Off to church this morning, so this seems like a good morning to go mining through some of my old writing. I wrote this about two years ago, in answer to a friend of mine who was exploring whether or not it’s possible for a strident atheist to really respect someone who believes in God. Seems like an appropriate topic to explore before heading off to listen to a secular-humanist friendly service. I should mention here that my feelings about my ex-step-mom are no longer quite so extreme. She’s a good person who made some bad choices. “Worthless” was maybe a bit harsh… more my resentment of the whole family situation with the constant arguments and general dysfunctional mess that surrounded me every summer. I’ve had some time to process that now, but I’ll leave the original writing as it was.
There is a certain high to be had in thinking of the Universe as a Divine Creation in which a Plan of some sort that is being fulfilled right now, and that there’s a special Place for each one of us. It’s instant ego gratification, and it makes people feel good, even when there isn’t a shred of evidence to support it. I’ve met some pretty “deeply spiritual” people who were, frankly, a pain in the ass and a major burden on every person around them. My step-mom being one of them. Yuck. Even though she was pretty worthless as a human being (and it takes an awful lot for me to say that about someone), she was very “high on Jeezus”. Get her in the same room as a bunch of other like-minded Assholes for Christ, and the conversation was every bit as “out there” as anything I’ve had on a spaced out afternoon. People who invoke God are operating on a different level of reality for the sake of entertainment, and in the process, they cause some very real and measurable damage to their thinking cap.
There’s a lovely bit in Thus Spake Zarathustra where Nietzsche talks about the camel/herd mentality that theists engage in. Life is hard, life is suffering, only God can set you free. I’m sure you’re familiar with the mantra. Bow your heads, you ill-tempered, foul-smelling beasts of burden, and let God use you for the purpose for which you were intended. (Whatever that means.) [As opposed to the Buddhist perspective of life is suffering, get over it, which I like a lot better. But I digress...]
Not everyone is into the herd mentality, but it’s absolutely undeniable that a lot of people take comfort in conformity. They wouldn’t know what to do if they didn’t have someone spoonfeeding them their daily routines. The hard things in their life could no longer be passed off as trials and tribulations, but would instead need to be considered as serious problems that needed to be solved.
There’s a nasty roadblock here, in that in some instances, solving that problem wouldn’t really be an option– I’m thinking illiterate black mother with luke-warm IQ and no professional skills or technical understanding of the world watching as the last remaining strings of her safety net get filed away by corporate America. I mean, if God is out there, He might see your suffering and have mercy on you. He might send you someone who loves you– a good man (or woman, for that matter) who would make all your economic troubles go away. But, if God’s not out there, than you have to deal with the fact that the only way you’re going to attract that good person and keep hold of said “Savior” is to become the sort of person who good people find attractive. i.e., self-sufficient. Scary. Unthinkable in some cases– like, say, rural and heavilly Catholic/Pagan South America, where education and socio-economic mobility as an answer to a person’s prayers just aint happenin. It all boils down to hope. Imagining a world without God is a real buzzkill for a lot of people, one that could potentially lead to depression and possibly worse (emotional and/or physical abuse of loved ones as problems with reality are projected onto them… up to and including suicidal despair.)
I’m not saying false hope is a good kind of hope to have, but it’s better than no hope when conditions are desperate and survival isn’t really a given.
