstantiation was the big divider. Did the wine actually turn into Jesus’s blood. Ian Paisley professed to be Christian while stirring the pot of sectarian hatred. His street thugs attacked people for wanting a vote, and his dog-collar was bought in an American university. God so loved the world that he brought us Ian Paisley? Meanwhile priests were fervently hiding terrorists, and running guns, in the name of our Lord.
So we look to history. The use of religion for control. From Rome, where the church has a direct lineage to the Roman Empire, which didn’t pretend anything other than it was after power, to the Church of England, established so Henry 8th could exercise his rule over the Kingdom, and de hitch himself from Katherine of Aragon.
The Inquisition and various other religious boys clubs, murdered over 1 million women in Europe for the crime of witchcraft. Protestants and Catholics of various hues tortured and murdered. Wars were fought for religious supremacy. All people who professed a deep and undying love of God and Jesus, while totally ignoring any of the teaching of the New Testament. Sunday was Worship day, and so they did, and then back to ignoring “Thou shalt not kill” with a vengence.
The theologists will argue with all my points, but I will argue with the need for theology. Books written well after the death of Jesus used to impose draconian moral laws. Claiming to be Chirstian, and be acting in the name of Christ. Well, as far as I know, he didn’t get final say on what was printed on his behalf.
And on we go.
In the US, the blending of the Righteous Right with the extremeties of pure evil in racism seems to be the accepted way. Dwight Eisenhower said “I am all for integration, but you can’t have a young white girl sitting beside a big black buck” in 1954. Almost 100 years after slavery, the President was using the slavery term buck to talk about a man, not an animal. In 1964 the Civil Rights Act outlawed segregation. Guess what the good Christian burghers of the Southern states did rather than have to share municipal swiming pools with African Americans? They closed them down and filled them in. They found men who killed a 14 year old black boy from Chicago innocent. The perpetrators went on to sell their story of how they had done it. White ‘Christians’ gathered to threaten and inflict actual bodily harm on their fellow human beings for the crime of being born of a different colour.
And this has always been the case. On arrival in the land of the then free, and home of the braves, the white Christians adopted a handy little adaptation of the Bible by deciding that the indiginous peoples were not actually human and as such were not covered by the insurance that being white automatically incurred. All in the name of their God and Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ! Treaties made and broken. People handed land that belonged to those that had been there for millenia. Killing and muder were weapons not crimes. Lynchings carried out by men who then attended Church and worshipped their God of love. Oh, and by the way, there were approximately 56 million deaths from the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, from violence and disease.
In Africa missionaries arrived in droves in a land grab for the souls of people who hadn’t asked them for anything. If anyone opposed them, they called in the troops and forced people to be ‘Christian’. That doesn’t seem to be true to the values of the man in the middle of the Bible.
In Ireland, children were abused, babies died, all covered up by the team of the Government and the Catholic Church. And also in Northern Ireland. Christians all of them. Looking down from their pulpits every Sunday to preach the word. Picture it. A man who regularly abused children, standing there telling you the moral code to follow, as it was the word of God. Nuns, women of God, forcing young women to hand over their new borns and then selling them. Or letting them die. And the reward for the women? A slave job in a laundry, cleaning the linen of the very people that stole their children. In the North the politics is seen as Nationalist and Unionist, but that is a smokescreen for sectarian bigotry. Protestants putting on suits and hats and heading to a church where the mantra is bigotry, disguised as a determination to keep Northern Ireland in the UK, but excluding any attempt to win over the people that are of another religion to help in that aim.
And so it goes on, and on.
But what of this God? In any religion? Where is he/she? No one has been able to prove the existence of a divine being, other than pointing to statues crying, or the miricle of one person being saved from a diesase inexplicably. Well, as far as that goes, we would all have been burnt at one time for the sin of believing the world is a globe. Epilepsy was being possed by the devil, and the cure was God removing him, when it was the end of a medical fit. Whenever something deemed to be good happens “It’s the work of God!”. Whenever a crying mother watches her child die, “That’s God’s plan!”. Well, not a very good one to my mind. And take the Coronavirus, is that “God’s will” to kill over a million people? Or is it science?
This God is a failure. he has failed to get even those that believe in his existence to folllow any of his teachings. They kill, philander, are greedy to the point of creating starvation for others, racism, sexism, sectarianism within the Christian churces? Where is God? Watching sport if you are to believe the perpetrators that think him for their victories. He can help a rich white golfer to millions, but not a starving child? He is completely disregarded if he gets in the way of racial superiority or financial advantage.
Religions and worship are about power and control, nothing else. From an early age indoctrination starts. Putting in place rules enforced by the fear of God, which means being told you will go to hell, will lose ‘his’ favour if you don’t do as the self appointed represenatives on Earth tell you. You will die a terrible death etc. God is invoked to underpin the present day system of government in the UK, otherwise why would we have a Monarch, crowned in a big church, descended directly from people who believed they were chosen to hold that position. So God, where are you when there is mass starvation in Africa, but never in Europe? Where are you when a tsunami hits the poorest in the Pacific, but not the wealthy countries. Why do you pick on the poor so much and enable the rich to avoid your wrath? Give us a sign. But good to see you in the church when a wealthy white woman has a crown laden with jewels popped on her head.
The power and control then passes to those that are officials of the churches. They tell us how to live our lives, they explain the unexplainable, they are given status in the community, they are given political voices. And why? Because they believe in their God. They also assume authority over us, believer or athiest. As an athiest I have had the look. The pitying look that tells me that they will be praying for me. Well, no thanks.
For those that laugh at Scientolgy while following any other religion, you have no right to that. It is simply another version of the same core principle, worship in a heirarchy, and create belivers with magic and trickery.
And so to society. And us non-believers. Looked down on as if we are missing something. Asked how we can hold a moral code without the word of God? That one is not to difficult. It is relatively easy to work out that you should treat people as you expect to be treated, otherwise society will crumble. It is also easy to see that there is no difference in those that do and don’t ‘believe’ in God in the numbers that treat people as badly as they can get away with. In my experience of so-called Christians, I’ll take my chances with non-believers.
We are asked to explain our lack of belief to those that are purveying the magic of religion. I can point to science, they can point to belief, and I am the one that has to justify myself? Publicly outing oneself as an athiest is seen as risky, being an outlier, but that only shows us all how we have been indoctrinated as a society by religions. It is seen as arrogant to reject religion, as if I am saying I know better. I don’t but I have thought about it. Believers are allowed to say their piece without real debate, and with a moral superiority that has no validity.
We do see that those with their faith find comfort in times of trouble. They turn to their God when dealing with real issues. I am not, for one moment, trying to persuade any religious believer to agree with me, I understand that if you want that belief, or faith, it helps you. Is God an everlasting parent? There for ever to give the support that a good family member offers? Maybe. But it is my view that the suppport comes from the belief itself, not the existence of something to believe in. The evidence? Well, evey religion offers that psychologial support, yet they are all different The only commonality is the belief itself.
But here’s the other side of that coin. When faith is used to excuse behaviour. When people who profess to be Christian act outside not only their own rules, but those of society in general. I have known many card carrying, wear their faith on their sleeve, church going people, mainly men, who would lie as soon as look at you. Who have lectured me about drinking and then gone on to be totally dishonest in their business dealings.
One of the most interesting things writing this is the resonance of my upbringing. It is still there. The slight fear. The what if I am wrong and I end up a the pearly gates with God smliing and saying, well, smart ass. how do you feel now? But in reality I am able to think myself past that. I do believe. I believe that most people I have met in life are pretty solid. In 2021 most don’t bother with Churches any more, but manage to maintain a moral code. Very few want witches burned, most are working at being better in their approach to race and equality. They are seeing that their personal behaviour is their own responsibility, and can’t be palmed off to an almighty being that lets them off the hook.
So out there, loud and proud. An athiest. With a huge belief in the good of people. Mostly.
Thinking about Things... 
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